Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held a news briefing on Wednesday to refute reports about Vice President Mike Pence having to intervene to prevent him from resigning from the Trump administration in July.
Full Broadcast 3Oct17 Real News with David Knight GUESTS: • Lionel — Who, what, why — as a former prosecutor, Lionel looks at the Las Vegas shooting. • Steve Pieczenik — Nobody was killed in the false flag Las Vegas shooting — just like Sandy Hook, San Bernardino and Orlando [the last c. 10 minutes; edited out of the official Alex Jones/Real News with David Knight upload]. TOPICS: • Leftists tell us that cops are evil, yet they want ONLY cops armed. Trump is a fascist if he criticizes CNN, but they push censorship and violence against those with whom they disagree. Does that make sense? • Catalonia illustrates the importance of the 2nd Amendment & an armed citizenry’s deterrence to tyranny. • “bump stocks” may be the wedge for increased regulatory power over firearms. • Personal information is emerging about the alleged Las Vegas shooter as videos surface calling into question the “lone wolf” narrative.
[A recently-debuted new show from Alex Jones and his merry band of batshit bullshitters.]
WATCH: Sens. Feinstein, Blumenthal, Sanders discuss gun control after Las Vegas shooting
Streamed live on Oct 4, 2017 by PBS NewsHour
Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) hold a news briefing discussing gun control measures after the shooting in Las Vegas.
WATCH: Sens. Burr, Warner hold news briefing to update Russia investigation
Streamed live on Oct 4, 2017 by PBS NewsHour
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr and Ranking Member Sen. Mark Warner hold a news briefing to issue an update on the Russia investigation.
Wednesday, October 4th 2017: Vegas Shooter's Profile Fits Intel Operative Signature - Alex Jones is joined by Ted Nugent, Roger Stone, Craig Sawyer, and Laura Loomer to ask more hard-hitting questions regarding Stephen Paddock and the Los Vegas shooting. Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo revealed that the Las Vegas gunman, Stephen Paddock, may have been “radicalized.” Paddock also had another guest in his room four days before the massacre and was prescribed an anti-anxiety drug in June that can lead to aggressive behavior.
WATCH: Former Equifax CEO testifies before Senate Judiciary Subcommittee
Streamed live on Oct 4, 2017 by PBS NewsHour
Former Equifax CEO Richard Smith testifies before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law on Wednesday about the company's data breach.
Las Vegas Massacre: Looks Like Multiple Shooters - Full Show 10/04/17
Today the War Room talks to multiple eye witnesses to the Las Vegas Massacre, as well as military veterans, who break down their experiences at the event and with firearms, and it all leads to the same conclusion: There were multiple shooters at the Vegas Massacre. Also covered is the latest breaking on the Paddock family, as well as the girlfriend.
[Another recently-debuted new show from Alex Jones and his merry band of batshit bullshitters.]
Senator Jeff Merkley tells Ari Melber it’s “very likely” that American citizens provided insights to Russia, that helped them hack the 106 election. Duration: 3:22
MSNBC’s Ari Melber calls out Zuckerberg for fake news
The Beat With Ari Melber 10/4/17
Facebook says it learned its lesson from Russian meddling, but Ari Melber reports on how they are again spreading fake news after the Las Vegas mass murder – with a key message for Zuckerberg. Duration: 4:00
Tillerson called Trump a moron and almost resigned
All In with Chris Hayes 10/4/17
NBC News broke the story that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called President Trump a moron - or maybe an "effing moron" - and threatened to resign. Duration: 5:27
Issue of collusion still open as intelligence grows on Russia
The Rachel Maddow Show 10/4/17
Congressman Adam Schiff talks with Ari Melber about the pattern of RUssian support for Donald Trump seen in ad buys by Russia's RT media, as the Senate Intel Committee gives an update on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Duration: 17:32
Gun slaughter used to move Congress to action, until NRA lobbing
The Rachel Maddow Show 10/4/17
Gun violence and death used to shock the American conscience to action, until lobby power of the NRA rendered Congress impotent on the issue and left Americans helpless to address an obvious problem. Duration: 7:48
Emails show Ivanka, Trump Jr. coordinating lies about Trump SoHo
The Rachel Maddow Show 10/4/17
Ivanka Trump and her brother, Donald Trump Jr., were nearly criminally indicted in a case involving Trump SoHo, and the related e-mails show them coordinating their lies. Andrea Bernstein, senior editor of policy and politics for WNYC, discusses the story with Ari Melber. Duration: 6:23
Continued rain, money woes add to crisis in Puerto Rico
The Rachel Maddow Show 10/4/17
Ari Melber reports on how continued rain in Puerto Rico has authorities very worried about the Guajataca Dam, and the prospect of Puerto Rico running out of money by the end of the month and having to shut down its government in the midst of Maria recovery. Duration: 2:43
Lawrence: No one defended Trump after 'moron' comment
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell 10/4/17
NBC News reports Rex Tillerson called Trump a "moron" at a Pentagon meeting. Tillerson didn't deny it and, to make matters worse, not one official or aide came out to defend the president. Lawrence O'Donnell discusses with Max Boot, Betsy Woodruff, and Eli Stokols. Duration: 11:49
The Senate Intelligence Committee says the Russia probe has expanded. The Chairman says Russia interfered but whether it colluded with the Trump campaign is still under investigation. David Frum and David Corn join Lawrence O'Donnell. Duration: 8:47
President Trump's Puerto Rico visit leaves behind questions
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell 10/4/17
Lawrence O'Donnell talks to David Frum and Toronto Star White House Correspondent Daniel Dale about the confusing messages Donald Trump gave to the victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. The president has since faced a barrage of criticism. Duration: 5:25
Senate Intel on Russia probe: The issue of collusion is still open
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams 10/4/17
Jeremy Bash, Michael Crowley and Kimberly Atkins discuss the update from the Senate Intelligence Committee more than nine months into its Russia investigation. Duration: 13:11
As Russia continues spreading false information across social media, Michael Kosta explains that Americans are able to fight each other without other countries' help.
NBC News reported that during a cabinet meeting back in July, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Donald Trump a 'moron.' Obviously, this is a nightmare for the Trump Administration. One thing they didn't need was more infighting. So it was up to the White House press office to do their best to squash this story once and for all.
The State Department's Press Secretary wants you to know that Rex Tillerson didn't call the President a 'moron'... or any of these other oddly specific insults.
Did Rex Tillerson Call Trump A 'Moron' Or A 'F***ing Moron'?
Published on Oct 5, 2017 by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson boldly refuted allegations that he called the President a 'moron' by refusing to explicitly refute that he called the President a 'moron.'
On "Day 258" of the Donald Trump White House Regime it is Clear that America is in Decline. Trump bounces from Hurricane Harvey to Irma to Maria and than off to the site of the Massacre. All the While International Bankers enjoy $1000 Hookers, Fine Wine and laughing at the 96 Million Americans who are Not in the Workforce. Why is No one knocking on the Doors of the International Bankers, asking questions ?
Ginsburg Slaps Gorsuch in Gerrymandering Case Toward the end of the Supreme Court’s argument in Gill v. Whitford, about the future of partisan gerrymandering, there was a revealing moment about the place of the newest Justice in the esteem of at least one of his peers. In less than a year, Neil Gorsuch has dominated oral arguments, lectured his colleagues, and given dubiously appropriate public speeches. Questioning Paul Smith, the lawyer challenging Wisconsin’s contorted district lines, Gorsuch made another pedantic gesture. The argument had gone on for nearly an hour when Gorsuch began a question as follows: “Maybe we can just for a second talk about the arcane matter of the Constitution.” There was a rich subtext to this query. Originalists and textualists such as Gorsuch, and his predecessor on the Court, Antonin Scalia, often criticize their colleagues for inventing rights that are not found in the nation’s founding document. Gorsuch’s statement that the Court should spare “a second” for the “arcane” subject of the document was thus a slap at his ideological adversaries; of course, they, too, believe that they are interpreting the Constitution, but, in Gorsuch’s view, only he cares about the document itself. Gorsuch went on to give his colleagues a civics lecture about the text of the Constitution. “And where exactly do we get authority to revise state legislative lines? When the Constitution authorizes the federal government to step in on state legislative matters, it’s pretty clear—if you look at the Fifteenth Amendment, you look at the Nineteenth Amendment, the Twenty-sixth Amendment, and even the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 2.” In other words, Gorsuch was saying, why should the Court involve itself in the subject of redistricting at all—didn’t the Constitution fail to give the Court the authority to do so? Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is bent with age, can sometimes look disengaged or even sleepy during arguments, and she had that droopy look today as well. But, in this moment, she heard Gorsuch very clearly, and she didn’t even raise her head before offering a brisk and convincing dismissal. In her still Brooklyn-flecked drawl, she grumbled, “Where did ‘one person, one vote’ come from?” There might have been an audible woo that echoed through the courtroom. (Ginsburg’s comment seemed to silence Gorsuch for the rest of the arguments.) In one cutting remark, Ginsburg summed up how Gorsuch’s patronizing lecture omitted some of the Court’s most important precedents, and Smith gratefully followed up on it: “That’s what Reynolds v. Sims and Baker v. Carr did, and a number of other cases that have followed along since.” In these cases from the early nineteen-sixties, the Court established that the Justices, via the First and Fourteenth Amendments, very much had the right to tell states how to run their elections. [...] https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/ginsburg-slaps-gorsuch
Fake news comes to the Supreme Court Fake news has come to the high court. At Tuesday’s argument before the Supreme Court about gerrymandering — the science of using map-drawing and Big Data to keep ruling parties in power even when a majority votes for the opposition — Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was searching for a way to uphold the unsavory practice. But there was a problem: Gerrymandering is making a mockery of the right to vote in Wisconsin, the focus of the case before the court, where a redrawn map allowed Republicans to hold more than 60 percent of the state assembly while getting less than half the vote. And so Alito resorted to subterfuge. He waited until the closing minutes and hit Paul M. Smith, the lawyer arguing against the Wisconsin plan, with the last question of the argument. “You paint a very dire picture about gerrymandering and its effects,” Alito said, “but I was struck by something in the seminal article by your expert, Mr.?McGhee, and he says there, ‘I show that the effects of party control on bias are small and decay rapidly, suggesting that redistricting is at best a blunt tool for promoting partisan interests.’ So he was wrong in that?” The question baffled Smith, who said he would need to see the context. “Well,” Alito retorted, “that’s what he said.” No, it isn’t. I called Eric McGhee, the expert, after the argument. The quote Alito pulled was not from the “seminal article” McGhee co-wrote proposing the legal standard for gerrymandering at the center of the case. It was from an earlier McGhee paper, using data from the 1970s through 1990s. In the paper at the center of the case, by contrast, “we used updated data from the 2000s,” McGhee told me, “and the story is very different. It’s gotten a lot worse in the last two cycles. .?.?. The data are clear.” Why would Alito resort to this sleight of hand? Perhaps because it’s clear that if he stuck to the facts, he’d have to acknowledge that the growing abuse of gerrymandering threatens democracy. Political gerrymandering has become dramatically more precise in disenfranchising voters with the revolution in data analytics — both in states such as Wisconsin and in Congress, where Democrats need to win the popular vote by more than seven points to break even in the House. (Democrats abuse gerrymandering too, though they hold power in fewer states.) There’s also no obvious legal reason that the court can’t intervene to curb the practice on grounds of free speech or equal protection. [...] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fake-news-comes-to-the-supreme-court/2017/10/03/3a17f86c-a87b-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html
Russia throws North Korea lifeline to stymie regime change MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is quietly boosting economic support for North Korea to try to stymie any U.S.-led push to oust Kim Jong Un as Moscow fears his fall would sap its regional clout and allow U.S. troops to deploy on Russia’s eastern border. Though Moscow wants to try to improve battered U.S.-Russia relations in the increasingly slim hope of relief from Western sanctions over Ukraine, it remains strongly opposed to what it sees as Washington’s meddling in other countries’ affairs. Russia is already angry about a build-up of U.S.-led NATO forces on its western borders in Europe and does not want any replication on its Asian flank. Yet while Russia has an interest in protecting North Korea, which started life as a Soviet satellite state, it is not giving Pyongyang a free pass: it backed tougher United Nations sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear tests last month. But Moscow is also playing a fraught double game, by quietly offering North Korea a slender lifeline to help insulate it from U.S.-led efforts to isolate it economically. [...] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-russia-analysis/russia-throws-north-korea-lifeline-to-stymie-regime-change-idUSKBN1C91X2
Europe will do everything to preserve Iran nuclear deal: EU diplomat ZURICH (Reuters) - European countries will do their utmost to preserve a deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program despite misgivings by U.S. President Donald Trump, a senior European Union diplomat said on Wednesday. “This is not a bilateral agreement, it’s a multilateral agreement. As Europeans, we will do everything to make sure it stays,” Helga Schmid, secretary general of the EU’s foreign policy service, told an Iranian investment conference in Switzerland’s financial capital. The deal was brokered in 2015 by the bloc between Iran, the United States, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China. Trump is weighing whether the pact serves U.S. security interests as he faces an Oct. 15 deadline for certifying that Iran is complying, a decision that could sink an agreement strongly supported by the other world powers that negotiated it. Schmid said Europe has concerns about Iran’s role in regional affairs, but that those issues were not part of the nuclear accord known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. “I‘m absolutely convinced we will not be in a better place to address any of these issues by ditching the JCPOA,” Schmid said. “The world does not need a second nuclear proliferation crisis. One is already too many,” she added in an apparent reference to Washington’s standoff with North Korea. Nicholas Hopton, Britain’s ambassador to Iran, said the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s reports had shown Iran was fully complying with terms of the accord. “We hope that President Trump will recertify the deal and that the U.S. will continue to play a constructive and important role in the implementation of the JCPOA,” he told the conference. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Tuesday the United States should consider staying in the Iran deal unless it were proven that Tehran was not abiding by the agreement or that it was not in the U.S. national interest to do so. Although Mattis said he supported Trump’s review of the agreement, the defense secretary’s view was far more positive than that of Trump, who has called the deal agreed between Iran and six world powers an “embarrassment.” http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-eu/europe-will-do-everything-to-preserve-iran-nuclear-deal-eu-diplomat-idUSKCN1C90RZ
Trump loyalists lose patience with congressional Russia probes 'Three investigations is just way too many,' said one pro-Trump Republican lawmaker. Loyalists of President Donald Trump are losing patience with Republican leaders over the wide-ranging Russia probes creeping into his inner circle, saying House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have allowed the investigations to hobble the White House for months. Congressional investigators, say some lawmakers and state GOP leaders who back Trump, have let the probes — and the media coverage they generate — sidetrack the president as his allies, family members and aides are hauled in for questioning about whether Russians had American help in their quest to tip the 2016 election against Democrat Hillary Clinton. GOP leaders largely have kept their distance as the House and Senate intelligence committees and the Senate Judiciary Committee conduct their separate Russia probes — which are independent of the investigation underway by special counsel Robert Mueller, a former FBI director. The Senate intelligence panel will update the public on its progress Wednesday. But Trump’s most ardent supporters say it’s time to clamp down. “Three investigations is just way too many,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.). “Some of them need to step back and wait until we see what evidence is educed.” Lori Klein Corbin, a member of the Republican National Committee from Arizona, said the probes are a distraction to Trump. “Of course, the Republican leadership is behind these probes,” she said. “The Republicans cannot get over the fact that Trump won and is our president.” [...] http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/04/trump-russia-probes-republicans-congress-243422
Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. Were Close to Being Charged With Felony Fraud New York prosecutors were preparing a case. Then the D.A. overruled his staff after a visit from a top donor: Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz. In the spring of 2012, Donald Trump’s two eldest children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., found themselves in a precarious legal position. For two years, prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office had been building a criminal case against them for misleading prospective buyers of units in the Trump SoHo, a hotel and condo development that was failing to sell. Despite the best efforts of the siblings’ defense team, the case had not gone away. An indictment seemed like a real possibility. The evidence included emails from the Trumps making clear that they were aware they were using inflated figures about how well the condos were selling to lure buyers. In one email, according to four people who have seen it, the Trumps discussed how to coordinate false information they had given to prospective buyers. In another, according to a person who read the emails, they worried that a reporter might be onto them. In yet another, Donald Jr. spoke reassuringly to a broker who was concerned about the false statements, saying that nobody would ever find out, because only people on the email chain or in the Trump Organization knew about the deception, according to a person who saw the email. There was “no doubt” that the Trump children “approved, knew of, agreed to, and intentionally inflated the numbers to make more sales,” one person who saw the emails told us. “They knew it was wrong.” [...] https://www.propublica.org/article/ivanka-donald-trump-jr-close-to-being-charged-felony-fraud
This congressman is why people hate politics Washington (CNN) - Pennsylvania Rep. Tim Murphy has had one hell of a last month. In early September, the Republican House member admitted to an extramarital affair with a "personal friend" following the unsealing of divorce records that showed he had been involved in a relationship with Shannon Edwards, a forensic psychologist. "This is nobody's fault but my own, and I offer no excuses," Murphy said in a statement issued through his attorney, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. "To the extent that there should be any blame in this matter, it falls solely upon me." It got much, much worse on Tuesday when the Post-Gazette reported on a text message exchange between Edwards and Murphy in which she alleges he urged her to have an abortion. "And you have zero issue posting your pro-life stance all over the place when you had no issue asking me to abort our unborn child just last week when we thought that was one of the options," wrote Edwards in the text obtained by the Post-Gazette. A text reply sent from Murphy's phone read: "I get what you say about my March for life messages. I've never written them. Staff does them. I read them and winced. I told staff don't write any more. I will." Edwards was not ultimately pregnant. Murphy's personal foibles are not the point here. What is the point is that he is someone who has been an outspoken critic of abortion rights in his public life even while apparently being much more willing to consider it when it impacts him personally. Murphy was a co-sponsor of legislation -- passed in the House on Tuesday night -- that would make it illegal for women to abort a baby after the 20-week mark. He has a perfect 100% score with National Right to Life, having voted with the organization on five key pieces of legislation, including the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act." As my former Washington Post colleague Aaron Blake expertly documents here, Murphy was also touting his anti-abortion stance even as he was reportedly urging his mistress to seek an abortion. This is hypocrisy of the worst sort. Murphy does one thing in his public life as an elected official and something very, very different in his private life. It's literally a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do situation. And it's what people, rightly, hate about politics. The sense that politicians don't think the rules apply to them. The idea that all politicians are lying liars who have one position in public and a totally contradictory one in private. That they don't really believe anything they are saying. It's those feelings which play a major part in the terrible image people hold of Washington these days. In a September CNN poll, just 20% of people approved of the job Republican leaders are doing in Congress; 32% approved of Democratic leaders in Congress. Less than three in 10 had a favorable opinion of the Republican Party in that same poll, the lowest mark ever recorded in CNN data. It's that dissatisfaction, distrust and disdain that gave us Donald Trump. Trump blasted politicians -- in both parties -- as ineffective losers. So deep was peoples' dislike for traditional politicians that they were willing to take a massive risk -- and, make no mistake, they knew it was a major risk -- on Trump as president. [...] http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/04/politics/tim-murphy-abortion/index.html
The United States is one of just seven countries worldwide that permits elective abortion more than halfway through pregnancy (beyond 20 weeks). It is a tragic shame that America is leading the world in discarding and disregarding the most vulnerable. The good news is we’ve had great victories to protect the sanctity of life in the first weeks of this New Year! One of the first acts of newly-elected President Donald J. Trump was to re-instate longstanding policy to prevent U.S. taxpayers paying for abortions through foreign aid. Today, the House of Representatives took up and passed H.R. 7 to permanently prohibit the use of federal funds to pay for abortions, as well as to prohibit federal medical facilities and health professionals from providing abortion services. I was proud both to sponsor and vote for this important bill to clearly stand for the dignity and value of all human life, both the born and the unborn. Passage of H.R. 7 in the wake of the President’s executive action gives me great hope that moving forward, we will once again be a nation committed to honoring life from the moment of conception and ensuring American taxpayer dollars are never spent to end a life before it even begins. #DefendLife https://www.facebook.com/reptimmurphy/posts/1439794652729383
Brooke Shields shares the unimpressive pick-up line Trump used to try and score a date Brooke Shields was at the receiving end of one of Trump's pick-up lines. The model shared a story on "Watch What Happens Live" Tuesday of a time when the now-President tried to score a date with her nearly two decades ago. "I was on location doing a movie and he called me right after he had gotten a divorce," Shields, 52, told host Andy Cohen. "He said, 'I really think we should date because you're America's sweetheart and I'm America's richest man and the people would love it,'" she continued. [...] http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/brooke-shields-shares-pick-up-line-trump-article-1.3540455
We Asked GOP Senators What Congress Can Do To Prevent Mass Shootings Their answers are telling. No GOP senators who spoke with HuffPost expressed support for broader gun control measures, such as limiting magazine capacity or banning automatic weapons. Thune: "As somebody said: get small.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mass-shootings-las-vegas-gop_us_59d3ef64e4b04b9f9205baf4
How A Civil War Podcast Became Urgent Listening In Today’s America “Uncivil” hosts Chenjerai Kumanyika and Jack Hitt throw the book at traditional history narratives. A gathering of white supremacists turns violent. The president defends public statues commemorating the Confederacy. A prominent pastor suggests peaceful protestors, kneeling during the national anthem to call attention to brutality, should feel grateful they haven’t been shot. To many, it feels like U.S. news headlines in 2017 belong in another era, 50 or 100 years ago. But the deep divisions these stories reflect are very much in our present, not just the past. A new podcast — “Uncivil,” out Oct. 4 — seeks to clearly draw a line from American history to the present day by examining lesser-known narratives from the Civil War. In doing so, hosts Chenjerai Kumanyika and Jack Hitt aim to illustrate how the forces that split the nation in half over a century ago are the same at play today. “The reach is so short,” Hitt told HuffPost. “It’s so obvious to make the connection between now and then.” Hitt, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, said he and Kumanyika, an author and Rutgers professor, first began talking about doing the podcast a year ago. In the meantime, current events have given the project a new significance. “As more and more of these [Civil War] stories got kicked around, you’d just [ask] — ‘Wait a minute, didn’t I just read this on the front page yesterday morning?’” Hitt said. “It just keeps coming up. In the last six months, it’s been kind of almost astonishing and embarrassing how relevant all of the fights [are] — the ideological, the political, the racial — everything that was exploding in 1865.” [...] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/uncivil-podcast_us_59ca8dc3e4b01cc57ff62731
America deserves better than Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance We will spend the rest of our lives wheezing over why Donald J. Trump became President of the United States. Mr. I-Alone-Can-Fix-It didn't get to the White House by himself. He had help. And thanks to the combined efforts of the New Yorker,WNYC and ProPublica we got a name of one of his enablers: Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance. The well-documented story goes as such: In 2006 Trump & Co razed an abolitionist church to erect a tacky neighborhood blight called Trump SoHo not anywhere near SoHo. And because Trump "deals" all involve marks instead of customers, the units were undesirable and unsaleable unless you listened to Trump's grifting scions Ivanka and Junior lie like a POTUS tweet about the project. Which is fraud. Which is usually a crime when your last name isn't Trump. Which is why in 2012 New York prosecutors made a case where Ivanka and Junior were looking at criminal charges. Enter longtime Trump lawyer/fixer Marc Kasowitz who in 2012 made a $25,000 donation to Cy Vance. Kosowitz and Vance met downtown in his office right after the Manhattan D.A. returned the money. Three months after this Kasowitz powwow Cy goes against his prosecutors and drops the case. Then Kasowitz donates more money, bundling other donations adding up to another $50,000. Then all is quiet while Trump ascends to the presidency. Of course, in the wake of this story being made public, Vance stated he will, now that we know about it, five years later, return that money too. [...] http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/u-s-deserves-better-manhattan-district-attorney-cy-vance-article-1.3541760