Steve Schmidt: Sarah Sanders Is The Most 'Prolific Liar' | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC
"In Russiagate, Keep Your Eye on Pence"
MSNBC Published on Jul 24, 2018
President Trump tells his supporters that what they’re seeing is not real, in a moment critics say is reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984. Former Republican Strategist Steve Schmidt discusses Trump “assaulting objective truth” and what this means for the Republican Party and for the United States. Schmidt slams Republicans for “surrendering their sovereignty, their intellectual autonomy to Donald Trump” and compares White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, to “Baghdad Bob”.
Lawrence: Rudy Giuliani Gives ‘Incoherent’ Defense Of President Donald Trump | The Last Word | MSNBC
"In Russiagate, Keep Your Eye on Pence"
MSNBC Published on Jul 30, 2018
Rudy Giuliani and President Trump are the only members of team Trump defending the president and, according to Lawrence, their bizarre denials in the Russia investigation show that they don't have a strong defense for the president's actions.
If Trump's chaotic tweets weren't enough now we have mirrow-Trump Giuliani. Aiding and abetting with others is conspiracy. And both seem to ignore Trump's tweets tweets are admissible. When will Cohen's office stop leaking?
-
Could A White House Memo Show President Donald Trump Obstruction? | The Last Word | MSNBC
MSNBC Published on Jul 31, 2018
A new report from Murray Waas says President Trump was allegedly told that Michael Flynn was under investigation before Trump asked Jim Comey to let it go. A memo could unravel the Trump defense. Lawrence discusses with John Heilemann, Danny Cevallos, and Barbara McQuade.
Flynn, Comey, and Mueller: What Trump Knew and When He Knew It
Murray Waas
George Frey/Getty Images Donald Trump with Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn at a presidential campaign stop in Colorado, October 18, 2016
Previously undisclosed evidence in the possession of Special Counsel Robert Mueller—including highly confidential White House records and testimony by some of President Trump’s own top aides—provides some of the strongest evidence to date implicating the president of the United States in an obstruction of justice. Several people who have reviewed a portion of this evidence say that, based on what they know, they believe it is now all but inevitable that the special counsel will complete a confidential report presenting evidence that President Trump violated the law. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the special counsel’s work, would then decide on turning over that report to Congress for the House of Representatives to consider whether to instigate impeachment proceedings.
The central incident in the case that the president obstructed justice was provided by former FBI Director James B. Comey, who testified that Trump pressed Comey, in a private Oval Office meeting on February 14, 2017, to shut down an FBI criminal investigation of Trump’s former national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Comey has testified the president told him.
In an effort to convince Mueller that President Trump did not obstruct justice, the president’s attorneys have argued that the president could not have broken the law because the president did not know that Flynn was under criminal investigation when he pressured Comey to go easy on Flynn. In a confidential January 29 letter .. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/02/us/politics/trump-legal-documents.html .. to the special counsel first reported by TheNew York Times, two of the president’s attorneys, John Dowd (who no longer represents Trump) and Jay Sekulow, maintained that the president did not obstruct justice because, even though Flynn had been questioned by the FBI, Trump believed that the FBI investigation was over, and that Flynn had been told that he’d been cleared.
On its face, this is a counter-intuitive argument—for if Trump believed that Flynn had been cleared and was no longer under investigation, there would have been no reason for the president to lean on Comey to end the FBI’s investigation—telling Comey that Trump hoped that Comey would be able to “see your way clear to letting this go.” Yet Trump’s attorneys have pursued this line of argument with the special counsel because perjury and obstruction cases depend largely on whether a prosecutor can demonstrate the intent and motivation of the person they want to charge. It’s not enough to prove that the person under investigation attempted to impede an ongoing criminal investigation; the statute requires a prosecutor to prove that the person did so with the corrupt intent to protect either himself or someone else from prosecution.
If, therefore, Trump understood the legal jeopardy that Flynn faced, that would demonstrate such intent—and make for a much stronger case for obstruction against the president. Conversely, if Trump believed that Flynn was no longer under criminal investigation, or had been cleared, the president could not have had corrupt intent. But previously undisclosed evidence indicates just the opposite—that President Trump was fully informed that Flynn was the target of prosecutors.
I have learned that a confidential White House memorandum, which is in the special counsel’s possession, explicitly states that when Trump pressured Comey he had just been told by two of his top aides—his then chief of staff Reince Priebus and his White House counsel Don McGahn—that Flynn was under criminal investigation. This memo, the existence of which I first disclosed in December .. https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/20/white-house-counsel-knew-in-january-flynn-probably-violated-the-law/ .. in Foreign Policy, was, as one source described it to me, “a timeline of events [in the White House] leading up to Flynn’s resignation.” It was dated February 15, 2017, and was prepared by McGahn two days after Flynn’s forced resignation and one day after Trump’s meeting with Comey. As I reported, research for the memo was “primarily conducted by John Eisenberg, the deputy counsel to the president and legal adviser to the National Security Council,” who, in turn, was “assisted by James Burnham, another White House counsel staff member.”
During my reporting, I was allowed to read the memo in its entirety,...
[...]
Trump’s knowledge of the criminal investigation of Flynn is central to the special counsel’s obstruction case because of what Trump’s action later that same day, January 27, might reveal about his intent and motivation. It was then that the president called Director Comey and invited him to dinner that evening at the White House. Comey has testified .. https://www.recode.net/2017/6/7/15758324/read-james-comey-testimony-president-donald-trump-congress-senate .. to the Senate Intelligence Committee that he did not understand until he arrived that he and the president would be dining alone. At this dinner, Trump suggested to Comey that his job might not be secure, leading Comey to believe that Trump was attempting to “create some sort of patronage relationship,” something that was very troubling to Comey “given the FBI’s traditionally independent status.” Comey testified .. https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/07/politics/james-comey-memos-testimony/index.html .. that:
- A few moments later the president said, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. -
On February 8, 2017, The Washington Post contacted the White House to say that it was about to publish a story citing no less than nine sources that Flynn had indeed spoken to Kislyak about sanctions. In attempting to formulate a response, Priebus, McGahn, and Eisenberg questioned Flynn. Confronted with the information that there were intercepts showing exactly what was said between him and Kislyak, Flynn’s story broke down. Instead of denying that he had spoken to Kislyak about sanctions, the timeline said, Flynn’s “recollection was inconclusive.” Flynn “either was not sure whether he discussed sanctions, or did not remember doing so,” the McGahn timeline says.
[... to the final two paragraphs]
Sources have identified for me two other White House attorneys who have been interviewed by the special counsel. One is Uttam Dhillon, who has served the Trump administration as deputy White House counsel and deputy assistant to the president (on July 2, Dhillon was named .. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-jeff-sessions-announces-uttam-dhillon-new-acting-administrator-drug .. by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to be the acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration). Dhillon was a central participant in discussions with the president on whether to fire James Comey as FBI director—with Dhillon advising Trump not to do so. The special counsel has also interviewed Ann Donaldson, who is both the chief of staff to the White House counsel and special counsel to the president. Because so many attorneys working for the White House counsel have been witnesses in the special counsel’s investigation, and because their testimony will clearly be crucial in determining whether the president obstructed justice, Don McGahn took the extraordinary step last summer of recusing his entire staff .. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/13/mcgahn-mueller-russia-probe-recusal-white-house-counsel-643709 .. from advising the president further about the Russia investigation.
The February 15 memo, combined with accounts given to the special counsel by Priebus and McGahn, constitutes the most compelling evidence we yet know of that Donald Trump may have obstructed justice. In an effort to persuade the American people that the president has done nothing wrong, Trump and his supporters have blamed those they identify as their political adversaries—from President Barack Obama to Jim Comey, and including entire institutions such as the FBI and CIA, and an ill-defined “Deep State.” But the most compelling evidence that the president may have obstructed justice appears to come from his own most senior and loyal aides. The greatest threat to his presidency is not from his enemies, real or perceived, but from his allies within the White House.
The Trump team's original theory in defense of Trump was that Trump asked Comey to let go of an investigation into Flynn that, in Trump's mind did not exist, which doesn't make any sense. The most damaging evidence against Nixon came from within the White House too.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
