Replies to post #298399 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[BOREALIS]

Due to the shutdown, POTUS has been shortened to POS

Due to the shutdown, POTUS has been shortened to POS.

— Koko ✊🏼✊🏽✊🏿 (@Kokomothegreat) January 18, 2019

[BOREALIS]

The Perfect Wall for Trump...

[BOREALIS]

Trump-Deutsche Bank links in sights of U.S. House investigators

Mark Hosenball, Ginger Gibson
January 18, 2019 / 5:06 AM / Updated 30 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats now in control of the U.S. House of Representatives are working out which House panels will take the lead in investigating President Donald Trump’s business ties to Deutsche Bank, lawmakers and aides familiar with the plans told Reuters.

Video: 11:51
Democrats ready probes into Trump ties to Deutsche Bank
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-deutsche-bank/trump-deutsche-bank-links-in-sights-of-u-s-house-investigators-idUSKCN1PC123

As the new Democratic House of Representatives majority launches a range of investigations into the Republican president and his businesses, the Intelligence Committee and Financial Services Committee are poised to dig into his ties with Deutsche (DBKGn.DE), one of the world’s largest financial institutions.

Democratic lawmakers’ aides are discussing how to divide up the investigative work among committees and prevent overlap on requesting documents, aides said.

Since U.S. voters on Nov. 6 shifted majority control of the House from the Republicans to the Democrats, the party has been promising to probe the first two years of Trump’s administration and possible conflicts of interest presented by his hotel, golf course and other ventures, as well as Trump family members.

White House officials did not respond to a request for comment. The White House in the past has referred questions about Trump businesses to the Trump Organization.

Officials at the Trump Organization could not immediately be reached for comment.

A Deutsche Bank spokesman said: “Deutsche Bank takes its legal obligations seriously and remains committed to cooperating with authorized investigations. Our recent record of cooperating with such investigations has been widely recognized by regulators. We intend to keep working in this spirit.”

The Financial Services Committee, chaired by Democrat Maxine Waters, has the broadest power to look into Trump’s relationship with Deutsche.

When the Republicans still controlled the House, Waters tried in 2017 to request documents from the bank on its dealings with Trump and his businesses, as well as information about potential Russian money laundering through the bank.

But the bank told Congress that privacy laws prevented it from handing over such information without a formal subpoena. Committee Republicans ignored Waters’ request. As chairwoman, Waters can now issue subpoenas herself.

In recent weeks, Waters has been publicly quiet about her plans. In a speech on Monday on committee priorities, she made no mention of the bank. A Waters spokesman declined to comment.

Democratic aides outside the committee said Waters plans to move quietly on the Deutsche inquiry. She cannot begin formally issuing subpoenas until after the committee holds its first business meeting, expected by the end of January.

Deutsche has extended millions of dollars in credit to the Trump Organization, making the bank one of few willing to lend extensively to Trump in the past decade.

A 2017 financial disclosure form showed liabilities for Trump of at least $130 million to Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, a unit of German-based Deutsche Bank AG.

House Intelligence Committee Democrats also want to investigate Trump and his Deutsche links, said three congressional officials familiar with committee discussions.

A Judiciary Committee spokesman said it has been consulted.

Reporting by Mark Hosenball and Ginger Gibson; editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Lisa Shumaker

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-deutsche-bank/trump-deutsche-bank-links-in-sights-of-u-s-house-investigators-idUSKCN1PC123

[BOREALIS]

Trump Just Stepped Into Another Crime By Using Fox News To Bully Witnesses

Posted on Thu, Jan 17th, 2019 by Sean Colarossi

Donald Trump appears to have stepped into yet another crime by using the White House bully pulpit to threaten witnesses and their family members.

In an appearance on Fox News, the president called Michael Cohen weak and attacked his father-in-law.

“[Cohen] should give information maybe on his father-in-law, because that’s the one that people want to look at,” Trump said. “That’s the money in the family.”

During an interview with MSNBC’s Ari Melber on Thursday, Cohen’s legal advisor Lanny Davis slammed the president and called for an immediate criminal investigation into the threats made against his client and family members.

Davis called Trump’s threats “the very definition of intimidation and witness tampering, especially a witness about to appear before a congressional committee to tell the truth about what he knows about Donald Trump.”

“By definition that deserves a criminal investigation,” he added.

Video: 1:32

Michael Cohen's lawyer wants a criminal investigation into Trump's witness tampering. #ctl #p2 pic.twitter.com/qoAXLrl2Qg

— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) January 18, 2019

https://www.politicususa.com/2019/01/17/trump-fox-news-crime-bully-witnesses.html

Davis said:

[Cohen] is very concerned, as is his family, that a bully in the bully pulpit named Donald Trump calls out a member of his family and he’s also called out other members of his family using the White House platform on a national television show. Let me be very clear here. This is a definition of witness tampering and intimidation and could be obstruction of justice. But more than that, if there is one thing at a time of this shutdown and the worst polarization in my lifetime in this country, if there is one thing that can bring Trump voters and anti-Trump voters, Democrats and Republicans together, it is to draw the line that family is out of bounds. I want to hear Republicans say that to President Trump. Tonight, tomorrow — family is out of bounds. You’ve gone too far. And I’m challenging them to do that. … There is no question that his threatening and calling out his father in law who, quote, has all of the money, is not only improper and unseemly for a bully using the bully pulpit of the presidency, but the very definition of intimidation and witness tampering, especially a witness about to appear before a congressional committee to tell the truth about what he knows about Donald Trump. By definition that deserves a criminal investigation.

As Jason Easley pointed out a short time ago, witness tampering could potentially result in decades of jail time for Trump.

Michael Cohen is set to testify on Feb. 7

With Michael Cohen set to sing like a bird before the House Oversight Committee on Feb. 7, Donald Trump is becoming increasingly panicked. His bullying comments on Fox News reek of desperation.

As Paul Waldman of The Washington Post wrote on Thursday, ... https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/17/michael-cohen-is-about-sing-trump-is-big-trouble/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.89931a78a59f ... “[I]f [Cohen] really gives a comprehensive account of everything he saw and did while toiling as Donald Trump’s factotum, he could be to the Trump administration what John Dean was to the Nixon administration.”

Waldman added, “Cohen could peel away the layers of deception and denial to expose the rancid corruption boiling underneath.”

The walls are closing in on Trump. In his desperate attempt to get out from under the legal avalanche about to pummel him, he may have stepped into yet another crime.

https://www.politicususa.com/2019/01/17/trump-fox-news-crime-bully-witnesses.html

[fuagf]

Trump: obstruction of justice, likely; witness tampering, likely;
money laundering, likely; lying to investigators, likely.

How long will the list be?

"Trump Could Be Facing 20 Years In Prison For Witness Tampering"