Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, confirmed in a telephone conversation on Friday that Mr. Trump had discussed the payments with Mr. Cohen on the tape but said the payment was ultimately never made. He said the recording was less than two minutes and demonstrated that the president had done nothing wrong.
Never mind.
Mr. Cohen’s lawyers discovered the recording as part of their review of the seized materials and shared it with Mr. Trump’s lawyers, according to three people briefed on the matter.
We've known for a while Michael Cohen taped some of his conversations and investigators had those tapes. What we did not know was whether a tape of President Trump was included or whether the two discussed legally problematic things.
We now know the answers to those questions: Trump was, and they did.
The Washington Post has confirmed that potential turning point of a story. Investigators have a tape of Cohen and Trump discussing purchasing the rights to Playboy model Karen McDougal's story of an alleged affair with Trump from the National Enquirer's parent company, about two months before the 2016 election. The New York Times first reported the story. Trump attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani confirmed the tape exists but said it is actually “exculpatory,” because Trump suggests the payment should be documented, and the payment was not actually made.
We've known for a while Michael Cohen taped some of his conversations and investigators had those tapes. What we did not know was whether a tape of President Trump was included or whether the two discussed legally problematic things.
We now know the answers to those questions: Trump was, and they did.
The Washington Post has confirmed that potential turning point of a story. Investigators have a tape of Cohen and Trump discussing purchasing the rights to Playboy model Karen McDougal's story of an alleged affair with Trump from the National Enquirer's parent company, about two months before the 2016 election. The New York Times first reported the story. Trump attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani confirmed the tape exists but said it is actually “exculpatory,” because Trump suggests the payment should be documented, and the payment was not actually made.
Vanity Fair is saying that not only did Trump's lawyers leak this, the recording was considered to be a possible bargaining chip that Cohen might dangle to plea out.
ECUADOR’S PRESIDENT Lenin Moreno traveled to London on Friday for the ostensible purpose of speaking at the 2018 Global Disabilities Summit (Moreno has been confined to a wheelchair since being shot in a 1998 robbery attempt). The concealed, actual purpose of the President’s trip is to meet with British officials to finalize an agreement under which Ecuador will withdraw its asylum protection of Julian Assange, in place since 2012, eject him from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and then hand over the WikiLeaks founder to British authorities.
ECUADOR’S PRESIDENT Lenin Moreno traveled to London on Friday for the ostensible purpose of speaking at the 2018 Global Disabilities Summit (Moreno has been confined to a wheelchair since being shot in a 1998 robbery attempt). The concealed, actual purpose of the President’s trip is to meet with British officials to finalize an agreement under which Ecuador will withdraw its asylum protection of Julian Assange, in place since 2012, eject him from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and then hand over the WikiLeaks founder to British authorities.
Gee I wonder who sourced this information in the NYT piece
The frantic conversations over what to do began on the flight home. While the president groused about the difficulty of the questions posed to him by American journalists, John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, mostly stayed away from Mr. Trump.
Mr. Bolton wrote down four bullet points aboard Air Force One that he believed were relevant, including that Mr. Trump should acknowledge that he believed the intelligence agencies’ findings on the Russian meddling. He relayed them to the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, although it was unclear whether the suggestions were delivered to the president.
In the days since arriving back home, Mr. Trump has surveyed almost everyone he has talked to about his performance in Finland, but few told him just how poorly it had gone. Aides suggested different options for “changing the narrative,” without seeming to realize that a simple story would not suffice.
Mr. Trump ultimately came up with his own solution: He would say he had left out a word in the news conference with Mr. Putin. “The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia,’” Mr. Trump said on Tuesday, trying to clear up the confusion but heaping on more. “Sort of a double negative.”
When it was clear that the news cycle had not jumped ahead, Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka looked for ways to push the narrative away from Russia. On Thursday morning, at a senior staff meeting, Ms. Trump, a senior adviser to the president, told the group that she wanted help keeping her father on message, according to a person briefed on what took place. She said her worker retraining announcement with her father later in the afternoon at the White House could provide a pivot toward a new story.
Once she finished talking, the president’s counselor, Kellyanne Conway, pointed out that Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, and two other administration intelligence officials would appear at a national security conference in Aspen, Colo., noting that it could become another day of coverage about Russia. John F. Kelly, the chief of staff, resumed the meeting without addressing the issue. No one else suggested a plan of attack either.
In which the president farts word salad solutions, his daughter tries to pivot the story to something flattering about herself, one of his oldest advisors who very likely conspires against him teases the others about their inability to control the IC, and the chief of staff couldn’t care less about any of it.
now that the tax cut was achieved, what does the far right oligarchy need of him? they seem to have achieved significant deregulation at this point too. what is left? (pun intended) would they even trust him to conduct a war? (to drive up military spending) or did they already get enough pork they dont actually feel the need to attack someone. maybe all they have left is just to arrange for their short positions in advance of the swat team raid on the white house
All posts by this account, even those referencing real things, are entirely fictional and are for entertainment purposes only; i.e. very low-quality entertainment. These may contain coarse language and due to their content should not be viewed by anyone
The Republican Party is reaching a point where their ability to drive their agenda legislatively is shrinking with their base. They won’t allow a scandal that puts the court grab at risk.
