Trump enters the stage

Cohen’s supporting Congressman said that it is not your lies which ticked off the Republicans, it is your stopping to lie for Trump that did.

How quaint.

Michael Cohen: ‘I fear’ Trump won’t peacefully give up the White House if he loses the 2020 election
Kevin Breuninger
Dan Mangan
Published 1 Hour Ago Updated 8 Mins Ago
CNBC.com
President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen on Wednesday says he fears that Trump will not concede the White House if he loses the 2020 presidential election.
Cohen’s closing remarks come after more than seven hours in public testimony before the House Oversight Committee.
Cohen also castigates Trump at the finale of his congressional hearing for his ‘‘childish’’ actions that he says denigrate the office of the president.

President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen on Wednesday said he fears that Trump will not peacefully relinquish the White House if he loses his reelection bid next year.

Cohen, 52, also castigated Trump at the finale of his congressional hearing for his ‘‘childish’’ actions that he says denigrate the office of the president.

“I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power. And this is why I agreed to appear before you today,” Cohen said of Trump.

The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Cohen’s remarks.

Cohen’s closing speech came after more than seven hours in public testimony before the House Oversight Committee, where he launched a fusillade of accusations against his former boss’ character and actions.

Read Cohen’s full closing statement below:

Thank you. So first I want to thank you, chairman, because I appreciate the opportunity to share some final thoughts.

I have acknowledged I have made my own mistakes and I have owned up to them publicly and under oath, but silence and complicity in the face of the daily destruction of our basic norms and civility to one another will not be one of them.

I did things and I acted improperly, at times at Mr. Trump’s behest. I blindly followed his demands. My loyalty Mr. Trump has cost me everything, my family’s happiness, friendships, my law license, my company, my livelihood, my honor, my reputation and soon my freedom. And I will not sit back, say nothing, and allow him to do the same to the country.

Indeed given my experience working for Mr. Trump I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power, and this is why I agreed to appear before you today. In closing, I’d like to say directly to the president, we honor our veterans even in the rain, you tell the truth even when it doesn’t aggrandize you, you respect the law and incredible law enforcement agents, you don’t villainize them, you don’t disparage generals, gold star families, prisoners of war and other heroes who had the courage to fight for this country.

You don’t attack the media and those who question what you don’t like or what you don’t want them to say and you take responsibility for your own dirty deeds. You don’t use your power of your bully pulpit to destroy the credibility of those who speak out against you. You don’t separate families from one another or demonize those looking to America for a better life. You don’t vilify people based on the god they pray to and you don’t cuddle up to our adversaries at the expense of our allies.

Finally, you don’t shut down the government before Christmas and new year’s just to simply appease your base. This behavior is childish, it denigrates the office of the president and it’s simply un-American. And it’s not you.

So to those who support the president and his rhetoric as I once did, I pray the country doesn’t make the same mistakes that I have made or pay the heavy price that my family and I are paying, and I thank you very much for this additional time, chairman.

© 2019 CNBC LLC. All Rights Reserved. A Division of NBCUniversal

Now this:

Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un fail to strike deal, call off nuclear weapons talks early

Lamar Alexander
The president’s national emergency declaration for border wall funding is “unnecessary, unwise and inconsistent with the Constitution,” Sen. Lamar Alexander said. | Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images

NATIONAL EMERGENCY

Republicans pressure Trump to back down on border emergency
Sen. Lamar Alexander urged the president to withdraw his national emergency declaration or face a Republican revolt.

By BURGESS EVERETT
Senate Republicans are offering a choice to President Donald Trump: Withdraw your national emergency declaration at the border or face a potential rebellion from the GOP.

The message was delivered clearly on Thursday by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), part of an effort by senior Republicans to avoid a direct confrontation with Trump on the Senate floor.

In a much-anticipated floor speech, the retiring senator declined to state whether he will become the deciding vote to block the president’s maneuver. But he signaled broad opposition to the emergency declaration and sought to convince Trump that he has other ways to collect $5.7 billion for the border wall — the precise amount of money he demanded during the government shutdown fight.

“He’s got sufficient funding without a national emergency, he can build a wall and avoid a dangerous precedent,” Alexander told reporters afterward, referring to billions from a drug forfeiture fund and anti-drug smuggling money at the Defense Department. “That would change the voting situation if he we were to agree to do that.”

Three Republicans have already said they would join Democrats in voting for a resolution to block Trump, and only one more is needed for the Senate to successfully reject Trump’s declaration. Alexander is just one of about 10 senators who are committed to blocking the president’s move or are considering doing so, suggesting the White House has a ways to go to avoid a public split in the party and a Trump veto.

Asked how the GOP can avoid a battle with Trump, one Senate Republican considering voting for the disapproval resolution said: “He can change his mind.”

“The president can get way more money than he’s even asking for without setting the Constitution on its head,” said this undecided senator, who requested anonymity to speak frankly. “I am very, very skeptical about the precedent this makes.”

In 2005, President George W. Bush withdrew an emergency plan for paying disaster workers after Congress threatened to block him.

If Trump doesn’t back down, there is still deep reluctance in the GOP to becoming the 51st vote for the disapproval resolution that the Senate is expected to vote on in March. So far, Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine are the only Republicans who have said they would support blocking Trump on his plans to seize billions from military projects.

The president told Sean Hannity that Republicans who oppose him “put themselves at great jeopardy” and said it’s “very dangerous” to vote against border security. Some GOP senators shrugged off that sentiment.

“I always do what I think is the right thing to do,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), who is undecided. “As long as I’m satisfied with myself, that’s the person I’m going to satisfy.”

Republicans spent all week debating how to deal with the political headache of seeing a president from their party use some of the same unilateral tactics they panned under President Barack Obama.

After introducing her own resolution of disapproval directly on the Senate floor Thursday, Collins said her “Republican colleagues are very uneasy about the precedent.”

“I don’t think emergencies are a good way to run the government. And the president needs permission from Congress to get money,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Thursday. Despite those words, he hasn’t made a “final decision” on his vote.

Nancy Pelosi
CONGRESS

House votes to block Trump’s national emergency declaration
By SARAH FERRIS
“I have long believed and advocated that every president, Republican and Democrat, should act consistent with the Constitution and federal law. And I’m assessing those legal authorities right now,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

GOP senators are discussing amending the House-passed disapproval resolution to make it more palatable to both them and Trump, but say they are not sure it will be allowed by the Senate parliamentarian. The resolution has been referred to the Senate Armed Services Committee, but Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said his committee will hold no hearings on it.

“There’s some discussion about: Is there a way to give the president what he asks for in terms of funding but to minimize the use of this mechanism in the future?” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who will oppose the resolution as written.

Despite his clear opposition to Trump’s national emergency declaration, Alexander deemed the looming vote on disapproval a hypothetical, since Trump could withdraw it or the House-passed resolution could be amended. Under current law, the House measure will come up by mid-March, and Alexander left little doubt that he’s just one of a large bloc of Republicans who could defy the president.

Trump’s national emergency declaration for border wall funding is “unnecessary, unwise and inconsistent with the Constitution,” Alexander told reporters. “And many Republican senators who can speak for themselves share that view.”

“We’ve never had a case where the president has asked for money, been refused the money by Congress, then used the national emergency powers to spend it anyway,” he added. “To me that’s a dangerous precedent.”

TRUMP EFFECT
Trump learns the limits of personal power, at home and beyond
Analysis: It may have been one of the worst weeks of Trump’s presidency, concentrated in just a few harrowing days.

President Donald Trump boards Air Force One after his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Feb. 28, 2019.Leah Millis / Reuters
SHARE THIS —
March 1, 2019, 6:10 AM ET
By Jonathan Allen
HANOI, Vietnam — President Donald Trump touched down in Washington a few hours ago having endured a brutal stretch overseas in which the limits of his power at home and abroad, and the perils of his personal conduct, were revealed all at once and in humiliating fashion.

Here in Southeast Asia, half a world away from home, Trump behaved solicitously toward a notorious dictator before backing away from what even his staunchest allies saw as a potentially calamitous nuclear deal only at the last minute, leaving himself no obvious path forward for an elusive goal — bringing North Korea back into the community of nations — that has been a central piece of his foreign policy agenda.

“High-level diplomacy can carry high-level risks,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a nod to the breakdown in negotiations, “but the president is to be commended for walking away when it became clear insufficient progress had been made on de-nuclearization.”

Back home, Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, was laying out a narrative of Trump as the consummate “con man,” while fellow Republicans declined to defend the president’s behavior, began to distance themselves more clearly from his effort to use executive authority to build a border wall and cheered his failure to strike a deal with Kim.

It may have been one of the worst weeks of Trump’s presidency, concentrated in just a few harrowing days.

On Wednesday, in compelling congressional testimony, Cohen portrayed the president as a businessman who played fast and loose with tax laws, his charity’s money and payments to contractors, and as a candidate who had little regard for the law in directing Cohen to provide hush money to cover up alleged marital infidelity, pursuing a real estate development in Moscow during the 2016 election and discussing the benefits of WikiLeaks releasing stolen Democratic National Committee emails to help his fortunes.

The public session brought signs Trump was losing some steam — albeit at the margins — with his cheering section: fellow Republicans in Congress.

Rather than defend Trump, House Republicans on the Oversight and Reform Committee chose to attack Cohen’s character — a tacit acknowledgment that protecting the president’s reputation was a more difficult charge.

And while the dam has hardly broken, Trump is seeing more cracks in the coalition of Republicans willing to support the national emergency he declared to fund a border wall without congressional consent.

On Thursday, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., took to the Senate floor to offer an admonition to Trump, asking him to reconsider the move.

“There has never been an instance where a president of the United States has asked for funding, Congress refused it and the president then has used the National Emergency Act to justify the funding anyway,” Alexander said.

Alexander stopped short of saying he would vote for a House-passed resolution terminating the emergency declaration, but he escalated the pressure on Trump from within his own party to abandon his plan to execute an end-run around Congress, with the effort to nullify his emergency declaration now potentially just one GOP vote away from approval. On Tuesday, with Trump in Vietnam, 13 House Republicans voted with a unified House Democratic Caucus to cancel the emergency.

Ron Bonjean, a former Republican congressional leadership aide and a partner at the firm Rokk Solutions, said the resistance to Trump within the GOP won’t get worse if he retains the backing of the party’s core voters.

“He’s actually getting rather light Senate Republican pushback on the emergency declaration compared to what it could be at this moment by circumventing Congress,” Bonjean said. “As long as the base stays with the president, most Republicans are not breaking from Trump for fear of facing a primary challenge back home.”

Bonjean added that while many Republicans weren’t sure what to make of the Kim summit at the outset, “walking away from Hanoi early was considered a smart thing to do for the country and he deserves the praise for not reaching for a deal that wasn’t there to be made.”

Not only was Trump, the leader of the free world, unable to bend Kim, the tin pot dictator of one of the world’s last remaining “rogue” nations, to his will, Kim left the deal-seeking Trump walking away from the altar amid a dispute between the two countries over just what was in dispute.

To add intellectual insult to injured American pride, Trump said that he believed North Korea’s Kim Jong Un’s claim not to have known anything about the treatment of Otto Warmbier, an American who died shortly after returning home from more than a year in captivity in North Korea — an assertion of ignorance that former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson said was “totally impossible.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who served for many years as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Thursday that he hopes the summit debacle was a teaching moment for Trump.

“I hope I don’t come across as condescending, because I don’t mean it,” Biden, who is considering a run for president in 2020, said. “I hope the president has learned a really important lesson: Diplomacy matters, preparation matters.”

Another thing Trump learned for sure: Spending a few days on the road can’t keep you from enduring a truly terrible week in Washington, too.

Jonathan Allen
Jonathan Allen is a Washington-based national political reporter for NBC News who focuses on the president

Boy , this what has attained the dimension of a saga, with twists and turns of already epic proportions, gearing up to a great nest seller , with millions at stake in possible profits, this is the latest flabbergasting page Turner to befuddle an already complex plot:

Trump’s ‘love letter’ book claim the latest attack on Michael Cohen after testimony
MICHAEL COLLINS AND WILLIAM CUMMINGS AND SEAN ROSSMAN | USA TODAY | 55 minutes ago

Michael Cohen testified in front of the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday. Cohen called Trump a ‘conman,’ a ‘cheat,’ and ‘fundamentally disloyal.’
USA TODAY
President Donald Trump accused his former personal attorney Michael Cohen of previously pushing a book about his administration that contradicted the scathing testimony Cohen delivered before a House committee about his former boss on Wednesday.

It was the latest in a string of attacks on Cohen, who said the president directed him to lie to Congress while tying him to several criminal investigations that have shadowed his presidency.

In a series of posts on Twitter Friday morning, Trump called the manuscript a “love letter to Trump.”

“Wow, just revealed that Michael Cohen wrote a ‘love letter to Trump’ manuscript for a new book that he was pushing,” the president tweeted. “Written and submitted long after Charlottesville and Helsinki, his phony reasons for going rogue. Book is exact opposite of his fake testimony, which now is a lie!”

In another tweet, Trump said the manuscript was submitted to publishers “a short time ago” and called on Congress to demand a copy.

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, speaks briefly to the media as he leaves a closed-door hearing of the House Intelligence Committee accompanied by his lawyer, Michael Monico, of Chicago, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, speaks briefly to the media as he leaves a closed-door hearing of the House Intelligence Committee accompanied by his lawyer, Michael Monico, of Chicago, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
JACQUELYN MARTIN, AP
“Your heads will spin when you see the lies, misrepresentations and contradictions against his Thursday testimony,” he wrote. “Like a different person! He is totally discredited!”

Cohen acknowledged during his testimony before a House committee on Wednesday that he had been approached with offers for a movie and book deal. Under questioning by Republican lawmakers, he refused to say he would not continue to pursue such a deal in the future.

The proposed book Trump was referring to in his tweets is apparently the same manuscript that Cohen shopped around to several publishers last year.

The book, which was to be called “Trump Revolution: From the Tower to the White House, Understanding Donald J. Trump,” promised a candid but mostly flattering look at Trump through the eyes of his longtime attorney and professional “fixer,” according to multiple published reports.

Cohen testimony: Donald Trump slams Michael Cohen testimony as ‘shameful,’ accuses him of lying

Michael Cohen’s testimony prompts a new: In web of Trump investigations, is anyone safe?

Cohen reportedly even reached an agreement with Hachette Book Group’s Center Street subsidiary to publish the memoir, but the deal fell apart after word got out that he was under investigation by federal authorities and the FBI had raided his law office.

The Daily Mail of London reported Thursday it had reviewed a copy of the proposal and that Cohen had nothing but good things to say about Trump in it.

Cohen conceded Trump could be “an exceedingly tough boss,” according to the publication, but he rejected unflattering characterizations that Trump is crazy and dumb, paranoid, in over his head and a TV-addicted liar who hates the media.

Michael Cohen testifies before Congress about President Donald Trump
“All of these things have been said about my longtime boss, Donald J. Trump,” Cohen wrote, according to the Daily Mail. “None of it is true. Except maybe that last one – about the media. Trump does believe that reporters are out to get him, and for a very good reason. Many of them are.”

Cohen also promised chapters on first lady Melania Trump and Trump’s children, as well as his role in arranging hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, a stripper and adult-film actress who says she had a sexual encounter with Trump, the paper said.

Lanny J. Davis, an attorney for Cohen, issued a statement Friday saying Cohen decided in 2018 against taking a “substantial advance” for a book proposal.

“In other words, POTUS has yet lied again…but what’s the difference between 9000 or 9001 lies?” the statement reads.

Cohen: Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, ends 3 days of ‘excruciating’ testimony with another scheduled

Cohen hearing: Lynne Patton pushes back at Rep. Tlaib’s ‘prop’ label, defends appearance at Cohen hearing

The book came up at Wednesday’s hearing, in which Cohen called his ex-boss a con man and a cheat.

Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.V., asked Cohen: “Isn’t it true you tried to sell a book about your time with President Trump entitled ‘Trump Revolution: From the Tower to the White House, Understanding Donald J. Trump?’”

“Yes, that happened,” said Cohen, who disclosed he was offered close to $750,000 for the book, but turned it down.

The focus on the apparent contradictions between Cohen’s testimony and the reported contents of his manuscript is the latest salvo from Trump and his supporters in their campaign to discredit Cohen and minimize the damage from his testimony.

Trump last referred to Cohen as his attorney in April before hiring Rudy Giuliani, who as recently as May referred to Cohen as “an honest, honorable lawyer.” But after it became clear that Cohen was cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller in the wake of the FBI raid, Trump’s team began the assault on Cohen’s credibility.

Those attacks ratcheted up after Democrats gained control of the House in the 2018 midterm election and it began to appear likely that Cohen would be asked to testify in a public hearing.

Gaetz: Rep. Matt Gaetz says he personally apologized to Michael Cohen after tweeting apparent threat

‘A baseless criminal referral’: Republicans accuse Michael Cohen of perjury in letter to AG

After Cohen pleaded guilty to lying about efforts to build Trump Tower Moscow, the president said Cohen was a “weak person” who was “lying” to “get a reduced sentence.”

By December Giuliani was calling Cohen “pathetic” and a “serial liar.” That same week, Trump called his former attorney a “rat” in a tweet, borrowing an expression from movie mobsters for someone who agrees to cooperate with law enforcement.

From Trump fixer to flipper:Timeline of Michael Cohen’s role in Russia probe

Remember, Michael Cohen only became a “Rat” after the FBI did something which was absolutely unthinkable & unheard of until the Witch Hunt was illegally started. They BROKE INTO AN ATTORNEY’S OFFICE! Why didn’t they break into the DNC to get the Server, or Crooked’s office?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 16, 2018
On the eve of Cohen’s testimony, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, posted a tweet that appeared to threaten Cohen with the potential disclosure of damaging personal information. Gaetz deleted the tweet and said he apologized to Cohen, but concerns that he was trying to intimidate a witness have prompted a House ethics complaint and an inquiry by the Florida Bar.

During the hearing on Wednesday, Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee repeatedly went after Cohen’s credibility, arguing that lawmakers should not trust the word of a man who was just convicted of lying to Congress.

“You’re a pathological liar. You don’t know truth from falsehood,” Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., told Cohen. Gosar said it was important to remember “the old adage that our moms taught us” and pointed to a poster with Cohen’s face and the words “Liar, liar pants on fire.”

“No one should ever listen to you and give you credibility. It’s sad,” Gosar said.

Plaskett: Stacey Plaskett has had enough of Jim Jordan. Her ‘eye roll’ says it all

After the hearing, Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Mark Meadows, R-N.C., accused Cohen of lying during his testimony. The two staunch Trump supporters detailed their allegations in a 30-page letter to Attorney General William Barr outlining a number of Cohen’s comments they claim to be lies. Jordan, the top Republican on the committee, and Meadows asked that Cohen be investigated for perjury and making false statements.

“His testimony included intentionally false statements designed to make himself look better on a national stage,” they wrote.

Lanny Davis, an attorney for Cohen, said in a statement that the partisan referral was a “sad misuse of the criminal justice system.”

“Mr. Cohen testified truthfully before the House Oversight Committee. He took full responsibility for his guilty pleas,” Davis said.

Contributing: Christal Hayes

Originally Published 4 hours ago
Updated 54 minutes ago

© Copyright Gannett 2019

This is very lame, since any employee who values an employer’s trust , will play up to him with kindness and positivity.

However again, it doesent take extreme politocal insight to find a reversal where that employer tries to use that employee in a negative way, detrimental to his well being, and ultimately abandoning him when pushed to a corner.

I think some of these ironclad but manageable geniuses , instead of degrading the public intelligence of sentiment, should take a survey of possible reactions to untried rhetoric.

I think both men are in a corner, and the sad part, of playing ill suited roles they were enticed for, did not correctly match their supposed qualifications.

That Cohen was a lawyer, shows a weakness to subscribe unto a misgivings agenda, not to mention proper lack of platform.

More and more, the qualifying issue of the lack of legal sophistication on Trump’s part , in addition to proper political acumen, is becoming increasingly an Achilles heel for him.

The scenario of entities, organizations or personages owning him is turning into a likely visible scenario.

In Hanoi and at home, the Trump show flops
By Pat Wiedenkeller, CNN
Updated 9:31 AM EST, Sun March 03, 2019

(CNN) What a big double bill it was – President Donald Trump taking the world stage for a nuclear summit with Kim Jong Un of North Korea, just as his former fixer-lawyer, Michael Cohen, was appearing before a Congressional committee for a one-man revue about schemes, lies and porn-star payoffs.

Two shows, same theme, wrote Frida Ghitis: a President exposed. “A clear portrait of a morally hollow presidency.”

“Cohen described a man devoid of principles and determined to win in pursuit of money, power and prestige,” Ghitis said. “And, in Hanoi, we saw the risks of having such a man as President.”

She was referring, in part, to Trump’s “shameful” betrayal of an American citizen, Otto Warmbier, when Trump told the world that he accepted the dictator’s word that Kim didn’t know North Korea had fatally tortured Warmbier. “Trump has a well-established affinity for dictators, and he’s known for taking their word over that of his own experts,” she noted, citing his absolutions of Vladimir Putin and Mohammed bin Salman.

No deal
Dealmaker Trump left Vietnam empty-handed. But Nathan Park insisted it’s Kim Jong Un who should be feeling the pressure now. “Trump and his unconventional approach to diplomacy represented the best chance for North Korea to win any concession from the United States.” And the explosive allegations on Capitol Hill (“an administration beginning to teeter,” wrote Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times) could mean that Kim doesn’t have much time.

Trump might have felt sunnier about things earlier in the week when he tweeted about a Fourth of July bash he was planning at the Lincoln Memorial, featuring an “address by your favorite President, me!” But Dean Obeidallah wondered: “Perhaps, come July 4th, Trump wants the American people to show him the same ‘love’ and 'great fervor, as Trump put it, that North Koreans have for Kim?!”

Mother tongue
Reyna Grande arrived in the U.S. from Mexico speaking not a word of English. On the first day of school, “my 5th-grade teacher pointed to the farthest corner of her classroom and sent me there. She ignored me for the rest of the year.” Grande and her siblings soon became English dominant, rejecting their mother as “a symbol of what we didn’t want to be – a working-class, uneducated, non-English-speaking immigrant.”

Grande later regretted what she did. And it bothered her for years, until she had children of her own and did something about it. Hers is a moving and thought-provoking story. Read it and tell us your own stories of speaking a different language in America.

Ted Turner: Protect this land we love
CNN founder Ted Turner was joyful over Tuesday’s House passage of a sweeping public lands and conservation bill, but added, “there is much left to be done.” “I urge all of us who care about this beautiful country, whether it be because you like to hunt, fish, hike, swim, paddle, watch wildlife, farm, or ranch, to look for those ways that we can connect with each other, and together, protect and steward this land that we all love.”

‘Liar, liar?’
Elijah Cummings, Democrat and chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said lawmakers questioning Michael Cohen Wednesday were after the truth, which the witness insisted he was providing about Donald Trump. “He is a racist, he is a con man, and he is a cheat,” said Cohen, who is facing prison time for lying to Congress earlier.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” said Arizona Republican, Paul Gosar. For real.

Republicans certainly stuck to their “partisan food fight,” David Axelrod noted. But “listening to Cohen today describe the tasks Trump assigned to him, it occurred to me that lying was an essential demand of the job,” he wrote. “Who do you assign such tasks? A Boy Scout? A nun?”

Republicans have a point, wrote Scott Jennings: “if you lie to Congress once, why are you allowed to come back and try again?” His advice: “Ignore Cohen’s petty personal asides. Ignore the partisan Democrats bloviations. And wait for a reliable narrator — Robert Mueller — to give us the truth.”

Not really, wrote Holman W. Jenkins, in the Wall Street Journal: “the Mueller report will settle nothing.” And when the elite media allows the extent to which the FBI meddled in the 2016 presidential race to surface, he maintained, Trump will get reelected.

If he doesn’t? Cohen struck an ominous note as the hearing ended. He said he feared that if Trump loses re-election, “there will never be a peaceful transition of power.” It was a thought that echoed former Obama administration official, Joshua Geltzer, writing for CNN days earlier—and the reason that “four key sets of governmental actors across the United States” should commit now to steps to thwart Trump if he refuses to step down.

More good reads on the hearing:

Andrea Gonzalez-Ramirez, in Refinery 29: The Freshman Congresswomen Did Their Damn Job At Cohen’s Hearing

Michael D’Antonio: I was one of the 500 people Michael Cohen threatened.

Privileged men, poor women
Three powerful men made headlines for sickening reasons last week. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and ex-hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein–were linked to separate sex-trafficking investigations, and rapper R. Kelly was charged with criminal sexual abuse. (Kraft says he is innocent and pleaded not guilty to soliciting prostitution, Epstein got his plea deal in 2008 and R. Kelly denies the allegations.)

What do the accusations have in common? “The systematic exploitation of young girls and women who often are poor, vulnerable, ignored and silenced,” wrote Roxanne Jones. “Each of these cases points to a disturbing story of just how easily justice is denied to certain women in America, and how invisible these women remain – often in their own communities – despite all the high-profile marches and equality movements.”

Raul Reyes wrote that Trump’s Labor Secretary, Alexander Acosta, needs to resign: he was the Miami US Attorney who cut the deal–kept hidden from Epstein’s victims-- that let Epstein dodge a life sentence. Epstein served just 13 months in the private wing of the Palm Beach County jail. A federal judge recently ruled federal prosecutors broke the law on Acosta’s watch. Acosta’s betrayal is “worthy of bipartisan outrage and should offend every American father and mother,” Reyes wrote.

Bernie Sanders has a problem
CNN’s town hall with Senator Bernie Sanders on Monday night showed him picking up where he left off in 2016, Errol Louis wrote. But his talking points about income inequality, health care, education and corporate greed—are now Democratic boilerplate. “It’s not that Bernie went centrist; instead, the center moved toward him.” Can he persuade voters he’s the best salesman for ideas now copied by others?

And those Democratic ideas—like the Green New Deal and Medicare for all-- cost money, wrote libertarian economist Jeffrey Miron and Laura Nicolae. With huge debt levels, “restoring fiscal sanity in the United States requires significant cuts to federal entitlement spending.”

On Friday, Washington’s Gov. Jay Inslee became the 13th Democrat to throw a hat in the ring for 2020. Noting the huge Democratic presidential field, along with the 14 candidates who ran in Tuesday’s mayoral election in Chicago and the 17 who vied for public advocate in New York, Jill Filipovic saw encouraging signs of America’s “move away from political apathy”

2019’s jaw-dropping Black History Month
February, a month ordinarily devoted to celebration and reflection on black history, this time delivered a “dizzying national reckoning” on racial reality, wrote historian Peniel Joseph: “Politicians in blackface, a white actor who confessed to murderous racist impulses, a black actor who,” authorities say “faked his own hate crime, films about race touching off a firestorm at the Oscars and white fragility about confronting racism unfolding in real-time in the House of Representatives during the Michael Cohen hearing.”

That last comment referred to Republican Rep. Mark Meadows asking HUD official Lynne Patton to stand behind him during the Cohen hearing to somehow prove that Trump is no racist. Rep. Rashida Tlaib rebuked him for using a black woman as a prop. Meadows’ indignant self-defense, wrote Kashana Cauley in the New York Times, might have been more convincing if not for his repeated comments in 2012 about sending President Obama “back home to Kenya.” Tlaib apologized, but she got it right the first time, Cauley said. (It was left to Rep. Elijah Cummings to calm the waters after the flare up, a rare moment of “civility and grace in Washington,” noted Jen Psaki.)

POLITICO

Warner: ‘Enormous amounts of evidence’ of possible Russia collusion
By KELSEY TAMBORRINO

03/03/2019 12:24 PM EST

Mark Warner
Sen. Mark Warner said he’d never seen “this much outreach to a foreign country“ as there was on the Trump 2016 campaign. | AP Photo/Alex Brandon

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The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said Sunday lawmakers have found “enormous amounts of evidence” into potential collusion between the presidential campaign of Donald Trump and the Russians during the 2016 election.

Mark Warner of Virginia made his remarks in response to an assertion that there is “no factual evidence of collusion” from the Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who is chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

As evidence, Warner cited on NBC’s “Meet the Press” ongoing negotiations about Trump Tower and the dump of WikiLeaks material.

“Where that evidence leads, in terms of a conclusion … I’m going to reserve judgment, until I’m finished,” Warner said.

But he added: “There’s no one that could factually say there’s not plenty of evidence of collaboration or communications between Trump Organization and Russians.”

CPAC

Trump delivers scorched-earth speech as he tries to regain footing
By ANDREW RESTUCCIA
Warner’s House Intelligence Committee counterpart, Adam Schiff, said Sunday on CBS‘ “Face the Nation” that there’s both “direct evidence” and “abundant circumstantial evidence” of collusion with Russia.

The California Democrat said “there is direct evidence” in emails from the Russians offering dirt on Hillary Clinton in what is described as the “Russian government effort to help elect Donald Trump.”

“They offer that dirt. There is an acceptance of that offer in writing from the president’s son, Don Jr., and there is overt acts in furtherance of that,” Schiff said. “That is the meeting at Trump Tower and all the lies to cover up that meeting at the Trump Tower, and apparently lies that the president participated in.”

Asked Sunday by NBC host Chuck Todd whether a Russia conspiracy without any actual evidence of a crime being committed could lead to impeachment of the president, Warner again said he would wait to reach his conclusion but qualified his statement by looking at history.

“I have never, in my lifetime, seen a presidential campaign, from a person of either party, have this much outreach to a foreign country and a foreign country that the intelligence community, and our committee has validated, intervened, massively, in our election and intervened with an attempt to help one candidate, Donald Trump, and to hurt another candidate, Hillary Clinton,” he said.

Story Continued Below

Warner also said that some of the “key people” the Senate committee wants to talk to are “caught up” in the Mueller criminal investigations.

“Those criminal investigations need to conclude, before we get a chance to talk to them,” he said.

For his part, Trump has continued to call any and all suggestions of collusion to be part of a witch hunt against him. On Sunday, he tweeted: “I am an innocent man being persecuted by some very bad, conflicted & corrupt people in a Witch Hunt that is illegal & should never have been allowed to start.

This story tagged under:
Mark Warner Russia Donald Trump Donald Trump 2020 Adam Schiff

House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler says it’s ‘clear’ Trump obstructed justice, plans ‘abuse of power’ probe
WILLIAM CUMMINGS | USA TODAY | 20 minutes ago

Corrections and clarifications: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler on Sunday stepped up his rhetoric about potential criminal wrongdoing by President Donald Trump and said he plans to request documents from more than 60 people linked to the president.

Nadler, D-N.Y., said during an interview on ABC’s “This Week” that congressional Republicans “spent two years shielding the president from any proper accountability.”

“It’s our job to protect the rule of law. That’s our core function. And to do that we are going to initiate investigations into abuses of power, into corruption and into obstruction of justice,” Nadler said.

On Monday the House Judiciary Committee plans to issue document requests from over 60 people connected to the White House and the Trump Organization, he said. Among those individuals are the president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer for the Trump Organization. Nadler expected that the full list of names would be made public on Monday.

“It’s very clear that the president obstructed justice,” Nadler said, citing Trump’s frequent attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller; his alleged request that the FBI go easy on former national security adviser Michael Flynn; and his admission that one reason he fired FBI director James Comey was to stop “the Russian thing.”

“The White House seems to have used its power for personal enrichment in violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution,” Nadler said. If the reports are true that Trump ordered his son-in-law Jared Kushner to be given a top-secret security clearance over the objections of the White House counsel and his intelligence advisers, that would constitute another abuse of power, he said.

But the congressman cautioned that “impeachment is a long way down the road.”

“We don’t have the facts yet, but we’re going to initiate proper investigations,” he said. “Before you impeach somebody, you have to persuade the American public that it ought to happen.”

Nadler said that crimes and impeachable offenses are “two different things.”

Robert Mueller investigation: Key players in 2016 election probe

In response to Nadler’s comments, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. R-Calif., said Sunday on “This Week” that he believes “Congressman Nadler decided to impeach the president the day the president won the election.”

McCarthy said “there’s nothing that the president did wrong,” and he accused Nadler of starting fresh investigations because he does not believe Mueller will conclude there was collusion between Russians and the Trump campaign.

On Sunday, Trump tweeted, “After more than two years of Presidential Harassment, the only things that have been proven is that Democrats and other broke the law.” He did not elaborate on what crimes he believes Democrats had committed.

“I am an innocent man being persecuted by some very bad, conflicted & corrupt people in a Witch Hunt that is illegal & should never have been allowed to start - And only because I won the Election! Despite this, great success!” the president said.

After more than two years of Presidential Harassment, the only things that have been proven is that Democrats and other broke the law. The hostile Cohen testimony, given by a liar to reduce his prison time, proved no Collusion! His just written book manuscript showed what he…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 3, 2019
…said was a total lie, but Fake Media won’t show it. I am an innocent man being persecuted by some very bad, conflicted & corrupt people in a Witch Hunt that is illegal & should never have been allowed to start - And only because I won the Election! Despite this, great success!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 3, 2019
Trump also repeated an argument he first made last week that testimony from his former attorney Michael Cohen before the House Oversight and Reform Committee was contradicted by a book manuscript he had written before the FBI raided his home, hotel room and offices in April 2018.

In his testimony, Cohen called Trump a “racist” a “liar” and a “cheat.” But the manuscript for the book, which was to be called “Trump Revolution: From the Tower to the White House, Understanding Donald J. Trump,” painted a largely flattering portrayal of Trump, according to multiple published reports.

Trump’s ‘love letter’ book claim: The latest attack on Michael Cohen after testimony

Cohen’s testimony prompts new question: In web of Trump investigations, is anyone safe?

When asked about Cohen’s testimony, Nadler said Trump’s former fixer “directly implicated” the president in “various crimes.”

He said the “major one” was the campaign finance violation Cohen pleaded guilty to that involved paying an adult film star weeks ahead of the 2016 election to remain silent about an alleged past affair with Trump. Cohen claims the president directed him to make the payment.

“Seeking to sabotage a fair election would be an impeachable offense,” Nadler said Sunday.

McCarthy said the payment was a “personal issue.”

“If it’s a finance campaign, those are fines,” McCarthy said, despite the fact that the violation to which Cohen pleaded guilty was a felony. “Those aren’t impeachable.”

McCarthy also pushed back at the notion that Trump’s granting of a security clearance to Kushner was an abuse of power.

“The president has the legal authority to do it,” McCarthy said.

During an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said Cohen had a “checkered past” and “an ax to grind.”

Kennedy said that he would rely on Mueller’s conclusions regarding any potentially illegal acts by the president.

‘Shameful’: Donald Trump slams Michael Cohen testimony, accuses him of lying

More: Michael Cohen testimony’s biggest bombshells

Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also took a wait-and-see approach Sunday on “State of the Union,” although he said that he believes there is “lots of evidence” that the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

The Virginia Democrat cited Cohen’s testimony that Trump deceived the public during the campaign about his efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow; that Roger Stone told him in advance about WikiLeaks publication of stolen emails; and that Trump knew about Trump Jr.'s meeting with Russians offering “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.

“Anyone that says there’s no evidence of collaboration, there’s plenty of evidence,” Warner said. “The question is, what kind of full conclusion do we reach? And I’m going to reserve my judgment on that conclusion until we finish our investigation.”

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said on “This Week” that Democrats also plan to investigate “allegations that the Russians have been laundering money through the Trump Organization.” If true, Schiff said that would constitute “a profound compromise of this president.”

But Schiff also planned to wait on the Mueller report.

“While there is abundant evidence of collusion, the issue from a criminal point of view is whether there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt of a criminal conspiracy. And that is something that we will have to await Bob Mueller’s report and the underlying evidence to determine,” he said.

More: Robert Mueller has spent two years investigating Trump, and he hasn’t said a word. It’s possible he never will.

© Copyright Gannett 2019

RUSSIA INVESTIGATION
House Democrats demand documents on Trump-Putin talks
The Washington Post reported in January that Trump personally intervened to hide details of a meeting with the Russian president.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., speaks to reporters at the Capitol on Jan. 17, 2019.Alex Wong / Getty Images
SHARE THIS —
March 4, 2019, 3:12 PM ET
By Allan Smith
The Democratic chairmen of three key House committees on Monday requested a trove of documents from the White House and State Department on President Donald Trump’s meetings and phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The chairmen — Reps. Adam Schiff of California, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, and Eliot Engel of New York — are also asking that the translators present for the meetings and calls be made available for interviews with their committees. The three lawmakers respectively chair the House Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs panels.

Their letter follows another to the White House last month in which they sought answers to several questions about the records of Trump’s communications with Putin. The White House did not respond by the given due date of last Friday.

The chairmen wrote to acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that they are now expanding their investigation and asking for more documents and interviews to assist in their examination of the meetings and calls. The Democrats wrote that they want to know how the communications have affected U.S. foreign policy and whether the president or his administration have tried to conceal records of talks between the two leaders, in violation of federal law.

“According to media reports, President Trump, on multiple occasions, appears to have taken steps to conceal the details of his communications with President Putin from other administration officials, Congress, and the American people,” the chairmen wrote. “The President reportedly seized notes pertaining to at least one meeting held with President Putin and directed at least one American interpreter not to discuss the substance of communications with President Putin with other federal officials.”

“These allegations, if true, raise profound national security, counterintelligence, and foreign policy concerns, especially in light of Russia’s ongoing active measures campaign to improperly influence American elections,” they added.

In January, The Washington Post reported that Trump personally intervened to hide details of meetings with the Russian president, such a sit-down between the two leaders in Hamburg, Germany, in 2017. The Post reported that Trump went to “extraordinary lengths” to keep conversations with Putin under wraps, with current and former U.S. officials telling the publication that in Hamburg, Trump went as far as confiscating notes from his interpreter and barring the interpreter from discussing details of the meeting with other administration officials.

In another high-profile instance, Trump didn’t allow Cabinet officials or any aides into the room during a two-hour conversation with Putin during their summit in Helsinki, Finland, last summer. Only a translator were present, and several officials have since said they were never able to get a reliable readout of the meeting, the Post reported.

Trump told Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in January that he was not “keeping anything under wraps” and he “couldn’t care less” about transcripts of the interview being made public.

“Anybody could have listened to that meeting,” he said of the Helsinki meeting. “That meeting is up for grabs.”

Democrats voiced a much different view of the matter.

“When he takes the interpreter’s notes and wants to destroy them so no one can see what was said in written transcript, you know it raises serious questions about the relationship between this president and Putin,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told ABC’s “This Week” in January.

The chairmen’s request comes hours after House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., made a request for documents from more than 80 people or entities connected to the president as part of that committee’s Trump investigation.

“I cooperate all the time with everybody,” Trump said Monday in response to Nadler’s request, adding, “You know, beautiful thing, no collusion. It’s a total hoax.”

Allan Smith is a political reporter for NBC News
© 2019 NBC UNIVERSAL

Next: rebuke from Trump’s own party:

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Donald Trump’s emergency order hits wall with GOP senators. What’s next?
DEBORAH BARFIELD BERRY AND MICHAEL COLLINS | USA TODAY | 1 hour ago

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski says she will vote to terminate President Donald Trump’s emergency declaration on border security. (Feb. 26)
AP
WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it clear to President Donald Trump that he has a choice: Move ahead with his declaration of a national emergency at the southern border and face a potential rebuke from his own party – or shift gears.

McConnell acknowledged Monday the Senate is likely to pass a resolution to block Trump’s emergency declaration.

“I think what is clear in the Senate is there will be enough votes to pass the resolution of disapproval, which will then be vetoed by the president,” McConnell told reporters in Kentucky. “And then, in all likelihood, the veto will be upheld in the House.”

Trump has threatened to veto the resolution if it reaches his desk. Even so, congressional approval of the measure would mark a turning point in his presidency. Not only would it be the first time Trump has issued a veto, it would put him at odds with members of his own party over how to deliver one of the key promises of his 2016 presidential campaign.

Republicans say that while they support Trump’s objective – building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border – several have serious reservations about declaring a national emergency to free up billions of dollars for the structure. Some lawmakers also have raised concerns that Trump is taking money from key military programs to fund the barrier.

Trump declared a national emergency along the border on Feb. 15 to free up billions of dollars for a border wall. The decision came after Congress refused to give him the $5.7 billion he had demanded for the barrier.

Trump said he wants the wall to stop drugs and gangs from coming into the U.S., even though an analysis of data indicates the vast majority of narcotics enters through country ports of entry, not the wide swaths of border in between where additional barriers could be erected, experts say.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is the latest GOP senator to voice objections to an emergency declaration. Paul said during a speech in Kentucky on Saturday that approving the emergency declaration would be tantamount to giving “extra-Constitutional powers to the president” – something he said he’s unwilling to do.

“I can’t vote to give the president the power to spend money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress,” Paul said, as reported by the Bowling Green Daily News. “We may want more money for border security, but Congress didn’t authorize it. If we take away those checks and balances, it’s a dangerous thing.”

Some House Republicans made the same argument last week, when 13 of them joined all Democrats in voting to block Trump’s declaration, sending the measure to the Senate. McConnell has said the Senate will take up the measure by March 15.

Meanwhile, some GOP senators are looking to give Trump a way out.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who has called an emergency declaration “inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution,” offered an alternative last week.

Instead of declaring a national emergency, Alexander suggested Trump could secure money for his border wall by tapping into funds that Congress already approved has various programs. Not only would that give Trump access to the money he wants, it could potentially avoid months and years of litigation, Alexander said.

As the Senate vote approaches, several GOP senators said they’re still deciding how they will vote. Others support Trump, saying he’s doing what he needs to do to protect the nation’s borders.

“The president’s not exercising any power that Congress didn’t give him," said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. “Had Congress done its job instead of playing politics, he wouldn’t have to do it.”

Democrats, meanwhile, have complained Trump is trying to do an “end run around the Constitution."

“This is a president who is grasping for power, and he has to be reined in," said New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall, who serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Growing list of Republicans voice concerns
Paul’s weekend announcement that he opposes the emergency declaration makes him the fourth Senate Republican who has said they will vote to stop it. His decision gives opponents the 51 votes they need to block Trump’s declaration.

The other three Republicans who have said they will vote to stop the declaration are Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

“As a U.S. senator, I cannot justify providing the executive with more ways to bypass Congress,” Tillis wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post, laying out his concerns. “As a conservative, I cannot endorse a precedent that I know future left-wing presidents will exploit to advance radical policies that will erode economic and individual freedoms.”

Tillis was elected in 2014 and is up for re-election in 2020. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has rated the seat “likely Republican.”

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis at his office located in Senate Dirksen Building.
JACK GRUBER, USA TODAY
Collins, who is also up for re-election next year, said she’s concerned about Trump using the declaration to repurpose billions of dollars that Congress has already appropriated.

It “strikes me as undermining the appropriations process, the will of Congress and of being of dubious constitutionality,‘’ she said.

Collins, who is serving her fourth term, is a moderate Republican who sometimes breaks with her party on key issues, including health care. She criticized a federal judge’s ruling last December to overturn the Affordable Care Act, saying it was “too sweeping.”

She was also among the three Republicans, including the late Arizona Sen. John McCain and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who voted last summer against the Republican’s “skinny repeal bill,” killing the GOP health care measure.

All eyes were also on Collins last fall when the Senate voted on the controversial confirmation of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who had come under fire for accusations of sexual assault committed decades ago.

Collins, who had been on the fence for months, voted for Kavanaugh, saying that voting against him without witnesses or proof could start a “dangerous” precedent.

And as recently as last week Collins was the lone Republican to oppose the nomination of Andrew Wheeler, who was narrowly confirmed as Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Collins said she opposed the nomination because, as acting administrator, Wheeler supported policies that “are not in the best interest of our environment and public health, particularly given the threat of climate change to our nation."

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, announces support for Brett Kavanaugh on Senate floor, Oct. 5, 2018, Washington, D.C.
SENATE TV VIA AP
Murkowski said she will support the resolution to block Trump’s emergency declaration.

Murkowski, who has been in the Senate since 2002, is up for re-election in 2022. She shocked the political world in 2010 when she waged a successful write-in campaign after losing her party’s primary. Murkowski, the daughter of former Alaska governor and senator Frank Murkowski, has little allegiance to the national party that some say abandoned her during her re-election bid.

Murkowski was the only Republican to vote against Kavanaugh’s appointment. She voted as “present” as a collegial gesture for her Republican colleague Sen. Steve Daines, who supported Kavanaugh but was attending his daughter’s wedding.

Murkowski has worked across the aisle on issues important to her state, including with former Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana on energy policies.

Murkowski, along with Collins, also voted against the confirmation of Betsy DeVos, Trump’s choice to head the Department of Education.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Ala., speaks Dec. 11, 2018, after an order withdrawing federal protections for countless waterways and wetland was signed at EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C.
CLIFF OWEN, AP
Arizona’s Sen. Martha McSally, a newcomer to the chamber, also has voiced concerns about the emergency declaration.

McSally, appointed last December to fill McCain’s seat, said recently she was “seeking assurances that the money will not come from Arizona military construction projects” for her vote supporting the president.

McSally is expected to be in a competitive races in the 2020 special election. The Cook Political Report rates the seat “leans Republican.” Earlier this month, Mark Kelly, a retired U.S. Navy pilot and the husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords, announced his plans to run for the seat.

How did it fare in the House?
Despite concerns raised by some GOP lawmakers, only 13 broke ranks with the party and voted in favor of the Democratic backed resolution when it passed the House last week.

Several of them, including Reps. Will Hurd of Texas, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Fred Upton of Michigan, are expected to run in competitive races in 2020.

Most Republicans voted along party lines and against the resolution, citing the need for more border security.

Contributing: Eliza Collins, Maureen Groppe

Originally Published 2 hours ago

© Copyright Gannett 2019

Developing now, Tuesday, March 5, 2019

DEMOCRATS LAUNCH NEW, WIDE-REACHING PROBE INTO TRUMP: House Democrats on Monday opened a huge new avenue in their investigations into President Trump, with the chairman of the Judiciary Committee firing off document requests to dozens of figures from the president’s administration, family and business … Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said Monday the committee served document requests to 81 agencies, entities and individuals, as part of a new probe into “alleged obstruction of justice, public corruption, and other abuses of power by President Trump.” Nadler said the investigations were necessary to make sure the Trump presidency isn’t a dictatorship. In addition to the White House, Nadler is also seeking information from Trump family members, like Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Jared Kushner; from former administration figures like former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former national security adviser Mike Flynn, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former spokeswoman Hope Hicks; and from Trump campaign figures like Brad Parscale and Corey Lewandowski.

In addition, Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Eliot Engel, and Oversight Committee chairman Elijah Cummings on Monday formally demanded interviews with any translators who witnessed Trump’s communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin since Inauguration Day – a request that comes as part of a sweeping series of inquiries virtually certain to be met with legal pushback by the White House. The only good news Trump received on the investigation front was that Attorney General William Barr will not recuse himself from Russia probe.

Political backlash to declaring emergency and the wall?

POLITICO

Graham: Trump says GOP senators opposing him are ‘playing with fire’
By BURGESS EVERETT

03/05/2019 03:38 PM EST

Lindsey Graham
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said his meeting with the president focused mostly on the border and the number of illegal crossings as Trump faces certain bipartisan defeat on his emergency declaration in the Senate. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

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President Donald Trump said Senate Republicans considering opposition to his emergency declaration on the border are “playing with fire,” according to Sen. Lindsey Graham, who met with the president on Tuesday morning.

The South Carolina Republican said his meeting with the president focused mostly on the border and the number of illegal crossings as Trump faces certain bipartisan defeat on his emergency declaration in the Senate later this month.

Story Continued Below

Four Republican senators have said they will join 47 Senate Democrats in voting to block the national emergency declaration, though Trump will veto it and Congress likely won’t be able to muster the votes to override it. And though Trump is not waging a massive campaign to convert Republicans to his side, he’s acutely aware of the politics of the issue.

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“He says he thinks Republicans are playing with fire here because most Republicans, anyway, most people I hope, will see that the border is in a state of crisis,” Graham said, adding that Trump believes GOP senators that defy him are likely to face a political backlash. “That’s his observation, but he’s not out there calling people out or anything.”

Graham said Trump also groused about the wide-ranging investigations launched by the Democratic House, and questioned why Democrats are eager to probe his administration and 2016 campaign but not cooperate on legislation.

“He believes they are taking a wrecking ball to his life. Clinton said that about us. They’re going nuts,” Graham said. “‘It seems like nobody wants to solve any problems.’ He said that a couple times. He said he’s surprised. He thought it would be in everybody’s interest [to do] infrastructure and stuff like that.”

This story tagged under:
Senate Lindsey Graham Donald Trump Donald Trump 2020 Border Wall National Emergency Declaration National Emergency
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POLITICO

Graham: Trump says GOP senators opposing him are ‘playing with fire’
By BURGESS EVERETT

03/05/2019 03:38 PM EST

Lindsey Graham
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said his meeting with the president focused mostly on the border and the number of illegal crossings as Trump faces certain bipartisan defeat on his emergency declaration in the Senate. |

President Donald Trump said Senate Republicans considering opposition to his emergency declaration on the border are “playing with fire,” according to Sen. Lindsey Graham, who met with the president on Tuesday morning.

The South Carolina Republican said his meeting with the president focused mostly on the border and the number of illegal crossings as Trump faces certain bipartisan defeat on his emergency declaration in the Senate later this month.

Four Republican senators have said they will join 47 Senate Democrats in voting to block the national emergency declaration, though Trump will veto it and Congress likely won’t be able to muster the votes to override it. And though Trump is not waging a massive campaign to convert Republicans to his side, he’s acutely aware of the politics of the issue.

“He says he thinks Republicans are playing with fire here because most Republicans, anyway, most people I hope, will see that the border is in a state of crisis,” Graham said, adding that Trump believes GOP senators that defy him are likely to face a political backlash. “That’s his observation, but he’s not out there calling people out or anything.”

Graham said Trump also groused about the wide-ranging investigations launched by the Democratic House, and questioned why Democrats are eager to probe his administration and 2016 campaign but not cooperate on legislation.

“He believes they are taking a wrecking ball to his life. Clinton said that about us. They’re going nuts,” Graham said. “‘It seems like nobody wants to solve any problems.’ He said that a couple times. He said he’s surprised. He thought it would be in everybody’s interest [to do] infrastructure and stuff like that.”


Bits by Joe Sumerlad
Updated
1 minute ago.
President launches late-night Twitter storm as poll shows most Americans think he is a criminal
Follow latest updates from Washington

Joe Sommerlad,
Samuel Osborne @SamuelOsborne93o
1 minute ago

Click to follow
The Independent US

Donald Trump has lashed out at a number of old enemies on Twitter overnight, including Hillary Clinton, as his frustration with House Democrats and the investigations surrounding him threatens to boil over.

The president accused the Democrats of “playing games” by instigating “McCarthyite” congressional investigations against him rather than getting on with the business of government, refusing to hand over files related to his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s security clearance to the House Oversight Committee and indicating he might not co-operate with the House Judiciary Committee’s abuse of power investigation into his inner circle.

Meanwhile, a damning new poll has emerged suggesting two-thirds of American voters believe he committed a crime before his election.

We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
From $0.18 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.Subscribe now
On Tuesday, Mr Trump also walked back his decision to pull all US troops out of Syria, saying he now agreed “100 per cent” with keeping a military presence there.

Meanwhile, the president’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, will return to Capitol Hill for a fourth day of testimony.

KEY POINTS
Trump lashes out at Democratic enemies on Twitter
Refuses to hand over files on Jared Kushner’s security clearance
Two-thirds believe president a criminal, poll finds
15 minutes ago
Donald Trump and his son Eric made a surprise phone call to a man dying of cystic fibrosis.

The president told 44-year-old Jay Barrett of West Haven, Connecticut: “I wish you could come to a rally. I wish you could come … You keep that fight going. We both fight.”

The call was made possible by Mr Barrett’s sister, West Haven City councilwoman Bridgette Hoskie, who describes herself as “100 per cent Democrat”.
Joe Sommerlad
6 March 2019 14:08
33 minutes ago
The US trade deficit has jumped nearly 19 per cent, undermining a key commitment by President Trump.

The US trade imbalance for 2018 widened to a decade-long high of $261bn (£199bn). The gap with China on goods widened to an all-time record of $419.2bn (£319bn).

Mr Trump promised to cut the trade imbalance on the belief it would bring back overseas factory jobs and bolster the broader US economy.

But America’s dependence on imports appears to have increased after the tariffs Mr Trump imposed last year on foreign steel, aluminium and Chinese products.

An acceleration in economic growth last year from President Trump’s debt-funded tax cuts helped to boost the appetite for foreign goods.
Samuel Osborne
6 March 2019 13:50
43 minutes ago
Melania Trump joined in with her husband’s attack on the media on Tuesday.

On tour in Las Vegas to promote her “Be Best” anti-bullying initiative and discuss the impact of the opioid crisis on children, the first lady said: “I challenge the press to devote as much time to the lives lost and the potential lives that could be saved by dedicating the same amount of coverage that you do to idle gossip or trivial stories.”

“When we see breaking news on TV or the front pages of newspapers, it is my hope that it can be about how many lives we were able to save through education and honest dialogue.”
Joe Sommerlad
6 March 2019 14:18
58 minutes ago
Here’s an unusual aside from Trumpland: Aberdeen and Scotland footballer Scott McKenna has come under fire for accepting a post as ambassador of Donald Trump’s nearby golf course.

International footballer criticised after becoming ambassador for Trump’s golf course
McKenna is an avid golfer and claims it is a privilege to represent the Aberdeenshire club
Joe Sommerlad
6 March 2019 12:05
1 hour ago
A spike in arrests on the US border with Mexico has prompted critics of President Trump to warn his approach to tackling illegal immigration is not only not working but having an encouraging effect.

Around 76,000 people were picked up by border agents in February, a 50 percent increase year-on-year and a 12-year high.

Here’s Clark Mindock with more.

Trump administration’s ‘chaotic approach’ to border security is 'encouraging illegal migration’
Chaotic approach to southern border security is encouraging illegal migration, says critic
Joe Sommerlad
6 March 2019 14:17
1 hour ago
This should not be overlooked.

Just two months after President Trump announced all American troops would be leaving Syria, the commander-in-chief has backpedalled on his decision in a letter to Congress, stating he now agrees “100 per cent” with keeping a military presence in the conflict-struck country.

Here’s Sarah Harvard.

Trump flip-flops on Syria, now agrees ‘100%’ with keeping troops
In December the president announced withdrawing all troops from country
Joe Sommerlad
6 March 2019 11:49
1 hour ago
In his dramatic appearance before the House Oversight Committee last week, one of Cohen’s revelations was that the president asked him to threaten his old schools in order to ensure they would not release his exam grades to the media.

Here’s more on how Mr Trump sought to bury the past.

How Trump managed to bury his high school records
Revelations add fresh details to allegations made by president’s former lawyer Michael Cohen last week
Joe Sommerlad
6 March 2019 12:00
1 hour ago
Michael Cohen is due back before the House Intelligence Committee today for another private hearing after three days of headline-grabbing testimony on Capitol Hill last week.

The question of whether he discussed presidential pardons with White House attorneys after the FBI raided his home and business premises last April is thought to be on the bill for the latest behind-closed-doors session.

No pardon was ever given and Cohen ultimately wound up pleading guilty and cooperating against the president in separate investigations by the special counsel and by federal prosecutors in New York. He begins a three-year jail sentence in May.

While there is nothing inherently improper about a subject in a criminal investigation seeking a pardon from a president given the president’s wide latitude in granting them, representatives have requested information about talks on possible pardons for Cohen and other defendants close to the president who have become entangled in Mueller’s investigation.

The House Intelligence Committee’s chairman Adam Schiff said after last week’s private meeting with Cohen that the committee had “additional document requests” that they were discussing with him. Mr Schiff would not comment on the substance of the interview, but said it helped “to shed light on a lot of issues that are very core to our investigation”.

The intelligence panel is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether Mr Trump’s campaign coordinated with the Russians in any way. They are also looking into Trump’s foreign financial dealings and whether there was obstruction of justice.
Joe Sommerlad
6 March 2019 11:29
2 hours ago
This was the response from “Crooked Hillary” to the president’s taunting tweet by the way.

Absolutely textbook use of a Mean Girls GIF.
Joe Sommerlad
6 March 2019 11:21
2 hours ago
Meanwhile, a damaging poll from Quinnipac University has found that a staggering 45 percent of American voters surveyed believe President Trump committed a crime before he was elected.

Here’s Chris Baynes.

Two-thirds of Americans think Trump is a criminal, poll finds
‘Michael Cohen, a known liar headed to the big house, has more credibility than the leader of the free world’, says pollster
Joe Sommerlad
6 March 2019 11:51
2 hours ago
The president’s new line of attack is to accuse House Democrats of wasting the government’s time with “hoax” investigations.

“Essentially what they are saying is the campaign begins,” he told reporters on Tuesday. “Instead of doing infrastructure, instead of doing healthcare, instead of doing so many things they should be doing, they want to play games.”

He also hinted he might not necessarily co-operate with Jerrold Nadler’s House Judiciary Committee.

Trump suggests he will not cooperate with investigation into abuse of power
President described investigation as ‘disgrace to our country’
Joe Sommerlad
6 March 2019 11:18
3 hours ago
Here’s a little more on that, with CNN reporting the president also pressured former chief-of-staff John Kelly and ex-White House counsel to grant the same access to his daughter Ivanka.

Trump ‘pressured White House officials’ to get security clearance for Ivanka
It follows reports president made similar demands on behalf of Jared Kushner
Joe Sommerlad
6 March 2019 11:39
3 hours ago
The president appears to be digging in his heels on the investigations, the White House refusing to turn over information on his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s security clearance, granted in spite of concerns raised by intelligence officials.

Mr Trump branded the decision “a disgrace” before addressing a gathering of military veterans on suicide among former members of the armed forces from the Roosevelt Room.

House Oversight Committee chair Elijah Cummings said he is considering his “next steps”.

Here’s Clark Mindock.

Trump refuses to hand over ‘Kushner clearance’ documents to Congress: ‘It’s a disgrace’
House Democrats are considering ‘next steps’ as the White House refused to supply clearance documents
Joe Sommerlad
6 March 2019 11:08
3 hours ago
President Trump laid into his Democratic rivals on Twitter last night, mocking both 2016 rival Hillary Clinton and billionaire party donor Tom Steyer for their decisions not to run against him in 2020.

“Aw-shucks, does that mean I won’t get to run against her again? She will be sorely missed!” he sneered at Ms Clinton before applying one of his signature nicknames to the hedge fund philanthropist, branding him “Weirdo Tom Steyer” and saying he lacked the “guts” to run.

He also retweeted attacks on the House Democrats’ “fishing expeditions” into his affairs from his press secretary Sarah Sanders and Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, as well as another plug for Fox News, broadcasting an interview with Republican congressman Jim Jordan on the opposition’s “colossally stupid decision to overreach with overbroad subpoenas”.

In another tweet, he quoted Hans von Spakovsky, a lawyer who was appointed to the president’s ill-fated commission on election integrity, to support his contention Democrats are “copying Joseph McCarthy” and “don’t have any evidence of wrongdoing.”

Here’s Tom Embury-Dennis on the president’s latest fever dream.

Trump launches overnight tirade after refusing to hand documents requested by Congress
Billionaire reacts angrily to widening congressional probes into his conduct in office
Joe Sommerlad
6 March 2019 11:55
3 hours ago

Even as the 2020 race begins in earnest, President Donald Trump is already suggesting that Democrats cannot beat him fairly – raising the specter that if he loses next November, he will suggest that the election was not legitimate.

“The Democrats in Congress yesterday were vicious and totally showed their cards for everyone to see,” Trump tweeted Tuesday, referring to House Democrats’ launching of a broad-scale investigation into him. “When the Republicans had the Majority they never acted with such hatred and scorn! The Dems are trying to win an election in 2020 that they know they cannot legitimately win!”

Donald Trump’s mental health:

youtu.be/U6f4OLgzTVE

Between the politocal absolute and the nearing of the psychologocally relative is where Trump finds himself.

The absolute is approaching, the singularity, which is upon which the stable genius can identify with, and become a bridge upon, as he has been subscribed by those to whom he may have been forced into an alliance.

The mirror through which he may recapture that which with his unfamiliarity serves a political and social service.

Sure, society is not acquainted well enough to deal with, but the channels under ground do serve a purpose , that is, presenting a stage, through which. the mirror reflects that , which has been originally presented.

He takes this chance of redemption from the general border, through which all has to pass, a border line from which no exit cam be individually be attempted. He does have backup who will follow him religiously, through the manager irrationality, which sans direction, may mean the onset of a terrible fate.

This glimmer of hope, comes at a price of going through the very narrow grey area , in between, that, which is neither here nor there, reversible at a whim, and befuddling all but those, who manage controversy, based on a near perfect assimilation between the absolute and the relative, the certain and the uncertain, the contradictory and the accommodating, : for this, no amount of politocal venom may unseat him in disgrace.

The freedom to change is position will be nullified by the reason of presumptive necessity. He is the broad stroke of.a.crayon which needs to cover the fine lines, which no one bothers to read, nor is actually capable of.

Note: this is one generic possibility among others, and is only possible in a world where every thing is allowed, and reflected.and again also all that is deflects.

As a matter of fact, one can’t help to to feel for the guy. But that’s only one feeling coming through.

From the publication : Independent

Mueller report to be ‘instantly’ printed as a book, if made public.

Trump news live - President attacks Democrats over antisemitism and threatens to block ‘Fake News Networks’ from 2020 debates

Another nerve exposed, the mud slinging(the swamp being cleaned by throwing projectiles) grows by leaps and bounds, with no holds barred.

What can be on the back of the mind of such affront to human intelligence?
Maybe either that it is on the way out unless falsity is accepted as some form of truth, or that the mind as an instrument of measuring reality is on the verge of getting lost.
Either choice suffices , but a left wing Democratic rejection may give the impression of throwing the baby away with the bathwater. It’s a catch 22.

On the economic front of trade and the ID:

It’s a neat microcosm of President Trump’s economic policy: He picks a yardstick to measure the American economy — the trade deficit — that’s mostly meaningless. He spends years criticizing it as too high and promising to reduce it. And under his administration, it surges.
“By just about any measure you pick,” Slate’s Jordan Weissman writes, “his effort appears to have been an absolute flop.”
“He set out to fix a non-problem (a trade deficit) and created real ones including international conflict, higher consumer prices and gross inefficiency in our economy,” The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin writes, of the New York Times in today’s opinion section.

President Trump says hush money does not amount to campaign finance violation
DAVID JACKSON | USA TODAY | 2 hours ago

President Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid money to women to be quiet about alleged affairs with Trump during his 2016 campaign.
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump, under federal investigation over hush money to an alleged ex-mistress, said Thursday it has nothing to do with campaign finance laws – and appeared to acknowledge payments he previously said he knew nothing about.

“It was not a campaign contribution, and there were no violations of the campaign finance laws by me. Fake News!” Trump tweeted.

Trump has denied having an affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels, and previously denied knowing about payments to her, referring questions about the matter to Michael Cohen – the ex-personal attorney who now says Trump authorized the payoffs.

Federal prosecutors apparently disagree. They have said in court filings that the payment to Daniels and another to former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal violated laws that limit contributions to candidates. They alleged that Cohen, who pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws, orchestrated the payments at Trump direction.

In congressional testimony last week, Cohen said Trump and his company reimbursed him for $130,000 paid to Daniels in order to keep her quiet right before the 2016 presidential election.

It was not a campaign contribution, and there were no violations of the campaign finance laws by me. Fake News!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 7, 2019
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether the hush money amounted to an unreported and illegal campaign contribution, in that it was designed to influence the outcome of the election.

Cohen faces a three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to campaign finance violations, tax evasion and lying to Congress, including allegations stemming from his involvement in the Daniels matter.

Trump did not address Cohen in his brief tweet, but has accused his former lawyer of lying in an effort to somehow reduce his prison sentence.

His current lawyers, such as Rudy Giuliani, have said the payments to Daniels amounted to a personal expense, not a campaign contribution.

More: Cohen only flipped because he got caught. That’s all we can expect in the Trump era.

More: Michael Cohen’s testimony prompts a new question: In web of Trump investigations, is anyone safe?

Updated 2 hours ago

© Copyright Gannett 2019

The strength exhibited by Trump, in spite of a state of affairs which presents a scenario putting the Nixon debacle into a far less troublesome light compared to the present one, only one conclusion can be drawn:

Identity politics plays a central role in the resiliency by which the present constitutional issues align the general framework by whose measure the factual evidence withstands its feedback into its own credibility issue.

The fracturing of this delicate balance between the held contradictory use of languages, demands both parties ’ constitutional need to sustain the very meaning of their differing platforms to
Insist on qualify their differing political viewpoints to reflect their basic constitutional need to formally guarantee their very political right to exist as a defined political force.

The very being of the political social contract as a representitive national unity is under siege, with both parties reducing the particular elemental personal and induvidualmy reflected within the more generally vested dynamics of the processes of representative government.
The basis of representation are under assault, not from external identifiable causes, but from the internally and generally misunderstood state of being, which has lost the very ground in its own dynamic.

The state is in trouble primarily as resulting from primary effects from obvious signs of decay, such as inner city turmoil, visible on the faces of discontent, or the reminders of diminishing capacity to enjoy the fruits of labor so visible on the echoes of the GreY and the recent depression: , literally reminded for those still remembering it, by the present of the ranks of homeless abounding everywhere.

It is not a matter of reflection which carries the whole general debt of political diversity forward by such reflection, but by immigrating the socially vast underprivileged, who seem to revel and function far better, in an overwhelmingly more challenging new environment .

It is not the international trepidation, sm as described in the trade imbalance or taxation who h are the patent casual agents responsible for diminishing senses of political equilibrium, but the grass root misunderstanding of where and how the US empire’s dysfunction becoming a vacuous question, which no amount of machinations can rearrange in an understood national policy.

The crisis stems from an internal division, aptly vested with a dynamic hope that still is reigned in by reference to the state inscribed and vested in immortal words by the founding fathers, abiding in the paternalistic and thetic framework of fate in liberty.

This constitutional crisis can not be understood in a unified understanding
ant longer, and the forces of power take advantage to this constitutional vulnerability, hence no salvation can be abstracted , other then from an e executive, a funny gut, who can still in spite hope, because he is representative of the contradiction , and using the language appropriate to it.

The identity and the economy of the soul of the United States is best described at this moment in time, when the model of our way of existence is represented by a newly firmed chief executive molded out of a failing and divisive Congress, and an equally ineffective Judiciary.

The failing hope of Capitalistic Democracy, is beginning to transform into a meaningless visual anachr anachronism , rising Phoenix like, from a time before society could be reflected in it’s apparent self reflection…

(Unedited )

The essential dynamic lies not in the rhetoric, promoting an elusive nationalism, but in the hidden contradictory process by which internationalism and the New World order can save Capitalism as a socially viable guarantor of peace in a fractured world, there being no other viable alternative. The contradiction is out there in a rhetoric dressed in the anesthetic of an imagenitive reactivism, lulling the senses with the visions of the good old times. Anyone capable to understand the meaning of the eternal return should know, that such symbolism merely functions as a self serving wish fulfilling device, a metaphor to cover basic fears of nihilistic abandonment. The cover to Trumpism serves to immunize the danger of exposure to a possible authorial harm, for nihilism did not start with Nietzsche, but Dostoevsky, and the resulting trouble can be sources to the boyars, sho so terribly dealt with the serfs, and likewise most generally how the West was won through subjugation and at times total nihilization through colonial suppression.

(Unedited)

Popularity graphs of Trump and other en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_ … val_rating U.S. presidents .

It appears that Truman, Nixon and Trump share that honor!