Attorney General

This is how the Trump crime family syndicate comes undone

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The Manhattan district attorney’s office is considering pursuing criminal charges against the Trump Organization and two senior company officials in connection with Michael D. Cohen’s hush money payment to an adult film actress, according to two officials with knowledge of the matter. Trump Organization Could Face Criminal Charges From Manhattan D.A.:

A state investigation would center on how the company accounted for its reimbursement to Mr. Cohen for the $130,000 he paid to the actress, Stephanie Clifford, who has said she had an affair with President Trump, the officials said.

Both officials stressed that the office’s review of the matter is in its earliest stages and prosecutors have not yet made a decision on whether to proceed.

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As the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., considers opening an investigation, the New York State attorney general’s office has moved to open a criminal investigation into whether Mr. Cohen has violated state tax law, an inquiry that would be unrelated to the federal tax evasion charges that he pleaded guilty to on Tuesday, according to a person with knowledge of the state matter.

If Mr. Vance decides to proceed, it would not be the first time he investigated members of the Trump family. He was faulted for not pursuing charges against Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., who were under criminal investigation in 2012 over allegations that they misled buyers interested in the Trump SoHo condominium project.

The attorney general, Barbara D. Underwood, in recent days sought a referral from the state Department of Taxation and Finance, which is needed to conduct such an inquiry and to prosecute any violations of state tax law it might uncover, the person said. Such requests are seldom denied. The state’s double jeopardy laws do not apply to tax crimes.

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Can we officially call it a constitutional crisis now? (Updated)

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Donald Trump “went there” this morning on the Special Counsel’s Russia probe.

Trump is, once again, setting up Confederate Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III to be the fall guy by signaling he is now ready to pull a Nixonian “Saturday night massacre” if the Attorney General does not do as he is directed by the president, a clear violation of the independence of the Department of Justice from undue influence over criminal investigations by the chief executive. With Robert Mueller closing in, Trump is in a panic and is abusing the powers of the presidency to obstruct justice in order to protect himself.

Chris Cillizza at CNN reports, Donald Trump just tweeted something new about the Russia investigation — and it’s huge:

President Donald Trump has made his displeasure with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, special counsel Robert Mueller and the ongoing investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election he is leading crystal clear over the past year. But he took that critique to new heights on Wednesday morning, suggesting that Sessions needed to step in and end the investigation.

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That seems like a pretty clear directive, no?

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House GOP Freedom Caucus are accessories to a conspiracy to obstruct justice

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Our do-nothing GOP Congress is readying to leave town today for a five-week August recess. (When they come back in September, they have scheduled only 12 legislative days to fund the government and avert a government shutdown. What could possibly go wrong? McConnell, Ryan pitch Trump on plan to avoid shutdown).

But before leaving town, the wild-eyed radicals of the House GOP Freedom (sic) Caucus (it would be more accurate to describe them as the GOP Fascist Caucus) decided to file articles of impeachment — not against the Putin-loving traitor who stood on a stage last week in Helsinki and committed treason by siding with the former KGB agent over the unanimous consensus of U.S. intelligence agencies, and Putin’s own admission in the same press conference that he ordered the Russian attack on the U.S. election to aid Donald Trump — but rather against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who is overseeing the Special Counsel’s Russia investigation.

As I have previously explained:

These authoritarian Trumpkins are requesting to see the prosecutor’s evidence in an active ongoing criminal investigation of  the president and his associates, information they are not entitled to receive in the oversight function, so they can then turn that evidence over to Trump’s legal team and to selectively leak it to the GOPropagandists at FAUX News aka “Trump TV,” as they have already done with information the DOJ has previously inappropriately turned over to the committee under unprecedented threats from these authoritarian Trumpkins.

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Trump fails to defend America against Russian attacks; there is a word for that (updated)

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Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s detailed indictment of twelve Russian intelligence officers for cyber attacks on the U.S. to interfere in the 2016 election offered new details of just how deeply Russian operatives have infiltrated state and local election agencies across the U.S. Mueller reveals depth of states’ election vulnerabilities.

House Administration Committee Democrats in a report released Thursday identified 18 states that congressional researchers say lack key voting safeguards, including paper trails for vote tallies and post-election audits. Drawing on months of input from election officials and cybersecurity experts, it called on Congress to approve $1.4 billion in new election security funding for all 50 states over the next decade. House Democrats list states with weakest election security in new report. You should note that no Republicans signed onto its conclusions.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told a convention of secretaries of state Saturday that “though votes were note changed” in the 2016 election, “ANY attempt to interfere in our elections — successful or unsuccessful — is a direct attack on our democracy,” (emphasis added by her press office.) Homeland Security chief calls Russian hacking “direct attack on our democracy”. You should note that “President Trump has never condemned Russia over its election interference, and the White House press office statement on the indictments does not mention a Russian attack on our democracy.”

Also last week, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned of an impending, potentially devastating cyber attack on U.S. systems, saying the country’s digital infrastructure “is literally under attack” and warning that among state actors, Russia is the “worst offender.” Intel chief Dan Coats says of cyber attacks, “We are at a critical point”:

Speaking at a scheduled event at the Hudson Institute, he adopted the language of former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet who, in the months ahead of the 9/11 attacks, warned that the “system was blinking red.” Coats, citing daily attacks from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, said, “Here we are, nearly two decades later, and I’m here to say the warning lights are blinking red again.”

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GOP House Freedom Caucus wants to impeach Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein

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The radical GOP House Freedom Caucus continues to aid and abet a conspiracy to obstruct justice in defense of their “Dear Leader.” If not indicted by prosecutors, these Republicans need to be removed from office by the voters. America needs to drain the swamp of these traitorous rats.

POLITICO reports, House conservatives prep push to impeach Rosenstein:

House conservatives are preparing a new push to oust Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, according to three conservative Capitol Hill sources — putting the finishing touches on an impeachment filing even as Rosenstein announced the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for interfering in the 2016 election.

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, in fact, had the impeachment document on the floor of the House at the very moment that Rosenstein spoke to reporters and TV cameras Friday.

Conservative GOP lawmakers have been plotting to remove Rosenstein for weeks, accusing him of slow-walking their probe of FBI agents [Peter Strzok and Lisa Page] they’ve accused of bias against President Donald Trump.

Peter Strzok testified in closed session for 11 hours, and open session this week for almost nine hours. Republicans made fools of themselves in pursuit of their conspiracy theories. Lisa Page testified in closed session on Friday. Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page said to be ‘cooperative’ during Capitol Hill meeting about anti-Trump texts. The witnesses are cooperating.

What these Trumpkins are actually complaining about is that the Department of Justice and FBI are not turning over prosecutorial evidence in an  ongoing criminal investigation of the Trump campaign — information Congress is not entitled to receive in an open criminal investigation — so that they then can provide the evidence to the Trump defense team and to selectively leak information (as they did with the Strzok and Page emails) to the GOPropagandists at FAUX News aka Trump TV and other right-wing media outlets. This is entirely illegitimate and inappropriate, and constitutes obstruction of justice.

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