Perjury

DNC sues the Trump Campaign, Russia and Wikileaks

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Donald Trump’s consigliere Michael Cohen proved to me that he is not a lawyer. If he was, he would have known that filing a civil lawsuit against Stormy Daniels and against Buzzfeed allowed them to conduct legal discovery. He learned a valuable lesson this week.

Now that he knows he is under criminal investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, he cannot afford to have a parallel civil case where discovery is also being conducted. Cohen drops libel suits against BuzzFeed, Fusion GPS.

Trump’s friend David Pecker at the trash rag National Enquirer took notice as well this week in its case with Trump’s former girlfriend, Karen McDougal. The first domino just fell after the Michael Cohen raid:

The former Playboy playmate reached a settlement Wednesday with American Media, which publishes the National Enquirer, in a deal that allows her to spill about her alleged months-long affair with President Trump. And importantly, the terms of the deal appear quite favorable to McDougal. One possible reason, according to reports and experts: The Cohen raid bolstered her case.

Experts say the combination of that and the favorable terms of the settlement — McDougal basically has to share only a small portion of the profits she might make from selling her story — suggest AMI was worried about what lay ahead.

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In Times interview, Trump foreshadows the Attorney General resigning and firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller

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President Donald Trump gave a remarkable interview to the New York Times yesterday in which he signaled time bombs that will go off in the days and weeks ahead. Citing Recusal, Trump Says He Wouldn’t Have Hired Sessions:

President Trump said on Wednesday that he never would have appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions had he known Mr. Sessions would recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation that has dogged his presidency, calling the decision “very unfair to the president.”

In a remarkable public break with one of his earliest political supporters, Mr. Trump complained that Mr. Sessions’s decision ultimately led to the appointment of a special counsel that should not have happened. “Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else,” Mr. Trump said.

OK, two things. Sen. Sessions meetings with the Russian ambassador were not discovered and reported until after his Senate confirmation hearing, making him a potential fact witness and creating a potential conflict of interest which triggered his ethical obligation to recuse himself from the investigation. He could not have told Trump before he took the job that he would recuse himself under this timeline.

Second, Jeff Sessions serves at the pleasure of the president and has previously offered his resignation when the president expressed a lack of confidence in him. In an unprecedented move, Sessions now has been publicly undermined by the president who says he regrets hiring him. Session must resign, and he should do so today if he has any self-respect.

Actually there is a third point, Trump is expressing his view that he wanted an attorney general who would block and deflect any inquiries into his campaign’s coordination with the Russians, signaling that he believes the attorney general is loyal to him personally, and thus rejecting the independence of the Justice Department. See, Trump shows disdain for rule of law with new attacks on Sessions, Rosenstein, Mueller. Update, President Trump’s Contempt for the Rule of Law.

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Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is in trouble again

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Our Confederate Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is in trouble again.

CNN reported Wednesday, Sources: Congress investigating another possible Sessions-Kislyak meeting:

Congressional investigators are examining whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions had an additional private meeting with Russia’s ambassador during the presidential campaign, according to Republican and Democratic Hill sources and intelligence officials briefed on the investigation.

Investigators on the Hill are requesting additional information, including schedules from Sessions, a source with knowledge tells CNN. They are focusing on whether such a meeting took place April 27, 2016, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, where then-candidate Donald Trump was delivering his first major foreign policy address. Prior to the speech, then-Sen. Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak attended a small VIP reception with organizers, diplomats and others.

In addition to congressional investigators, the FBI is seeking to determine the extent of interactions the Trump campaign team may have had with Russia’s ambassador during the event as part of its broader counterintelligence investigation of Russian interference in the election.

The FBI is looking into whether there was an additional private meeting at the Mayflower the same day, sources said. Neither Hill nor FBI investigators have yet concluded whether a private meeting took place — and acknowledge that it is possible any additional meeting was incidental.

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The Richard Kleindienst precedent for prosecuting Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III

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Well, that didn’t take long. Once GOP Congressional leaders began calling for our “Confederate rebel” Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III to recuse himself from the Trump-Putin campaign investigations on Thursday, as the New York Times editorializes, Jeff Sessions Had No Choice but to recuse himself, something he should have taken the pledge to do at his Senate confirmation hearings.

A number of GOP leaders are now asserting that Session’s recusal solves the problem, he will simply “amend” his statements to the Senate to “clarify” his remarks, and avoid charges of failure to provide accurate information to Congress or perjury.

These Tea-Publican apologists (IOKIYAR) need to step into Mr. Peabody’s WAYBAC Machine and set the dial to 1972 for the historical precedent of another Attorney General who lied to Congress during his confirmation hearings: Richard Kleindienst.

Richard Painter, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School who was the chief White House ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007, explains at the New York Times why Jeff Sessions Needs to Go:

In the wake of Wednesday’s revelation that Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke with Russia’s ambassador to the United States while working with the Trump campaign, despite denying those contacts during his confirmation hearings, Mr. Sessions recused himself from overseeing any Justice Department investigation into contacts between the campaign and the Russian government. Some members of Congress are saying that’s not enough; they want him to resign.

It’s a bombshell of a story. And it’s one with a clear and disturbing precedent.

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