Domino game participants gone or those waiting for doomsday
Trump Empire, Inc. and Trump Administration
Synopsis of
this story from the AP here via MSN –
highlighted to fit the blog format.
It is also tied to this other post also.
The introduction from the article
follows – with my title:
“With the Trump
team anything he or they touch amounts to or is SOP for deception, fraud, corruption,
lies, and another con 24/7”
WASHINGTON (The AP) — One lied about his knowledge of
Russian-hacked emails, another about a Russian real estate deal, a third about
dialogue over sanctions with a Russian ambassador.
A pattern of
deception by advisers to Trump, aimed at covering up Russia-related contacts
during the 2016 campaign and transition period, has unraveled bit by bit in
criminal cases brought by special counsel Robert Mueller.
The lies to
the FBI and to Congress, including by Trump's former fixer and his national
security adviser, have raised new questions about Trump's connections to
Russia, revealed key details about the special counsel's findings and painted a
portrait of aides eager to protect the president and the administration by
concealing communications they presumably recognized as problematic.
The false statements cut to the heart of Mueller's
mission to untangle ties between the Trump campaign and Russia and to establish
whether they colluded to sway the election.
They concern some of the central
questions of the investigation, including why the incoming Trump administration
discouraged Russia from retaliating over sanctions imposed for election
hacking; who knew what when about illegally obtained Democratic emails; and how
plans for a Trump Tower in Moscow came together and fell apart.
Says Daniel Petalas, defense lawyer
and former Justice Department prosecutor: “I think you
can draw a conclusion that these false statements generally relate to an effort
to protect the president of the United States in connection with his dealings
with Russia. That’s what makes them material to the investigation that Mueller
is pursuing, which is a necessary element of a false statement claim — that it
has to be material.”
The most recent example
again comes from Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen: He pleaded guilty to lying to
Congress about negotiations he had on Trump's behalf for a real estate deal in
Moscow. Though he told lawmakers the talks were done by January 2016, he
admitted they actually lasted as late as June — after Trump had already secured
the Republican nomination and after Russians had penetrated Democratic email
accounts for communications later released through WikiLeaks.
He also said he had briefed Trump about the project's
progress as well as members of his family. Cohen said he lied out of loyalty to
Trump, who insisted throughout the campaign that he had no business dealings in
Russia, and to be consistent with his political messaging.
Though the Cohen plea didn't directly
connect to Trump's campaign, other cases have:
1. George Papadopoulos, a former Trump
campaign adviser, pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI about April 2016
conversations with a Maltese professor who told him “Russians had dirt on Hillary
Clinton in the form of thousands of emails.” Papadopoulos told the FBI he was
not part of the campaign when he encountered the professor, Joseph Mifsud, even though the truth was that he had
joined weeks earlier. His lawyers said Papadopoulos, now serving a 14-day
prison sentence, “lied to save his
professional aspirations and preserve a perhaps misguided loyalty to his master.”
2. Michael Flynn, Trump's former national
security adviser, is being sentenced soon after he admitted lying to the FBI by
saying he didn't discuss sanctions against Russia during the transition with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. That
deception was flagged for the White House in January 2017 by Obama
administration holdover Sally Yates, who
as acting AG told White House
counsel Don McGahn that officials were misleading the American public by
falsely declaring Flynn hadn't talked sanctions.
Flynn's
guilty plea was especially significant in that it made clear other transition
officials were aware of his Kislyak conversations and discussed with him what
he would say. And while Flynn was fired in February 2017, his importance to
Trump became evident when ex-FBI
director James Comey said Trump had encouraged him during an Oval Office
meeting that same month to end an investigation into Flynn.
3. Paul Manafort – more has followed from him as
prosecutors accused him of lying even after his guilty plea, though they have
not said about what.
4. Jerome Corsi, Trump supporter and
conspiracy theorist, has a draft plea agreement accusing him of misrepresenting
a conversation with Trump confidant Roger
Stone about WikiLeaks, which released thousands of stolen emails in the
run-up to the election to harm the Clinton campaign. A false statement charge
can be a powerful cudgel for prosecutors, especially in investigations like
this one where witnesses are recalcitrant and openly adversarial. In the
Mueller investigation witnesses have increasingly lashed out against the government.
Trump and Stone have publicly attacked Mueller's investigation. Corsi rejected
the plea offer and accused prosecutors of trying to bully him into saying what
they want to hear.
Though Trump
regularly complains about Mueller's style, there's nothing unusual about
prosecutors pursuing false statement charges to send a message and using their
testimony to make cases against higher-level targets.
Duke University law professor Sam
Buell says: “You've got a system where you're trying to
take evidence from people, get their testimony under penalty of prosecution if
you lie. And that's what you do when you have uncooperative people when trying
to conceal something that you're trying to get to the bottom of. This is what happened to the mob, this is
what happened to the drug cartels.”
Not to
mention, he also noted, past
Washington investigations like Watergate.
Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), chairman of
the Senate intelligence committee, said his panel has made referrals to
prosecutors and cited Cohen as an example about more false statement charges
could be coming saying: “It's a loud message
to everybody that is interviewed by our committee, regardless of where that
prosecution comes from, if you lie to us, we're going to go after you.”
My cents: Not much to add the above fine
article except to conclude that the bottom is about fall out for Trump Empire,
Inc. wait and see.
Thanks for stopping by.
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