A new CNN poll conducted by SSRS (March 25-26) found a majority of Americans do not believe Donald Trump and his campaign associates have been exonerated of collusion by the Special Counsel’s report per Attorney General William Barr.
When asked the question “Do You Think The Report Exonerates Trump of Collusion?,” 56% say no while 43% answered yes.
Broken down by political affiliation, Republicans believe their guy (77% vs. 23%) and Democrats do not (80% vs. 19%).
But when it comes to all-important Independent voters, a majority (56% vs. 41%) do not feel Trump has been exonerated.
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg called out Donald Trump this week after the Trumpster whined that he wasn’t “thanked” for “approving” the late Senator John McCain’s funeral.
“I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve,” Trump told supporters at a factory in Ohio, even though it was Congress that allowed McCain to lie in state.
“I don’t care about this, I didn’t get a thank you. That’s OK,” Trump complained.
This being seven months later, I’m not so sure how “OK” he really is with it since he brought it up.
Buttigieg, who is running for president, clapped back at Trump, bringing up the topic of Trump’s draft dodging by faking bone spurs, while McCain fought in the Vietnam War and was held as a prisoner of war for six years.
“When a president (who faked a disability in order to avoid serving) attacks a departed war hero, it’s for attention,” Buttigieg tweeted.
When a president (who faked a disability in order to avoid serving) attacks a departed war hero, it’s for attention.
We should honor the late Senator McCain, and also follow his example by focusing not on the behavior of the president but on the future of our country.
Incidentally, NBC News reports that the National Cathedral rebuked Trump’s claim he “approved” McCain’s funeral.
In a statement Thursday, a spokesperson for the Cathedral said relatives organize funerals and it doesn’t need approval from the president.
“Washington National Cathedral was honored to host the funeral service for Senator John McCain. All funerals and memorial services at the Cathedral are organized by the family of the deceased; only a state funeral for a former president involves consultation with government officials. No funeral at the Cathedral requires the approval of the president or any other government official,” read the statement.
Earlier this week, Donald Trump was asked whether he sees “today that white nationalism is a rising threat around the world?” Trump’s response: “I don’t really.”
In the aftermath of the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, where a young white man rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer, Trump tried to mitigate white nationalists’ responsibility for the violence telling the public that “there’s blame on both sides.”
He has repeatedly asserted that he bears no blame or responsibility for the violence.
But analysis by the Washington Post shows that counties that had hosted a 2016 Trump campaign rally saw a 226 percent increase in reported hate crimes over comparable counties that did not host such a rally.
It is hard to discount a “Trump effect” when a considerable number of these reported hate crimes reference Trump. According to the ADL’s 2016 data, these incidents included vandalism, intimidation and assault.
What’s more, according to the FBI’s Universal Crime report in 2017, reported hate crimes increased 17 percent over 2016. Recent research also shows that reading or hearing Trump’s statements of bias against particular groups makes people more likely to write offensive things about the groups he targets.
After nearly two years, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has submitted his report on the Trump campaign and any collusion/coordination with Russia, according to NBC News.
Special counsel Robert Mueller on Friday wrapped up his nearly two-year investigation into Donald Trump and Russia and sent his report to Attorney General Barr.
No details of Mueller’s findings have been released, and it is not clear how soon the public will see them.
The transmission of the report to Barr concludes an investigation that has resulted in the indictments of 34 people, infuriated the president and thrown the administration into turmoil.
The long-awaited development comes almost two years after Mueller was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump” and “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.”
“Let it come out, let people see it,” Trump said. “That’s up to the attorney general. We have a very good attorney general, he’s a highly respected man. And we’ll see what happens. But it’s sort of interesting that a man out of the blue just writes a report.”
“But I want to see the report,” he said. “And you know who I want to see it? The tens of millions of people that love the fact that we have the greatest economy we’ve ever had.”
Things got testy between Donald Trump and Fox Business News host Maria Bartiromo on Friday as she asked about his continuing attacks on deceased Sen.John McCain.
When she observed that his attacks divide more than unite the country, Trump stated again that his attacks only come up because of reporters question, and then he called Bartiromo “fake news.”
“I didn’t mention John McCain until you asked me a question about John McCain,” said Trump, clearly agitated. “I could say I have no comment but that’s not me. But you shouldn’t have brought it up. Actually, I thought you weren’t suppose to bring it up but that’s OK. Fake news, every once and a while.”
Bartiromo didn’t back down, saying, “It’s not fake news. You just told me why you have an issue with him.”
After the interviewed, Bartiromo made a point of telling the TV audience, “For the record, there were no conditions or stipulations agreed to ahead of the interview.”
Here’s Donald Trump indicating that Maria Bartiromo broke some sort of agreement not to mention his attacks on John McCain, then calling her “fake news.”
Earlier this month, Trump mentioned McCain during a press event with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro: “I’m very unhappy that he didn’t repeal and replace Obamacare, as you know. He campaigned on repealing and replacing Obamacare for years.”
“I was never a fan of John McCain, and I never will be,” he added.
The Twitter feud between Donald Trump and George Conway, husband of White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, continues to escalate.
Conway has been publicly addressing what he believes to be Trump’s issues with narcissistic personality disorder, including “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), a constant need for admiration, and a lack of empathy.”
This morning, Conway wrote that one of Trump’s own lawyer’s once told him Trump “couldn’t be allowed to talk to Mueller because ‘he’d like his ass off.'”
Yes. As I said to @sbg1, to understand Trump “you have to look at everything through the prism of his narcissism.” Once you do that, pretty much everything makes sense. https://t.co/EIcB7nr3g7https://t.co/0akjmamDy6
The only qualifier to this is that his compulsive lying is also important to understand. He lies, as we have seen, about everything, about matters big and small, about things that matter and things that don’t.
He lies even when it makes no sense to lie. As one of his lawyers once told me, Trump couldn’t be allowed to talk to Mueller because “he’d lie his ass off.”
During a White House press event with Brazil’s virulently anti-LGBTQ President Jair Bolsonaro, Donald Trump told reporters he was “never a fan” of deceased Sen. John McCain, and he “never will be.”
This occurred while sitting next to a man who says he’d prefer a dead son than a gay son.
Trump: “I was never a fan of John McCain and I never will be”
Said while hosting President Bolsonaro of Brazil who once said he would prefer a dead son to a gay son.
In the aftermath of the Christchurch shooting in New Zealand which left 50 people dead, it was discovered that a manifesto was sent to the Prime Minister of New Zealand as well as media outlets.
In the documents, the accused gunman hailed Donald Trump as “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose” although he did not support his policies.
Donald Trump has since tweeted angry rebuttals for being ‘blamed’ for the shooting.
The Fake News Media is working overtime to blame me for the horrible attack in New Zealand. They will have to work very hard to prove that one. So Ridiculous!
Although he tweeted his ‘warmest sympathies’ and ‘best wishes’ to New Zealand, he refused to criticize the white supremacist ideology behind the shooting. This has been contrasted with his quick responses to Islamist terror attacks in the past.
New Zealand massacre suspect praised Trump as “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.”
Trump has:
1. Advocated banning all Muslims from the U.S.
2. Praised the (apocryphal) killing of Muslims with pigs blood
Congressional critics do not appear to have the votes to override Trump’s veto. So, as a practical matter, the administration can continue to spend billions of dollars more on border barriers than lawmakers authorized, unless and until the courts intervene.
“Today I am vetoing this resolution,” Trump said, flanked by law enforcement officials at an Oval Office event. “Congress has the freedom to pass this resolution and I have the duty to veto it.”
Trump had telegraphed his plan to proceed with additional wall spending on Thursday, minutes after the Senate voted 59-41 to block it. Twelve Republican senators joined Democrats in rejecting the president’s emergency declaration.
Trump declared a national emergency last month, after Congress authorized only $1.3 billion in border wall funding, far short of the $5.7 billion Trump had asked for. The emergency declaration allows the president to redirect funds from other accounts such as military construction to the Southern border wall.
Republican senators who bucked the president said they did so to preserve congressional control over the government’s purse strings.
The border wall project still faces a variety of legal challenges, and despite Trump’s veto, House and Senate votes against the emergency declaration could carry some weight in the courts.
Would this be a good time to remind folks that Trump lied all those times on the campaign stump when he claimed Mexico would pay for the wall?
Donald Trump’s former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, will now serve seven and a half years in prison after Judge Amy Berman Jackson of Federal District Court in Washington added 3.5 more years to his sentence on Wednesday.
In issuing her ruling, Judge Jackson said Manafort “spent a significant portion of his career gaming the system.”
Judge Amy Berman Jackson of Federal District Court in Washington sentenced Mr. Manafort, 69, on two conspiracy counts that encompassed a host of crimes, including money-laundering, obstruction of justice and failing to disclose lobbying work that earned him tens of millions of dollars over more than a decade.
“It is hard to overstate the number of lies and the amount of fraud and the amount of money involved,” she said, reeling off Mr. Manafort’s various offenses, rapid-fire. “There is no question that this defendant knew better and he knew what he was doing.”
Each charge carried a maximum of five years. But Judge Jackson noted that one count was closely tied to the same bank and tax fraud scheme that a federal judge in Virginia had sentenced Mr. Manafort for last week. Under sentencing guidelines, she said, those punishments should largely overlap, not be piled on top of each other. Mr. Manafort was also expected to get credit for the nine months he has already spent in jail.
Per Judge Jackson’s sentence, Manafort received for Count One 60 months, of which 30 months will run concurrent with last week’s sentence.
For Count Two, he received a sentence of 13 months which will run consecutive to count 1 and the earlier sentence in Virginia.
The Timesreports that Manafort begged Judge Jackson not to add to his time in prison. “This case has taken everything from me, already,” he said as he listed the assets he’s forfeited. “Please let my wife and I be together.”
Donald Trump hasn’t said definitively if he will pardon the 69-year-old, but he’s repeatedly spoken well of Manafort calling him “a brave man.”
The new state charges against Mr. Manafort are contained in a 16-count indictment that alleges a yearlong scheme in which he falsified business records to obtain millions of dollars in loans, Mr. Vance said in a news release after the federal sentencing.
“No one is beyond the law in New York,” he said, adding that the investigation by the prosecutors in his office had “yielded serious criminal charges for which the defendant has not been held accountable.”
The indictment grew out of an investigation that began in 2017, when the Manhattan prosecutors began examining loans Mr. Manafort received from two banks.
This complicates Manafort’s life much more.
While Donald Trump may pardon Manafort for his federal crimes, and it’s appeared that Manafort is counting on that, Trump has no pardon power over state charges.
