We may be observing Halloween today, but last night Stephen Colbert was thinking more along the lines of Christmas as he recounted the day’s headlines about 3 Trump campaign officials being charged in the ongoing investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Commenting on the president’s weekend tweets that included a caps-locked “DO SOMETHING!” which quickly became a trending hashtag, Colbert said, “There’s something so reassuringly presidential about the president screaming ‘DO SOMETHING!’ into the void.”
Former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about interactions with foreign agents with close contact to the Russian government.
Additionally, former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, and his longtime associate Rick Gates have been charged on 12 counts by special counsel Robert Mueller.
In court records unsealed on Monday, the FBI said George Papadopoulos “falsely described his interactions with a certain foreign contact who discussed ‘dirt’ related to emails” concerning Hillary Clinton.
In addition, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former Trump campaign official Rick Gates surrendered Monday to Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller.
Gates, 45, is a longtime business associate of Manafort, 68, having worked together since the mid-2000s, and served as his deputy on the campaign. The two were indicted under seal on Friday, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The charges against Manafort and Gates are unrelated to the Trump campaign, but Papadopoulos’ guilty plea brings the Mueller probe into actions that occurred during the 2016 campaign.
Papadopoulos lied to FBI agents “about the timing, extent and nature of his relationships and interactions with certain foreign nationals whom he understood to have close connections with senior Russian government officials,” according to the complaint. Mueller signed a 14-page statement regarding Papadopoulos’ offense, which lays out of the facts of the case.
The indictment against Manafort and Gates contains 12 counts: conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.
The charges do not cover any activities related to the campaign, though it’s possible Mueller could add additional charges.
Note: Papadopoulos was arrested on July 27, 2017, and we are just now hearing about it. While the White House has tons of info leaks going on, Robert Mueller’s investigation is tight and locked down. No leaks coming from his team.
Donald Trump responded to the charges via Twitter saying the actions noted in Manafort’s charges
Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren’t Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????
"Following his arrest, defendant PAPADOPOULOS met with the Government on numerous occasions to provide information and answer questions." pic.twitter.com/BVFFfkpdtg— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) October 30, 2017
Meanwhile, as the nation focuses on the fact that advisers to the president have been indicted on charges of conspiracy against the United States, this is what Fox News is doing this morning:
Donald Trump had his predictable Twitter meltdown this morning in anticipation of actual charges coming from the Mueller/Russia investigation.
“Never seen such Republican ANGER & UNITY as I have concerning the lack of investigation on Clinton made Fake Dossier (now $12,000,000?),… the Uranium to Russia deal, the 33,000 plus deleted Emails, the Comey fix and so much more. Instead they look at phony Trump/Russia,… “collusion,” which doesn’t exist. The Dems are using this terrible (and bad for our country) Witch Hunt for evil politics, but the R’s……are now fighting back like never before. There is so much GUILT by Democrats/Clinton, and now the facts are pouring out. DO SOMETHING! All of this “Russia” talk right when the Republicans are making their big push for historic Tax Cuts & Reform. Is this coincidental? NOT!”
A summary of Trump's 4-tweet thread: Mueller is moving much faster than I expected. Distractions aren't working. I'm screwed. DO SOMETHING! pic.twitter.com/8O4q2qBKU4— Chet Powell (@ChetPowell) October 29, 2017
As the authorities move in on him, Donald Trump is frantically yelling "DO SOMETHING!" at his allies. Because that's precisely how innocent people act.— Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) October 29, 2017
With the news of impending charges approved by a grand jury in the ongoing investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski appeared on (where else?) Fox & Friends to assure the faithful that “this has nothing to do with the president.”
“Let me be very very clear, I am certain of this, this has nothing to do with the president. If there were players on the outside that had a periphery or a small role of some type in the campaign, my guess is these charges have nothing to do with the campaign because I was there, there was no collusion, cooperation or coordination with Russia. So, let’s see what Mueller does, but the dam is not breaking. The only thing that is breaking are the Democrats.”
According to Donald Trump and his White House, you would think the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is just about over and was a big bust.
Trump tweeted today, “It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump. Was collusion with HC!”
But that’s not at all the truth. It is not “commonly agreed” that there was nothing there.
As a matter of fact, check out this in today’s New York Times:
Natalia V. Veselnitskaya arrived at a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 hoping to interest top Trump campaign officials in the contents of a memo she believed contained information damaging to the Democratic Party and, by extension, Hillary Clinton. The material was the fruit of her research as a private lawyer, she has repeatedly said, and any suggestion that she was acting at the Kremlin’s behest that day is anti-Russia “hysteria.”
But interviews and records show that in the months before the meeting, Ms. Veselnitskaya had discussed the allegations with one of Russia’s most powerful officials, the prosecutor general, Yuri Y. Chaika.
And the memo she brought with her closely followed a document that Mr. Chaika’s office had given to an American congressman two months earlier, incorporating some paragraphs verbatim.
The coordination between the Trump Tower visitor and the Russian prosecutor general undercuts Ms. Veselnitskaya’s account that she was a purely independent actor when she sat down with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and Paul J. Manafort, then the Trump campaign chairman.
It also suggests that emails from an intermediary to the younger Mr. Trump promising that Ms. Veselnitskaya would arrive with information from Russian prosecutors were rooted at least partly in fact — not mere “puffery,” as the president’s son later said.
Bolding is mine.
Puffery refers to “puffing up” an exaggerated image of what is being described.
The idea that Veselnitskaya’s memo having identical language as Russian Prosecutor General Chaika’s being mere coincidence is something no one believes.
The Washington Postis reporting that former campaign chairman Paul Manafort offered a Russian billionaire “briefings” on the state of the presidential campaign last July at the height of the election.
Less than two weeks before Donald Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination, his campaign chairman offered to provide briefings on the race to a Russian billionaire closely aligned with the Kremlin, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Paul Manafort made the offer in an email to an overseas intermediary, asking that a message be sent to Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum magnate with whom Manafort had done business in the past, these people said.
“If he needs private briefings we can accommodate,” Manafort wrote in the July 7, 2016, email, portions of which were read to The Washington Post along with other Manafort correspondence from that time.
The emails are among tens of thousands of documents that have been turned over to congressional investigators and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team as they probe whether Trump associates coordinated with Russia as part of Moscow’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election.
A spokesperson for Manafort called the emails “innocuous.”
No wonder the investigation is focusing on Manafort.
A lot of bad news tonight for former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
• Back in July when federal agents appeared at his home to search his home for evidence in connection to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, experts say he was “setting a tone” for the investigation.
That search was followed by a message from Mueller’s team: prosecutors planned to indict him.
According to the New York Times, Manafort is now “under investigation for possible violations of tax laws, money-laundering prohibitions and requirements to disclose foreign lobbying.”
The New York Times is reporting there is disagreement among Donald Trump’s lawyers on how to handle turning over documents to Special Counsel Robert Mueller who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.
White House counsel Donald McGahn is in favor of a more measured, cautious manner in terms of turning over documents, but Ty Cobb, an outside lawyer brought in to handle the White House response to the investigation, supports turning over every email and document Mueller requests (which is what they are supposed to do anyway, no?).
Making matters more complicated, Cobb was recently overheard talking about strategy and inhouse intrigue during a lunch at a popular D.C. steakhouse.
With a reporter from the New York Times sitting at the next table, no less.
The friction escalated in recent days after Mr. Cobb was overheard by a reporter for The New York Times discussing the dispute during a lunchtime conversation at a popular Washington steakhouse. Mr. Cobb was heard talking about a White House lawyer he deemed “a McGahn spy” and saying Mr. McGahn had “a couple documents locked in a safe” that he seemed to suggest he wanted access to. He also mentioned a colleague whom he blamed for “some of these earlier leaks,” and who he said “tried to push Jared out,” meaning Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, who has been a previous source of dispute for the legal team.
The Times goes on to say that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly “sharply reprimanded Mr. Cobb for his indiscretion.”
Even in entertainment, I learned long ago from my publicist superstar husband to always assume someone can hear you in public.
#amateurhour
SCOOP: Don McGahn scolded Ty Cobb for discussing Russia investigation at DC steakhouse, where @nytimes overheard it. https://t.co/sg1u1Gwp0I
Here’s a photo of Ty Cobb & John Dowd casually & loudly discussing details of Russia investigation at @BLTSteakDC while I sat at next table. pic.twitter.com/RfX9JLJ0Te
The eldest son of Donald Trump gave hours of testimony to Senate investigators today regarding his June 2016 meeting with a “Russian government attorney” regarding information about his father’s opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Donald Trump Jr. told Senate investigators on Thursday that he set up a June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer because he was intrigued that she might have damaging information about Hillary Clinton, saying it was important to learn about Mrs. Clinton’s “fitness” to be president.
But nothing came of the Trump Tower meeting, he said, and he was adamant that he never colluded with the Russian government’s campaign to disrupt last year’s presidential election.
In a prepared statement during an interview with Senate Judiciary Committee investigators, the younger Mr. Trump said he was initially conflicted when he heard that the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, might have damaging information about Mrs. Clinton. Despite his interest, he said, he always intended to consult with his own lawyers about the propriety of using any information that Ms. Veselnitskaya, who has ties to the Kremlin, gave him at the meeting.
Don Jr. initially told the media that he attended the meeting to talk about Russian adoptions.
Shortly after Don Jr.’s testimony, Sen. Chris Coons send the media the specific statute that addresses lying to Congress.
I’m guessing that’s a not-so-subtle hint he didn’t believe Uday?
👀 After Don Jr. testimony to Senate Judiciary Cmte, Sen. Chris Coons’ office sends out statute on giving false statements to Congress pic.twitter.com/OUdKXMBfqm
