The Donald Trump Score Card

Cohen apparently has had only three clients in the past year: Trump, Elliott Broidy, and Sean Hannity. The small number of clients will ease the review of attorney-client privilege issues.

Broidy resigned from his position as Deputy Finance Chairman of the RNC after having sex with a Playboy model who became pregnant during the affair. He agreed to pay the woman $1.6 million in hush money.

Cohen was appointed Deputy Finance Chairman of the RNC in April 2017.


R.N.C. Official Who Agreed to Pay Playboy Model $1.6 Million Resigns
By REBECCA R. RUIZ and JIM RUTENBERG
APRIL 13, 2018

R.N.C. Official Who Agreed to Pay Playboy Model $1.6 Million Resigns

excerpts:

"During the wide-ranging October meeting, Mr. Broidy raised numerous topics high on the agenda of the United Arab Emirates, a country that has given his security company a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He pitched the president on a paramilitary force his company was developing for the U.A.E. and urged Mr. Trump to fire Rex W. Tillerson, then the secretary of state, who the U.A.E. believed was insufficiently tough on its rival Qatar."

"In 2009, Mr. Broidy pleaded guilty to charges that he made nearly $1 million worth of illegal gifts to New York State officials in order to win an investment of $250 million from the state’s public pension fund. Among the gifts were trips to Israel and Italy, payouts to officials’ relatives and girlfriends and an investment in one relative’s production of a low-budget movie called “Chooch.”

 

Cohen, Trump, Broidy, and Hannity. A fine group of people.

 

Broidy has a contract with U.A.E. for his security company and Trump has his Trump International Golf Course in that country but doesn't have one in Qatar. It stands to reason why Tillerson may have been fired for supposedly not being tough enough on Qatar, which has been in a squabble with Saudi Arabia and U.A.E. Trump has sided with U.A.E. and with Saudi Arabia where he has eight companies registered.

Trump's remarks about Saudi Arabia at a rally in Alabama on August 21, 2016:

"They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.”

 

Trump's tabloid past may come back to haunt him
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
Updated 2:28 AM ET, Tue April 17, 2018

Trump's tabloid past may come back to haunt him - CNNPolitics

"That's partly because, were it not for a $130,000 payment Cohen made to Daniels to keep her quiet about an alleged affair with Trump, the Cohen raid and Monday's hearing may never have taken place.

It is not clear exactly where prosecutors from the hard-charging Southern District of New York are headed, but the payment could amount to a campaign finance violation.

Daniels' telegenic lawyer, Michael Avenatti, is an adept media manipulator -- playing the President at his own game, stoking newsy moments and leveraging the legal system to inject his client's case into the media bloodstream."

"The raid on Cohen increasingly looks like a new legal front, separate from special counsel Robert Mueller's probe, that could be immune from any attempt by Trump to neuter the special counsel."

 

Trump's lawyer Cohen now has bags under his eyes and Hannity is acting irrational.

 

Par for the course.

 

For some reason what you said here reminds me of when the Bundy Neo Nazi people used guns to take over a federal facility and got away with it. And at the same time Tamir Rice got killed for playing with a toy gun. White Christian America works in strange ways. White Christian logic of the Republicans is so strange.

 

Trump Enraged After Finding Out He Stood Up to Putin
We always hurt the ones we love.
by Isobel Thompson
April 16, 2018 4:19 pm

Trump Enraged After Finding Out He Stood Up to Putin

"The friendship Trump long sought with Putin has been forestalled by circumstances outside his control. “That breakup is happening now, whether the American president wants to be broken up with or not.”

Trump, naturally, has accepted this geopolitical reality with all the dignity of a lovesick teen whose parents have taken away his phone."

 

Nothing new...

 

The fire at Trump Tower was accidental and appears to be due to multiple overloaded electrical outlet strips.

Trump apparently hasn't made any public mention of the death of Brassner or offered any condolence. He doesn't hold in-person, meaningful press conferences, so no one has a good opportunity to question him about it.


Trump Tower fire was an accident, fire department says
Last Updated Apr 16, 2018 3:37 PM EDT

Trump Tower fire was an accident, fire department says

 

The Trump administration is distancing itself from Cohen who has been associated with Trump for 20 years and his personal lawyer for ten years.

If Cohen is charged, Trump will probably make a statement like: "I hardly knew him. Moreover, if I was in a room with him, I probably wouldn't recognize him."


The White House is laughably distancing Trump from Michael Cohen, and it’s déjà vu all over again
by Aaron Blake
April 17 at 9:38 AM

Analysis | The White House is laughably distancing Trump from Michael Cohen, and it’s déjà vu all over again

"George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser on the 2016 campaign: “The coffee boy.” “An extremely limited role.” “A volunteer position.”

Michael T. Flynn, White House national security adviser and 2016 campaign adviser: “A volunteer of the campaign.”

Paul Manafort, who served as head of the campaign for months spanning the Republican National Convention: “Played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time.”

Carter Page, another campaign foreign policy adviser: “Hanger-on.” “Has made no contribution to the campaign.” “Was a very low-level member of, I think, a committee for a short period of time.”

Roger Stone, a longtime informal Trump adviser: “Hanger-on.”"

 

The Art of the Self-Deal

The Trump painting is another example of his practice of playing on the criminal edge of finances.

Trump 'stores' a painting of himself at Trump's Doral golf resort purchased with nonprofit money.


This is the portrait of Donald Trump that his charity bought for $20,000
By David A. Fahrenthold
November 1, 2016

This is the portrait of Donald Trump that his charity bought for $20,000

From the article:

"When a check came, however, it wasn't Trump or his wife who actually paid for the painting. Instead, it was Trump's charity -- which, even by that time, was largely filled with money from other donors, and not from Trump himself.

Tax experts say that if Trump hung the painting at one of his homes or businesses, he may have violated laws against "self-dealing." Those laws prohibit charity leaders from using money from their nonprofits to buy things for themselves, or for their businesses.

In recent weeks, The Washington Post has reported other instances in which Trump may have violated those rules. He used $258,000 from the foundation to pay off legal settlements that involved his for-profit businesses. He spent $12,000 from the charity's coffers to buy a football helmet signed by then-Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow.

And he spent $10,000 to buy another portrait of himself in 2014. In that case, Trump paid $10,000 for the portrait. It was later found hanging on the wall of a sports bar at Trump's Doral golf resort. A spokesman for Trump, Boris Epshteyn, said later that Trump's business was actually just "storing" the portrait, on the charity's behalf. Tax experts said that does not cut it."

 

After firing McMaster, Trump was still denying Russian interference and blaming everything on Hillary.

Trump also mistakenly thinks that criminal activity to try to alter an election isn't criminal if it didn't change the outcome of the election. That's like saying a bank robbery attempt wasn't criminal if the robbers didn't get away with any money.

Trump has a similar pathological mindset about the issue of disclosing his tax returns, claiming that the public isn't interested in them because he won the election, in spite of polls that indicate otherwise.


Trump quote:

"General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems. Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company!
12:22 AM - Feb 18, 2018 "

 

McConnell and Ryan refuse to bring a bill to protect Mueller to the floor. I wonder if they are planning ahead for an escape route?

 

An he hasn't paid income takes in so long...so many years...and the IRS keeps his file under lock and key...if we do that we go to jail...

 

It appears to be a game of chicken right now. They might bring a bill to the floor to protect Mueller if Trump performs acts that initiate the removal of Mueller, such as firing Rosenstein. The bill itself would be subject to interpretation and it could be deemed un-Constitutional, which would add to the confusion. That may be why Congress hasn't yet voted on such a bill preemptively, although it has talked about it as a way of giving a warning to Trump of what might happen if he starts making moves to get rid of Mueller.

 

Another way of interpreting it is that the upper members of Congress are going to protect Trump anyway even if he gets cited by Mueller and that they would rather have Trump conform to the procedures because they feel he won't get impeached or removed from office. The talk about a bill to protect Mueller in that case would be just a formality for them to show to the public that they want to abide by the rule of law.

 

This is comedy... innit?