Donald J. Trump was burning through cash.
It was early 2016, and he was lending tens of millions of dollars to his presidential campaign and had been spending large sums to expand the Trump Organization’s roster of high-end properties.
To finance his business’s growth, Mr. Trump turned to a longtime ally, Deutsche Bank, one of the few banks still willing to lend money to the man who has called himself “The King of Debt.”
The information came from a filing involving Concord Management and Consulting LLC, which is controlled by so-called Putin chef Yevgeny Prigozhin.
“In the filing, Mueller’s team said ‘non-sensitive’ evidence that had been shared exclusively with Concord’s U.S. law firm, Reed Smith, had wound up being disseminated, purportedly as a result of a hacking operation targeting the law firm,” Bloomberg reported.
Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said that he expects the investigation to be wrapped up soon, but judging from FBI Director Christopher Wray’s face, that might not actually be the case.
View the complete January 30 article by Sarah K. Burris of Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, and hosts and guests on cable news shows reacted to the indictment of longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone on Jan. 25. (Allie Caren, Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)
The growing number of lies that members of President Trump’s team have admitted to or been accused of telling investigators leads to one big question: Why?
Why would these people risk jail time to tell lies if there wasn’t something significant being covered up? Many of them had to know exactly the stakes of lying to the government, and they did it anyway. Why take such a risk to protect … nothing?
It might be the defining question of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation — especially given that this is the predominant crime being charged and pleaded to. We still have no members of the Trump team charged with conspiracy. (Though just because there have been no such charges doesn’t mean they couldn’t be coming. Prosecutors have an incentive to charge smaller crimes before bigger ones and to keep their evidence under wraps.)
View the complete January 28 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.
Stone: “There is no circumstance under which I would plead guilty to these charges. There’s no circumstance in which I would bear false witness against the president.”President Donald Trump confidant Roger Stone’s first media appearance following his departure from a courtroom — where he was charged with several crimes related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — was on Alex Jones’ Infowars outlet, which employs Stone as a show host.
During his appearance, Stone denied committing crimes, repeatedly promoted his legal defense fund, and promised that he would never testify against Trump.
Stone was arrested the morning of January 25 and charged with five counts of making false statements, one count of obstructing a proceeding, and one count of witness tampering. He had been under investigation by the special counsel’s office over whether he had inside information about emails hacked by Russia and then released by WikiLeaks in the 2016 election cycle.
View the complete January 25 article by Timothy Johnson on the Media Matters website here.
Now that close Trump adviser Roger Stone has been indicted, former CIA director John Brennan is more convinced than ever that Robert Mueller’s investigation will prove damning for Trump.
Brennen said Friday that he thinks it’s “quite evident” the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election, that this collusion may have “gone to the very top” to Trump himself, and that it could even rise to the level of “criminal conspiracy.”
“There was an extensive effort to try to influence the outcome of the [2016] election that involved the Russians, that involved U.S. persons, and that may have gone to the very top of the Trump campaign,” Brennan said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
DW: Why is the indictment and arrest of longtime Donald Trump adviser Roger Stone so significant?
Richard Painter: This is direct evidence of collusion between high-ranking officials in the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks to obtain documents stolen by the Russians in the 2016 election. There is other evidence, of course, of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. So this clearly closes the loop and makes clear that the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians, with WikiLeaks to obtain damaging emails that have been stolen from Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
While President Trump is not directly implicated in this new indictment, do you think he could be in the future?
Absolutely yes, the president and high-ranking officials in the campaign, including perhaps even, or probably, Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr, who were in the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians to talk about incriminating dirt on Hillary that they wanted to get. So this is all starting to come together. This is a very bad situation for President Trump.
View the complete January 26 article on the Deutche Welle website here.
Trump and his White House repeatedly denied that there were any contacts between members of the Trump campaign and Russia. They were lying.
NOW:
Trump and at least 17 of his campaign officials and advisers had more than 100 contacts with Russians before his inauguration.
New York Times: “During the 2016 presidential campaign and transition, Donald J. Trump and at least 17 campaign officials and advisers had contacts with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks, or their intermediaries, a New York Times analysis has found. At least 10 other associates were told about interactions but did not have any themselves.”
Top Trump officials have been accused of lying to investigators about their Russian contacts. They question is why did they all feel the need to lie?
Washington Post: “Trump’s former campaign chairman, deputy campaign manager, former national security adviser, personal lawyer and a campaign foreign policy adviser have all been accused of lying to investigators exploring Russia activity.”
THEN:
Trump denied any campaign contact with Russia, “with a firm ‘no.’”
Jim Acosta: “Fortunately ABC’s Cecilia Vega asked my question about whether any Trump associates contacted Russians. Trump said no.”
NBC News: “Trump did not specifically address questions regarding whether members of his staff were in contact with Russian officials during the campaign. When a reporter repeated that question to Trump afterwards as the president-elect approached the elevator to exit the room, he answered ‘No.'”
Trump said that nobody he knew of on the campaign had contacts with Russians.
Trump: “‘I have nothing to do with Russia,’ he told reporters on Thursday. ‘To the best of my knowledge, no person that I deal with does.’”
Question: “Can you say whether you are aware that anyone who advised your campaign had contacts with Russia during the course of the election?”
[…]
Trump: “No. Nobody that I know of. Nobody…”
Mike Pence on whether there was any contact between Trump or his associates and anyone associated with the Kremlin: “Of course not.”
Question: “Was there any contact, in any way, between Trump or his associates and the Kremlin or cutouts?”
Pence: “Of course not. Why would there be any contacts between the campaign?”
Kellyanne Conway on whether any members of the Trump campaign had contact with Russians: “Absolutely not.”
Question: “Did anyone involved in the Trump campaign have any contact with Russians trying to meddle with the election?”
Conway: “Absolutely not.”
Sarah Sanders said “no contacts took place” between the Trump campaign and Russians.
Sanders: “‘This is a nonstory because to the best of our knowledge, no contacts took place, so it’s hard to make a comment on something that never happened,’ Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a White House spokeswoman, said on Monday.”
Hope Hicks: “There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.”
Hicks: “It never happened. There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.”
Reince Priebus said there were no contacts between Trump associates and Russia during the 2016 campaign.
Question: “One, do you flatly deny any contact, any coordination between Mr. Trump, his campaign, his associates and the Russians in interfering?”
Priebus: “Even this question is insane. Of course, we didn’t interface with the Russians.”
The Fix’s Aaron Blake analyzes Roger Stone’s indictment and what it means for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia probe. (JM Rieger/The Washington Post)
The indictment we — including the indicted party — have been expecting for months has finally come. Roger Stone, President Trump’s longest-serving political adviser, has been charged with lying to investigators.
The alleged lies pertain to his efforts to secure information from WikiLeaks about its release of Democrats’ emails during the 2016 campaign. Here are four key sections and takeaways.
[Document: Read the indictment against Roger Stone]
There’s really not a lot of ambiguity when it comes to Stone’s alleged lies. At one point, the indictment includes two exchanges in which Stone denies ever communicating with his WikiLeaks intermediary via text or email.
View the complete January 25 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.
Roger Stone, the politically connected maverick who worked as an informal adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, has been indicted as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.
Stone has been indicted on seven counts in connection with Mueller’s investigation: one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering.
Stone was arrested in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the special counsel’s office said in a statement early Friday. The indictment was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Thursday and unsealed upon arrest on Friday.
DNC Chair Tom Perez released the following statement after longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone was arrested and charged with obstruction, witness tampering, and giving false statements:
“The Trump campaign was a willing and active participant in a conspiracy with Russia and WikiLeaks to influence the 2016 election. There are more conspirators yet to be held accountable – and at least one of them is named Donald Trump.”
