[RedState] When the home, residence, and office of Michael Cohen, who is President Trump’s personal lawyer, was raided by FBI working for the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, all of his personal and legal records, along with his personal electronic devices, were confiscated and opened to search. There may have been a law enforcement reason for this. But I doubt it. This investigation is being carried out as a proxy to Mueller’s investigation, it follows the same M.O. as the pre-dawn raid on Paul Manafort’s home, and seems calculated to intimidate, embarrass, and to gain access to records that would be off limits if the government tried to obtain them via subpoena. If you pay attention, we are already learning about Cohen’s activities via leaks that can only have one source.
One of the strategies the investigators have been using is painting Cohen as a fake lawyer, as a guy with a law degree but who only has one actual client, and, therefore his legally protected records could easily be identified by a prosecution appointed "taint team." The taint here is not what you’d find at urbandictionary.com nor does it do what you might imagine such a team to do. The idea is that you get prosecutors who aren’t involved in the case (yeah, I laughed at that, too) and they examine the privileged documents and only let the REAL prosecutors see things that are relevant. I don’t know if newspaper reporters fall in category of people authorized to see stuff, but it is beginning to look that way.
A New York federal judge says she is appointing a former Manhattan federal judge to help determine what materials seized in raids on the home and office of President Donald Trump’s private attorney are protected by attorney-client privilege.
Judge Kimba Wood said Thursday at a hearing that Barbara Jones has the right amount of experience to handle the study of materials seized in the April 9 raids that targeted attorney Michael Cohen.
Jones was a federal judge in New York for 17 years before leaving for private practice five years ago. Jones was nominated to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by President Bill Clinton on the recommendation of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
Or - The One Where Steny Hoyer Gets His Tony Soprano On.
[Zero Hedge] - In the latest striking example of how the Democratic Party resorts to cronyism (and perhaps corruption) to ensure that its favored candidates beat back progressive challengers in local races, a candidate for Colorado's 6th Congressional District has leaked a recording of a conversation with Minority Leader Steny Hoyer to The Intercept which published it overnight. In it, Hoyer can be heard essentially lecturing the candidate about why he should step aside and let the Democratic Party bosses - who of course have a better idea about which candidate will prevail over a popular Republican in the general election - continue pulling the strings.
The candidate, Levi Tillemann, is hardly a party outsider. Tillemann had grandparents on both sides of his family who were elected Democratic representatives, and his family is essentially Democratic Party royalty.
Still, the party's campaign arm - the notorious Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (better known as the DCCC, or D-trip) - refused to provide Tillemann with access to party campaign data or any of the other resources he requested. No data for you!
...except that Trump says no such thing.
U.S. President Donald Trump suggested Thursday evening that the U.S. consider removing support for certain nations if they lobbied against a joint bid by the U.S., Canada and Mexico to host the 2026 World Cup.
"The U.S. has put together a STRONG bid w/ Canada & Mexico for the 2026 World Cup," the president wrote on Twitter. "It would be a shame if countries that we always support were to lobby against the U.S. bid. Why should we be supporting these countries when they don’t support us (including at the United Nations)?" He did not single out any countries by name. "You help us & we'll help you." A fairly simple concept, isn't it?
Recent news reports have said the joint North American bid is in peril because of Trump’s rhetoric and a reluctance to grant the U.S. something at a time when the president has supported a travel ban against mostly Muslim countries and reportedly called unspecified African states "shithole countries." (Trump has denied using that specific language, but his account has been disputed by lawmakers who were present at the meeting where the alleged utterance occurred.) Nope, there's no such thing as liberal media bias!
[Intercept] HEADING INTO THE 2018 midterms, with Democrats hoping to take back the House of Representatives and even make a run at the Senate, the party has spent more than $2 million worth of campaign resources on payments to Hillary Clinton’s new group, Onward Together, according to Federal Election Commission filings and interviews with people familiar with the payments.
The Democratic National Committee is paying $1.65 million for access to the email list, voter data, and software produced by Hillary for America during the 2016 presidential campaign, Xochitl Hinojosa, a spokesperson for the DNC, told The Intercept. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has paid more than $700,000 to rent the same email list.
Clinton is legally entitled to rent her list to the party, rather than hand it over as a gift, but in 2015, Barack Obama gave his email list, valued at $1,942,640, to the DNC as an in-kind contribution. In 2013 and 2014, OFA had similarly made in-kind contributions exceeding $3.4 million for uses of the list that cycle.
Obama’s list was at one point considered to be the most valuable in politics and raised more than twice as much money for the 2012 Obama campaign as Clinton’s did for hers in 2016. The DNC agreement with the Clinton campaign calls on the debt-ridden organization to fork the money over to an entity of Clinton’s choosing, which wound up being Onward Together, the operation she formed after her campaign ceased to exist.
[NR] The Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation Thursday shielding Special Counsel Robert Mueller from potential dismissal.
The bill, which passed 14‐7 with the support of all the panel’s Democrats and four Republicans, codifies Department of Justice regulations that limit the reasons a special counsel can be fired, requires Congress be given advanced notice of an impending firing, and gives a terminated special counsel the chance to appeal their firing in court.
The measure has little chance of going to the Senate floor for a vote as Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has repeatedly indicated he doesn’t believe it is necessary.
The committee chairman, Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), made a last minute change to the bill Wednesday night to ensure its passage, removing a provision that would require the special counsel to notify congressional leadership "if there is any change made to the specific nature or scope" of their investigation. Democrats on the panel were reportedly concerned that the language would be used to provide Republicans an advanced opportunity to rebut forthcoming findings in the press.
"It is possible the bill goes too far," Grassley said at a committee meeting Thursday. "But at the very least, if my amendment is adopted, it will require the executive branch to give more information to Congress, and that will allow Congress to do its job more effectively and to safeguard the interests of the American people."
Rank-and-file Democrats continue to emphasize the importance of the legislation in light of Trump’s continued public attacks on Mueller’s investigation, while Republicans outside of the committee have been hesitant to voice their support, though many have publicly cautioned Trump against firing Mueller.
#1
I recall a bill passed by Congress, it prohibited President Andrew Johnson from firing any member of his (disloyal) Cabinet. He fired one. This was the basis of the subsequent impeachment proceedings. Can you say Deep State boys and girls. Make your agents above the law and accountability.
#3
I've been astounded by the Mueller whateveryoucallit and the lack of accomplishing anything in over a year. He has traveled all over the world looking for leads. It almost makes me think that maybe it was an intended sham. A sop for the left to chew on and think important things were being done whereas little was being done.
#5
Indict all of Mueller's underlings for "Collusion to Commit [fill in the blank]", do a pre-dawn raid on them, and then leave Mueller to twist in the breeze. If Mueller wants to play Gestapo then oblige him.
#9
As said above, the guy has examined EVERYTHING.
As a contrarian I wonder if the empty bucket isn't really full, and this shield is the final ploy in a long shell game.
I think a role as the President's special investigator is pending.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Intercept] HEADING INTO THE 2018 midterms, with Democrats hoping to take back the House of Representatives and even make a run at the Senate, the party has spent more than $2 million worth of campaign resources on payments to Hillary Clinton’s new group, Onward Together, according to Federal Election Commission filings and interviews with people familiar with the payments.
