Papadopoulos被判刑（获特朗普总统特赦）, Cohen入狱三年, Manafort获刑7.5年、Gates, Flynn, Patten认罪， Roger Stone获刑40个月；Flynn、Manafort、Stone获特朗普总统特赦; Steve Bannon、纳瓦罗被判四个月监禁
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Forgive “Fox & Friends” host Steve Doocy, but he asked a rather logical question on Monday morning. In a chat with fellow Fox News host Sean Hannity, Doocy asked, “What do you make of Robert Mueller and the suggestion that the president is about to fire him? You don’t think that’s a good idea, do you?”
There was plenty of grist to feed that particular inquiry, especially in the vicinity of @realDonaldTrump:
A total WITCH HUNT with massive conflicts of interest!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 19, 2018
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 19, 2018
The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime. It was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC, and improperly used in FISA COURT for surveillance of my campaign. WITCH HUNT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2018
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2018
“The president didn’t say he was going to fire him,” Hannity said. “This is … the fake news media doing what they do best. The president made a comment — and maybe if I was advising the president, I’d say ‘Let this investigation go forward.’ We’re probably coming to the end of it, if I had to render a guess, and it would be in his best interest probably not to comment — but look at the president’s comments closely, and the media took it the wrong way: And all the president was saying, this never should have been, this never should have happened. The president is 1,000 percent right. There never was any Trump-Russia collusion. … There’s not going to be any firing of Mueller. The White House issued a statement late last night.”
Bolding added to highlight two points.
No. 1: Hannity is advising the president, whether that happens via the television set …
.@seanhannity on @foxandfriends now! Great! 8:18 A.M.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 19, 2018
… or whether it happens via one of the many direct conversations that have been reported over and over again. “Do I talk to my friend who I’ve known for years and speak my mind? I can’t not speak my mind,” Hannity told the New York Times during the presidential campaign.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 19, 2018
And some adviser you are, Sean Hannity! How many times have you said that the Mueller investigation needs to be “disbanded immediately” or “shut down immediately” or otherwise ditched?
No 2.: On what basis is Hannity suddenly an authority on President Trump’s plans vis-a-vis Mueller? We saw the depth of his expertise on this front, after all, play out on Fox News itself. It was back in January, after the New York Times reported that Trump, in June 2017, had ordered Mueller fired. “At this hour, the New York Times is trying to distract you. They have a story that Trump wanted Mueller fired sometime last June, and our sources, and I’ve checked in with many of them, they’re not confirming that tonight,” said Hannity. “And the president’s attorney dismissed the story, and says, ‘Nope, no comment, we’re not going there.’ And how many times has the New York Times and others gotten it wrong?”
As the show concluded, Hannity was forced to admit — via reporting by Fox News’s Ed Henry — that, yes, the New York Times was right about Trump-Mueller. The president, indeed, had ordered the special counsel to be dismissed. And Hannity won the January ratings.
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(CNN) As President Donald Trump's reaction to special counsel Robert Mueller grows more irate by the day, attorneys on both sides sat down last week in a rare face-to-face discussion about the topics investigators could inquire of the President. It was the first in-person meeting after several weeks of informal discussions between the two sides, according to two sources familiar with the talks.
Mueller's team added granularity to the topics it originally discussed with the defense team months ago, like the firing of FBI Director James Comey, according to one of the sources. This time around, for instance, the prosecutors said they would ask about Attorney General Jeff Sessions' involvement in the Comey dismissal and what Trump knew about national security adviser Michael Flynn's phone calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in late December 2016.
The meeting makes clear that Mueller's investigation into contact between Russians and the Trump campaign and other criminal matters isn't likely to end anytime soon and still may focus on Trump and what he knew. The meeting and its revelations also have unleashed a new level of Trump's public hostility toward Mueller, even while some of the President's advisers show a willingness to negotiate Trump's testimony.
The President's attorneys sent the special counsel a summary of evidence they had turned over to prosecutors already, a practice they've followed multiple times throughout the investigation. Mueller himself didn't attend the meeting. But prosecutors including former Watergate prosecutor James Quarles III gave Trump's lawyers enough detail that the President's team wrote a memo with possible questions they expect to be asked of him.
One source familiar with the matter said the President has vacillated on agreeing to an interview in recent months. Trump was interested in speaking with Mueller's team if the probe would end soon, as his lawyers had long promised, another source said. But once the President realized Mueller's work isn't nearing a conclusion, he's become more agitated and has lashed out on Twitter.
"They (the legal team) created the expectation that the probe was going to be done in December," and that expectation, plus the recent discussions and a subpoena of Trump Organization documents, set the President off.
Both sides could reach an agreement about the proposed sit-down interview -- and whether they'll even allow it -- in the coming weeks, according to a source familiar with the matter.
A spokesman for the special counsel's office declined to comment Monday night.
CNN reported in January that Mueller's team had given the President's lawyers general topics for an interview, such as Trump's request that Comey drop the investigation into Flynn, his reaction to Comey's May 2017 testimony on Capitol Hill, and Trump's contact with intelligence officials about the Russia investigation.
A source familiar with the talks said more recent discussions about Trump's interview also touched on Sessions and Flynn. Sessions previously spoke to Mueller's team while investigators looked into possible obstruction of justice. And during the transition, Flynn had spoken to Kisklyak about sanctions and the United Nations, then lied to investigators about the calls before Trump fired him. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to investigators and agreed to cooperate with Mueller in December.
publicly offered to speak with Mueller under oath and even said he looked forward to the opportunity. Yet behind the scenes, the President has wavered on his pledge as friends and advisers cautioned him of the risks of speaking to prosecutors who've already charged 19 individuals with criminal offenses, including lying. Until this point, Mueller's prosecutors have made it clear they wanted to speak with Trump but had no formal discussion with the President's lawyers about setting up the interview.
For months, Trump's defense lawyer inside the White House, Ty Cobb, has downplayed Mueller's need for the President's testimony and the depth of the investigation. Yet the meeting last week made it clear to Trump that Mueller won't wrap up soon.
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President Trump's legal team is forking over extensive written documents to special counsel Robert Mueller in hopes that any in-person interview with Trump will be brief and limited to a few select topics, according to a report.
Trump's lawyers are worried that he might start lying if he sits down for a lengthy session with Mueller's team, multiple people familiar with the situation told The Washington Post.
Trump, who has a well-documented pattern of making factually dubious claims, has hinted that he's eager to sit down with Mueller, the sources said.
But, hoping to limit the scope of any potential interview, Trump's legal team has been submitting written descriptions of key moments that Mueller's team has shown interest in.
Mueller is particularly interested in Trump's decision to fire ex-FBI Director James Comey and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, sources said. The high-profile firings could land Trump in hot water, as investigators look into whether they constitute obstruction of justice.
Mueller is also probing whether there was any coordination between Trump's campaign and the Russian government.
The written statements provided to Mueller by the legal team include condensed versions of internal White House memos, sources said.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is particularly interested in Trump's decision to fire ex-FBI Director James Comey and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. (Joshua Roberts/REUTERS)
The statements — which were described as providing the White House's view, not Trump's personal one — are focused on answering two questions from Mueller's investigators, according to two sources: "What did (Trump) do?" and "what was he thinking when he did it?"
The White House and the special counsel's office declined to comment.
News of the written statements from Trump's legal team came hours after a source confirmed to the Daily News that the President is adding Joseph diGenova to his legal team.
DiGenova, a longtime Washington, D.C., lawyer, has publically pushed a conspiracy theory that there's a secret society within the FBI bent on undermining the Trump administration and shielding Hillary Clinton.
With diGenova on his way in, Trump broke with the advice of his legal team Sunday and publically disparaged Mueller's integrity.
"Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans" Trump tweeted. "Another Dem recently added…does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!"
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President Trump's legal team is forking over extensive written documents to special counsel Robert Mueller in hopes that any in-person interview with Trump will be brief and limited to a few select topics, according to a report.
Trump's lawyers are worried that he might start lying if he sits down for a lengthy session with Mueller's team, multiple people familiar with the situation told The Washington Post.
Trump, who has a well-documented pattern of making factually dubious claims, has hinted that he's eager to sit down with Mueller, the sources said.
But, hoping to limit the scope of any potential interview, Trump's legal team has been submitting written descriptions of key moments that Mueller's team has shown interest in.
Mueller is particularly interested in Trump's decision to fire ex-FBI Director James Comey and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, sources said. The high-profile firings could land Trump in hot water, as investigators look into whether they constitute obstruction of justice.
Mueller is also probing whether there was any coordination between Trump's campaign and the Russian government.
The written statements provided to Mueller by the legal team include condensed versions of internal White House memos, sources said.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is particularly interested in Trump's decision to fire ex-FBI Director James Comey and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. (Joshua Roberts/REUTERS)
The statements — which were described as providing the White House's view, not Trump's personal one — are focused on answering two questions from Mueller's investigators, according to two sources: "What did (Trump) do?" and "what was he thinking when he did it?"
The White House and the special counsel's office declined to comment.
News of the written statements from Trump's legal team came hours after a source confirmed to the Daily News that the President is adding Joseph diGenova to his legal team.
DiGenova, a longtime Washington, D.C., lawyer, has publically pushed a conspiracy theory that there's a secret society within the FBI bent on undermining the Trump administration and shielding Hillary Clinton.
With diGenova on his way in, Trump broke with the advice of his legal team Sunday and publically disparaged Mueller's integrity.
"Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans" Trump tweeted. "Another Dem recently added…does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!"
用这种心理猜测作为新闻标题，美国的新闻届烂透了。
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Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump's lead lawyer, John Dowd, has resigned from the President's personal legal team handling the response to the Russia investigation.
"I love the President and wish him well," Dowd said in a statement to CNN.
Dowd, who has urged the President to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller's probe and resist attacking him publicly, resigned as his disagreements with Trump intensified and the President stepped up his attacks on the special counsel. His departure raises questions about the direction of Trump's legal strategy and could signal a more aggressive posture on Trump's part.
Just days before his resignation, Dowd said in a statement the investigation should end, initially claiming he was speaking for the President before saying he was only speaking for himself. Two sources familiar with the matter said Trump had encouraged Dowd to speak out. But the statement only drew unwanted headlines and stoked turmoil within the President's legal team, according to multiple sources.
One source familiar with the decision described Dowd's resignation as a "mutual decision."
Despite public claims that he was happy with him, Trump complained privately in recent days that he thought Dowd was falling short of his duties, a source familiar with his thinking said. He questioned whether he had the energy or capacity to continue on in his role as the lead lawyer for the special counsel's investigation.
It was not immediately clear who would take over as the President's lead personal attorney, but Trump earlier this week hired another veteran Washington attorney, Joseph diGenova, to join his legal team. DiGenova was expected to play a forward-facing role on the legal team, filling what Trump felt was a lack of voices publicly defending him and challenging the special counsel.
DiGenova had publicly argued that Trump had been "framed" by FBI and Justice Department officials.
Dowd's departure also raises questions about the fate of negotiations between the President's attorneys and the special counsel's team over a potential interview with the President as Dowd has been the main point of contact with the special counsel's team throughout the investigation. One source said there is concern about the void Dowd will leave in his wake, particularly as Trump has had trouble finding top-flight lawyers to join his legal team.
Jay Sekulow, one of Trump's private attorneys, called Dowd a "friend" and said he "has been a valuable member of our legal team."
"We will continue our ongoing representation of the President and our cooperation with the Office of Special Counsel," Sekulow said in a statement.
The New York Times and The Washington Post first reported Dowd's resignation.
As the investigation seems to be intensifying, the President, according to multiple sources, is convinced he needs to take the reins of his own legal strategy and Trump has recently pushed to bring new attorneys onto his team.
The shift distressed some of his lawyers, namely Dowd, who felt blindsided and insulted by the President's hire of diGenova and other shifts, privately threatening to quit before ultimately resigning on Thursday, two sources said.
Trump had also continued to speak regularly with Marc Kasowitz, his longtime lawyer who stepped back from leading the team months ago but still remained involved.
Kasowitz had long recommended that Trump take a more aggressive posture toward the Mueller investigation. That strategy was on the backburner as Dowd and Ty Cobb, the White House's special counsel on the matter, worked with Mueller and urged the President to refrain from appearing to publicly undermine the Mueller investigation. Now that has all changed, as the President has reverted to his initial strategy to attack. An experienced cable news commentator, diGenova shares the President's view that the FBI and the Justice Department have waged a corrupt battle against him.
Dowd also faced criticism over his handling of the response to the guilty plea of Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who became the first Trump administration official to face charges in Mueller's investigation.
Dowd landed himself and the President in hot water after a tweet he says he authored suggested Trump knew Flynn lied to the FBI in January, reviving questions of whether Trump committed obstruction of justice when he allegedly asked then-FBI Director James Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.
"I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies," the tweet on Trump's account said.
The tweet led Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, to note that the committee is investigating obstruction of justice and said: "What we're beginning to see is the putting together of a case of obstruction of justice."
In a testy exchange with CNN, Dowd said he authored the tweet, but then suggested it was incorrect, claiming that "at the time of the firing no one including Justice had accused Flynn of lying."
He declined to answer additional questions, saying: "Enough already ... I don't feed the haters."
The response was characteristic of Dowd's hard-charging style, which initially endeared him to the President and made him the lead attorney on the President's legal team after Kasowitz was asked to step back in July.
The latest shake-up now leaves questions about whether Trump's legal team will pursue the strategy that Dowd laid out in the wake of Flynn's guilty plea, when Dowd claimed that Trump could not be prosecuted for obstruction of justice because he is the US President and therefore its "chief law enforcement officer."
Dowd's claim signaled the President's legal team plans to rely on an untested theory that is heavily disputed by legal scholars: whether a sitting President can be charged with obstruction of justice or indicted at all.
(CNN) The resignation of John Dowd, Donald Trump's top personal attorney, is the latest -- and largest -- signal that the President of the United States is shifting his strategy in regards special counsel Bob Mueller's ongoing probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Even as Mueller's questions for Trump have come into much sharper relief over the past 10 days, Trump has upped his personal attacks on the former FBI director even while adding controversial conservative attorney/talking head Joseph di Genova to his team. And now, the Dowd resignation.
The message is unmistakable: The closer Mueller and his team move to Trump himself -- the terms of an interview between the special counsel and the President remain a matter of considerable debate -- the more the President appears to be bracing for a very negative end result from the probe and putting the pieces in places to win the PR battle that will follow the conclusion of the Mueller probe.
Remember that Dowd was part of the legal braintrust that assured Trump that this whole Mueller probe would be wrapped up by the end of the year, that there was absolutely nothing to worry about and that the best course of action for Trump was to ignore Mueller.
What appears to have dawned on Trump is that playing nice (or his version of nice) with Mueller isn't working. Mueller doesn't appear to be moving to end the probe any time soon and he seems disinclined to treat Trump nicely. Of course, this was always a ridiculous supposition by Trump: Mueller is leading a criminal probe and will go wherever the evidence leads. The idea that he would go easy on the President because Trump didn't attack him by name is totally without grounding in anything we know about Mueller.
But, that certainly seems like the bill of goods that Trump's legal team sold to the President, likely as a way to manage his worst instincts when it came to the Mueller probe. This is all taken care of, boss, you can imagine them telling Trump. It's all going to be over soon and you are going to be very happy with the results.
Trump bought that view -- or at least didn't outright dismiss it -- for quite a while. And, less than two weeks ago, he was insisting that reports that he was plotting a shakeup of his legal team was false.
Tweeted Trump: "The Failing New York Times purposely wrote a false story stating that I am unhappy with my legal team on the Russia case and am going to add another lawyer to help out. Wrong. I am VERY happy with my lawyers, John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow. They are doing a great job and have shown conclusively that there was no Collusion with Russia."
That veil has been torn off for Trump now -- likely the result of the face-to-face meeting late last week between his lawyers and the special counsel's office in which Mueller and his team went over the areas they are interested in talking to the president about: The June 2016 meeting with the Russians at Trump Tower, his role in crafting a statement from his son Don Jr. about that meeting, his firing of Mike Flynn as the national security adviser and the firing of James Comey as FBI director.
What that meeting seems to drive home for Trump is the reality of his situation. And the fact that the "play nice" strategy with Mueller had gotten him exactly zilch.
And so, Trump began taking matters into his own hands. The hiring of di Genova, an attorney who has regularly espoused the idea that there is a deep-state conspiracy within the government trying to frame Trump for Russia's election meddling, was the first sign of the change. Then came Trump's tweets over the weekend -- in which he called out Mueller by name and, wrongly, said there were 13 Democrats on Mueller's team. The resignation of Dowd feels of a piece with those moves.
This is all Trump taking back control of his own messaging around the special counsel investigation. He tried it "their" way. Now he is going to do it his way.
And what is Trump's way? A relentless effort to undermine Mueller and those who work for him in hopes of discrediting whatever the special counsel ultimately finds. If Trump, di Genova and the rest can sell the idea to the conservative base that Mueller -- a Republican who was appointed FBI director by George W. Bush -- is a partisan Democrat pursuing the Deep State's anti-Trump agenda, then it lessens the blow of whatever Mueller finds. OF course Mueller's report is negative about Trumpworld! He's part of the establishment! And all that.
The simple fact is this: Trump has come to the realization that Mueller has backed him into a corner. And when Trump's back is against the wall, he reverts back to what (and who) he knows best. And that's attack, attack, attack. Get ready. Because that's what's coming.
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Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump's lead lawyer, John Dowd, has resigned from the President's personal legal team handling the response to the Russia investigation.
"I love the President and wish him well," Dowd said in a statement to CNN.
Dowd, who has urged the President to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller's probe and resist attacking him publicly, resigned as his disagreements with Trump intensified and the President stepped up his attacks on the special counsel. His departure raises questions about the direction of Trump's legal strategy and could signal a more aggressive posture on Trump's part.
Just days before his resignation, Dowd said in a statement the investigation should end, initially claiming he was speaking for the President before saying he was only speaking for himself. Two sources familiar with the matter said Trump had encouraged Dowd to speak out. But the statement only drew unwanted headlines and stoked turmoil within the President's legal team, according to multiple sources.
One source familiar with the decision described Dowd's resignation as a "mutual decision."
Despite public claims that he was happy with him, Trump complained privately in recent days that he thought Dowd was falling short of his duties, a source familiar with his thinking said. He questioned whether he had the energy or capacity to continue on in his role as the lead lawyer for the special counsel's investigation.
It was not immediately clear who would take over as the President's lead personal attorney, but Trump earlier this week hired another veteran Washington attorney, Joseph diGenova, to join his legal team. DiGenova was expected to play a forward-facing role on the legal team, filling what Trump felt was a lack of voices publicly defending him and challenging the special counsel.
DiGenova had publicly argued that Trump had been "framed" by FBI and Justice Department officials.
Dowd's departure also raises questions about the fate of negotiations between the President's attorneys and the special counsel's team over a potential interview with the President as Dowd has been the main point of contact with the special counsel's team throughout the investigation. One source said there is concern about the void Dowd will leave in his wake, particularly as Trump has had trouble finding top-flight lawyers to join his legal team.
Jay Sekulow, one of Trump's private attorneys, called Dowd a "friend" and said he "has been a valuable member of our legal team."
"We will continue our ongoing representation of the President and our cooperation with the Office of Special Counsel," Sekulow said in a statement.
The New York Times and The Washington Post first reported Dowd's resignation.
As the investigation seems to be intensifying, the President, according to multiple sources, is convinced he needs to take the reins of his own legal strategy and Trump has recently pushed to bring new attorneys onto his team.
The shift distressed some of his lawyers, namely Dowd, who felt blindsided and insulted by the President's hire of diGenova and other shifts, privately threatening to quit before ultimately resigning on Thursday, two sources said.
Trump had also continued to speak regularly with Marc Kasowitz, his longtime lawyer who stepped back from leading the team months ago but still remained involved.
Kasowitz had long recommended that Trump take a more aggressive posture toward the Mueller investigation. That strategy was on the backburner as Dowd and Ty Cobb, the White House's special counsel on the matter, worked with Mueller and urged the President to refrain from appearing to publicly undermine the Mueller investigation. Now that has all changed, as the President has reverted to his initial strategy to attack. An experienced cable news commentator, diGenova shares the President's view that the FBI and the Justice Department have waged a corrupt battle against him.
Dowd also faced criticism over his handling of the response to the guilty plea of Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who became the first Trump administration official to face charges in Mueller's investigation.
Dowd landed himself and the President in hot water after a tweet he says he authored suggested Trump knew Flynn lied to the FBI in January, reviving questions of whether Trump committed obstruction of justice when he allegedly asked then-FBI Director James Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.
"I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies," the tweet on Trump's account said.
The tweet led Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, to note that the committee is investigating obstruction of justice and said: "What we're beginning to see is the putting together of a case of obstruction of justice."
In a testy exchange with CNN, Dowd said he authored the tweet, but then suggested it was incorrect, claiming that "at the time of the firing no one including Justice had accused Flynn of lying."
He declined to answer additional questions, saying: "Enough already ... I don't feed the haters."
The response was characteristic of Dowd's hard-charging style, which initially endeared him to the President and made him the lead attorney on the President's legal team after Kasowitz was asked to step back in July.
The latest shake-up now leaves questions about whether Trump's legal team will pursue the strategy that Dowd laid out in the wake of Flynn's guilty plea, when Dowd claimed that Trump could not be prosecuted for obstruction of justice because he is the US President and therefore its "chief law enforcement officer."
Dowd's claim signaled the President's legal team plans to rely on an untested theory that is heavily disputed by legal scholars: whether a sitting President can be charged with obstruction of justice or indicted at all.
(CNN) The resignation of John Dowd, Donald Trump's top personal attorney, is the latest -- and largest -- signal that the President of the United States is shifting his strategy in regards special counsel Bob Mueller's ongoing probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Even as Mueller's questions for Trump have come into much sharper relief over the past 10 days, Trump has upped his personal attacks on the former FBI director even while adding controversial conservative attorney/talking head Joseph di Genova to his team. And now, the Dowd resignation.
The message is unmistakable: The closer Mueller and his team move to Trump himself -- the terms of an interview between the special counsel and the President remain a matter of considerable debate -- the more the President appears to be bracing for a very negative end result from the probe and putting the pieces in places to win the PR battle that will follow the conclusion of the Mueller probe.
Remember that Dowd was part of the legal braintrust that assured Trump that this whole Mueller probe would be wrapped up by the end of the year, that there was absolutely nothing to worry about and that the best course of action for Trump was to ignore Mueller.
What appears to have dawned on Trump is that playing nice (or his version of nice) with Mueller isn't working. Mueller doesn't appear to be moving to end the probe any time soon and he seems disinclined to treat Trump nicely. Of course, this was always a ridiculous supposition by Trump: Mueller is leading a criminal probe and will go wherever the evidence leads. The idea that he would go easy on the President because Trump didn't attack him by name is totally without grounding in anything we know about Mueller.
But, that certainly seems like the bill of goods that Trump's legal team sold to the President, likely as a way to manage his worst instincts when it came to the Mueller probe. This is all taken care of, boss, you can imagine them telling Trump. It's all going to be over soon and you are going to be very happy with the results.
Trump bought that view -- or at least didn't outright dismiss it -- for quite a while. And, less than two weeks ago, he was insisting that reports that he was plotting a shakeup of his legal team was false.
Tweeted Trump: "The Failing New York Times purposely wrote a false story stating that I am unhappy with my legal team on the Russia case and am going to add another lawyer to help out. Wrong. I am VERY happy with my lawyers, John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow. They are doing a great job and have shown conclusively that there was no Collusion with Russia."
That veil has been torn off for Trump now -- likely the result of the face-to-face meeting late last week between his lawyers and the special counsel's office in which Mueller and his team went over the areas they are interested in talking to the president about: The June 2016 meeting with the Russians at Trump Tower, his role in crafting a statement from his son Don Jr. about that meeting, his firing of Mike Flynn as the national security adviser and the firing of James Comey as FBI director.
What that meeting seems to drive home for Trump is the reality of his situation. And the fact that the "play nice" strategy with Mueller had gotten him exactly zilch.
And so, Trump began taking matters into his own hands. The hiring of di Genova, an attorney who has regularly espoused the idea that there is a deep-state conspiracy within the government trying to frame Trump for Russia's election meddling, was the first sign of the change. Then came Trump's tweets over the weekend -- in which he called out Mueller by name and, wrongly, said there were 13 Democrats on Mueller's team. The resignation of Dowd feels of a piece with those moves.
This is all Trump taking back control of his own messaging around the special counsel investigation. He tried it "their" way. Now he is going to do it his way.
And what is Trump's way? A relentless effort to undermine Mueller and those who work for him in hopes of discrediting whatever the special counsel ultimately finds. If Trump, di Genova and the rest can sell the idea to the conservative base that Mueller -- a Republican who was appointed FBI director by George W. Bush -- is a partisan Democrat pursuing the Deep State's anti-Trump agenda, then it lessens the blow of whatever Mueller finds. OF course Mueller's report is negative about Trumpworld! He's part of the establishment! And all that.
The simple fact is this: Trump has come to the realization that Mueller has backed him into a corner. And when Trump's back is against the wall, he reverts back to what (and who) he knows best. And that's attack, attack, attack. Get ready. Because that's what's coming.
图片误导，还以为辞职的人是美女呢。
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(CNN) President Donald Trump's attorney announced Sunday that a veteran Washington husband-and-wife legal duo will not join Trump's team handling the Russia probe.
"The President is disappointed that conflicts prevent Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing from joining the President's Special Counsel legal team," his lawyer, Jay Sekulow, said in a statement. "However, those conflicts do not prevent them from assisting the President in other legal matters. The President looks forward to working with them."
Sekulow announced Monday that diGenova, a former US attorney for the District of Columbia, would be joining the team, and sources told CNN that he and Toensing met with Trump on Thursday. One source said the President liked the pair's message, but was not convinced they were right for the legal jobs.
Trump's lead lawyer, John Dowd, resigned from Trump's personal legal team on the same day of the meeting as his disagreements with the President intensified and the President stepped up attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller. The reversal Sunday leaves Trump's legal team with diminished resources as Mueller's probe intensifies.
DiGenova and Toensing released a statement on the announcement Sunday, saying: "We thank the President for his confidence in us and we look forward to working with him on other matters."
The announcement on Sunday came as Trump insisted on Twitter he was not having a hard time assembling a legal team for the Russia probe, and after CNN reported on Friday that diGenova and Toensing's roles in the legal team were still in question.
Two sources previously told CNN that there was concern about diGenova and Toensing's conflicts, and sources told CNN some members of the President's legal team had opposed their hiring. Two sources also noted that Toensing represents clients who are connected to the special counsel probe led by former FBI Director Robert Mueller. Toensing had gotten conflict waivers from her clients, CNN has previously reported.
When asked what other legal issues besides the Mueller probe the couple could help Trump with, a source familiar with the matter told CNN there were myriad issues, like emoluments, in which they would lend a hand.
The possibility of diGenova's hire attracted widespread attention to the legal figure's brash comments about the Russia investigation, including the assertion that Trump had been "framed" by FBI and Justice Department officials.
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来了，救星来了!
WASHINGTON — A lawyer for President Trump broached the idea of Mr. Trump’s pardoning two of his former top advisers, Michael T. Flynn and Paul Manafort, with their lawyers last year, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions.
The discussions came as the special counsel was building cases against both men, and they raise questions about whether the lawyer, John Dowd, who resigned last week, was offering pardons to influence their decisions about whether to plead guilty and cooperate in the investigation.
The talks suggest that Mr. Trump’s lawyers were concerned about what Mr. Flynn and Mr. Manafort might reveal were they to cut a deal with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, in exchange for leniency. Mr. Mueller’s team could investigate the prospect that Mr. Dowd made pardon offers to thwart the inquiry, although legal experts are divided about whether such offers might constitute obstruction of justice.
Mr. Dowd’s conversation with Mr. Flynn’s lawyer, Robert K. Kelner, occurred sometime after Mr. Dowd took over last summer as the president’s personal lawyer, at a time when a grand jury was hearing evidence against Mr. Flynn on a range of potential crimes. Mr. Flynn, who served as Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, agreed in late November to cooperate with the special counsel’s investigation. He pleaded guilty in December to lying to the F.B.I. about his conversations with the Russian ambassador and received favorable sentencing terms.
Mr. Dowd has said privately that he did not know why Mr. Flynn had accepted a plea, according to one of the people. He said he had told Mr. Kelner that the president had long believed that the case against Mr. Flynn was flimsy and was prepared to pardon him, the person said.
The pardon discussion with Mr. Manafort’s attorney, Reginald J. Brown, came before his client was indicted in October on charges of money laundering and other financial crimes. Mr. Manafort, the former chairman of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, has pleaded not guilty and has told others he is not interested in a pardon because he believes he has done nothing wrong and the government overstepped its authority. Mr. Brown is no longer his lawyer.
It is unclear whether Mr. Dowd discussed the pardons with Mr. Trump before bringing them up with the other lawyers.
Mr. Dowd, who was hired last year to defend the president during the Mueller inquiry, took the lead in dealing directly with Mr. Flynn’s and Mr. Manafort’s lawyers, according to two people familiar with how the legal team operated.
He denied on Wednesday that he discussed pardons with lawyers for the president’s former advisers.
“There were no discussions. Period,” Mr. Dowd said. “As far as I know, no discussions.”
Contacted repeatedly over several weeks, the president’s lawyers representing him in the special counsel’s investigation maintained that they knew of no discussions of possible pardons.
“Never during the course of my representation of the president have I had any discussions of pardons of any individual involved in this inquiry,” Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, said on Wednesday.
Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer dealing with the investigation, added, “I have only been asked about pardons by the press and have routinely responded on the record that no pardons are under discussion or under consideration at the White House.”
Mr. Kelner and Mr. Brown declined to comment.
During interviews with Mr. Mueller’s investigators in recent months, current and former administration officials have recounted conversations they had with the president about potential pardons for former aides under investigation by the special counsel, according to two people briefed on the interviews.
In one meeting with lawyers from the White House Counsel’s Office last year, Mr. Trump asked about the extent of his pardon power, according to a person briefed on the conversation. The lawyers explained that the president’s powers were broad, the person said. And in other meetings with senior advisers, the president raised the prospect of pardoning Mr. Flynn, according to two people present.
Legal experts are divided about whether a pardon offer, even if given in exchange for continued loyalty, can be considered obstruction of justice. Presidents have constitutional authority to pardon people who face or were convicted of federal charges.
But even if a pardon were ultimately aimed at hindering an investigation, it might still pass legal muster, said Jack Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general in the George W. Bush administration and a professor at Harvard Law School.
“There are few powers in the Constitution as absolute as the pardon power — it is exclusively the president’s and cannot be burdened by the courts or the legislature,” he said. “It would be very difficult to look at the president’s motives in issuing a pardon to make an obstruction case.”
The remedy for such interference would more likely be found in elections or impeachment than in prosecuting the president, Mr. Goldsmith added.
But pardon power is not unlimited, said Samuel W. Buell, a professor of law at Duke University.
“The framers did not create the power to pardon as a way for the president to protect himself and his associates” from being prosecuted for their own criminal behavior, he said.
Under Mr. Buell’s interpretation, Mr. Dowd’s efforts could be used against the president in an obstruction case if prosecutors want to demonstrate that it was part of larger conspiracy to impede the special counsel investigation.
Mr. Dowd is said to believe that the president has nearly unlimited pardon authority, but he and others have repeatedly insisted that no pardon offers have been made.
A lawyer for Paul Manafort was approached about a possible presidential pardon before his client was indicted in October on charges of money laundering and other financial crimes. Credit Al Drago for The New York Times
In July, amid reports that Mr. Trump was considering granting pardons to his associates under investigation, Mr. Dowd told BuzzFeed that “there is nothing going on on pardons, research — nothing.”
And about two weeks after Mr. Flynn’s guilty plea, Mr. Trump said that such talk was premature.
“I don’t want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Dec. 15 on the South Lawn of the White House. “We’ll see what happens. Let’s see. I can say this: When you look at what’s gone on with the F.B.I. and with the Justice Department, people are very, very angry.”
Mr. Trump has been preoccupied with the investigation into Mr. Flynn since at least early last year. In February 2017, alone in the Oval Office with the F.B.I. director at the time, James B. Comey, the president asked him to end the investigation, Mr. Comey told lawmakers. After that episode became public, Mr. Mueller was appointed by the Justice Department to be the special counsel.
On the day after Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty, the president wrote in a Twitter post said to be composed by Mr. Dowd that he fired Mr. Flynn for, among other things, lying to the F.B.I. But Mr. Trump continued to publicly defend his former national security adviser, saying two days later that he felt “very badly” for Mr. Flynn and that the F.B.I. had “destroyed his life.”
It is not clear what Mr. Flynn has told the special counsel as part of his cooperation agreement. During interviews with other witnesses, Mr. Mueller’s investigators have focused on what Mr. Flynn told the president about his calls during the transition with the Russian ambassador to the United States at the time, Sergey I. Kislyak. The calls came soon after the Obama administration announced new sanctions on Russia for its role in disrupting the 2016 presidential campaign.
Mr. Manafort, who ran Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign for several months, has been indicted on dozens of counts of money laundering and other financial crimes connected to his work as a lobbyist and former consultant for Viktor F. Yanukovych, who at the time was president of Ukraine. The charges are not connected to any work that Mr. Manafort did for Mr. Trump.
Rick Gates, who was Mr. Manafort’s business partner for years and also served as deputy chairman of the Trump presidential campaign, pleaded guilty last month as part of a cooperation agreement with Mr. Mueller’s team. On the day the plea agreement was announced, Mr. Manafort vowed to continue to fight the charges against him.
In total, 19 people have been charged with crimes by Mr. Mueller. Five of them, including Mr. Flynn and two other Trump associates, have pleaded guilty and have agreed to cooperate.
In August, Mr. Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff from Arizona who had been found guilty of federal criminal contempt for refusing to stop targeting Latinos in traffic stops and other law enforcement efforts. The pardon prompted an outcry because Mr. Arpaio, whose crackdown on illegal immigration made him a national symbol for both conservatives and liberals, had supported Mr. Trump’s run for president.
Mr. Trump’s only other pardon came this month, for a sailor who had pleaded guilty to unlawfully retaining national defense information and obstruction of justice after he took cellphone photos on a nuclear submarine and then destroyed the photos when he learned he was under investigation.
When announcing the pardon, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said that Mr. Trump appreciated the sailor’s “service to the country.”
WASHINGTON — A lawyer for President Trump broached the idea of Mr. Trump’s pardoning two of his former top advisers, Michael T. Flynn and Paul Manafort, with their lawyers last year, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions.
The discussions came as the special counsel was building cases against both men, and they raise questions about whether the lawyer, John Dowd, who resigned last week, was offering pardons to influence their decisions about whether to plead guilty and cooperate in the investigation.
The talks suggest that Mr. Trump’s lawyers were concerned about what Mr. Flynn and Mr. Manafort might reveal were they to cut a deal with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, in exchange for leniency. Mr. Mueller’s team could investigate the prospect that Mr. Dowd made pardon offers to thwart the inquiry, although legal experts are divided about whether such offers might constitute obstruction of justice.
Mr. Dowd’s conversation with Mr. Flynn’s lawyer, Robert K. Kelner, occurred sometime after Mr. Dowd took over last summer as the president’s personal lawyer, at a time when a grand jury was hearing evidence against Mr. Flynn on a range of potential crimes. Mr. Flynn, who served as Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, agreed in late November to cooperate with the special counsel’s investigation. He pleaded guilty in December to lying to the F.B.I. about his conversations with the Russian ambassador and received favorable sentencing terms.
Mr. Dowd has said privately that he did not know why Mr. Flynn had accepted a plea, according to one of the people. He said he had told Mr. Kelner that the president had long believed that the case against Mr. Flynn was flimsy and was prepared to pardon him, the person said.
The pardon discussion with Mr. Manafort’s attorney, Reginald J. Brown, came before his client was indicted in October on charges of money laundering and other financial crimes. Mr. Manafort, the former chairman of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, has pleaded not guilty and has told others he is not interested in a pardon because he believes he has done nothing wrong and the government overstepped its authority. Mr. Brown is no longer his lawyer.
It is unclear whether Mr. Dowd discussed the pardons with Mr. Trump before bringing them up with the other lawyers.
Mr. Dowd, who was hired last year to defend the president during the Mueller inquiry, took the lead in dealing directly with Mr. Flynn’s and Mr. Manafort’s lawyers, according to two people familiar with how the legal team operated.
He denied on Wednesday that he discussed pardons with lawyers for the president’s former advisers.
“There were no discussions. Period,” Mr. Dowd said. “As far as I know, no discussions.”
Contacted repeatedly over several weeks, the president’s lawyers representing him in the special counsel’s investigation maintained that they knew of no discussions of possible pardons.
“Never during the course of my representation of the president have I had any discussions of pardons of any individual involved in this inquiry,” Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, said on Wednesday.
Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer dealing with the investigation, added, “I have only been asked about pardons by the press and have routinely responded on the record that no pardons are under discussion or under consideration at the White House.”
Mr. Kelner and Mr. Brown declined to comment.
During interviews with Mr. Mueller’s investigators in recent months, current and former administration officials have recounted conversations they had with the president about potential pardons for former aides under investigation by the special counsel, according to two people briefed on the interviews.
In one meeting with lawyers from the White House Counsel’s Office last year, Mr. Trump asked about the extent of his pardon power, according to a person briefed on the conversation. The lawyers explained that the president’s powers were broad, the person said. And in other meetings with senior advisers, the president raised the prospect of pardoning Mr. Flynn, according to two people present.
Legal experts are divided about whether a pardon offer, even if given in exchange for continued loyalty, can be considered obstruction of justice. Presidents have constitutional authority to pardon people who face or were convicted of federal charges.
But even if a pardon were ultimately aimed at hindering an investigation, it might still pass legal muster, said Jack Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general in the George W. Bush administration and a professor at Harvard Law School.
“There are few powers in the Constitution as absolute as the pardon power — it is exclusively the president’s and cannot be burdened by the courts or the legislature,” he said. “It would be very difficult to look at the president’s motives in issuing a pardon to make an obstruction case.”
The remedy for such interference would more likely be found in elections or impeachment than in prosecuting the president, Mr. Goldsmith added.
But pardon power is not unlimited, said Samuel W. Buell, a professor of law at Duke University.
“The framers did not create the power to pardon as a way for the president to protect himself and his associates” from being prosecuted for their own criminal behavior, he said.
Under Mr. Buell’s interpretation, Mr. Dowd’s efforts could be used against the president in an obstruction case if prosecutors want to demonstrate that it was part of larger conspiracy to impede the special counsel investigation.
Mr. Dowd is said to believe that the president has nearly unlimited pardon authority, but he and others have repeatedly insisted that no pardon offers have been made.
A lawyer for Paul Manafort was approached about a possible presidential pardon before his client was indicted in October on charges of money laundering and other financial crimes. Credit Al Drago for The New York Times
In July, amid reports that Mr. Trump was considering granting pardons to his associates under investigation, Mr. Dowd told BuzzFeed that “there is nothing going on on pardons, research — nothing.”
And about two weeks after Mr. Flynn’s guilty plea, Mr. Trump said that such talk was premature.
“I don’t want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Dec. 15 on the South Lawn of the White House. “We’ll see what happens. Let’s see. I can say this: When you look at what’s gone on with the F.B.I. and with the Justice Department, people are very, very angry.”
Mr. Trump has been preoccupied with the investigation into Mr. Flynn since at least early last year. In February 2017, alone in the Oval Office with the F.B.I. director at the time, James B. Comey, the president asked him to end the investigation, Mr. Comey told lawmakers. After that episode became public, Mr. Mueller was appointed by the Justice Department to be the special counsel.
On the day after Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty, the president wrote in a Twitter post said to be composed by Mr. Dowd that he fired Mr. Flynn for, among other things, lying to the F.B.I. But Mr. Trump continued to publicly defend his former national security adviser, saying two days later that he felt “very badly” for Mr. Flynn and that the F.B.I. had “destroyed his life.”
It is not clear what Mr. Flynn has told the special counsel as part of his cooperation agreement. During interviews with other witnesses, Mr. Mueller’s investigators have focused on what Mr. Flynn told the president about his calls during the transition with the Russian ambassador to the United States at the time, Sergey I. Kislyak. The calls came soon after the Obama administration announced new sanctions on Russia for its role in disrupting the 2016 presidential campaign.
Mr. Manafort, who ran Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign for several months, has been indicted on dozens of counts of money laundering and other financial crimes connected to his work as a lobbyist and former consultant for Viktor F. Yanukovych, who at the time was president of Ukraine. The charges are not connected to any work that Mr. Manafort did for Mr. Trump.
Rick Gates, who was Mr. Manafort’s business partner for years and also served as deputy chairman of the Trump presidential campaign, pleaded guilty last month as part of a cooperation agreement with Mr. Mueller’s team. On the day the plea agreement was announced, Mr. Manafort vowed to continue to fight the charges against him.
In total, 19 people have been charged with crimes by Mr. Mueller. Five of them, including Mr. Flynn and two other Trump associates, have pleaded guilty and have agreed to cooperate.
In August, Mr. Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff from Arizona who had been found guilty of federal criminal contempt for refusing to stop targeting Latinos in traffic stops and other law enforcement efforts. The pardon prompted an outcry because Mr. Arpaio, whose crackdown on illegal immigration made him a national symbol for both conservatives and liberals, had supported Mr. Trump’s run for president.
Mr. Trump’s only other pardon came this month, for a sailor who had pleaded guilty to unlawfully retaining national defense information and obstruction of justice after he took cellphone photos on a nuclear submarine and then destroyed the photos when he learned he was under investigation.
When announcing the pardon, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said that Mr. Trump appreciated the sailor’s “service to the country.”
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‘A bomb on Trump’s front porch’: FBI’s Cohen raids hit home for the president
By Philip Rucker, Josh Dawsey and Robert Costa By Philip Rucker, Josh Dawsey and Robert Costa Email the author
Politics
April 9 at 8:16 PM
President Trump has howled in all caps for nearly a year as the Justice Department has delved deeper and deeper into his orbit. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III indicted his former campaign chairman. Then he secured a guilty plea from his former national security adviser. All the while, Mueller and his investigators have spent hours questioning White House officials about whether the president had sought to obstruct justice.
But the FBI’s seizure on Monday of privileged communications between Trump and his private lawyer, Michael D. Cohen — as well as documents related to a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, the adult-film actress who has alleged a sexual affair with Trump — was a particularly extraordinary move that opens a whole new front in the converging legal battles ensnaring the administration.
Cohen is Trump’s virtual vault — the keeper of his secrets, from his business deals to his personal affairs — and the executor of his wishes.
“This search warrant is like dropping a bomb on Trump’s front porch,” said Joyce White Vance, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama.
Mark S. Zaid, a Washington lawyer, said the seizure of Cohen’s records “should be the most concerning for the president.”
“You can’t get much worse than this, other than arresting someone’s wife or putting pressure on a family member,” he said. “This strikes at the inner sanctum: your lawyer, your CPA, your barber, your therapist, your bartender. All the people who would know the worst about you.”
The president spent much of Monday afternoon glued to the television. Aides said Trump watched cable news coverage of surprise raids on Cohen’s Manhattan office, home and hotel room by FBI agents, who took the lawyer’s computer, phone and personal financial records after a referral from Mueller.
As the sun began to fall in Washington, Trump offered reporters his initial reaction: “It’s a disgraceful situation.”
“I have this witch hunt constantly going on,” Trump said. “That is a whole new level of unfairness,” he added, leaving no doubt that he views Monday’s actions as a personal affront. Trump called Cohen “a good man” and went on to criticize Attorney General Jeff Sessions, saying he had made “a very terrible mistake for the country” by recusing himself from the Russia probe.
Asked why he had not fired Mueller, Trump left the door open. “We’ll see what happens,” he told reporters. “Many people have said, ‘You should fire him,’ ” the president added.
Shortly after the raids began Monday morning, Trump received a heads-up at the White House. He huddled in the Oval Office with Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer who oversees its handling of the Mueller probe, as well as with White House counsel Donald McGahn and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, officials said.
Other aides said they did not understand what was happening and struggled to pinpoint the significance of the seizures. Many officials sought to keep their distance from the developments, deferring comment until a strategy was determined.
Aides said they viewed Trump’s late-afternoon comments to reporters as a necessary venting session. He had been grousing privately about Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, a Trump appointee who oversees the Mueller investigation because of Sessions’s recusal.
He complained about Rosenstein again Monday in private, a White House adviser said, and stewed all afternoon about the warrant to seize Cohen’s records, at times raising his voice. Trump said that Rosenstein approved the warrant, that he wished Rosenstein was not in the job and there was no one making the prosecutors follow the rules, the adviser said. Trump complained sharply about Sessions and Mueller and asked detailed questions about who was behind the move — and said that people would be more critical of such a warrant if it wasn’t intended to damage the president.
Still, a senior White House official said late Monday that no “imminent” personnel changes were expected.
It was unclear if Trump talked to Cohen, with whom he recently dined at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club in Palm Beach, Fla.
Trump “won’t like that Cohen is in the crosshairs, but you have to remember: He’d prefer the heat be on Cohen than on him,” said one of the president’s advisers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share a candid assessment. “His goal will be to figure out how much vulnerability he has.”
This was Trump’s first crisis without Hope Hicks, the recently departed White House communications director who knew her way around the broader Trump orbit, getting to the bottom of what was happening, counseling the president and intuiting how he would want the situation handled.
Trump also navigated Monday’s turn without a full slate of legal advisers. He has yet to replace John Dowd, who resigned last month as his personal attorney in the Russia matter. Reached briefly Monday afternoon, one White House official sighed when asked about Trump’s strategy, pointing to the “evident” limitations of the current legal team, as well as the absence so far of a public-relations plan to counter the hotly anticipated release next week of former FBI director James B. Comey’s memoir, “A Higher Loyalty.”
There was fear in Trump’s orbit that the president is liable to erupt in anger in coming days, escalating his attacks against Mueller at a time when his attorneys are negotiating a possible interview. And there was concern in some quarters that Trump, who has been shaking up his administration in recent weeks, may also seek to terminate Mueller.
Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a friend of Trump, called the Cohen raids “a little heavy-handed.”
“Is this surprising? Yes,” said Giuliani, also a former U.S. attorney. “Is it extraordinary? No. This is the way prosecutors get information — sometimes to convict and prosecute, sometimes to exculpate.”
Criticizing Mueller for veering into “highly personal issues,” such as the alleged Daniels encounter, Giuliani added, “The only thing that’s happening, perhaps, is that Mueller is trying to compel the president to testify.”
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One last week that he did not know Cohen had arranged the $130,000 payment for Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, just days before the 2016 election to prevent her from publicly speaking about her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.
The president said he did not know where Cohen got the money and declined to answer whether he had set up a fund for Cohen to use. “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen,” Trump said. “Michael’s my attorney, and you’ll have to ask Michael.”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said repeatedly that Trump denies Clifford’s allegations.
Without a lead attorney in Dowd’s absence, Trump has absorbed some advice from a number of legal commentators on cable news, including Alan Dershowitz, a retired Harvard Law School professor who has made supportive comments about the president.
“This may mark the end of the kind of cooperation that Trump’s lawyers have been involved with,” Dershowitz said Monday in an interview. “Cooperation doesn’t seem to have much payback. Maybe it’s better to go into a defensive fight mode.”
Dershowitz advised Trump to use “every legal tactic available to him” to fight Mueller and the FBI. He said the president could “assert” his rights as Cohen’s client and “go into court and seek to demand returned every bit of information that is arguably lawyer-client privilege before anybody has a chance to read anything.”
Tim O’Brien, author of the Trump biography “Trump Nation,” said the seizure of records from his private attorney probably would “smell of a mortal threat” by Trump. And, O’Brien added, “He is historically prone not to sit back and let the chips fall where they may. He is historically prone to come out with guns blazing.”
Cohen has long been a fixer for Trump, as well as his family and business, and associates said he was disappointed when he was not brought officially on board the campaign, and again when he was passed over for a coveted White House job.
“He’s done the dirty work that the president hasn’t wanted to do himself, and he’s been doing it for a decade,” O’Brien said.
In the early weeks of the administration, Cohen was spotted unshaven, roaming the lobby of the Trump International Hotel in Washington. He has stayed in touch with the president through late-night phone calls.
But now, Cohen is back squarely in Trump’s orbit — though perhaps not in the way he had hoped to be. Cohen himself has become the kind of distraction that he was usually tasked with handling for his boss.
“When it comes to Michael Cohen, anything is possible,” said Louise Sunshine, a former Trump Organization executive who knows Cohen. “Anything and everything is possible.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d8138a26e7ec
By Philip Rucker, Josh Dawsey and Robert Costa By Philip Rucker, Josh Dawsey and Robert Costa Email the author
Politics
April 9 at 8:16 PM
President Trump has howled in all caps for nearly a year as the Justice Department has delved deeper and deeper into his orbit. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III indicted his former campaign chairman. Then he secured a guilty plea from his former national security adviser. All the while, Mueller and his investigators have spent hours questioning White House officials about whether the president had sought to obstruct justice.
But the FBI’s seizure on Monday of privileged communications between Trump and his private lawyer, Michael D. Cohen — as well as documents related to a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, the adult-film actress who has alleged a sexual affair with Trump — was a particularly extraordinary move that opens a whole new front in the converging legal battles ensnaring the administration.
Cohen is Trump’s virtual vault — the keeper of his secrets, from his business deals to his personal affairs — and the executor of his wishes.
“This search warrant is like dropping a bomb on Trump’s front porch,” said Joyce White Vance, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama.
Mark S. Zaid, a Washington lawyer, said the seizure of Cohen’s records “should be the most concerning for the president.”
“You can’t get much worse than this, other than arresting someone’s wife or putting pressure on a family member,” he said. “This strikes at the inner sanctum: your lawyer, your CPA, your barber, your therapist, your bartender. All the people who would know the worst about you.”
The president spent much of Monday afternoon glued to the television. Aides said Trump watched cable news coverage of surprise raids on Cohen’s Manhattan office, home and hotel room by FBI agents, who took the lawyer’s computer, phone and personal financial records after a referral from Mueller.
As the sun began to fall in Washington, Trump offered reporters his initial reaction: “It’s a disgraceful situation.”
“I have this witch hunt constantly going on,” Trump said. “That is a whole new level of unfairness,” he added, leaving no doubt that he views Monday’s actions as a personal affront. Trump called Cohen “a good man” and went on to criticize Attorney General Jeff Sessions, saying he had made “a very terrible mistake for the country” by recusing himself from the Russia probe.
Asked why he had not fired Mueller, Trump left the door open. “We’ll see what happens,” he told reporters. “Many people have said, ‘You should fire him,’ ” the president added.
Shortly after the raids began Monday morning, Trump received a heads-up at the White House. He huddled in the Oval Office with Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer who oversees its handling of the Mueller probe, as well as with White House counsel Donald McGahn and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, officials said.
Other aides said they did not understand what was happening and struggled to pinpoint the significance of the seizures. Many officials sought to keep their distance from the developments, deferring comment until a strategy was determined.
Aides said they viewed Trump’s late-afternoon comments to reporters as a necessary venting session. He had been grousing privately about Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, a Trump appointee who oversees the Mueller investigation because of Sessions’s recusal.
He complained about Rosenstein again Monday in private, a White House adviser said, and stewed all afternoon about the warrant to seize Cohen’s records, at times raising his voice. Trump said that Rosenstein approved the warrant, that he wished Rosenstein was not in the job and there was no one making the prosecutors follow the rules, the adviser said. Trump complained sharply about Sessions and Mueller and asked detailed questions about who was behind the move — and said that people would be more critical of such a warrant if it wasn’t intended to damage the president.
Still, a senior White House official said late Monday that no “imminent” personnel changes were expected.
It was unclear if Trump talked to Cohen, with whom he recently dined at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club in Palm Beach, Fla.
Trump “won’t like that Cohen is in the crosshairs, but you have to remember: He’d prefer the heat be on Cohen than on him,” said one of the president’s advisers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share a candid assessment. “His goal will be to figure out how much vulnerability he has.”
This was Trump’s first crisis without Hope Hicks, the recently departed White House communications director who knew her way around the broader Trump orbit, getting to the bottom of what was happening, counseling the president and intuiting how he would want the situation handled.
Trump also navigated Monday’s turn without a full slate of legal advisers. He has yet to replace John Dowd, who resigned last month as his personal attorney in the Russia matter. Reached briefly Monday afternoon, one White House official sighed when asked about Trump’s strategy, pointing to the “evident” limitations of the current legal team, as well as the absence so far of a public-relations plan to counter the hotly anticipated release next week of former FBI director James B. Comey’s memoir, “A Higher Loyalty.”
There was fear in Trump’s orbit that the president is liable to erupt in anger in coming days, escalating his attacks against Mueller at a time when his attorneys are negotiating a possible interview. And there was concern in some quarters that Trump, who has been shaking up his administration in recent weeks, may also seek to terminate Mueller.
Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a friend of Trump, called the Cohen raids “a little heavy-handed.”
“Is this surprising? Yes,” said Giuliani, also a former U.S. attorney. “Is it extraordinary? No. This is the way prosecutors get information — sometimes to convict and prosecute, sometimes to exculpate.”
Criticizing Mueller for veering into “highly personal issues,” such as the alleged Daniels encounter, Giuliani added, “The only thing that’s happening, perhaps, is that Mueller is trying to compel the president to testify.”
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One last week that he did not know Cohen had arranged the $130,000 payment for Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, just days before the 2016 election to prevent her from publicly speaking about her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.
The president said he did not know where Cohen got the money and declined to answer whether he had set up a fund for Cohen to use. “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen,” Trump said. “Michael’s my attorney, and you’ll have to ask Michael.”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said repeatedly that Trump denies Clifford’s allegations.
Without a lead attorney in Dowd’s absence, Trump has absorbed some advice from a number of legal commentators on cable news, including Alan Dershowitz, a retired Harvard Law School professor who has made supportive comments about the president.
“This may mark the end of the kind of cooperation that Trump’s lawyers have been involved with,” Dershowitz said Monday in an interview. “Cooperation doesn’t seem to have much payback. Maybe it’s better to go into a defensive fight mode.”
Dershowitz advised Trump to use “every legal tactic available to him” to fight Mueller and the FBI. He said the president could “assert” his rights as Cohen’s client and “go into court and seek to demand returned every bit of information that is arguably lawyer-client privilege before anybody has a chance to read anything.”
Tim O’Brien, author of the Trump biography “Trump Nation,” said the seizure of records from his private attorney probably would “smell of a mortal threat” by Trump. And, O’Brien added, “He is historically prone not to sit back and let the chips fall where they may. He is historically prone to come out with guns blazing.”
Cohen has long been a fixer for Trump, as well as his family and business, and associates said he was disappointed when he was not brought officially on board the campaign, and again when he was passed over for a coveted White House job.
“He’s done the dirty work that the president hasn’t wanted to do himself, and he’s been doing it for a decade,” O’Brien said.
In the early weeks of the administration, Cohen was spotted unshaven, roaming the lobby of the Trump International Hotel in Washington. He has stayed in touch with the president through late-night phone calls.
But now, Cohen is back squarely in Trump’s orbit — though perhaps not in the way he had hoped to be. Cohen himself has become the kind of distraction that he was usually tasked with handling for his boss.
“When it comes to Michael Cohen, anything is possible,” said Louise Sunshine, a former Trump Organization executive who knows Cohen. “Anything and everything is possible.”
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