Who is Michael Cohen? He Has Said He Would Take a Bullet for Trump. Maybe Not Anymore.

WNYC

NY TIMES


ABC NEWS



WASHINGTON POST

The best parts of Comey’s book have nothing to do with Trump



WASHINGTON POST Fareed Zakaria

A System in Denial

Industrialization, a new book argues, depended on gun-making. But from the start manufacturers refused any responsibility for gun violence.

By HEATHER SOUVAINE HORN

NEW REPUBLIC

Comey’s Memoir Offers Visceral Details on a President ‘Untethered to Truth’

NY TIMES, MICHIKO KAKUTANI: In his absorbing new book, “A Higher Loyalty,” the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey calls the Trump presidency a “forest fire” that is doing serious damage to the country’s norms and traditions.

“This president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values,” Comey writes. “His leadership is transactional, ego driven and about personal loyalty.”

A February 2017 meeting in the White House with Trump and then chief of staff Reince Priebus left Comey recalling his days as a federal prosecutor facing off against the Mob: “The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and above the truth.”

The central themes that Comey returns to throughout this impassioned book are the toxic consequences of lying; and the corrosive effects of choosing loyalty to an individual over truth and the rule of law. Dishonesty, he writes, was central “to the entire enterprise of organized crime on both sides of the Atlantic,” and so, too, were bullying, peer pressure and groupthink — repellent traits shared by Trump and company, he suggests, and now infecting our culture.

his book underscores just how outside presidential norms Trump’s behavior has been — how ignorant he is about his basic duties as president, and how willfully he has flouted the checks and balances that safeguard our democracy, including the essential independence of the judiciary and law enforcement. Comey’s book fleshes out the testimony he gave before the Senate Intelligence Committee in June 2017 with considerable emotional detail, and it showcases its author’s gift for narrative — a skill he clearly honed during his days as United States attorney for the Southern District of New York.

The volume offers little in the way of hard news revelations about investigations by the F.B.I. or the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III (not unexpectedly, given that such investigations are ongoing and involve classified material).

“A Higher Loyalty” also provides sharp sketches of key players in three presidential administrations. He depicts Bush national security adviser and later Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as uninterested in having a detailed policy discussion of interrogation policy and the question of torture. He finds Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions,... “overwhelmed and overmatched by the job.” He points out that he never saw Trump laugh — a sign, Comey suspects, of his “deep insecurity, his inability to be vulnerable or to risk himself by appreciating the humor of others, which, on reflection, is really very sad in a leader, and a little scary in a president.”

U.S., allies strike Syria after suspected chemical attack.
Trump joins Britain and France in ordering missile strikes against Syrian government

In an address to the nation Trump called the alleged chemical weapons use “the crimes of a monster.” Trump said the mandate for an allied attack was open-ended, but Pentagon chiefs later said the strikes would be repeated only if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad took further action that warranted a response.The proportional response was evidently calculated to keep Syria’s patrons, Russia and Iran, from retaliating.

When Syria’s civil war began in 2011, the U.N. and others tallied the numbers killed in the conflict. Seven years on, an increasingly complex war means the count has stopped.

Trump Sees Inquiry Into His Atty Michael Cohen as Greater Threat Than Mueller

F.B.I. Raids Office of Trump’s Longtime Lawyer Michael Cohen; Trump Calls It ‘Disgraceful’

NY TIMES

As his lawyers went to court in New York on Friday to try to block prosecutors from reading files that were seized from the personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, this week, Mr. Trump found himself increasingly isolated in mounting a response. He continued to struggle to hire a new criminal lawyer, and some of his own aides were reluctant to advise him about a response for fear of being dragged into a criminal investigation themselves.

The raids on Mr. Cohen came as part of a months long federal investigation based in New York, court records show, and were sweeping. Mr. Cohen has publicly declared that he would defend the president to the end, but court documents show that prosecutors are building a significant case that could put pressure on him to cooperate and tell investigators what he knows.

The documents seized by prosecutors could shed light on the president’s relationship with a lawyer who has helped navigate some of Mr. Trump’s thorniest personal and business dilemmas. Mr. Cohen served for more than a decade as a trusted fixer and, during the campaign, helped tamp down brewing scandals about women who claimed to have carried on affairs with Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen and their teams were still scrambling on Friday to assess the damage from the raid early Monday morning. They remained unsure what had been taken, an uncertainty that has heightened the unease around Mr. Trump.

Although his lawyers had projected confidence in their dealings with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, they were caught flat-footed by the New York raids. The lawyers fear that Mr. Cohen will not be forthcoming with them about what was in his files, leaving them girding for the unknown.

Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump, through their lawyers, argued in federal court on Friday that many of the seized records were protected by attorney-client privilege. Prosecutors argued that the previously seized emails revealed that Mr. Cohen was “performing little to no legal work, and that zero emails were exchanged with President Trump.” They said their investigation was focused on Mr. Cohen’s business dealings, not his work as a lawyer.

Prosecutors also seized recordings of conversations that Mr. Cohen had secretly made, but he told people in recent days that he did not tape his conversations with Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen frequently taped conversations with adversaries and opposing lawyers, according to the two people briefed.

Communications between lawyers and their clients are normally off limits to prosecutors, but there are exceptions, including when the materials are considered part of a continuing crime. Mr. Trump has viewed any investigation of his business and private life to be off limits to prosecutors, but the search warrants make clear that investigators consider those topics part of their case.

NY TIMES

The End of Impeachment

How both Republicans and Democrats are undermining a crucial constitutional tool to oust an unfit president

ELIZABETH DREW, NEW REPUBLIC

Paul Ryan says he will stand down in January and quit Congress.

House Speaker Paul Ryan will leave Congress at the end of his current term, he announced today. He will conclude his service in January, he said, after 20 years in the House of Representatives. 'If I am here for one more term, my kids will only have ever known me as a weekend dad,' His retirement indicated the peril that the Republican majority faces in the midterm elections. It could also set off another wave of retirements among Republicans not eager to face angry voters in the fall. The party has seen a large number of retirements, and Ryan’s exit is certain to sap morale as Republicans seek to contain a surge in enthusiasm from Democrats, whose fortunes have been buoyed by the unpopularity of President Trump. Ryan’s exit is likely to set off a prolonged period of jockeying to succeed him. The two Republicans most likely to replace Ryan are House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (La.). 

The speaker had raised more than $54 million for the 2018 elections.

Ryan spent two decades in Congress talking about reining in Washington’s profligate ways and overhauling the nation’s ballooning entitlement programs. and he will depart Congress with the situation worse than he found it.  Ryan instead leaves a legacy of dramatically expanded government spending and immense deficits. Ryan boasted about the passage of the GOP’s $1.4 trillion tax law, and of securing much-needed increases in defense spending in last month’s $1.3 trillion government spending bill. But both measures contributed to a mushrooming deficit that the Congressional Budget Office projected this week will reach $1 trillion in 2020.

IMPEACHMENT 
A Citizen’s Guide
By Cass R. Sunstein
199 pp. Harvard University. Paper, $7.95.

CAN IT HAPPEN HERE? 
Authoritarianism in America
Edited by Cass R. Sunstein
481 pp. Dey St./Morrow. Paper, $17.99.

ANDREW SULLIVAN, NY TIMES

Porn star Stormy Daniels says she had unprotected sex with Donald Trump and jokingly spanked him with a magazine featuring Trump on the cover during their alleged one night affair, even though she wasn't physically attracted to him. She also claims a mystery man threatened her and her infant daughter in 2011 after she tried to expose her 2006 tryst with the president in a magazine interview. She made the bombshell statements on 60 Minutes Sunday night in her highly-anticipated interview with Anderson Cooper. Daniels. The 39-year-old adult actress whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, dished on her liaison with The Donald, including the moment Trump said she was 'special' and that she reminded him of daughter Ivanka. Reports of their illicit fling came to light in January, when it was reported that Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 to sign a non-disclosure agreement just 11 days before the 2016 presidential election. She is now suing Trump over the hush agreement and claims it is void because Trump never signed it.. The president's attorneys claim Daniels is liable for more than $20 million in damages for violations of the agreement. However, Daniels said she wanted people to know 'the truth', even if she risks a crippling fine.

Show of Force as Students’ Grief Inspires Huge Gun Protests

• The young people delivered an anguished and defiant message: They are “done hiding” from gun violence, and will stop at nothing to get politicians to prevent it.
• For many, the rallies were their first act of protest and a political awakening. The most powerful moments came from the surviving students of the shooting last month in Parkland, Fla.

More than 800,000 people flocked to Washington D.C. on Saturday to plead for gun control, their size captured in stunning images by DigitalGlobe. 800 more events being held across world. 175,000 people attended a rally in New York, while 30,000 were counted in Atlanta and Pittsburgh alone. 15,000 people attended a rally in Parkland, Florida - where 17 high school students were killed last month. The rally was organized by the survivors of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Other events were held everywhere from Los Angeles and Chicago to Sydney, Mumbai, London, and Tokyo. DigitalGlobe has since called the demonstration one of the biggest youth protests since the Vietnam era.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5541757/Aerial-images-March-Lives-space.html#ixzz5An5okTUP
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

WASHINGTON POST

Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal are talking to one reporter: Anderson Cooper.

In a span of 72 hours beginning Thursday night, two women who claim to have had extramarital affairs with President Trump more than a decade ago will tell their stories on TV for the first time. Although porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal will appear on different networks, they will be talking to the same journalist: Anderson Cooper.

Cooper's double scoop might be traced to the night of Oct. 9, 2016, when his persistent questioning during a presidential debate led Trump to deny having ever kissed or groped a woman without consent, contrary to the boasts immortalized on a recording published two days earlier by The Washington Post.

Four women who stepped forward to counter Trump a short time later cited Cooper's exchange with the future president as a trigger.

Howard Bragman, founder of the Los Angeles public-relations firm Fifteen Minutes, called the debate a “seminal moment” that probably left an impression on other women with stories to tell.

WASHINGTON POST

Why efforts to silence Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal are failing.

Porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal are suing to get out of nondisclosure agreements that bar them from talking about alleged affairs with President Trump, but neither woman is waiting for a court's permission to speak out.

McDougal will be interviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN on Thursday, and Daniels has taped an interview with Cooper that is tentatively scheduled to air Sunday on CBS's “60 Minutes.”

However confident Daniels, McDougal and their lawyers are of victories, there are still legal risks. So why are Daniels and McDougal unafraid to talk now — and provoke the full fury of the famously litigious president?

One simple explanation could be that the mere act of filing lawsuits broke both women's contracts. Their nondisclosure agreements require all disputes to be resolved in confidential, private arbitration proceedings.

Since Daniels and McDougal are in violation of their deals anyway, they might figure there is no point to taking half-measures.

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 Former U.S. solicitor general Charles Fried, who teaches contract law at Harvard Law School, told me the “liquidated damages” referred to in the nondisclosure agreement (i.e. the money Daniels supposedly owes for speaking publicly) “could be treated as a penalty, and penalty clauses are unenforceable.”

Fried said the court’s decision would hinge on whether $1 million per violation of the contract is a “reasonable estimate” of the damage to Trump’s reputation or is “excessive” — and therefore an unfair and unenforceable penalty.

“A court might well throw it out,” Fried said.

McDougal benefits from Trump's incentive to stay as far away from her lawsuit as possible. The case is ostensibly a fight between McDougal and American Media Inc., the National Enquirer's parent company. The president is not a defendant.

Any involvement by Trump's legal team would bolster one of McDougal's major claims — that Cohen “worked secretly” with American Media to negotiate her silence during the 2016 campaign.

Dow plunges more than 700 points after Trump unveils plan for $60 billion tariffs on China and sets of fears of trade war

• President Donald Trump signed a memorandum to slap up to $60 billion in tariffs on China.

The $60 billion in annual tariffs are President Trump’s strongest trade action yet against a country he has branded an “economic enemy,” fulfilling one of his core campaign pledges.

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• He blasted 'tremendous intellectual property theft' by China and opened a consultation period to eye list of Chinese products to be hit by tariffs
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• Went after South Korea deal, WTO judging, singled out Japan's prime minister Abe
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• Markets dropped sharply Thursday over fears of a global trade slow-down because of the moves.

Major indexes fell, with the S.&P. 500 down 2.5%, as the prospect of a trade war between the U.S. and China sent Wall Street shuddering.

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• He previously announced a 25 per cent tariff on steel 
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• China warned it 'certainly take all necessary measures to resolutely defend' itself.

The punitive actions have put Xi Jinping on the spot and on Friday, he threatened to raise tariffs on American products valued at $3 billion.

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•  Trump defended it on fairness grounds.
  'It's going to make us a much stronger much richer nation,' he said. 
  He called it a 'reciprocal' tariff, explaining: 'If they charge us, we charge them the same thing.' 
  The president singled out Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe, considered a close Trump ally as among leaders taking advantage of the U.S..
  
  
  Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5532591/Trump-administration-eyes-tariffs-50-billion-Chinese-goods.html#ixzz5AX5NsZpH
  Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
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'Sex on the first date, unprotected romps many dozens of times and paid to fly to his homes all over the US': Playboy's Karen McDougal tells all about '10-month affair' with married Trump.

Karen McDougal (right and bottom left inset), the former Playboy Playmate who alleges she had an affair with President Trump, says she was in love with the former reality television star with whom she had unprotected sex dozens of times over the course of 10 months after they met in 2006. In her first television interview, McDougal told Anderson Cooper of CNN that she developed feelings for the then-real estate mogul during their 10-month relationship. Trump and McDougal are seen left in an undated photo.  McDougal also said that she and Trump had sex on their first date and that she went home afterward 'crying in the backseat of a car' when he offered her cash after they made love. 'After we had been intimate, he tried to pay me, and I actually didn't know how to take that,' she said. 
McDougal says she told Trump: 'That's not me. I'm not that kind of girl. And he said, "Oh," and he said, "You're really special",' she said, adding that 'it hurt me that he saw me in that light.' She also revealed that she flew all over the country to meet him and spent time at the Lake Tahoe golf tournament with him - the place where Stormy Daniels allegedly begun her affair with Trump. The White House has denied the president had an affair with McDougal.

Trump FIRES his national security advisor H.R. McMaster and brings in Bush's U.N. ambassador John Bolton in another White House shake-up.

Trump had clashed with McMaster (top), a three-star general, repeatedly in recent months, telling confidants that he considered the general a long-winded bore who continually lectured Trump. He will end his White House service early next month and be replaced by George W Bush's U.N. ambassador, John Bolton, Trump says. Bolton is a hawkish conservative with a pugnacious streak - and a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel. He is also a fierce opponent of the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal. Bolton was on Fox News within an hour of Trump's tweet, saying 'I didn't really expect that announcement this afternoon.' McMaster came to the Trump administration with a reputation as one of the Army’s best thinkers, but he never forged the kind of bond that would allow him to speak honestly to the president.

The man behind a string of deadly bombings in Austin has been identified as Mark Anthony Conditt after he died blowing himself up as police tried to arrest him early Wednesday morning. The 23-year-old killed himself when he detonated a bomb inside his car as police surrounded him near a hotel on Interstate 35, just outside Austin, at about 2am. His body was spotted under a blue tarp (top right) beside his car (bottom right) as authorities surrounded the crime scene. Police zeroed in on the bomber, who lived nearby, after obtaining CCTV footage of him in disguise and wearing protective gloves (left) as he posted two packages at a FedEx office on Sunday night. Authorities are now warning that more bombs could still be out there because they do not know if the bomber posted more devices prior to his death. The series of bombings killed two people and injured at least five others. The most recent package bomb detonated at a FedEx distribution center near San Antonio early Tuesday.


 Austin Police, Chief Brian Manley, revealed that Conditt made a 25 minute video on his phone, confessing to the attacks. His devout Christian family (center) had no idea of his problems. 'What is clear from listening to that video, is that this was very troubled young man who was talking about the challenges in his life that led him to take the actions he took,' Manley said, adding that there were no mentions of terrorism or hate in the clip. 'There were also indications of action she was willing to take in the future,' Manley said. There were also 'no indications of why these specific addresses, or those that were placed in the community, there was no reasons given for why he selected those individuals.' 

Behind the scenes, investigators used cell tower data to tie Conditt to the bombing sites and other locations, the Texas governor said. And when the suspect used FedEx, law enforcement caught an even bigger break.

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He worked with his dad around their modest yellow house on Second Street, fixing up a newly purchased home in an old-fashioned, close-knit neighborhood — the kind of place where residents check in on one another.

Mark Anthony Conditt seemed to fit in. Having been home-schooled, the 23-year-old was close to his family, including his sisters. As he neared graduation, he took a government course at Austin Community College and described himself on a class blog as conservative but “not that politically inclined.”

People who knew him say Conditt was quiet and shy. Police said Wednesday evening that Conditt seemed motivated by frustration with his life.

Manley described a 25-minute recording left on Conditt’s phone as “the outcry of a very challenged young man talking about challenges in his personal life that led him to this point.”

The FedEx shipments offered a significant moment because investigators were able to obtain surveillance footage of Conditt walking into the FedEx store wearing a wig and gloves, Abbott said. Investigators also determined that Conditt purchased signs like the one used to anchor the tripwire-rigged device that detonated Sunday night, Abbott said.

Conditt was not a military veteran, an early theory given the explosives expertise. Abbott told reporters Wednesday that he appeared to have bought the bomb components from Home Depot, and federal investigators are examining his Internet search history to see how self-taught his bomb-making skills might have been.

The public profile he left comprises a series of writings on his political views, socially conservative but far from radical.

The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

Internal MTA documents show everything we thought we knew about subway delays was wrong

NEW YORK/ VILLAGE VOICE

Baaaaad night for Republicans.

• For the first time in 15 years, Democrats won in Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District, a stunning victory. [Vox / Ella Nilsen]
• Democrat Conor Lamb beat Republican Rick Saccone in a special congressional election to replace former Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA), who resigned last year after revelations that he had pressured a woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair to have an abortion. [Washington Post / Mike DeBonis]
• The race was still too close to call on Tuesday night. Just 627 votes separated Saccone and Lamb with 100 percent of precincts reporting by midday Wednesday, according to CNN. [CNN / Veronica Rocha, Brian Ries, Meg Wagner, and Amanda Wills]
• In winning, Lamb did something that no Democrat was supposed to be able to. PA-18, along with the rest of the state's congressional map, was drawn in such a way that made it nearly impossible for Democrats to win. The state's new map, recently drawn by the state Supreme Court, is much friendlier to Democrats. [Vox / Andrew Prokop]
• Lamb also proved something that's destabilizing to President Donald Trump's narrative: that a Democrat can win in so-called "Trump country." Pennsylvania was one of the three Rust Belt states that helped deliver Trump the presidency in 2016. The fact that a district that voted for him by 20 points also went to a Democrat is a big blow. [Vox / Ella Nilsen and Tara Golshan] 
• Republicans dumped close to $10 million into the race and still lost. Democrats also spent millions but were vastly outspent by their GOP counterparts. [Vox / Tara Golshan]
• It's worth noting that Lamb has to run again in November ... in a completely different district, thanks to the new electoral map. [Philadelphia Inquirer / Jonathan Lai]

The bigger reason that the savviest GOP operatives in town are freaking out right now, though, is that the results underscore the degree to which the party has been unable to hone in on a message that can reliably win races in this environment.

Republican groups carpet bombed Lamb with commercials linking him to Nancy Pelosi, but Lamb largely defused these hits by running a response ad saying that he wouldn’t support her for leader.

Trump administration officials told reporters that they thought the tariffscould tip the race their way. Eighteen thousand members of the United Steelworkers union live in the district. But both candidates embraced the new levies, and the unions backed the Democrat because Saccone supports right-to-work legislation. So the issue was a wash.

Republicans tried to run on the tax cuts, which they’ve promised for months will be the centerpiece of their 2018 messaging. Commercials highlighted Lamb’s opposition to reform and relief for the middle class. When these spots didn’t move the needle, GOP groups stopped talking about them. Politico’s Kevin Robillard pulled the data to show what was on the airwaves: “For the weeks of Feb. 4 and Feb. 11, roughly two-thirds of the broadcast television ads from Saccone’s campaign, the Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC and the National Republican Congressional Committee mentioned taxes … For the week of Feb. 18, that dropped to 36 percent, and to 14 percent the week after. … Since the beginning of March, tax ads have been essentially nonexistent.”

These groups then hammered Lamb, a Marine Corps veteran and former prosecutor, as pro-sanctuary cities. Then they accused him of letting dangerous drug dealers get off the hook for their crimes with lenient sentences. (The dark turn the ads took in the final weeks foreshadows a particularly nasty fall campaign. If you live in a battleground and have young children, you might want to keep them away from the tube.)

Something similar happened in last year’s Virginia governor’s race.Republican Ed Gillespie initially made a proposal for tax cuts the centerpiece of his campaign. When that failed to excite conservatives, he embraced divisive wedge issues. Gillespie defended Confederate monuments, attacked his opponent on sanctuary cities and called him weak on the MS-13 street gang. Democrat Ralph Northam won anyway.

If Democrats can win in a district where they didn’t even bother to field a candidate the past two election cycles, they can triumph anywhere.

Moreover, there are not many – if any -- real opportunities for Republican incumbents to score meaningful legislative achievements between now and November.

But it’s not puzzling what’s going on: Trump’s approval rating is hovering below 40 percent, and he sucks up all the oxygen. He did it again yesterday, when he fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson over Twitter.

Lamb ran a cautious campaign, but he offered a clear contrast to the constant chaos that has defined the past 14 months. “People are so tired of the shouting on TV and in our politics,” Lamb said during his speech early this morning, encapsulating the tack he took.

“We should be able to elect a box of hammers in this district. If we’re losing here, you can bet there is a Democratic wave coming,” said veteran Republican consultant Mike Murphy, a Trump critic, in an interview with Robert Costa.

“The reality is that plenty of mediocre, uninspiring candidates get elected to the House from typically-safe districts,” writes National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar. “The difference this year isn’t the caliber of candidates. It’s that Trump is driving the Republican party rank-and-file off the proverbial political cliff. At this point, there have been enough off-year elections, polling data and candidate recruiting successes to render a clear verdict: Democrats are solid favorites to retake the House this year.” Eight months is an eternity in politics, especially in this tumultuous era when each day feels like a week. The underlying dynamics could certainly change. 

FIVE MYTHS ABOUT GERRYMANDERING

WASHINGTON POST

Trump Authorizes Tariffs, Defying Allies at Home and Abroad.

President Trump defied opposition from his own party and protests from overseas as he signed orders on Thursday imposing stiff and sweeping new tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. But he sought to soften the impact on the United States’ closest allies with a more flexible plan than originally envisioned.

After a week of furious lobbying and a burst of last-minute internal debates and confusion, Mr. Trump agreed to exempt, for now, Canadaand Mexico, and held out the possibility of later excluding allies like Australia. But foreign leaders warned of a trade war that could escalate to other industries and take aim at American goods.

“The actions we are taking today are not a matter of choice; they are a matter of necessity for our security,” Mr. Trump said in a ceremony at the White House where he officially authorized the tariffs, which will go into effect in 15 days.

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Trump’s Latest Tariff Strategy: Less Trade War, and More Let’s Make a Deal

Exceptions for Canada and Mexico suggest that it’s a tactic to renegotiate Nafta.