Escalating a battle with US President Donald Trump, the House of Representatives voted 229 to 191 on Tuesday to authorise civil lawsuits against Trump administration officials who refuse to comply with congressional subpoenas.
The resolution specifically targets Attorney General William Barr and former White House Counsel Don McGahn who have both defied congressional subpoenas related to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's inquiry on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
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The measure gives House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler and the chairs of other House committees the ability to take swift legal action in federal court to enforce subpoenas without first obtaining full House votes.
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The judicial process could take as little time as a couple of weeks or as much as several months and may involve appeals to the DC Circuit Court or the US Supreme Court.
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The House Intelligence Committee will continue looking into the Mueller probe on Wednesday with a hearing on the counterintelligence implications of Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
The House Judiciary Committee has also issued subpoenas to Hope Hicks, Trump's former White House director of communications and to Annie Donaldson, who was McGahn's secretary and who provided extensive testimony to Mueller. Both have been told by Trump's White House lawyers not to testify.
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On Monday, the House Judiciary Committee heard from John Dean, a former White House counsel whose testimony helped bring down former President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.
Dean told the House panel that Mueller has provided a "roadmap" for investigating Trump, adding that he sees parallels between the circumstances surrounding Trump and those surrounding Nixon in the 1970s.
Chairman Adam Schiff (Calif.) and other Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday are set to dig into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia detailed in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
The public hearing is a somewhat rare event for the committee, which typically deals in sensitive information, and will feature former FBI officials.
Schiff said Tuesday he is interested in receiving expert testimony on whether the contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow could pose a national security threat even though they were not deemed criminal by Mueller.
“If the president was trying to make money in Russia during the campaign and concealing it, that’s a counterintelligence nightmare. If the campaign chairman was trying to make money from Russians and concealing it, that’s a counterintelligence nightmare. If others in the administration have financial entanglements driving U.S. policy, those are counterintelligence problems of the first order,” Schiff told The Hill.
“None of that is really discussed in that fashion in the report, which is basically a report about prosecutorial decisionmaking. So, we want to flesh out the counterintelligence issues,” Schiff said.Republicans have invited their own witness, a former federal prosecutor and Fox News contributor.
They are likely to train their questions on the original counterintelligence investigation, which they allege was improperly started by agents biased against President Trump during the election. A number of Republicans have also argued the FBI improperly relied on information from the infamous Steele dossier in applying for a warrant to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Notably absent from the committee’s hearing will be Mueller.
And after all the posturing, Junior is back in front of the Senate Intel Committee.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is expected to hear for a second time testimony from the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., on Wednesday. Republican Richard Burr, issued a subpoena for Trump Jr.'s testimony following the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report.
Trump Jr. walked past cameras, escorted by Capitol police shortly after 9:10 am before his appearance. Walking down a Senate hallway, Trump Jr. smiled and said: "nothing to correct" in response to questions from reporters on why he was appearing before the committee on Wednesday and was he there to correct his previous testimony.
Mr. Trump's son testified before the committee once before in 2017. Trump Jr. had reached an agreement to testify before the committee following the subpoena. His appearance on Wednesday will take place behind closed doors.
Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, who signed off on the subpoena to Trump Jr., told his colleagues that the panel has been engaged in talks with Trump Jr. since last December, and that he had agreed to voluntarily be interviewed on two separate occasions before backing off, according to sources familiar with the matter. That move prompted Burr and Democratic Sen. Mark Warner to ultimately issue the subpoena for his testimony, after Trump Jr.'s legal team objected to the scope and breadth of the planned interview, according to one source.
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Before the blowup over Trump Jr., Burr had earned praise in the Senate for the bipartisan handling of the probe, which moved forward quietly with a stream of witnesses moving before the committee.
Burr made a point of rarely attending White House events or speaking with the President. It's also not clear whether Burr will be swayed by the political pressure, given that he's already said he's not planning to run for reelection when his term ends up 2022, freeing him of concerns about a primary challenge.
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Trump Jr. told the Senate panel that he had only told campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner about the Trump Tower meeting ahead of time. But then-Trump campaign deputy Rick Gates, who pleaded guilty in the special counsel probe, told Mueller's team that Trump Jr. said he had a lead on negative information about the Clinton Foundation at a morning campaign meeting in the days before the Trump Tower meeting.
Trump Jr.'s testimony on the Trump Organization's Trump Tower Moscow project has also come into question.
Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee he was "peripherally aware" of the project, but Mueller's report says that Cohen testified he had discussed the project on multiple occasions with Trump Jr. and that was not "idle chit chat."
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The subpoena has sparked a sharp backlash from Trump Jr.'s Republican allies — including many of Burr's Senate colleagues — publicly urging Burr to drop the matter and questioning his decision.
Trump, who said last week he was "very surprised" at the subpoena from Burr, tweeted a story Sunday about the Republican pressure on Burr and added: "Really sad!"
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While the subpoena was only revealed last week, the negotiations have been ongoing for several months, before Mueller finished his investigation. After the news broke, Burr kept quiet publicly but defended the move in private discussions with his colleagues, telling GOP senators about the months-long negotiations to secure his return, according to a source briefed on the comments.
After noting that the President's son agreed to come in on two different dates, then backed off, Burr explained that when Trump Jr.'s team postponed a planned April 4 interview, the committee said he could no longer delay his appearance. The panel gave him until April 8 to reconsider, at which point it issued the subpoena, according to the source.
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[W]ith Trump Jr. and his allies now mounting a fierce pushback against Burr, the GOP chairman could soon be forced to make a difficult decision if Trump Jr. defies the subpoena: whether to hold Trump Jr. in contempt and risk further GOP backlash or give the President's eldest son a pass and spark outcries of favoritism.
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Trump Jr.'s approach to the interview appears to have rankled the powerful Republican committee chairman, leading to the tense stand-off pitting Burr and Warner against the President's son and his Republican allies. The dispute is all the more remarkable given that Burr, a Republican, was first to issue a subpoena to a member of the President's family amid the House Democrats' war with the White House over their investigations into Trump's administration, businesses and finances.
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[T]he panel wants to clear up potential discrepancies from [Junior's] past testimony about the Russia project and the June 2016 meeting.
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"He's [Burr] been under enormous pressure at times from certain members to shut down the investigation, I've been under pressure to reach a conclusion before we're finished," Warner said. "I think we've resisted that, and I think as you see the work product of this committee, the committee will be proud, and candidly the American public will get to see how the Congress is supposed to work."
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The former Senate Judiciary Chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, declined to answer questions Monday about whether Trump Jr. should comply with the Intelligence Committee's subpoena.
"I don't have an answer for you," Grassley said. "Because for me to answer your question, I would have to divulge information I got in the caucus, that they asked us to keep private because everything that goes on in that committee is tightly held."
I know we all knew that, but it's confirmed in the Mueller report.
The first week of June is before June 9. And if the Trump Organization attorneys knew about the meeting, Trump knew about it. (As seen previously, he kept telling people he didn't want to hear about it. Like that would shield him from legal responsibility.)
And who told Hannity? Let me guess: His Lardship, in one of their nightly telephone pow-wows.
According to documents released by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in May, the president’s eldest son spoke to an unknown person with a blocked phone number twice on June 6. Trump Jr. placed those calls -- which lasted 11 minutes and four minutes, respectively -- as he coordinated logistics for the meeting with a conduit to the Russians.
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On June 9, two hours after the meeting concluded, Trump Jr. placed another call to a blocked number, which lasted three minutes.
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The calls to blocked numbers, which came on June 6, and after the meeting on June 9, were between Trump Jr.’s cell phone and two family friends -- NASCAR CEO Brian France and real estate developer Howard Lorber, according to the sources.
Both men have close ties to President Donald Trump and actively supported his campaign during the 2016 election.
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Trump’s ties with Lorber [...] have attracted the interest of congressional investigators, sources said. In the 1990s, when Trump started exploring real estate options in Russia, Lorber accompanied him on a tour of Moscow. A real estate developer who has done business there, Lorber appeared in a biographical video of Trump that aired on jumbotrons at the 2016 Republican National Convention before his acceptance speech.
A spokesperson for Lorber said the real estate executive “does not recall having conversations with Donald Jr. in the summer of 2016, but in any event he has absolutely not had conversations with Donald Jr. about any Russian matters.”
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Lorber and the president have long been friends. The two have golfed together, and Lorber made a guest appearance on an episode of “The Apprentice.”
Lorber donated $100,000 to Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee for Trump and the RNC, and served as an economic adviser on the campaign.
Since Trump’s election, Lorber has remained a close ally outside the West Wing. In August 2018, he hosted a fundraiser for Trump Victory at his Long Island mansion.
"His fther (me)." In case you didn't know who Donald Trump Jr's father might be. REALLY sad!
So, some questioning about whether those phone calls were to Trump Sr having been answered in the negative means the whole thing needs to be thrown out. Why not?
Any time. Which is why I think whoever the people are that Junior called are going to be just as bad for the Trump team when we find out who they were and what was said.
But why didn't he just tell them that? Were the business associates a worse answer to the question than his father?
Democratic lawmakers have zeroed in on Trump Jr.'s four-minute call that occurred between the two calls he exchanged with Agalarov on June 6, 2016, three days before the Trump Tower meeting. Trump Jr. then had an 11-minute call with a private number that same evening, and also another a three-minute call with a blocked number two hours after the meeting.
Trump Jr. told congressional investigators in 2017 that he did not know who the blocked calls were with. When asked if he told his father about the meeting or the underlying offer of dirt on Clinton, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee: "No, I did not."
I'm going to have to say the answer to my question is "yes" - whoever those calls were to, he didn't want the committee to know. But I'm also guessing Mueller knows.
UPDATE:
"His fther (me)." In case you didn't know who Donald Trump Jr's father might be.
UPDATE:
Any time. Which is why I think whoever the people are that Junior called are going to be just as bad for the Trump team when we find out who they were and what was said.
I have no intention of reading Junior's full testimony from May of last year, but if I'm not mistaken, he had already confessed that his original statement about the meeting with Veselnitskaya, et al., that his father instructed him to give, was a lie. If so, and he told something more truthful to Congress, that would not count against Trump Sr as suborning perjury. Lying to newspapers is not illegal. Lying to Congress is. There may have been other instances, however, because it's a pretty sure bet that he never did anything without his father telling him to do it. November, 2018
Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN Friday she believes Donald Trump Jr. lied to the committee on at least two occasions, which would constitute a felony.
“I don’t really want to go into it at this point, but I think there’s at least two occasions where he lied to the committee,” she said when asked what the lies were regarding.
“In part, it is somewhat related to documents that we never were able to subpoena because the Republicans were really the puppets of the president in terms of trying to protect him and not being the independent investigative authority that we should have been looking at the issue,” Speier added.
Trump could face up to five years in prison if he lied in his testimony to the committee.
Consider the following timeline: on July 7–8, 2017,Trump attends the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany the site of his first face to face encounter with Putin.
On the morning of July 7, 2017, the New York Times informs the White House--for the first time--that it has learned about the Trump Tower meeting between Don Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and a Russian lawyer with Russian government connections, Natalya Veselnitskaya. The New York Times asks the White House to comment.
On the afternoon of July 7, 2017, Trump and Putin, accompanied only by Rex Tillerson, Sergei Lavrov and their interpreters, meet for 2 and 1/2 hours. We now know from @gregpmiller that after the meeting Trump seizes the US interpreter’s notes and tells her not to brief senior NSC or State Department aides about the conversation with Putin. Later that evening on July 7, 2017, during the formal G20 summit dinner, Trump seeks out Putin for another conversation. Putin’s interpreter is the only other participant. The fact of this meeting is not publicly revealed until more than a week later after @ianbremmer hears about it from other G20 attendees. (The White House doesn’t officially confirm it until July 18, 2017.) As Bremmer points out, Trump oddly doesn’t even inform his own staff afterwards that he’s had this second conversation with Putin.
On the AF1 flight back to Washington the next day on July 8, 2017, Trump dictates the text of the now infamous, misleading statement (for Don Jr. to release) about the Trump Tower meeting. Don Jr.’s statement to @nytimes emphasizes: “We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children” at the meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya. The @nytimesstory about the Trump Tower meeting appears later that same day (July 8, 2017).
On July 11, 2017 the same @nytimes team breaks the story that Don Jr was told in advance that Veselnitskaya intended to provide dirt on the Hillary Clinton campaign at the behest of the Russian government. Don Jr. replies: "I love it."
On July 19, 2017 Trump repeats the false assertion that he talked to Putin about adoption in a conversation with @peterbakernyt, @nytmike and @maggieNYT. In the same interview, Trump also floats the idea that there was nothing inappropriate about his senior-most campaign officials meeting with foreign emissaries who wanted to help his campaign. “Who wouldn’t have taken a meeting like that?”
All of this begs the question: What did Trump and Putin actually discuss at that impromptu one-on-one dinner meeting at the Hamburg G20 on July 7, 2017?
Hmmmmm. Could it be removing Russian sanctions and turning over Bill Browder?
Moreover, why did they huddle together by themselves within hours of the White House learning that the at-that-point-still-secret Trump Tower meeting between Trump, Jr. and the Russians was about to become public?
Could it be what to tell the media about Junior's meeting regarding Russian sanctions and turning over Bill Browder in return for dirt on Hillary?
Put another way, shortly after the New York Times reached out to the White House to ask about a secret meeting with the Russians, Trump himself sought a secret meeting with the Russians.
Two days before the Trump Tower meeting, then-candidate Donald Trump teased a major speech in which he’d detail dirt about the Clintons.
“I am going to give a major speech on — probably Monday of next week — and we’re going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons,” Trump said. “I think you’re going to find it very informative, and very, very interesting.”
Of course, it was Rudy Giuliani who claimed that Mueller accused Manafort of lying about what the president knew, and we don't know what was in the redacted parts of Mueller's statement on Manafort, so...
In closed-door meetings with the House and Senate intelligence committees last year, Trump’s former personal lawyer testified that he had no foreknowledge of the meeting and didn’t know if Trump did either, sources told Axios.
CNN reported last month that Cohen was willing to testify to special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump knew in advance of the meeting, during which the Russian lawyer offered “dirt” on then-candidate Hillary Clinton.
When The Post called Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, at the time to confirm the report, he said as an anonymous source that it was accurate.
But Thursday, Davis, speaking on the record, apologized for confirming something he did not know to be true.
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“I’m sorry that I left that impression. I wasn’t at the meeting. The only person who could confirm that information is my client.”
If Trump doesn't stop tweeting obstruction and criminal admissions, Mueller will never finish the investigation.
President Trump said on Sunday that a Trump Tower meeting between top campaign aides and a Kremlin-connected lawyer was designed to “get information on an opponent” — the starkest acknowledgment yet that a statement he dictated last year about the encounter was misleading.
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The president claimed that it was “totally legal” and of the sort “done all the time in politics.”
But the tweet also served as an admission that the Trump team had not been forthright when Donald Trump Jr. issued a statement in July 2017 saying that the meeting had been primarily about the adoption of Russian children.
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It is illegal for a campaign to accept help from a foreign individual or government. The president and his son have maintained that the campaign did not ultimately receive any damaging materials about Mrs. Clinton as a result of the meeting. But some legal experts contend that by simply sitting for the meeting, Donald Trump Jr. broke the law.
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Donald Trump Jr. issued his statement in July 2017 after The New York Times revealed the existence of the meeting. The meeting’s true purpose was exposed a few days later when The Times published emails between Donald Trump Jr. and Rob Goldstone, a British-born former tabloid reporter and entertainment publicist who helped arrange it. Mr. Goldstone said he had “something very interesting” — sensitive information that “is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
After the meeting was revealed, Mr. Trump posted a tweet similar to the one he wrote on Sunday morning: “Most politicians would have gone to a meeting like the one Don jr attended in order to get info on an opponent. That’s politics!” But his administration at the time was sticking to the adoption story line.
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Numerous White House aides and lawyers for the president aggressively denied at the time that the president had been involved in drafting the misleading statement. Jay Sekulow, one of the president’s lawyers, said in 2017 that “the president was not involved in the drafting of that statement.” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the current press secretary, insisted that the president “certainly didn’t dictate” the statement.
But The Post reported in July 2017 that Mr. Trump had in fact done so. And earlier this year, Mr. Trump’s lawyers acknowledged in a memo to Mr. Mueller that the president had dictated the statement.
On Sunday, Mr. Sekulow admitted that his earlier statement had been erroneous, saying on ABC News’s “This Week” that “I had bad information at that time and made a mistake in my statement.”
In the interview, Mr. Sekulow said that it was not clear what laws the president’s son and the other campaign officials at the Trump Tower meeting might have violated when they met with the Kremlin-connected lawyer.
“Well, the question is: How would it be illegal?” Mr. Sekulow said. “What law, statute or rule or regulation’s been violated? Nobody’s pointed to one.”
Really? He knows the answer to that. Evidently they are going to argue that seeking a meeting to receive dirt on Hillary in order to help win the election is not a "thing of value." What a sleaze. Then again, I guess it would take a sleaze lawyer to represent a sleaze client.
Asked about the Trump Tower meeting, he repeatedly steered his answers back to attacks on Mr. Mueller’s investigation.
“Let’s be honest with the American people, there are irregularities in this investigation the likes of which we have not seen,” Mr. Sekulow said, mimicking one of the president’s favorite phrases.
We've come a long way from 'there was no meeting with Russians,' and even from 'there was a meeting, but it was about adoptions,' and even from 'there was a meeting to get information, but it didn't produce any.'
And I'm pretty sure "wonderful son, Donald" will be left to do time on his own while the best father in history continues to deny any knowledge (until he drafted wonderful son's response to the NYT when they discovered the meeting). Deny, that is, until witnesses, phone calls and tapes prove that he did know, and then he's going to claim that was totally legal, too; why aren't you investigating the thirteen (sometimes seventeen) angry Democrats!?!
Listen to this interview with Bill Browder, the man at the crux of the Magnitsky Act, to understand why the meeting at Trump Tower regarding "adoptions" is so important to the Mueller investigation, why repeal of the Magnitsky Act is so important to Vladimir Putin, and why it's so telling and so outrageous that Trump appeared to approve of Putin's "offer" to get Bill Browder in Russia. (In iTunes) (FM Player) (Pastime)
And if Rudy keeps going on TV, the Mueller investigation will never end.
Today, on Fox and CNN, Rudy blew out another tire.
Cohen is now reportedly willing to tell prosecutors that Trump knew about, and approved, the [Junior Trump Tower] meeting ahead of time.
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“Cohen is alleging that the meeting took place. We are making it clear that the President was not at that meeting. Cohen doesn’t even allege that. To cut it off.”
No one said he was. This is an odd thing to have to make clear.
On the same day of the dirt meeting, Giuliani said Monday, Cohen (or someone speaking to reporters on his behalf) has claimed “that he was in President Trump’s office, Donald Trump Jr. walked in and told him about the Russian meeting.”
“That is categorically untrue,” Giuliani said. “Did not happen. Two witnesses demonstrate that. He has talked about this endlessly on those 183 unique recordings and he never mentions it at all.”
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Giuliani added on Fox News: “So the public record contains a leak by Cohen that he was present at a meeting in which Donald Jr. came in and informed the President. We deny that happened. We say it didn’t happen and if it had happened, it would’ve been mentioned a long time ago on the various hours of tapes that we have.”
So who are the witnesses that Junior didn't come in to telll Trump about the meeting when Cohen was in the room?
The two witnesses, [Giuliani] told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota Monday morning, are the President and his son.
No comment necessary.
Giuliani told Fox News that he and Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow had heard from reporters who’d been told about another meeting “in which they [Don Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, and ‘possibly others’], out of the presence of the President, discussed the meeting with the Russians.”
He categorically denied that the un-reported meeting he’d just brought up had ever happened.
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Giuliani later said that the supposed meeting he’d heard about from reporters had happened “three days before” the Russian dirt meeting.
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He added later, “The second meeting was brought to my attention through Jay Sekulow. Both of us dealt with it with two different reporters, essentially the same information, about this meeting that took place three days earlier [that is, three days before the dirt meeting] with a whole group of people.”
He continued: “Everyone of those people says it didn’t happen. And why do I mention it? Because first of all, I thought it was going to come out, and second, my experience is that when you have something like this floating around, it comes out. And I don’t want it to come out and be un-rebutted when it originally comes out.”
So, this is a pre-buttal, I guess.
“When I thought that it was going to be published,” Giuliani said, “I wanted to get out in front of it.”
But he didn't deny it originally. That only happened after he decided it wasn't going to be published. What he told CNN was it wasn't about Clinton dirt - and that it was before the Tower meeting.
Rudy Giuliani told CNN that two days before the Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer to get “dirt” on Hillary Clinton there was a planning meeting to prepare that meeting. It included Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and others.
President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani says key players from the infamous Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 attended another meeting days before but it was on an unrelated subject and the president wasn't there.
Giuliani gave several confusing answers about the meeting in morning TV interviews – then called in to 'Fox and Friends' to try to clean up any misconceptions about it.
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'That's a real meeting on another provable subject in which he was not participating,' he told CNN's 'New Day.'
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He also appeared to confirm the meeting happened when he said: 'And this meeting that Cohen's talking about took place before the meeting with the Russians.'
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The head-spinning commentary about a Trump Tower meeting that happened as well as two other meetings that he said didn't happen came on a day when Giuliani also said colluding with Russia may not even be a crime.
The comment raised a possible new legal defense even as he lowers the bar following a series of emphatic denials by Trump that there was no collusion.
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'So I said today that there was no collusion therefore – and that collusion also is no crime. I've been saying that from the very beginning,' he [said].
It's a very, very familiar lawyers argument that the alternative, my client didn't do it and even if he did it, it's not a crime. And I have said that over and over again – collusion is not a crime. The only crime there is hacking and it's ridiculous to think that the president hacked. Now why do I say that? I say that to attack the legitimacy of the investigation,' Giuliani said.
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On Fox, Trump said of the meeting before the meeting with Russians: 'We checked with their lawyers, the ones we could check with, which were four of the six. That meeting never-ever took place. It didn't happen. It's a figment of [Choen's] imagination or he's lying. The only meeting they found for that day that included any of these people is a meeting about the Hispanic judge that the president had criticized back around that time. So that hopefully sets the record straight.'
But of course it doesn't. Was there a meeting or not? I'm gonna say yes. And it was not about what Trump said about the Hispanic judge. Why would the Trump Tower meeting people be concerned about that and hold a meeting on it?
Giuliani took to the airwaves Monday morning to keep up the president's attacks on Mueller, who is heading the Russia probe, and faulted him for failing to publicly buttress Trump's position regarding a leaked recording of a tape between Trump and his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen discussing a payment involving a former Playboy playmate.
'When you're getting beaten up by all kinds of anonymous tweets coming from (Cohen lawyer) Lanny Davis and Cohen, and you put out something like that, you have every right to say you explain it, Mueller, stand up and be a man,' Giuliani told CNN's 'New Day.'
1) Why would Mueller be responsible for publicly backing Trump's statements?
Host Alisyn Camerota asked why it was up to Mueller to support the president's tweet.
'Because he has the conflict, not the president,' said Giuliani.
Did she just let that go? How is that an answer?
2) "Anonymous" tweets "coming from Lanny Davis and Cohen"? How does that work?
Giuliani also taunted Mueller in an interview with Axios published Monday.
'Why don't you write a report and show us what you have, because they don't have a goddamn thing,' Giuliani said.
Dear Rudy: the report comes at the end. And, since they already have several guilty pleas, several more indictments, and a couple of trials, I think we have to admit they do have something.
But he claimed Trump still has a 'soft spot' for Michael Cohen, who Giuliani has been branding as a liar amid signals he may cooperate with Mueller.
Perhaps that line was the whole point: Don't spill any more beans, Michael. The president might want to pardon you.
The moving goal posts was a favorite Bush II ploy. Trump is perfecting it, possibly because he has so many more ridiculous or outrageous incidents to defend.
If we go all the way back to the first explanations about Junior's meeting we have this list:
1. There were no Russian agents
2. There were Russian agents, but they discussed adoption
3. There were Russian agents, and they discussed getting dirt on Hillary, but Trump didn't know about the meeting before hand
4. There were Russian agents, and they discussed getting dirt on Hillary, Trump knew about the meeting before hand, but he wasn't there, but he didn't do the hacking - or pay for it - himself, and anyway, collusion is not a crime
And after that: he's the president; you can't do anything about it now. Shut down the government!
