Giuliani calls timing of Mueller’s latest Cohen bombshell ‘hardly coincidental’

Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's personal lawyer, criticized the timing of Michael Cohen's guilty plea on charges of lying to Congress: just before the president was about to leave for a high-stakes G-20 summit in Argentina.
Giuliani issued a statement Thursday saying Mueller's office was proving Trump's former lawyer lied to Congress by using documents that were already voluntarily disclosed by the Trump Organization "because there was nothing to hide."
"It is hardly coincidental that the Special Counsel once again files a charge just as the President is leaving for a meeting with world leaders at the G20 Summit in Argentina," Giuliani said.
Giuliani's statement called out Mueller's office for playing politics with the surprise announcement. Giuliani pointed to a similar decision in July when the Department of Justice announced that 12 Russian intelligence officers were to be indicted for allegedly hacking the Democratic National Committee and others.
The July indictment was announced days before Trump was slated to hold a key summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. Trump was meeting with Queen Elizabeth II in Britain at the time of the announcement.
Politico spoke to White House officials who hoped the G-20 summit would showcase Trump's ability to negotiate. Trump's upcoming Saturday lunch with China's President Xi Jinping is seen by some to be a make-or-break meeting between the two leaders. Trump also called off a meeting with Putin over the recent naval clash with Ukraine.
Cohen confessed in a surprise guilty plea Thursday that he lied to Congress about a Moscow real estate deal he pursued on Trump’s behalf during the heat of the 2016 campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. He said he lied to be consistent with Trump’s "political messaging."
GREGG JARRETT: COHEN GUILTY PLEA DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO SHOW WRONGDOING BY TRUMP
The agreement made clear that prosecutors believe Trump's former lawyer was continuing to pursue the Trump Tower Moscow project weeks after his boss had clinched the Republican nomination for president and well after the point that Cohen has publicly acknowledged.
According to a report by BuzzFeed News, Trump’s company planned to give the tower's penthouse to Putin as they worked on a real estate deal for the building during the 2016 campaign. The claim was sourced by four people, including one of the plan’s creators.
But the plan would have been a “stupid idea,” the source told Fox News on Thursday night, adding that the president “never heard of it.”
Fox News is told Trump's legal team was unaware of such a plan.
Plans for constructing the building were ultimately scrapped.
There is no clear link in the court filings between Cohen’s lies and Mueller’s central question of whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. And nothing said in court, or in associated court filings, addressed whether Trump or his aides had directed Cohen to mislead Congress.
Giuliani told CNN that "neither of the two versions from Michael Cohen creates a problem for what the president testified."

Hundreds of US troops on alert in Uruguay to protect Trump at G20

Departing the White House, President Trump blasts his former attorney Michael Cohen as 'weak,' uses Twitter to cancel scheduled meeting with Russian President Putin; chief White House correspondent John Roberts reports from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Some 1,000 American troops and aircraft based in Uruguay are on alert to protect President Trump as he attends the G20 summit in Argentina this week.
The protection for Trump, who will do a 48-hour diplomatic blitz of high-level meetings with foreign leaders at the summit, was assured after the Uruguayan government approved the entry of American troops after much debate in the country.
Earlier this month, Uruguay’s Senate approved a law that allowed the U.S. to deploy its military in the country as an effort to provide security for the G20 summit.
The bill authorized the entry into Uruguay of three U.S. fuel cargo aircraft, two transport aircraft and three AWACS planes as well as 400 U.S. military personnel and civilians who would be the crew and provide support and maintenance.
But the measure didn’t pass without any controversy, with Uruguay’s left-wing groups and trade unions speaking out about the presence of American troops, deeming them a risk to Uruguay’s safety.
“The armed forces of the United States have not been and will not be welcome in Latin America,” said Constanza Moreira, a left-wing politician, who eventually voted in favor of the bill.

"The armed forces of the United States have not been and will not be welcome in Latin America."
— Constanza Moreira, left-wing Uruguayan lawmaker who ultimately OK'd the troops' presence

“I am against it. They didn’t give me freedom of action. This is what I call the club of the rich. We don’t support rich clubs. Uruguay has nothing to do with the G20. I do not understand why Uruguay is being used as a base of operations,” she added, according to left-leaning People’s Dispatch.
One of the largest trade unions in the country, PIT-CNT, also released a statement opposing the presence of American troops, claiming they represented “a risk to national sovereignty” and that it didn’t make sense logistically as the summit will be held in neighboring Argentina.
At the G20 summit, Trump has jam-packed eight meetings with foreign leaders, but on Thursday he announced that he will cancel a meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin over Russia's tensions with Ukraine after the Russian military seized three Ukrainian naval ships.
The White House also said the meetings with the leaders of Turkey and South Korea would be substituted with informal conversations, while a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be held jointly with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Democrat, #MeToo activist was drunk, 'overly familiar' with male staffer, but no evidence of groping: report

California state Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia was "overly familiar" with a former legislative male staffer, an investigator said, according to a letter this week from Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. (Assemblywoman Garcia's website)

An investigator found that a California Democrat who was at the forefront of the #MeToo movement was "overly familiar" with a male former legislative staffer who accused her of misconduct, according to a letter this week from Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon.
But there's not enough evidence to substantiate allegations that Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, D-Bell Gardens, groped Daniel Fierro at a 2014 legislative softball game in Sacramento, the investigator said.
The findings were outlined in a letter from Rendon, which says the Assembly speaker will take "appropriate remedial action." His spokesman, Kevin Liao, said that action hasn't been determined.
Rendon's letter outlining the findings said investigators concluded Garcia was inebriated, grabbed Fierro's arm for support and put her hand on his back. It said she was "overly familiar" in a way she would not have been if she was sober.
But it said the evidence doesn't support a finding that she touched Fierro on his buttock or genitals or that the encounter was sexual.
Garcia, who represents southeastern Los Angeles County's 58th Assembly District, said in a statement she disagrees with some of the findings but did not elaborate.
Fierro first complained earlier this year that Garcia drunkenly groped him at the 2014 softball game, The Sacramento Bee reported. Garcia denied the allegation.
The investigator repeated earlier findings. The Assembly said in May an outside investigator found no evidence substantiating the allegation.
The investigator also said Garcia did not retaliate against him for filing a complaint.
But Fierro said the investigator didn't interview at least one witness he reported and alleged that Garcia retaliated against him by trying to prevent him from getting consulting contracts. Fierro, a political communications consultant from Cerritos, said he was "annoyed at the whole process," the Bee reported.
When Fierro appealed the decision, the Assembly Rules Committee's top Democrat and Republican authorized "further investigation."
Garcia took a three-month leave of absence after the groping allegation surfaced and returned to work last month after some of the initial investigation's findings became public. The findings said Garcia frequently used vulgar language in the office, asked staff to perform personal errands and disparaged her colleagues, the Bee reported.
She was required to attend sensitivity training and stripped of her committee assignments, according to the paper.
Although she was cleared of groping Fierro, the investigator found she used vulgar language in violation of the Assembly's sexual harassment policy.
"I again apologize if language I used in the past made anyone feel uncomfortable," she said in a statement.
Garcia recently won re-election to a fourth term in the Assembly, defeating Republican Mike Simfenderfer. Her district covers parts of Montebello, Artesia, Cerritos and Bell Gardens.

Paul Ryan questions California's 'bizarre' vote-counting process

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., didn't accuse California election officials of wrongdoing but described the state's Election Night results as "bizarre." (Associated Press)

House Speaker Paul Ryan questioned the legitimacy of California’s ballot-counting process Thursday, adding to claims from many Republicans that the state’s election procedures are flawed.
“It defies logic to me,” Ryan told the Washington Post. “We had a lot of wins that night, and three weeks later we lost basically every contested California race. This election system they have, I can’t begin to understand what ballot harvesting is.”

"It defies logic to me. We had a lot of wins that night, and three weeks later we lost basically every contested California race."
— House Speaker Paul Ryan

"Ballot harvesting" is when a third party collects completed ballots from voters and hands them over to election officials. The practice was legal for the first time in California this year.
Ryan has not accused California of any wrongdoing.
Californa took longer than other states to finish counting ballots cast Nov. 6, prompting criticism from many Republicans. By Election Night millions of ballots that were mailed in still needed to be hand-counted.
Alex Padilla, the state's top election official, fired back at Ryan on Twitter, saying the state makes sure "every ballot is properly counted and accounted for. That’s not 'bizarre,' that’s DEMOCRACY.”
“It shouldn’t ‘defy logic’ that elections officials are meticulous in counting every eligible ballot,” Padilla continued, the Mercury News of San Jose reported. “California works to ensure every ballot is counted properly and every ballot is accounted for. In the most populous state in the nation — and the state with the largest number of registered voters — this takes time.”
Democrats flipped six House seats across the state on Election Night. Most of California’s outstanding ballots were those received by mail or received after Election Day. Others were provisional ballots, which are submitted when voters show up to the wrong polling location, or when their name isn’t on the rolls.
The state also allows same-day voter registration, adding to the number of ballots that needed to be verified and counted.
“The way the absentee ballot program used to work and works now, it just seems pretty loosey-goose,” Ryan said. “Point being, when you have candidates that win the absentee ballot vote, win the day of the vote and then lose three weeks later because of provisionals, that’s really bizarre. And so I just think that’s a very, very strange outcome.
“When you win the absentee ballots and you win the in-person vote, where I come from, you win the election,” Ryan added.

“When you win the absentee ballots and you win the in-person vote, where I come from, you win the election.”
— House Speaker Paul Ryan

In an email to supporters, Orange County Republican Party Chairman Fred Whitaker gave his account of what happened.
“The number of election day vote-by-mail drop-offs was unprecedented — over 250,000," Whitaker wrote, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. "This is a direct result of ballot harvesting. That directly caused the switch from being ahead on election night to losing two weeks later.”
The Republican Party’s losses in the county were “catastrophic,” Whitaker said, referring to the once-reliability GOP stronghold that saw Democrats sweep House races, effectively turning the county blue.

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Should Trump be warning of retaliation over GM layoffs?

President Trump is pointing fingers on the economy.
The country's sustained boom, of course, has been one of his major selling points, with jobless numbers not seen in decades and a stock market that soared until the recent downturn.
But some recent bursts of bad news have Trump slamming both General Motors and his hand-picked Fed chairman.
It's not hard to grasp why the president is hitting the giant automaker after its announcement that it would cut 15,000 jobs and close plants in Ohio, Michigan and Maryland (but not Mexico and China). He's obviously trying to pressure the company.
But I'm surprised there's not more of a backlash against this tweet:
"The U.S. saved General Motors, and this is the THANKS we get! We are now looking at cutting all @GM subsidies, including for electric cars."
How can the president talk about retaliating against one particular company because he doesn't like its policies? Federal subsidies usually go to whole industries, not particular corporations. GM would have a pretty good lawsuit if it was singled out for punishment.
And if Barack Obama, who engineered the 2009 federal bailout of GM, had made such a comment, the right would have exploded. There would have been an uproar about picking winners and losers.
As a career businessman, Trump should understand that CEO Mary Barra has to do what's in the best interests of her company and her shareholders. She's making these moves because many of her cars aren't selling well. (Know anyone who has a Chevy Cruze?)
In fact, like other American carmakers, GM is all but getting out of the business of making passenger sedans, which is dominated by the Japanese, in favor of SUVs, trucks and electric and hybrid cars.
As the Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial page put it yesterday, "President Trump believes he can command markets like King Canute thought he could the tides. But General Motors has again exposed the inability of any politician to arrest the changes in technology and consumer tastes roiling the auto industry."
This isn't the first time Trump has scolded corporations; he questioned Amazon postal subsidies (Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post) but hasn't done anything about it.
The only subsidies involving GM actually go to consumers who get a $7,500 tax credit for buying battery-powered or hybrid cars (much of this has gone to Tesla buyers). But the credit is greatly reduced after a company’s first 200,000 vehicles, and GM has already sold 190,000 such cars.
Meanwhile, Trump went after his Fed chairman, Jerome "Jay" Powell, in a Post interview.
"So far, I'm not even a little bit happy with my selection of Jay," the president said. "Not even a little bit. And I'm not blaming anybody, but I'm just telling you I think that the Fed is way off-base with what they're doing."
Actually, he is blaming someone. And while it's not unusual for presidents to be frustrated with the Federal Reserve for tapping on the brakes, Trump, of course, doesn't hold back — even when it's his guy.
"I'm doing deals, and I'm not being accommodated by the Fed. They're making a mistake because I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else's brain can ever tell me."
Yes, we can't have Government by Gut. But Trump's gut did get him elected. It does not, however, have the power to reverse industry layoffs or force an independent agency not to hike interest rates.

Senate moves forward with resolution to end US military support for Yemen war

The Senate on Wednesday advanced a resolution that would end U.S. military support for the Saudi-led conflict in Yemen that human rights advocates say is wreaking havoc on the country and subjecting civilians to indiscriminate bombing.
The procedural vote was 63-37, a rebuke to Saudi Arabia and President Trump's administration, which has issued a veto threat.  Late Wednesday, the Senate agreed to postpone any further action on the resolution until next week.
Lawmakers from both parties have signaled they want to punish Saudi Arabia for its role in the murder of writer and activist Jamal Khashoggi.
The U.S. is not directly involved in the civil war, but provides assistance to the Saudi-led coalition, including intelligence sharing and weapons sales. There has been increased scrutiny of that support in the wake of the killing of Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate in Turkey. U.S. intelligence agencies are said to have concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman must have at least known about the plan to kill Khashoggi, although Trump has appeared to doubt that assessment.
After a closed-door briefing with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis, as Fox News previously reported, several senators said they were unsatisfied and likely to back the resolution to halt U.S. interference.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News after the vote: “I changed my mind ’cause I’m pi--ed. … I don’t agree with what they’re doing. The way the administration has handled Saudi has been unacceptable, briefing didn’t help me today at all. Yemen is just one part of the puzzle. I think we have a right to be briefed by the CIA. How can I make an informed decision if I don’t have access to intelligence?”
SOME CARAVAN MIGRANTS HEADING BACK AS OTHERS ARRIVE AT U.S. BORDER
Emerging from the briefing, Pompeo said the vote would be "poorly timed" as diplomatic efforts to end the conflict are underway.
The years-long war, which began after the Houthis ousted the Yemen government in 2014, has wreaked havoc upon the country, and led to the bombing of civilians and a devastating cholera outbreak.
Tens of thousands of people are believed to have been killed in the conflict. Two-thirds of Yemen’s 27 million population rely on aid and more than 8 million are at risk of starvation. U.N. Special Envoy Martin Griffiths told the U.N. Security Council this month that Yemen “remains the largest humanitarian disaster in the world,” and civilians are dying from preventable diseases as the economy remains on the verge of collapse.
U.S. SERVICE MEMBERS KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN BOMB ATTACK ARE IDENTIFIED
“The United States can no longer turn a blind eye to this conflict because we are a party to it. The longer we enable the conflict to continue, the more innocent men, women and children will die,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in a statement to Fox News after the vote. “I welcomed Secretary Mattis’ announcement that the United States will no longer refuel the coalition’s aircraft. But more must be done. Until there is a congressional authorization, all U.S. forces supporting the coalition’s war should be withdrawn. That’s why I support the Sanders-Lee resolution. By ending our participation in this brutal war, we will send an unambiguous message that we won’t accept continued bloodshed.”

Corsi tries to go on offensive against Mueller, DOJ, asks lawyers to file ‘criminal complaint’

Jerome Corsi, the conservative author accused of lying under oath to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators, instructed his legal team on Wednesday to file a criminal complaint against ‘Mueller’s special counsel’ and the Department of Justice, alleging prosecutorial misconduct.
Corsi, who was not specific about the alleged misconduct, said in the tweet that he retained attorney Larry Klayman, the founder of the conservative Judicial Watch. He later left and founded Freedom Watch. Bloomberg reported that Klayman is representing Alabama's Roy Moore in a defamation suit against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and CBS Corp.
Corsi told Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Tuesday that Mueller's investigators accused him of lying after he didn’t "give them what they wanted." He elaborated further Wednesday on “Hannity.”
"My experience made it clear to me that political criminals are running the Department of Justice and Mueller’s prosecution," he said. "I was ridiculed; my testimony was laughed at; they yawned at it; they misbehaved. They accused me of being a liar and a fabricator."
The author theorized that investigators hoped that he would admit to a connection with WikiLeaks' Julian Assange. The connection would bolster their Russian collusion investigation, he said. A link between Corsi and Assange would make it easy to tie in President Trump's former Trump adviser Roger Stone, he said.
Corsi rejected a deal with investigators that would have required him to plead guilty to perjury. He said he could not lie to something he knew to be false, even if it meant living out his life in prison.
A draft court filing prepared as part of the abortive plea deal, which Corsi has provided to multiple media outlets, said Corsi notified Trump adviser Stone in August 2016 that WikiLeaks intended to release information damaging to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Corsi, the onetime Washington bureau chief of the website InfoWars, said he had "figured out that Assange had Podesta’s emails. I figured that out and told Roger Stone and told many people in August and it just happened that I was right."
The DOJ did not immediately respond to an email from Fox News.
Bloomberg reported that Klayman said in an email that he is preparing to file a complaint with Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker and two units within the DOJ.

Stormy Daniels says lawyer Avenatti sued Trump for defamation without her OK

Adult-film actress Stormy Daniels claimed Wednesday that her attorney, Michael Avenatti, sued President Trump for defamation without her approval and launched a second fundraising campaign to raise money "without my permission or even my knowledge ... and attributing words to me that I never wrote or said."
In a statement to The Daily Beast, Daniels said that "Avenatti has been a great advocate in many ways," but she added: "in other ways Michael has not treated me with the respect and deference an attorney should show to a client."
"For months I’ve asked Michael Avenatti to give me accounting information about the fund my supporters so generously donated to for my safety and legal defense," Daniels said. "He has repeatedly ignored those requests. Days ago I demanded again, repeatedly, that he tell me how the money was being spent and how much was left.
"Instead of answering me ... Michael launched another crowdfunding campaign to raise money on my behalf. I learned about it on Twitter," added Daniels, who also said that she had not yet decided if Avenatti would continue to represent her.
Avenatti responded with a statement obtained by Fox News: " I am and have always been Stormy’s biggest champion.  I have personally sacrificed an enormous amount of money, time and energy toward assisting her because I believe in her. I have always been an open book with Stormy as to all aspects of her cases and she knows that.  You need only look back at her numerous prior interviews where she states we talk and communicate multiple times every day about her cases.
STORMY DANIELS DEFAMATION SUIT AGAINST TRUMP TOSSED ON FIRST AMENDMENT GROUNDS
"The retention agreement Stormy signed back in February provided that she would pay me $100.00 and that any and all other monies raised via a legal fund would go toward my legal fees and costs," Avenatti went on. "Instead, the vast majority of the money raised has gone toward her security expenses and similar other expenses. The most recent campaign was simply a refresh of the prior campaign, designed to help defray some of Stormy’s expenses."
The fundraising appeal on the website CrowdJustice had raised $4,785 as of Wednesday evening. The fundraising page appeared to have been taken down after the Daily Beast published Daniels' statement. The website reported that an earlier fundraiser netted more than $580,000 for Daniels' expenses earlier this year.

Stormy Daniels and Michael Avenatti outside federal court in Manhattan earlier this year. (Reuters)

Last month, a federal judge in Los Angeles threw out Daniels' defamation suit against the president, which arose from an April tweet in which Trump denied her claims of being threatened by a man in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, claimed Daniels said the man was threatening her for going public about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Trump has repeatedly denied the affair took place.
As part of his ruling in the defamation suit, U.S. District Judge S. James Otero ordered Daniels to pay Trump's legal fees, which the president's attorneys estimated to be $350,000.
Daniels initially sued Trump to invalidate the confidentiality agreement she signed days before the 2016 presidential election that prevented her from discussing a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump years before he ran for president. The confidentiality agreement included a payment of $130,000 to Daniels from Trump's then-personal attorney Michael Cohen. This past August, Cohen admitted to making payments to Daniels and another woman, Karen McDougal "at the direction" of then-candidate Trump in violation of federal campaign finance law.

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