The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The conference is just a "scheduling conference," Rose. They will not be detailing the alleged lies in this conference. They will likely be setting a date for sentencing and providing a deadline for the prosecutors to file "a detailed sentencing submission to the Probation Department and the Court in advance of sentencing that sets forth the nature of the defendant’s crimes and lies, including those after signing the plea agreement herein" (as the prosecutors wrote in the status report in which they revealed the alleged lies). So we won't find out what the lies are, we just may find out when we may find out what the lies are (I say "may" because even that document might get filed under seal, in which case we still won't know).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Meanwhile I keep seeing all these articles saying that it is "Breaking News" that Manafort's attorneys were sharing information with Mr. Trump's attorneys after Manafort reached his plea deal and cooperation agreement. I agree that such an arrangement is highly unusual, but it is not "Breaking News" as Mr. Giuliani was bragging weeks ago that he knew what Manafort was telling the prosecutors and that none of it implicated Mr. Trump.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

More "Breaking News" that is more like "Duh!"

Exclusive: Two key answers from Trump to Mueller

I am reasonably sure that both of these things are unlikely to be true, but I am doubtful that Mueller and his team will be able to prove that.

[yovargas]

President Donald Trump told special counsel Robert Mueller in writing that ...he [was not] told about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his son, campaign officials and a Russian lawyer promising dirt on Hillary Clinton.

I thought he had already admitted that he knew about that one, didn't he?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

No, Michael Cohen claimed that Mr. Trump knew about it and approved it, but Mr. Trump denied that that was true. I doubt that Cohen's word by itself would be enough to prove that it was true.

[RoseMorninStar]

Yet Junior made phone calls during that meeting and if we find out that those phone calls were to Daddy, that would be a lie, wouldn't it?

I don't have a great memory, but I would never consider running for a high office. If these people have such 'poor memories'/no recollections of so many events, they shouldn't be in an important office either.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

As I recall, the phone calls to the blocked number were before and after the meeting, not during it. It is unclear whether the blocked numbers can actually be traced. If so, the special counsel might already know whether either or both were to Mr. Trump. If so, both Junior and Senior would be in legal jeopardy since Junior stated under oath that he never told his father about the meeting, and now we have word that Mr. Trump has also stated that under oath. But what Michael Cohen said was that he was present when Donald Trump, Jr. told Mr. Trump about the meeting and what it was about, and that Mr. Trump gave the go-ahead to go forward with it. Presumably that was not a phone call but a meeting in which they were all present. I think.

[yovargas]

I could have sworn this all already came out. Didn't one of the Trumps admit that the original Russian adoption cover story had been dad's idea?

[RoseMorninStar]

yov, now that you mention it, I seem to remember that's something they cooked up on Air Force One...

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I could have sworn this all already came out. Didn't one of the Trumps admit that the original Russian adoption cover story had been dad's idea?

Yes, but that was later. The official position of all is that Mr. Trump did not know about the meeting when it happened or during the campaign. They claim that once it was coming out, Mr. Trump dictated the cover story.

ETA: When the story first came out in July 2017, Trump claimed he "only heard about it 2 or 3 days ago." Here is a list of 20 times in which he or his allies denied that he knew about it:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/27/politics ... index.html

[RoseMorninStar]

Trump is his own best unreliable witness.

[RoseMorninStar]

What does anyone make of this article Voronwë? Is this sort of what you had explained several posts above?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yes, exactly. I've seen a number of people make similar speculation, which made me feel good.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Michael Cohen pleads guilty, says he lied about Trump's knowledge of Moscow project

Big news? Maybe, maybe not. By itself it doesn't mean very much, though if it is true it would show that Mr. Trump was actively engaged in business in Russia at the same time that the Russians were actively engaged in trying to support Mr. Trump's campaign. The fact that this is coming out now -- after Mr. Trump's written answers to questions about activities that took place before he was elected -- make me wonder whether there were any questions directed to Mr. Trump specifically about whether he was involved with the Moscow project during the campaign, and if he denied it he too could be accused of lying about this under oath.

Perhaps most significantly, it is the first concrete result of Cohen's cooperation with the special counsel's office (as opposed to the SDNY prosecutors). I am pretty confident that it will not be the last.

[RoseMorninStar]

We have so much evidence and so many things have taken place that would have destroyed most people long ago. What is it with narcissists and what they are able to do that renders them as no-stick teflon? I don't get it.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

We'll see

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[River]

Meanwhile, a Chicago alderman and tax attorney who has worked for Trump got raided by the FBI today.

It is not clear whether or not the reason for the raid had any link whatsoever to the President. It could just be a really crappy coincidence - this Burke guy has been investigated by the Feds more than once already.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yeah, we'll habe to see about that one. It could be another brick in the wall, or completely unrelated.

Meanwhile, here is a good article about the significance of the Cohen news.

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/577015/

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[Voronwë the Faithful]

And then there is this

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/an ... -putin-the

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[elengil]

Here's an interesting article I came across https://www.businessinsider.com/legal-i ... ia-2018-11

One of the more interesting quotes from it is

"When you start to see corroboration from two people who didn't intersect, as far as plea deals and the time period, and the same facts, that tells you as a prosecutor that you're starting to finally get to the truth,"