Gimme Back My Plane!

Pit Bulls and Sex Symbols:  Yesterday was a particularly wacky day even by Trump standards and much, though not all of the insanity, concerned former Trump lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen.  First the Wall Street Journal reported that in 2014 Cohen hired an information technology firm called RedFinch Solutions to manipulate an online CNBC poll about the country’s top 100 leaders in the hope of getting Trump placed high on the list.  Though that effort failed Cohen maintained his relationship with Redfinch and its owner John Gauger who is also the chief information officer for Liberty University, the large evangelical school run by Jerry Falwell Jr, who Cohen may or may not have persuaded to support Trump by threatening to expose an alleged relationship with a pool boy.  In 2015, before Trump entered the presidential race, Cohen had Gauger manipulate a Drudge Report “vote” on potential Republican candidates, this time Gauger’s efforts paid off, Trump came in fifth, with about 5% of the total votes and its possible that given its proximity to the launch of Trump’s campaign the manipulation of that poll violated campaign finance laws. Unrelated to Trump but bizarre nevertheless, Cohen also had Gauger create a Twitter account called @WomenForCohen. The account, claims to be run by “women who love and support Michael Cohen. Strong, pit bull, sex symbol, no nonsense, business oriented and ready to make a difference!”  According to Gauger, Cohen never paid him the full $50,000 he was owed for his services but did make a partial payment, handing over a Walmart bag stuffed with about $12,000 in small bills and a boxing glove that had been worn by a Brazilian martial arts champion. Cohen, who says that the poll manipulation was done at Trump’s direction, asserts that he paid Gauger the full amount he was due by check.  In any case records indicate that Cohen submitted an invoice to the Trump Organization for $50,000 and that he was paid him in full, a payment that was recorded in the Trump ledgers as a reimbursement for “legal services.”  That should have been enough Cohen news for one day, but this being Trump world it wasn’t.  Late last night Buzzfeed reported that Trump personally directed Cohen to lie to Congress about the status of the Moscow Trump Tower project.  He specifically told Cohen to say that the project had ended months before it did. Buzzfeed cites two unnamed “law enforcement officials” involved in the Trump investigation as their sources.  The same sources say that internal Trump Organization emails, documents and text messages back up Cohen’s claim about Trump directing his testimony and show that Trump, Ivanka and Don Jr were kept fully up to speed on the Tower project up until the time that it was discontinued.  Last night Rudy Giuliani who had spent part of the day trying to walk back his admission that some members of the Trump campaign team had committed collusion, responded to questions about Trump directing Cohen’s testimony by saying that “if you believe Cohen I can get you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge,” hardly a firm denial and in any case one that ignores Buzzfeed’s reports of corroborating evidence.  In case you missed it, during this week’s Attorney General confirmation hearings, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar specifically asked AG nominee William Barr if “A president persuading a person to commit perjury would be obstruction, is that right?”  Barr responded “Yes.”  Klobuchar then doubled down asking “You also said that a president –or any person—convincing a witness to change testimony would be obstruction, is that right?  Again, Barr said “Yes.”  Following in the footsteps of former Senator Al Franken who tripped former Attorney General Sessions up during his confirmation hearings, once again a senator from Minnesota has asked the question that matters.  Trump obstructed justice and despite his memo saying that presidents can’t obstruct when they fire their FBI Directors,  Barr confirmed that he believes that they can obstruct when they direct dishonest testimony.  He said that under oath in front of the cameras.  Today should be interesting.   

Tit for Tat:  It took twenty-four hours but Trump finally did react to Speaker Pelosi’s letter, the one where she told him he couldn’t make his State of the Union Address in her House until he reopened the government. Shortly after she and a number of other members of Congress boarded a bus to take them to the airport to fly to Brussels and Afghanistan, he cancelled her military flights with a letter that “Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over. In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate.” He went on to say that she could fly commercial if she really wanted to go.  Pelosi’s trip was hardly the boondoggle that Trump tried to make it out to be.  During the Brussels refueling stop her delegation planned to meet with NATO officials to reassure them that the US was fully committed to the alliance and their mission. In Afghanistan she planned to get an on the ground status update and visit with the troops.  No stop in Egypt was ever planned.  In cancelling her “flights” Trump inappropriately revealed the travel plans to a war torn nation by the person second in line for the presidency after Pence, a big security no-no.  Also, he knows or ought to know that since 9.11 the Speaker of the House is not supposed  to travel commercial when going overseas. At the time that Trump disrupted Pelosi’s travel plans, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and a squad that included Ivanka and Jared was still scheduled to travel to Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum meeting.  However, after the hypocrisy of that trip continuing was pointed out by virtually every media outlet, the White House belatedly announced that those plans were cancelled as well.  However, one person didn’t get the message about the inappropriateness of travel during a shutdown, while the Trump baby was taking his “toy” planes away from Pelosi and Mnuchin, Melania snuck out the back door and jumped a government plane to Mar a Lago to celebrate MLK Day, to the extent that anyone in the Trump orbit celebrates MLK.  There must be a special provision in Melania’s post-nup that allows her to do whatever she wants to do.  In any case she really doesn’t care, does she?  Oh and two more things, Trump traveled to Iraq at the beginning of his shutdown and all he has to do to end the shutdown is agree to sign a continuing resolution, Pelosi doesn’t need to be around for that, she has already passed her legislation. Yesterday, McConnell again refused to bring any government opening legislation up for a Senate vote, but he did find time to bring up legislation that would have permanently banned any federal funding for abortion, including funding through Obamacare policies.  That legislation failed to get the sixty votes it needed for passage.  Notably two Democrats, West Virginia’s Manchin and Pennsylvania’s Casey voted for it while two Republicans Alaska’s Murkowski and Maines’ Collins voted no.  In other legislative news, the House voted overwhelmingly to maintain the sanctions on the Deripaska aluminum companies with 136 Republicans joining their Democratic colleagues. Citing the overwhelming support in the House, Democrats made an attempt to bring the resolution up in the Senate for a revote but were stymied by McConnell. The Russians are very happy about that, yesterday pictures of several of the Republican Senators who voted for lifting the Deripaska sanctions, including mugshots of McConnell and Romney, were prominently displayed on their news channels as heroes of the Russian state.

Other News:  The Skadden Arps law firm settled with the Department of Justice, handing over the $4.6 million that they received for work they did for the Ukraine and Paul Manafort.  Senator Diane Feinstein, the most senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee announced that she will not support Barr’s nomination unless he promises to release the full Mueller report.  And proving once again that Trump really doesn’t like or care about Puerto Rico, just days after Pam Patenaude, a senior HUD official resigned over HUD’s efforts to restrict Puerto Rico disaster relief, Puerto Rican officials reported that the Treasury Department and FEMA are holding up funds until the island’s cash balances drop to a certain point, though neither FEMA nor the Treasury will say what that point is.