N.Y. State Authorities Probe Trump Organization Payments to Michael Cohen

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Earlier today, we posted my column about yesterday’s revelation that federal prosecutors in Manhattan granted immunity to two American Media Inc. executives, including CEO David Pecker, a longtime friend and collaborator of President Trump’s. As I detail in the column, while news of the immunity grants just broke yesterday, the grants almost certainly happened many weeks ago — likely just after the April search warrants executed at Michael Cohen’s office and residences. The point, it appears, was to shore up the case against Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer. The immunity grants are not a new development signaling sudden momentum in an investigation of President Trump. Of course, if there is such an investigation, they would be relevant.

In the column’s penultimate paragraph, I note that in the eight-count criminal information to which Cohen pled guilty on Tuesday, prosecutors suggested that fraud may have been committed by Cohen and the Trump Organization (President Trump’s real-estate conglomerate). At issue is the manner in which Cohen was reimbursed for the $130,000 hush-money payment to Stephanie Clifford (the porn star better known as Stormy Daniels). Specifically, there are peculiarities in the way Cohen’s reimbursement was totaled up, invoiced, and processed for payment.

Right about the time I submitted the column to my tireless editors late last night, the New York Times broke the news that the Manhattan district attorney’s office is considering criminal charges against the Trump Organization over these payments.

The Times’ William K. Rashbaum reports that this state probe is in its infancy. This, no doubt, is because it was triggered by the aforementioned criminal information the feds filed against Cohen — to be precise, the part of the Cohen case outlined in the last four paragraphs of the “Campaign Finance Violations” section of the press release issued by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY). . .

First, the president has indicated that he personally reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 Stormy Daniels pay-off. As noted in my aforementioned column, this is important because, under campaign-finance law, there is no dollar limit on what a candidate may spend on his own campaign (while other donors have a $2,700 ceiling, which is why Cohen was charged). One question that federal prosecutors have certainly looked into is whether the president himself paid Cohen, as opposed to reimbursing him through a Trump business entity. (Read more from “N.Y. State Authorities Probe Trump Organization Payments to Michael Cohen” HERE)

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One State’s Gun Control Initiative Will Appear on the November Ballot Despite Questionable Practices

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The Washington State Supreme Court on Friday overturned a lower court’s decision on the state’s controversial gun control ballot initiative, I-1639. The Court ruled unanimously that the initiative must appear on the November ballot.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Second Amendment Foundation, along with a handful of individuals, previously challenged the initiative’s state constitutionality. According to NRA and SAF, the ballot initiative’s supporters didn’t follow state laws regarding proper formatting.

“The problem with the petitions is that they failed to underline new law and strike through removed law so that the reader could not know the current law, added law and subtracted law,” Alan Gottlieb, Founder and Executive Director of SAF, previously told Townhall.

“If they are so careless about knowing what is, or is not, shown on their own petitions, how is anyone else supposed to know? They’re asking people to sign an initiative that is difficult, if not impossible to read,” Gottlieb said. “And now we’ve discovered that even if people can read the fine print, it does not appear to be a ‘true and correct copy’ of the proposed measure as submitted to the state.

According to the Court, the statute the NRA and SAF referenced is “narrow” and
“it does not allow for preelection judicial review of the form, process, substance, or constitutionality of an initiative petition.” (Read more from “One State’s Gun Control Initiative Will Appear on the November Ballot Despite Questionable Practices” HERE)

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Car Driver Loses Sponsorship After His DAD Admits to Using a Racial Slur in the 1980s

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Eli Lilly pulled its sponsorship of Indy Car racer, Conor Daly, after Conor’s father, Derek Daly, admitted to using a racial slur during a live radio broadcast in the 1980s, almost a decade before Conor Daly was born.

Lilly Diabetics was expected to be a primary sponsor of Daly’s #6 car in his NASCAR debut this weekend, but told local media Friday evening that it “didn’t want the distraction from their cause,” presented by Derek Daly’s admission.

“Our sponsorship in Saturday’s race is intended to raise awareness of treatment options and resources for people living with diabetes. Unfortunately, the comments that surfaced this week by Derek Daly distract from this focus, so we have made the decision that Lilly Diabetes will no longer run the No. 6 at Road America this weekend,” the company said in a statement. “We remain committed to our mission of supporting people with diabetes.”

(Read more from “Car Driver Loses Sponsorship After His Dad Admits to Using a Racial Slur in the 1980s” HERE)

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Mass Shooting at Florida Video Game Tournament Leaves Multiple Fatalities

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Four people are dead and at least nine others wounded Sunday afternoon in a mass shooting during a video game tournament at the Jacksonville Landing.

Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams said at 4:30 p.m. that the gunman, a white man, is dead, but he wouldn’t confirm casually counts, so it wasn’t known if the four dead included the shooter.

News4Jax sources say the suspect, a gamer from the Baltimore area armed with a semiautomatic handgun, killed himself.

Williams said SWAT teams had completed a methodical search of the Landing and the immediate area and found no additional gunmen. . .

Randy Wyse, president of the firefighters’ union, said Engine Company 1 was training in the area and victims began running up to them before they received the emergency call. He said victims ran as far as the CSX building, about a half-mile away to get help. (Read more from “Mass Shooting at Florida Video Game Tournament Leaves Multiple Fatalities” HERE)

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Bombshell: FEC Records Indicate Hillary Campaign Illegally Laundered $84 Million; Cohen Deletes Important Hillary-Related Tweet

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By The Federalist. The press continues to feed the dying Russia collusion conspiracy theory, spending Friday’s news cycle regurgitating Democrat talking points from the just-filed Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act lawsuit against the Trump campaign, WikiLeaks, and Russia.

Yet the mainstream media took no notice of last week’s federal court filing that exposes an $84 million money-laundering conspiracy the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign executed during the 2016 presidential election in violation of federal campaign-finance law.

That lawsuit, filed last week in a DC district court, summarizes the DNC-Clinton conspiracy and provides detailed evidence from Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings confirming the complaint’s allegations that Democrats undertook an extensive scheme to violate federal campaign limits. . .

Dan Backer, a campaign-finance lawyer and attorney-of-record in the lawsuit, explained the underlying law in an article for Investor’s Business Daily: Under federal law, “an individual donor can contribute $2,700 to any candidate, $10,000 to any state party committee, and (during the 2016 cycle) $33,400 to a national party’s main account. These groups can all get together and take a single check from a donor for the sum of those contribution limits—it’s legal because the donor cannot exceed the base limit for any one recipient. And state parties can make unlimited transfer to their national party.”

This legal loophole allows “bundlers” to raise large sums of money from wealthy donors—more than $400,000 at a time—filtering the funds to the national committees. Democrats and Republicans alike exploit this tactic. But once the money reaches the national committees, other limits apply. (Read more from “Bombshell: FEC Records Indicate Hillary Campaign Illegally Laundered $84 Million” HERE)

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Cohen Deletes Tweet Predicting Clinton Would Go to Jail

By NY Post. A day after pleading guilty to a swarm of criminal charges that will land him behind bars, President Trump’s longtime lawyer deleted a gloating 2015 tweet predicting that Hillary Clinton would end up in the slammer.

“@HillaryClinton when you go to prison for defrauding America and perjury, your room and board will be free!” Trump’s self-described fixer Michael Cohen tweeted that December.

Critics including comedian Kathy Griffin gleefully reposted the tweet, which was removed sometime Wednesday morning.

Cohen in court Tuesday described how he violated campaign finance laws by arranging hush-money payments to porn vixen Stormy Daniels and Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal. (Read more from “Cohen Deletes Tweet Predicting Clinton Would Go to Jail” HERE)

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Vote Alert: An $854 Billion Spending Monstrosity That Funds Planned Parenthood

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When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., canceled the August recess, there was an expectation that Republicans would use the extra time to confirm a backlog of Trump nominees and to fight for conservative priorities. Instead, the Senate passed an $854 billion spending package that kicked conservative reforms to the side in favor of placating the Democrats and their priorities.

Senate leadership combined a $675 billion defense appropriations bill with a bill to fund the Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services, known as a “minibus.”

The $179.3 billion Labor-Education-HHS components of the package include a $541 million increase for the Department of Education, a $2.3 billion increase for HHS, and an increase in the National Institutes of Health’s record funding to $39.1 billion. These spending levels blow past the requests President Donald Trump made in his budget. The bill also fully funds the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s unaccompanied alien child refugee program without making needed reforms to confirm that those seeking asylum in the U.S. are suffering from legitimate forms of persecution, in addition to continuing funding for Title X “family planning” programs, which give taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s number one abortion provider.

The Senate claimed it would use the August recess to confirm a backlog of more than 180 Trump nominees and pass conservative legislation. Senators have only confirmed two nominees in August so far.

As for bills passed, the bottom line is that Republicans worked with Democrats to increase government spending for both military and domestic programs. The Senate irresponsibly increased funding for the Department of Education, Obamacare, welfare programs, and abortion providers. And the $21 trillion national debt continues to grow.

The Senate passed this minibus appropriations bill on August 23, 2018 at 5:15 p.m. in a roll call vote of 85 – 7. (For more from the author of “Vote Alert: An $854 Billion Spending Monstrosity That Funds Planned Parenthood” please click HERE)

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John McCain’s Family Announces He’s Ending Medical Treatment

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Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) family announced Friday that the senator is discontinuing medical treatment for his aggressive form of brain cancer. His daughter Meghan shared the news on Twitter.

McCain’s colleagues and friends – both Republican and Democrat – have begun to send their thoughts and prayers to him and his family.

(Read more from “John McCain’s Family Announces He’s Ending Medical Treatment” HERE)

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DOJ Charges Nearly Two Dozen Illegal Aliens for Voting in the 2016 Election

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The Department of Justice announced Friday nearly two dozen foreign nationals have been charged for illegally voting in the 2016 presidential election. . .

The charges for all defendants were returned by a Grand Jury. Here’s what they’re up against:

If convicted of false claim of United States citizenship in order to register to vote, and voting by an alien, Amachaghi, Castillo-Boswell, Damatta-Rodriguez, Espinosa-Pena, Fullerton, Martin, Sauls, Silverio-Polanco, and Solano-Rodriguez, would face maximum penalties of six years’ imprisonment, a $350,000 fine, and a term of supervised release following any term of imprisonment.

If convicted of voting by an alien, Cannizzaro, George, Harris, Jean, Landeros-Mireles, Ramiro-Torres, Romanowski, and Soifils would face maximum penalties of twelve months imprisonment, a $100,000 fine, and a term of supervised release following any term of imprisonment.

If convicted of fraud and misuse of visas, permits, and other documents, and voting by an alien, Franco-Rodriguez would face maximum penalties of twenty-six years imprisonment, a $350,000 fine, and a term of supervised release following any term of imprisonment.

(Read more from “DOJ Charges Nearly Two Dozen Illegal Aliens for Voting in the 2016 Election” HERE)

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CIA-FBI-Deep State Plot Against Trump Thickens: Fusion GPS Spy Natalia Veselnitskaya Worked out of Obama Official’s Office, GOP and Dem Donor

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The Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya who set up Don Trump Jr. for a meeting in Trump Tower as part of a Fusion GPS plot was operating out of the Washington offices of Cozen O’Connor, a law firm run by an anti-Trump former Obama administration official whose super PAC donated to Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush in the 2016 presidential election.

Veselnitskaya’s work from the Cozen O’Connor office provides more evidence of a Democrat and establishment Republican effort to set up the Trump campaign for a future Russian collusion case. Veselnitskaya was allowed into the United States by the Obama Department of Justice while the former Obama official who runs Cozen O’Connor publicly warned then-candidate Trump that if he became president he would be investigated by the DOJ for contacts with foreign leaders. Veselnitskaya reportedly had dinner meetings with Fusion GPS chief Glenn Simpson the day before she met in Trump Tower and also the day after she went inside Trump Tower. . .

Russian and U.S. citizen Rinat Akhmetshin, a Soviet military veteran, was present at Veselnitskaya’s meeting with Don Jr. in Trump Tower after leading a lobbying push supposedly to repeal the Magnitsky Act. Akhmestshin is believed by insiders to be linked to Russian government intelligence, a fact that the Washington Post seized on when reporting that he met with Don Jr. and Jared Kushner in Trump Tower. A nonprofit group (editor’s note: probably a front group financed by the CIA or FBI) focused on promoting Akhmetshin and Veselnitskaya’s cause to lawmakers actually hired Cozen O’Connor, which the law firm confirms. . .

James Comey’s friend, Columbia University professor Daniel Richman, leaked classified information that Comey gave him. During this leaking period, Richman was apartment-building neighbors with a partner at the Cozen O’Connor law firm that strategized with Fusion GPS operative Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian plant who set up Don Jr. in Trump Tower.

Veselnitskaya and Fusion GPS, led by Glenn Simpson, were part of John Brennan and Peter Strzok’s CIA-led “Operation Crossfire Hurricane” plot aimed at President Donald Trump and the Trump campaign. (Read more from “CIA-FBI-Deep State Plot Against Trump Thickens: Fusion GPS Spy Natalia Veselnitskaya Worked out of Obama Official’s Office, GOP and Dem Donor” HERE)

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Cohen’s Counsel Denies the Central Allegation of the Deep State Plot Against Trump

By Chuck Ross. For nearly 20 months, the allegations made in the infamous Steele dossier have hung like a cloud over the Trump administration and several of his former advisers.

The salacious 35-page document has become Exhibit A in President Donald Trump critics’ conspiracy theory that the campaign colluded with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election. Numerous news outlets, pundits and lawmakers have also pushed the theory.

But the dossier arguably suffered its heaviest blow on Wednesday after Clinton-connected lawyer Lanny Davis emphatically denied one of the document’s most intriguing allegations.

Davis said the dossier’s claims that his client, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, traveled to Prague in August 2016 as part of a conspiracy with the Kremlin are “100 percent” false.

Davis’ comments received little attention from the both the mainstream press and the entities that have pushed the dossier. (Read more about this Deep State Plot HERE)

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Army General: Trump’s Complete Reversal of Obama’s Strategy Is Working

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The outgoing commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan told reporters at a news conference Wednesday that the South Asia Strategy put in place a year ago by President Donald Trump is not only working, it’s bringing the 17-year war to its closest reconciliation point yet.

“The strategy is working,” Army Gen. John Nicholson, commander of NATO’s Resolute Support mission, told reporters. “Reconciliation progress is significant, and ultimately, wars end with a political settlement. So the progress toward reconciliation is key.”

As part of Trump’s strategy, the U.S. has increased its troop presence from 8,400 in the final months of President Barack Obama’s term to about 16,000 today, according to congressional statistics cited by Military Times.

By nearly doubling the number of U.S. troops in the region, the Taliban knows it will not be able to overwhelm Afghan forces and now must consider a negotiated peace.

“We were on a glide path to reduce our forces, and eventually to close down the mission,” said Nicholson, who was appointed by Obama. “At that time, the enemy had no incentive to negotiate, because we were leaving … the enemy believed we had lost our will to win. And all they needed to do was wait us out.”

“We have an unprecedented opportunity for peace now,” Nicholson added.

As further evidence of the success of Trump’s new strategy, Nicholson said there were two peace offerings proposed within six months of the South Asia Strategy being implemented. Within 10 months, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani offered a three-day ceasefire that produced striking images of Taliban fighters taking selfies with Afghan civilians.

According to Defense One, the U.S. and the Taliban have also reportedly opened a bilateral channel with the Ghani’s blessing.

“We’re seeing progress toward reconciliation,” Nicholson said. “What I would say is focus on the talking part of this…given that the traditional metrics of fighting are not explaining why the Taliban are willing to talk now.”

Not everything in Afghanistan suggests the Taliban is backing down. A recent four-day assault on Ghazni resulted in hundreds of deaths, including a number of civilians.

Nicholson said the Taliban is still capable of launching deadly attacks, but not necessarily capable of taking control of key areas of the country.

“This was not a military victory by any stretch. They were driven out of the city, and it was done in about four days,” he said. “Can they launch an attack for four days? Yes. Do those attacks succeed in gaining and holding ground? No.”

“There will be ups and downs,” Nicholson said of the fight against the Taliban. “There will be leaps ahead; there will be frustration; there will be two steps forward, one step back from time to time. But the process has started and it wouldn’t have happened without the South Asia Strategy.”

Nicholson admitted that despite the progress, “We certainly wanted to see this war be over many years ago.”

But with nearly two dozen terrorist groups based in the country, Nicholson believes the presence of U.S. and NATO forces would “prevent the emergence of some new threat to the homeland.”

“Our presence here does protect the homeland and prevent another 9/11,” he said. “I firmly believe that.”

Lt. Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller is slated to succeed Nicholson and take command in the fall. (For more from the author of “Army General: Trump’s Complete Reversal of Obama’s Strategy Is Working” please click HERE)

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