Leaked: Here’s What Michael Cohen Will Reportedly Testify Against President Trump

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By The Blaze. A report Thursday says that Michael Cohen, the former lawyer for President Donald Trump, will testify that the president knew about a meeting with Russians he has previously claimed he knew nothing about. . .

The controversial meeting took place in June 2016 at Trump Tower and was attended by Donald Trump Jr., publicist Rob Goldstone, Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and various Russians with connections to the Russian government.

Trump Jr. admitted that he was seeking damaging information about Hillary Clinton ahead of the election. In emails that he posted to his Twitter account, Trump Jr. had accepted the meeting organized by Goldstone, who said the information was coming from the Russian government. He also claimed Russia supported Trump’s presidential campaign. . .

According to sources that spoke to CNN, Cohen is willing to testify that he was present when Trump Jr. told then-candidate Trump about the meeting, and that he saw Trump approve of the meeting. . .

In a combative interview on CNN Thursday, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani called Michael Cohen a liar and an unreliable witness. He said that Cohen lacked all credibility, and that it could actually damage any case if his testimony was included. (Read more from “Leaked: Here’s What Michael Cohen Will Reportedly Testify Against President Trump” HERE)

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Michael Cohen Wants Gag Order Against Stormy Daniels’ Attorney for Alleged Smear Campaign

By ABC News. Michael Cohen’s efforts to muzzle one of his chief antagonists will be before a federal judge in Los Angeles on Friday, as President Donald Trump’s long-time fixer seeks a gag order against Michael Avenatti, the outspoken attorney for adult-film star, Stormy Daniels.

Cohen’s lawyers have likened Avenatti to a “small-town carnival magician,” and have accused him in court filings of a deliberate smear campaign against Cohen involving more than 170 television appearances and upwards of 500 tweets “during which he routinely accused Cohen of various criminal acts” and of “being a moron.”

“Mr. Avenatti’s actions are mainly driven by his seemingly unquenchable thirst for publicity,” wrote Cohen’s attorney Brent Blakely in a court filing earlier this month.

Avenatti has called the request for a gag order “a complete joke and baseless.” He has been unrelenting in his public criticism of Cohen, even as the former Trump Organization executive has publicly signaled a break with the president – and an apparent willingness to cooperate with federal prosecutors. (Read more from “Michael Cohen Wants Gag Order Against Stormy Daniels’ Attorney for Alleged Smear Campaign” HERE)

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Obama Knowingly Funded Designated Al-Qaeda Affiliate

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By Daily Wire. A new report released on Wednesday revealed that the Obama administration knowingly provided an Islamic terrorist-financing organization with hundreds of thousands of dollars despite the fact that the group had been designated as a terrorist-financing organization for a decade by the U.S. government.

Obama officials approved the release of well over $100,000 even after they were informed that the Khartoum-based Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA) was affiliated with Osama bin Laden and Maktab al-Khidamat (MK), which eventually became al-Qaeda.

ISRA, also referred to as the Islamic African Relief Agency (IARA), received a $200,000 taxpayer-funded grant from the Obama administration, which released at least $115,000 to the terrorist-financing organization. . .

World Vision had informed the USAID in 2014 that ISRA was on the designated terrorist organization list and subsequently had to wait for an assessment from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) before they could receive the money.

OFAC confirmed in January 2015 that ISRA was a designated terrorist organization and rejected World Vision from obtaining “a license to engage in transactions with [ISRA].” (Read more from “Obama Knowingly Funded Designated Al-Qaeda Affiliate” HERE)

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Obama Administration Knowingly Funded a Designated Al-Qaeda Affiliate

By National Review. The Middle East Forum has discovered that the Obama administration approved a grant of $200,000 of taxpayer money to an al-Qaeda affiliate in Sudan — a decade after the U.S. Treasury designated it as a terrorist-financing organization. More stunningly, government officials specifically authorized the release of at least $115,000 of this grant even after learning that it was a designated terror organization.

The story began in October 2004, when the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated the Khartoum-based Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA), also known as the Islamic African Relief Agency (IARA), as a terror-financing organization. It did so because of ISRA’s links to Osama bin Laden and his organization Maktab al-Khidamat (MK), the precursor of al-Qaeda.

According to the U.S. Treasury, in 1997 ISRA established formal cooperation with MK. By 2000, ISRA had raised $5 million for bin Laden’s group. The Treasury Department notes that ISRA officials even sought to help “relocate [bin Laden] to secure safe harbor for him.” It further reports that ISRA raised funds in 2003 in Western Europe specifically earmarked for Hamas suicide bombings.

The 2004 designation included all of ISRA’s branches, including a U.S. office called the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA-USA). Eventually it became known that this American branch had illegally transferred over $1.2 million to Iraqi insurgents and other terror groups, including, reportedly, the Afghan terrorist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In 2010, the executive director of IARA-USA and a board member pled guilty to money-laundering, theft of public funds, conspiracy, and several other charges. (Read more from “Obama Administration Knowingly Funded a Designated Al-Qaeda Affiliate” HERE)

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Suspect Arrested After Trump’s Hollywood Star Is Destroyed

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President Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was destroyed early Wednesday morning, allegedly by a man wielding a pickax.

Los Angeles police told The Hollywood Reporter that a call came into the department around 3:33 a.m. about the star’s destruction.

Police added that a 25-year-old man had been taken into custody around 6:20 a.m. regarding the incident and had been booked for felony vandalism.

KNBC reporter Jonathan Gonzalez tweeted: “Multiple people — including police — tell me a man walked up with a guitar case and pulled out the pick axe.

“Then, it’s believed, he called police himself to report it, but left the scene before they got here.”

Wednesday’s incident marks the second time Trump’s star has been completely destroyed.

In October 2016, 53-year-old James Lambert Otis was taped taking a pickax and a sledgehammer to the iconic symbol.

Otis later pleaded no contest to felony vandalism and was fined $4,400 for the damage and was sentenced to three years probation and 20 days of community service, Politico reported.

“Trump’s star has experienced minor vandalism before, such as being spray painted and having a tiny wall built around it,” according to Politico.

The star is located near the highly trafficked Dolby Theater (site of the Academy Awards ceremony) on Hollywood Boulevard.

Deadline reported that is was dedicated in 2007 in recognition of Trump’s work on the successful NBC reality television program “The Apprentice.”

There are more than 2,500 stars on the Walk of Fame, which are maintained by the Hollywood Historic Trust and chosen by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber responded to a petition to remove Trump’s star from the Walk in 2016 by saying it was staying.

“Once a star has been added to the Walk, it is considered a part of the historic fabric of the Hollywood Walk of Fame,” Leron Gubler, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce president, told the Los Angeles Times. “Because of this, we have never removed a star from the Walk.” (For more from the author of “Suspect Arrested After Trump’s Hollywood Star Is Destroyed” please click HERE)

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Former Congressman Working to Make Sure Noncitizens Can Never Vote in This State

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By The Blaze. Former congressman Doug Ose believes only United States citizens should be allowed to vote, and he’s working to get a proposal on the 2020 ballot that would prevent any noncitizen from voting, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Ose represented California’s 3rd District in the U.S. House from 1999 to 2005, and now he’s seeking to make a two-sentence adjustment to California’s election code. . .

San Francisco approved a measure to allow any parent or legal guardian of voting age to vote in school board elections, regardless of citizenship status, back in 2016. . .

Former Rep. Newt Gingrich, in a Fox News opinion column, has criticized the measure, saying “the long-range plans Democrats have for a ruling majority depend on continuous law-breaking to get enough non-Americans to vote. The Californians who don’t support the radical views of Democrats can simply be eclipsed by non-citizen voters supporting the Democrats.” . . .

Ose, who served the Sacramento area while in Congress, was a relatively early Trump supporter during the 2016, throwing his support behind the then-candidate after Jeb Bush dropped out. (Read more from “Former Congressman Working to Make Sure Noncitizens Can Never Vote in This State” HERE)

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Non-Citizens, Illegal Aliens Now May Register to Vote in San Francisco School Board Elections

By Fox News. The city of San Francisco this week began allowing non-citizens, including illegal immigrants, to register to vote in the November election for the city school board.

The effort follows the city’s passage of a 2016 ballot measure that gave the right to vote in school board elections to non-U.S. citizens over age 18 who live in San Francisco and have children under age 19, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The measure was approved by a majority of San Francisco’s eligible voters, but after the first two attempts failed.

“This is no-brainer legislation,” Hillary Ronen, of the city’s Board of Supervisors, told the publication. “Why would we not want our parents invested in the education of their children?”

“As a parent myself and a former member of the SF Board of Education it is critical that the voices of all parents are at the table, particularly those that have historically been denied a voice in the process,” Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer said. (Read more from “Non-Citizens, Illegal Aliens Now May Register to Vote in San Francisco School Board Elections” HERE)

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Twitter Has Been Shadow Banning Conservatives, but Not Liberals — Here’s What That Means

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By The Blaze. Some conservatives have had their reach and accessibility limited on Twitter, whereas their liberal Democrat counterparts have not been impacted on the platform, a Vice News investigation has revealed.

Type the names of certain conservative figures in the search bar, such as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), for example, and the profile doesn’t automatically appear in the drop down results like most public figures do.

“The notion that social media companies would suppress certain political points of view should concern every American,” Republican Party chair Ronna McDaniel told VICE News. “Twitter owes the public answers to what’s really going on.” . . .

Vice News, in order to test this problem for potential political bias, searched the names of numerous Democrats — Democratic Party chair Tom Perez, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the entire 78-member Progressive caucus — and none of them appeared to be limited like the Republicans Vice tested.

The relationship between conservatives and social media has been fraught with accusations of bias recently. Conservatives in Congress have repeatedly demanded transparency from Facebook and Twitter about how the sites filter news and user accounts, but the processes are still somewhat unclear. (Read more from “Twitter Has Been Shadow Banning Conservatives, but Not Liberals — Here’s What That Means” HERE)

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72 Percent of Americans Say Facebook and Twitter Actively Censor Political Views

By Fortune. Fake news, Russian trolls, and other daily hazards of social media are not only affecting how many Americans have come to view the world, they seem to be affecting how they view social media itself.

A Pew Research survey released Thursday found that 72% of Americans believe that social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter actively censor political views that they find objectionable. Fully 85% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents thought that the platforms intentionally censored political viewpoints, while 62% of Democrat and Democrat-leaning independents believed so.

Republicans were also more likely to say that major technology companies as a whole support the views of liberals over conservatives, with 64% agreeing with that statement. Only 16% of Democrats felt that tech companies supported conservative views more, while 53% of them said that both liberal and conservative views are supported equally. (Read more from “72 Percent of Americans Say Facebook and Twitter Actively Censor Political Views” HERE)

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Republicans File Impeachment Articles Against Rosenstein – Here’s Why They Did It

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Several Republicans in the House of Representatives filed articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Wednesday. . .

Republicans claimed in the resolution that Rosenstein had improperly refused to hand over documents requested by Republican members of Congress investigating claims of bias and corruption at the Department of Justice and the FBI.

“We can’t get answers for the American people if we can’t get information from the DOJ,” tweeted Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). “It’s time to impeach Rod Rosenstein.”

“I just filed a resolution with [Jim Jordan] and several colleagues to impeach Rod Rosenstein,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) Wednesday in a tweet.

“The DOJ has continued to hide information from Congress and repeatedly obstructed oversight–even defying multiple Congressional subpoenas,” he added. “We have had enough.”

(Read more from “Republicans File Impeachment Articles Against Rosenstein – Here’s Why They Did It” HERE)

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First Lady Melania Has a Defiant Response to Bizarre Report About President Trump

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By The Blaze. A spokesperson for first lady Melania Trump responded with a defiant statement to a report that President Trump had acted bizarrely to seeing her television screen set to a hostile news channel. . .

According to a New York Times report, the president allegedly grew angry at seeing that the first lady’s television on Air Force One was tuned into CNN. . .

The first lady did not address the truth or falsity of the report, but a statement from her spokesperson, Stephanie Grisham, slammed reporters for focusing on such trivial issues.

“Did you know that every 15 minutes a baby is born with NAS?” Grisham said, referring to neonatal abstinence syndrome. “Maybe you’d like to talk about the 160,000 kids who skip school every day for fear of being bullied, or that 280,000 students are physically attacked in schools every month.”

“Seems kind of silly to worry about what channel she watches on TV (any channel she wants btw) or if she heard some recording on the news,” she added. (Read more from “First Lady Melania Has a Defiant Response to Bizarre Report About President Trump” HERE)

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Melania Trump Responds to Cohen Tape ‘by Focusing on Role as Mother and First Lady’, Says Spokeswoman

By The Independent. Melania Trump is focused on her roles as mother and first lady, a spokeswoman said after being asked about her reaction to the Cohen tape – in which Donald Trump apparently discusses making payments to a Playboy model he is alleged to have had an affair with.

Stephanie Grisham made the brief reply when asked for the president’s wife’s response to the recording which was leaked earlier this week.

She said there would be no further comment. (Read more from “Melania Trump Responds to Cohen Tape ‘by Focusing on Role as Mother and First Lady’, Says Spokeswoman” HERE)

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AUDIO: Secret Recording of Trump and His Lawyer Discussing Payment Over ‘Mistress’ Released

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By The Blaze. CNN’s Chris Cuomo aired Tuesday the much debated recording secretly made of President Donald Trump and his former lawyer, Michael Cohen from before the 2016 election. . .

The conversation was recorded by Cohen in September 2016 just head of the election, and it details the effort to set up a company to buy the story of Karen McDougal, a former Playboy playmate who claims she and Trump had an extramarital affair.

“I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David,” says Cohen on the recording, apparently referring to David Pecker, the owner of the National Enquirer.

“What financing?” says Trump, interrupting Cohen.

“We’ll have to pay,” responds Cohen.

Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis says the tape shows Trump saying that they should pay in cash, to which Cohen responds, “no no.”

(Read more from “Secret Recording of Trump and His Lawyer Discussing Payment Over Mistress Released” HERE)

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CNN Airs Trump/Cohen Tape — but Then Trump Makes One Additional Request

By The Daily Caller. CNN aired part of a recorded conversation between President Trump and his former attorney, Michael Cohen, on Tuesday evening’s “Cuomo Prime Time.”

On the September 2016 recording, both Trump and Cohen can be heard discussing how to purchase the rights to Karen McDougal’s story about the alleged affair she had with the then-reality TV star in 2006 from American Media. . .

Trump can be heard asking Cohen “what financing?” and also “pay with cash,” although it was unclear whether that was a question or a statement to Cohen. The tape cuts off before a final decision is made, but not before Trump poses one additional request.

(Read more from “CNN Airs Trump/Cohen Tape — but Then Trump Makes One Additional Request” HERE)

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DMV Audit Reveals Outrageous Example of Government Incompetence

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With the Democrats’ heightening embrace of socialism, a gander at a recent audit of California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) might serve as a wake-up call to the unromanticized reality of what widespread socialism would really look like.

For example, the audit, which was released on Tuesday, uncovered plenty of expected government incompetence, including the revelation that an employee slept for three hours on the job every single day for three years. And here’s the kicker: despite racking up numerous complaints from colleagues, the sleepy DVM worker remains employed by the state, receiving a paycheck funded by the taxpayers to this day.

Do you think this would happen in the private sector unchecked for three days, let alone three long years?

According to a report from The Sacramento Bee, “Four witnesses told investigators from the California State Auditor’s office that the DMV employee consistently slept at her desk. The auditor estimated the employee misused 2,200 hours of work time between February 2014 and December 2017.”

The Bee noted that the sleepy DMV worker had her doctor inform the department in 2016 “that she could not perform the duties the job required.” The department then “reassigned her to another position in January 2017, but she continued to sleep at work.” (Read more from “DMV Audit Reveals Outrageous Example of Government Incompetence” HERE)

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Confirmed: DOJ Used Materially False Information to Secure Wiretaps on Trump Associate

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Newly released documents confirm House and Senate investigators’ claims that the Department of Justice and FBI used materially false and misleading information to secure wiretaps on Carter Page, a former volunteer foreign policy advisor to President Trump. The highly redacted documents released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests show how the FBI was able to convince the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to surveil the Naval Academy graduate and energy consultant for a year of his life.

The wiretap was applied for and granted in October 2016, shortly before the end of the presidential campaign. Approved applications last for 90 days. The Department of Justice requested and received three renewals, for a total of one year of surveillance. Despite claiming to the court in 2016 that “the FBI believes that Page has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian Government,” the government has yet to charge Page with breaking any of the serious laws it alleges he knowingly transgressed. . .

s members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Senate Judiciary Committee previously reported, a salacious and unverified dossier was essential to the government’s case for spying on Page. The information from the dossier is presented to the court as if it’s believable.

For instance, the application states, “the FBI has learned that Page met with at least two Russian officials during this trip.” The only way it learned that was through the dossier. Steele’s claim that Page had a “secret meeting with Igor Sechin, who is the President of Rosneft [a Russian energy company] and a close associate to Russian President Putin” to lift sanctions is included.

Another secret meeting with Igor Nikolayevich Divyekin to discuss releasing dirt on “Candidate #2” to “Candidate #1’s campaign” is mentioned. Also, while Page had left the campaign by the time the wiretap was sought, it is clear that the FBI believed its wiretap would find information on the Trump campaign, stating that the “Russian government’s efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated” with the Trump campaign. (Read more from “Confirmed: DOJ Used Materially False Information to Secure Wiretaps on Trump Associate” HERE)

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