President Trump on Saturday hit back at critics after several “hit pieces” over the last week generated repeated calls by Democrats for his impeachment – the latest being a Thursday night BuzzFeed report that Trump instructed his former attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie about a Trump Tower Moscow project. The BuzzFeed report was debunked as a fabrication the next day by special counsel Robert Mueller’s office, but not before giddy Democrats ran wild with calls for Trump’s ouster.
“The Economy is one of the best in our history, with unemployment at a 50 year low, and the Stock Market ready to again break a record (set by us many times) – & all you heard yesterday, based on a phony story, was Impeachment. You want to see a Stock Market Crash, Impeach Trump!” the President Tweeted Saturday morning.
The Economy is one of the best in our history, with unemployment at a 50 year low, and the Stock Market ready to again break a record (set by us many times) – & all you heard yesterday, based on a phony story, was Impeachment. You want to see a Stock Market Crash, Impeach Trump!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 19, 2019
Dear Media Types,
Your job is to get the story,
not get the President.If you dove into #buzzfeed headfirst yesterday, you own it, too. “If true” was a faint murmur
“Impeach” was said 200x on CNN & MSNBC
The 3 networks devoted 27 minutes to it
Maybe just apologize?
— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) January 19, 2019
The latest flood of anti-Trump news began on January 11 with a New York Times report that the FBI supercharged their investigation into whether Trump had wittingly or unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence after he fired FBI Director James Comey (at the recommendation of Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein). According to the report, agents and senior F.B.I. officials “had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign” but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude.
One day after the NYT report, the Washington Post reported that Trump had “gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired.”
So funny to watch Schumer groveling. He called for the firing of bad cop James Comey many times – UNTIL I FIRED HIM!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2019
Of course, buried in paragraph nine the Post admits: “No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials.“
Then Comey told Trump three times he wasn’t under investigation while leaving public impression that he was. Trump understandably angry. Then, when Trump fired Comey–as some advisors had advocated for months–FBI saw it as treason. 2/4
— Byron York (@ByronYork) January 12, 2019
Investigation result: ‘No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials.’ Is NYT story about Trump, or about FBI malfeasance? 4/4 End. https://t.co/L8U5rPbJup
— Byron York (@ByronYork) January 12, 2019
Continuing the anti-Trump train was a Thursday report in the Wall Street Journal that President Trump instructed Michael Cohen to rig CNBC and Drudge polls in his favor. Cohen reportedly agreed to pay a small IT firm $50,000 to conduct the rigging, only to pay them in a bag of cash containing between $12,000 and $13,000 and a boxing glove that Cohen said had been worn by a Brazilian mixed-martial arts fighter.
Cohen has disputed the account – but not the relationship with the IT firm – RedFinch or its CEO John Gauger, saying “All monies paid to Mr. Gauger were by check.”
Hilariously, in May 2016 Cohen also asked Gauger to create a Twitter account – @WomenForCohen, which was run by a female friend of Gauger and described Cohen as a “sex symbol,” praising his looks and character, while promoting his appearances and statements boosting Trump’s candidacy.
Cohen asked contractor to create a Twitter account @WomenForCohen, which described Cohen as a “sex symbol,” praised his looks and character, and promoted his appearances and statements boosting Mr. Trump’s candidacy.
— Georgi Kantchev (@georgikantchev) January 17, 2019
And while Gauger says he never received the rest of the $50,000 he was owed, Cohen still requested – and received – a $50,000 reimbursement from Donald Trump and his company for the work done by RedFinch, according to the Journal, citing a government document and a person familiar with the matter. The reimbursement – based on a handwritten note by Cohen, was paid largely out of Trump’s personal account.
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said that Cohen’s full reimbursement for the $50,000 while paying RedFinch less shows the former Trump lawyer to be a thief. “If one thing has been established, it’s that Michael Cohen is completely untrustworthy,” said Cohen.
And last but not least, of course, is the now-discredited BuzzFeed report alleging that Trump instructed Cohen to lie about Trump Tower Moscow.
It’s interesting how quickly the news cycle turned against Trump after he threatened to flex his presidential powers and declare a national emergency to fund his wall – right on the heels of a Syria pullout announcement which has been wildly unpopular with establishment war hawks.
via RSS http://bit.ly/2SYCbZI Tyler Durden