Trump pulled the US out of the Iran Deal on Tuesday. Obama responded with a lengthy rebuttal on his Facebook page.
Kirstjen Nielson, Secretary of Homeland Security, threatened to resign after enduring one of Trump cabinet room tirades. He is upset that she is not doing more to close the boarder, including the policy to separate parents and children.
Two days before the tirade Session announced in a speech that all adults who illegally crossed with children would be separated. So far this policy does not include asylum seekers.
Gina Haspel had her confirmation hearing. She vowed not to restart the Bush-era enhanced interrogation program. John McCain released a statement that he will not vote for her because she could not say that the CIA torture was immoral. A White House aide mocked him for this, saying it does not matter because “he is dying anyway.”
Paul Campos of New York Magazine posits (for the first time I’ve heard of it) that Trump, not Elliot Broidy, was the one who impregnated a Playboy Bunny and had Michel Cohen pay her over a million dollars in hush money. This has not been confirmed, but the fact pattern is interesting.
In Russia News (there’s a lot):
First, on Tuesday, Clifford’s lawyer Michael Avenatti released a report that disclosed Cohen’s financial records, which revealed that he received half a million dollars from Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. Then the New York Times confirmed the story, adding a list of other countries with business before the Trump administration that gave up to four million dollars to cohen. The payments extended from 2017 into early 2018.
AT&T is one of the companies, which gave $200,000 to Cohen. For context: “If AT&T paid a monthly fee of $50,000, Essential Consultants would have received more money in the year than AT&T’s highest paid lobbying firms, Mayer Brown and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld, which were paid $420,000 and $400,000 respectively. In 2017, AT&T paid 14 firms at least $200,000 to work Washington for the telecommunications giant.”
The Washington Post as a handy graphic of the payments of the players involved. The article notes that “if Avenatti’s representation is accurate, the graphic above is still incomplete.”
Until this week, the Cohen matter seemed separate from the Russia matter. Here is an explainer of how they might be connected, and why Cohen might be of interest to Mueller and why Cohen might start to provide Mueller information.
Here is what the companies are saying as of Wednesday. Also, Mueller’s team has spoken to at least two of them.
By midweek, however, the Cohen matter was being perceived as run of the mill access peddling, where Cohen was simply taking advantage of opportunities to help companies gain insight into Trump’s forming administration.
The threat by Nunes to hold Session in contempt is over documents that an important intelligence informant provided to Mueller. The Justice Department told the White House un-redacting the document and turning it over to the House would blow his cover and endanger lives. The White House has agreed so far.
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Trump’s Job Approval: 42.1%