“This search warrant is like dropping a bomb on Trump’s front porch.”
— Former Alabama U.S. attorney Joyce White Vance, quoted by the Washington Post, on the FBI raids of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s office and home.
“This search warrant is like dropping a bomb on Trump’s front porch.”
— Former Alabama U.S. attorney Joyce White Vance, quoted by the Washington Post, on the FBI raids of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s office and home.
“The special counsel is investigating a payment made to President Trump’s foundation by a Ukrainian steel magnate for a talk during the campaign… as part of a broader examination of streams of foreign money to Mr. Trump and his associates in the years leading up to the election,” the New York Times reports.
“Michael Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer whose office and hotel room were raided on Monday in an apparently unrelated case, solicited the donation.”
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President Trump “blasted the FBI’s raid of his personal lawyer’s office, calling it a disgraceful situation and an attack on the U.S.,” Axios reports.
Said Trump: “It’s a total witch hunt. I’ve been saying it for a long time. I’ve wanted to keep it down. I’ve given over a million pages in documents to the special counsel.”
He added: “This is the most biased group of people. These people have the biggest conflicts of interest I have ever seen… Either Democrats or a couple of Republicans who worked for President Obama. They’re not looking at the other side — Hillary Clinton… They only keep looking at us. ”
Trump also criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation: “He made what I consider to be a very terrible mistake for the country. But you’ll figure that out.”
“The FBI raided the office of President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, seizing records related to several topics including payments to a pornographic-film actress,” the New York Times reports.
“Federal prosecutors in Manhattan obtained the search warrant after receiving a referral from the special counsel, Robert Mueller, according to Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, who called the search ‘completely inappropriate and unnecessary.’ The search does not appear to be directly related to Mr. Mueller’s investigation, but likely resulted from information he had uncovered and gave to prosecutors in New York.”
Most interesting: “The seized records include communications between Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen.”
The Washington Post says Cohen ” is under federal investigation for possible bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign finance violations.”
Vanity Fair reports that the FBI also raided Cohen’s hotel room at the Loews Regency in New York.
Wall Street Journal: “Mr. Bezos, the world’s richest man, has ignored the president’s attacks. He has stayed out of the public eye since Mr. Trump’s tweets started last week, only tweeting once to send condolences regarding the recent shooting at YouTube’s headquarters.”
“Mr. Bezos made comments critical of Mr. Trump before the election, but he has refrained from public criticism since Mr. Trump was elected. That strategy, people familiar with this thinking say, fits in with his deeply held conviction in playing the long game.”
“Mr. Bezos has long tread carefully when it comes to politics. The chief executive has made calculated public donations, like one for so-called Dreamer scholarships in January. He tweets rarely and chooses to speak publicly only on occasion. His last major public interview was granted to his brother on stage at a conference in November.”
Associated Press: “Managing a boss who despises being managed is a difficult game. And those who have succeeded have proceeded carefully. Some aides, convinced that Trump puts more stock in what he sees on TV than in his own aides’ advice, regularly phone prominent commentators and news hosts to provide talking points on everything from tax policy to Syria in hopes of influencing Trump.”
“Similar strategies have also been embraced by foreign governments and outside groups trying to sway the president’s thinking.”
“Former FBI director James Comey is about to return to the national spotlight with the release of his memoir next week — but the White House is doing little to prepare for the onslaught,” Politico reports.
“These officials said it’s understood within the West Wing that laying out an advance media strategy is largely a futile exercise since President Trump could blow up any prepared talking points with a single tweet.”
The New York Times reports that the Kushner family appears to have “struck a deal to buy out” an investor’s stake in the “troubled” 666 Fifth Avenue property, which is a primary piece of its “real estate empire.”
Axios: “How they got the money is unclear. Questions had been raised about Kushner meetings with foreign big shots like Qatar as part of securing the financing. Per the Times, negotiations with foreign entities drew scrutiny because of Jared Kushner’s role in his father-in-law’s White House.”
New York Times: “As Republican leaders scramble to stave off a Democratic wave or at least mitigate their party’s losses in November, a strategy is emerging on the right for how to energize conservatives and drive a wedge between the anti-Trump left and moderate voters: warn that Democrats will immediately move to impeach President Trump if they capture the House. What began last year as blaring political hyperbole on the right — the stuff of bold-lettered direct mail fund-raising pitches from little-known groups warning of a looming American ‘coup’ — is now steadily drifting into the main currents of the 2018 message for Republicans.
“The appeals have become a surefire way for candidates to raise small contributions from grass-roots conservatives who are devoted to Mr. Trump, veteran Republican fund-raisers say. But party strategists also believe that floating the possibility of impeachment can also act as a sort of scared-straight motivational tool for turnout.”
Politico: “It was far from the first time President Trump’s eldest son dabbled in online conspiracy theories, using his 2.7 million Twitter followers to promote questionable or outright false information that, in many cases, even his father had refrained from spreading.”
“The 40-year-old Trump Jr. has emerged as one of his father’s key ambassadors to the fringe, promoting theories that added drama and visceral energy to the grass-roots right: in this case, the fast-growing theory that tech giants are arrayed against conservatives.”
“In the recent past, Trump Jr. has spread stories about the ‘deep state’ to push for the release of a GOP memo on alleged FBI wrongdoing, liked and shared tweets questioning the motives of a Parkland, Florida, student who is pushing for gun control and liked actor James Woods’ tweet that ‘more known Democrats have murdered people with guns than all @NRA members combined.'”
HuffPost: “President Trump has railed against Amazon, falsely claiming the company fails to pay state and local sales taxes on online shipments. But it turns out the Trump Organization retail website collects sales taxes only on goods shipped to two states — while Amazon collects sales taxes in 45 states.”
“When you lose that power you become a virtual White House intern, being told where to go and what to do.”
— Former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta, quoted by the Washington Post, saying that current White House chief of staff John Kelly has lost his “credibility and influence.”
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly threatened to quit on March 28, Jonathan Swan reports.
“Kelly blew up at Trump in an Oval Office meeting that day, and while walking back to his office muttered he was going to quit. Sources said it was not related to the David Shulkin firing that happened the same day.”
“A senior administration official said that calling it a threat was ‘probably too strong, it was more venting frustration.’ Kelly often says he doesn’t have to be there and didn’t seek the job originally.”
Washington Post: How John Kelly faded as White House disciplinarian.
Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti said that he has a “major announcement” about a person who allegedly threatened Daniels to keep quiet about her alleged affair with President Trump, The Hill reports.
“EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s concern with his safety came at a steep cost to taxpayers as his swollen security detail blew through overtime budgets and at times diverted officers away from investigating environmental crimes,” the AP reports.
“Altogether, the agency spent millions of dollars for a 20-member full-time detail that is three times the size of his predecessor’s part-time security contingent.”
President Trump “has begun the initial steps of preparing for a possible interview with the special counsel, a White House official and a person familiar with the situation said Friday, a sign the President’s legal team is intensifying its deliberations over whether to allow him to come under Robert Mueller’s questioning,” CNN reports.
“The preparations have been short and informal and included going over potential topics with the President that Mueller would likely raise in an interview.”
“Scott Pruitt was only supposed to be living in the Capitol Hill condominium that has become a focal point of his latest ethics controversy for six weeks last year, while he got settled in Washington,” Politico reports.
“But the new EPA administrator didn’t leave when his lease ended, instead asking the lobbyist couple who became his disgruntled landlords to revise his lease several times.”
“The couple, Vicki and Steve Hart, became so frustrated by their lingering tenant that they eventually pushed him out and changed their locks.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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