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Smoking gun is a noun. Merriam-Webster defines the term as something
that serves as conclusive evidence or proof (as of a crime or scientific
theory).
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| Buzz Feed News' New York City HQ Offices |
BUZZ FEED NEWS HEADLINE:
PRESIDENT
TRUMP DIRECTED HIS ATTORNEY (MICHAEL COHEN) TO LIE TO CONGRESS ABOUT THE MOSCOW
TOWER PROJECT
Last night, New York City based online
daily news organization Buzz Feed News
posted one of the most shocking Trump related pieces of investigative reporting
to date: Click here for the entire article.
Below is a sample of Buzz Feed’s remarkable reporting by Buzz Feed News
staffers Jason
Leopold and Anthony Cormier:
President
Donald Trump directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress
about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, according to two federal
law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter.
Trump also supported a plan, set up
by Cohen, to visit Russia during the presidential campaign, in order to
personally meet President Vladimir Putin and jump-start the tower negotiations.
“Make it happen,” the sources said Trump told Cohen.
And even as Trump told the public he
had no business deals with Russia, the sources said Trump and his children,
Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., received regular, detailed updates about the real
estate development from Cohen, whom they put in charge of the project.
Cohen pleaded guilty in November to
lying about the deal in testimony and in a two-page statement to the Senate and
House intelligence committees. Special counsel Robert Mueller noted that
Cohen’s false claim that the project ended in January 2016 was an attempt to
“minimize links between the Moscow Project and Individual 1” — widely
understood to be Trump — “in hopes of limiting the ongoing Russia
investigations.”
Got
a tip? You can email tips@buzzfeed.com. To learn how to reach us securely, go
to tips.buzzfeed.com.
Now the two
sources have told BuzzFeed News that Cohen also told the special counsel that
after the election, the president personally instructed him to lie — by
claiming that negotiations ended months earlier than they actually did — in
order to obscure Trump’s involvement.
The special
counsel’s office learned about Trump’s directive for Cohen to lie to Congress
through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and
internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents. Cohen
then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with that office.
This revelation
is not the first evidence to suggest the president may have attempted to
obstruct the FBI and special counsel investigations into Russia’s interference
in the 2016 election.
But Cohen's
testimony marks a significant new frontier: It is the first known example of
Trump explicitly telling a subordinate to lie directly about his own dealings
with Russia.
WHAT THE BRITS SAY ON THE SMOKING GUN:
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WHAT THE BRITS SAY ON THE SMOKING GUN:
Analysis by
Anthony Zurcher, BBC News
With the longest government shutdown
in history poised to stretch into a fifth week, Washington has become a
political powder keg. The report on Thursday night that there is documentary
evidence Donald Trump directed his former attorney to lie to Congress just lit
a big fuse.
If the
Buzz Feed story is substantiated - and it asserts this evidence is already in
the hands of Mr Mueller - this would appear to present a strong case for presidential
obstruction of justice. Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, in a hearing on
Tuesday, prompted attorney general nominee William Barr to acknowledge as much.
Already the
quiet whispers of impeachment among House Democrats are getting louder. Speaker
Nancy Pelosi has been able to tamp down this sentiment so far, but she may be
unable - or unwilling - to keep it under wraps much longer.
For almost
two years, Mr Mueller's Russia investigation has been a cipher, with details of
its activities coming only in opaque legal filings and anonymous accounts of
unascertainable veracity. It seems the time for him to put his cards on the
table and end the speculation and parlour-game guessing is rapidly approaching.
In fact it's past time, if you ask some Democrats.
WHO THE HELL IS BUZZFEED:
WHO THE HELL IS BUZZFEED:
smoking gun
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