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Friday, January 18, 2019

AMERICANA / DID BUZZ FEED NEWS JUST DELIVER THE SMOKING GUN?


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).


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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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:

smoking gun
 noun

Definition of smoking gun

something that serves as conclusive evidence or proof (as of a crime or scientific theory).


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