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Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse
- Thread starter CdnGuy
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President Trump spoke to reporters on Monday at the beginning of a meeting with military leaders and national security officials. He reacted to the news that the F.B.I. raided the office of his personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, and discussed his frustrations with his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and the special counsel’s investigation being led by Robert S. Mueller III. Mr. Trump also touched on the potential for military action in Syria in the wake of a suspected chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government that killed dozens of people over the weekend.
The following is a transcript of those remarks, as prepared by The New York Times, with analysis from The Times’s Michael D. Shear, a White House correspondent.
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Sources close to the president say that a political dispute with special counsel Robert Mueller has turned visceral and personal after the feds' raid on the New York offices of Michael Cohen, Trump's personal lawyer and fixer.
What we're hearing: One of the sources said: "Mueller's investigation has been drip, drip. This was a giant leap forward ... a personal hit. ... They were moving in inches. Today, they moved a mile."
...
During the 10-minute rant, Trump ...
- ... used "disgrace" seven times and "disgraceful" twice.
- ... fumed about an action by agents of the government he heads: "I just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys — a good man. ... It's a total witch hunt."
- ...accused those agents of his government of "an attack on our country, in a true sense. It's an attack on what we all stand for."
- ... said, repeating back a question: "Why don't I just fire Mueller? ... Well, I think it's a disgrace what's going on. We'll see what happens. But I think it's really a sad situation when you look at what happened. And many people have said, 'You should fire him."
- ... referred to the investigation as "the most conflicted group of people I've ever seen. The Attorney General made a terrible mistake ... when he recused himself. ... [W]e would have ... put a different Attorney General in."
- ... quadrupled down on firing FBI Director James Comey: "One of the things they said: 'I fired Comey.' Well, I turned out to do the right thing, because if you look at all of the things that he's done and the lies, and you look at what's gone on at the FBI with the insurance policy and all of the things that happened — turned out I did the right thing."
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WASHINGTON — The special counsel is investigating a payment made to President Trump’s foundation by a Ukrainian steel magnate for a talk during the campaign, according to three people briefed on the matter, 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.
Investigators subpoenaed the Trump Organization this year for an array of records about business with foreign nationals. In response, the company handed over documents about a $150,000 donation that the Ukrainian billionaire, Victor Pinchuk, made in September 2015 to the Donald J. Trump Foundation in exchange for a 20-minute appearance by Mr. Trump that month through a video link to a conference in Kiev.
Michael D. Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer whose office and hotel room were raided on Monday in an apparently unrelated case, solicited the donation. The contribution from Mr. Pinchuk, who has sought closer ties for Ukraine to the West, was the largest the foundation received in 2015 from anyone besides Mr. Trump himself.
The subpoena is among signs in recent months that the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, is interested in interactions that Mr. Trump or his associates had with countries beyond Russia, though it is not clear what other payments he is scrutinizing.
President Trump has howled in all caps for nearly a year as the Justice Department has delved deeper and deeper into his orbit. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III indicted his former campaign chairman. Then he secured a guilty plea from his former national security adviser. All the while, Mueller and his investigators have spent hours questioning White House officials about whether the president had sought to obstruct justice.
But the FBI’s seizure on Monday of privileged communications between Trump and his private lawyer, Michael D. Cohen — as well as documents related to a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, the adult-film actress who has alleged a sexual affair with Trump — was a particularly extraordinary move that opens a whole new front in the converging legal battles ensnaring the administration.
Cohen is Trump’s virtual vault — the keeper of his secrets, from his business deals to his personal affairs — and the executor of his wishes.
“This search warrant is like dropping a bomb on Trump’s front porch,” said Joyce White Vance, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama.
