Jul. 26

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Trump Claims Cohen's Audio Tape May Have Been Doctored

On Tuesday, Donald Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen released an audio tape in which the two men discussed payoffs to Playboy model Karen McDougal. If the tape is real, it means Trump knew about the payoffs months before the story became public and that when it did, he lied repeatedly about it, claiming he knew nothing about any payoffs. Tuesday, Trump's television lawyer Rudy Giuliani claimed that the tape exonerates Trump, but nobody is seriously buying that defense, so Trump has now come up with a new one: The tape is doctored. Trump also asked: "What kind of a lawyer would tape a client?" The answer to that is pretty straightforward: A lawyer who has been instructed to commit a crime by his client and wants proof that it wasn't his idea.

Trump presented zero evidence that the tape was doctored. CNN, perhaps anticipating this defense, had already hired an audio expert to listen carefully to the tape. He found no evidence of doctoring, and also said he does not believe that Trump said "Don't pay with cash." Trump will no doubt find another excuse today or tomorrow. However, given Cohen's dicey legal situation, it would seem unlikely that he would tamper with evidence that special prosecutor Robert Mueller is surely going to examine closely. If Cohen were going to doctor it, he would undoubtedly have changed it to say something like:

Trump: Let's pay off that bimbo
Cohen: Sir, we can't do that. It would be an illegal campaign contribution.

Nothing like that can be heard on the tape, so most likely it is real.

One thing the whole tape incident makes clear is that Cohen is not going to stonewall and wait for his pardon. At this point, it is inconceivable that Trump would pardon Cohen, whom he now sees as someone who betrayed him. Whether Cohen will cooperate with Mueller is a different story, but we are probably getting closer to that moment, certainly after federal prosecutors have digested the thousands of documents taken from Cohen's computers and phones in April and want some explanations of the things they found. (V)

Trump Makes Trade Deal with EU

It looks like there won't be a trade war with the European Union, at least not for now. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is in Washington right now to meet with Donald Trump, and they managed to hammer out a mini-deal. The Europeans will import a few billion dollars more worth of US soybeans and liquefied natural gas, the U.S. won't slap European cars with a 25% tariff, and the two sides will work together in the future to try and achieve a tariff-free relationship.

Trump already took a victory lap, of course. More than one, actually:

Great to be back on track with the European Union. This was a big day for free and fair trade!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2018

European Union representatives told me that they would start buying soybeans from our great farmers immediately. Also, they will be buying vast amounts of LNG!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2018

With that said, this is a fairly minor agreement. A tariff that did not yet exist will continue to not exist, while the soy and gas the Europeans import (if they actually do) will be a relatively minor drop in the bucket compared to a trade war with China. Meanwhile, there is no particular reason to think the next round of negotiations will go well. Trade negotiations are long and boring, two things Trump hates, and at any point he could get tired of the current plan and lash out at the Europeans. Meanwhile, the Europeans aren't likely to give too much ground while the steel and aluminum tariffs remain in place, and Trump has shown no inclination to back down on those tariffs.

Wednesday's news also leaves Trump with some interesting questions to answer, like "What is the goal here, again?" If the goal is free trade, then why did Trump impose tariffs in the first place? And if the goal is to impose tariffs and correct trade imbalances, then how does it make sense to work toward a tariff-free relationship? If there is any method to this madness, it is hard to discern. (Z)

Republicans Move to Impeach Rosenstein

Anyone who bet that impeachment articles would be filed in the House of Representatives sometime between January 20, 2016, and January 20, 2020, is a winner, because it happened on Wednesday. The target is not Donald Trump, however, but Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein.

The two members who took the lead on this matter are both Freedom Caucusers, namely Mark Meadows (R-NC) and Jim Jordan (R-OH). Their specific complaint is that Rosenstein is deliberately withholding documents they have asked for. "Rod Rosenstein has been in charge of the Department of Justice as the agency has made every effort to obstruct legitimate attempts of congressional oversight," said Meadows in a statement. The Deputy AG has denied this, and since the Freedom Caucus has a bit of a history of requesting vast quantities of documents so they can fish for dirt, he almost certainly has the right of it.

In order for Rosenstein to be removed from office, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) would have to bring the articles up for a vote in the House. Then, a majority of the House would have to vote affirmatively. And then, after a trial in the Senate, 2/3 of the members would have to vote for conviction. None of these three things is likely to happen, but the last one is particularly improbable, since roughly 15 Democrats would have to decide to do a big favor for Donald Trump. Meadows and Jordan are (presumably) clever enough to know this; this is all for the sake of political theater. It allows the duo (and their allies) to simultaneously kiss up to the Donald, undermine the Mueller investigation, and please their pro-Trump constituents as election season heats up. Political theater is pretty much the only thing that the Freedom Caucus is good at, actually, besides maybe gumming up the works of Congress. (Z)

Emoluments Case Against Trump Can Go Forward

U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte yesterday ruled that the attorneys general of Maryland and D.C. may proceed with their case that Donald Trump has violated the Constitution's emoluments clause. That clause says that the president may not receive gifts from foreign governments but there is little jurisprudence on the matter. The AGs are asserting that foreign governments are holding big expensive events in the Trump International Hotel in D.C. to curry favor with Trump, and their doing so has hurt hotels in the District and Maryland. They are also claiming that since the hotel makes a profit on all its events and since that profit goes directly into Trump's pocket, by accepting the business he is taking gifts from foreign powers in violation of the Constitution.

Messitte wrote a 52-page opinion explaining his reasoning. Trump's lawyers had argued that the emoluments clause was intended to prevent a president from taking bribes, not from doing normal business, but the judge didn't buy it. The plaintiffs are certainly going to ask for all kinds of interesting information during discovery. In particular, they are almost certainly going to subpoena hotel records and Trump's tax returns to see how much profit he made from the events paid for by foreign governments.

If the suit goes all the way through and Trump loses in the end, he will either have to divest himself of the hotel or ban foreign governments from holding events there. Legally, he could give the hotel to his children, but that would incur a massive gift tax, so his accountant is likely to advise against that.

This lawsuit is not the only one Trump is dealing with. Former "Apprentice" contestant Summer Zervos is suing him for defamation and Stormy Daniels (nee Stephanie Clifford) is suing him to get out of a nondisclosure agreement. Trump can't claim that civil suits against the president can't go forward. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in Clinton v. Jones that private citizens can indeed sue the president and now Messitte has ruled that AGs can do so on behalf of businesses as well. (V)

Trump Won't Meet Putin This Year

After inviting Russian President Vladimir Putin to come to D.C. to talk some more, Donald Trump changed his mind and said that he will wait until the witch hunt is over. Of course, that means it will be Robert Mueller, not Trump who controls the calendar. Most likely Trump's change of plans has nothing to do with Mueller but very much to do with the extremely negative reaction he got from just about everyone—including right-wing media—after the press conference with Putin in which he stuck up for Putin and pooh-poohed the unanimous findings of the U.S. intelligence community on the matter of Russian information warfare during the 2016 election.

It is also possible that Putin was the one who called off the meeting. Trump did publicly invite Putin, but the Russian president has not accepted. It is possible that Putin doesn't feel he needs another meeting. It is also possible that he is worried about the CIA flavoring his morning borscht with a dash of polonium. He knows how sometimes stuff like that just happens.

The canceling of the meeting doesn't mean that Trump and Putin can't talk. There has been a hotline between Washington and Moscow for 50 years and if Trump and Putin wanted to discuss something face to face, the CIA could probably figure out how to set up a Skype connection. If either of these options is used, the American people will be in the dark, as the White House has stopped announcing the President's phone calls to foreign leaders. Also, there is a G20 summit in Argentina scheduled for November, and both of them could show up there and talk all they want to. (V)

White House Appears to Be Rewriting History

Whenever the president has a press conference, the White House releases an official transcript. These documents are used by reporters in their coverage, and are also consulted by historians in subsequent years and decades. They are, quite literally, the historical record.

When the White House released the official transcript of Trump's (disastrous) press conference with Vladimir Putin this week, many people noticed a key omission. Here is the original exchange between a reporter and Putin:

Reporter: President Putin, did you want President Trump to win the election? And did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?
Putin: Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal.

The omission is the first part of the reporter's question. Since this was the first time that Putin said, on the record, that he wanted Trump to win, that's a pretty big omission.

Needless to say, mistakes are sometimes made in these transcriptions. However, they are generally fixed very quickly. Not only has this issue gone un-fixed, but the White House has declined to explain what the problem is. That, in turn, makes it look like the administration is trying to rewrite the record, and to try and eliminate evidence of pro-Trump meddling. If that is indeed what they are trying to do, it's kind of silly. Given that this was the single-most quoted thing that Putin said, and that the clip of him saying it played on newscasts around the globe, there is no way to disappear this, Orwell-style. Still, it would hardly be the first time that Team Trump attempted to deny reality, even when the truth is easily verifiable. (Z)

Sabato Says Democrats Are Now Favorites to Take the House

Larry Sabato has released the latest update to his House ratings. Specifically:

That's 17 seats moving in the direction of the blue team. None were moved in the direction of the red team.

Sabato says that the Democrats are now "a little better than 50-50 to win the House." That's the first time he's swung the balance in their direction. Overall, he now has 41 GOP-held seats in play, compared to just 16 Democratic-held seats. (Z)


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