CNN reports that Michael Cohen told Donald Trump in advance about the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russian agents offering dirt on Hillary Clinton. David Graham at The Atlantic dives into the Trump team’s reaction:
Rudy Giuliani, the president’s lawyer and lead spokesman in legal matters, promptly and furiously denied that Trump was aware, calling Cohen a liar. At the moment, there’s no public evidence to adjudicate the dispute. There is, however, a pattern that is uncomfortable for the president. On two separate but related matters that converge with this new allegation, the president and his team have been caught repeatedly lying. First, the White House in July 2017 offered false stories about the Trump Tower meeting, only to have to promptly admit they were incorrect. Second, the Trump team repeatedly insisted that the president was unaware of payments to Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels, two women who allege affairs with him. But a tape released by Cohen shows Trump was aware of the plan to buy McDougal’s story and suffocate it, while Trump acknowledged reimbursing Cohen after his payment to Daniels.
Betsy Woodruff and Asawin Suebsaeng at The Daily Beast has reaction from the Cohen team:
Reached for comment, Cohen referred The Daily Beast to his lawyer Lanny Davis. Davis said Cohen is not concerned about any coming attacks from the president’s allies and surrogates. “When you’ve got truth on your side, you’re not afraid of anything,” he said. “So what are they afraid of?” [...] Several of Cohen’s associates have told The Daily Beast that Cohen—who for years publicly branded himself as the ultimate Trump loyalist—chose to publicize elements of his relationship with Trump once he realized that his loyalty would not be reciprocated.
Eugene Robinson examines the Trump team defense in general to the leaked Cohen team:
None of that may be smoking-gun material, but take a wider view. Listen to how routine the conversation sounds. In all the scheming and lying, there is no hint of anything out of the ordinary. For Trump and Cohen, it sounds like just another day at the office. [...] Listen to that one recording and then think about the voluminous trove of material collected in the Cohen raids. For a long time, only Trump and Cohen knew what was in there. Now federal prosecutors do, too. Soon, it seems likely, all of us will.
The Los Angeles Times details how some cases holding the administration to account are working their way through the court system:
The Trump administration has gone through a few bad days recently in federal courts — and the country is the better for it.
This week, judges have rejected motions to throw out two lawsuits challenging President Trump’s policies or his apparent conflicts of interests. One lawsuit targets the administration’s malignantly conceived decision to add a question about citizenship status to the 2020 census. The other argues that Trump is violating the constitutional ban on receiving emoluments by keeping his ownership stake in the Trump International Hotel a few blocks from the White House, where foreign dignitaries book rooms and host events at least in part because of its connection to the president. It’s reassuring to see that some federal judges, at least, are willing to live up to their responsibilities and actually check some of the president’s actions.
Rep. Brian Schatz explains the intentional cruelty of the administration’s family separation policy:
The failure of the U.S. government to reverse the kidnapping of thousands of children from their parents has been chalked up to incompetence. People want to believe that this act of extraordinary cruelty — and the Trump administration’s inability to fix it — stems from our leaders’ lack of experience or common sense.
But this too is a failure — of our collective imagination. The separation of children from their parents at the Southwest border is not simply a policy that has resulted in immeasurable harm, but a policy designed to inflict it. The government blew its Thursday deadline to reunite these families because it never intended to do so.
Susan Glasser at The New Yorker:
Trump has not acquired a set of national-security advisers who agree with his radical instincts to torch the Western alliance in favor of a new world order in which Trump reigns supreme alongside autocrats he admires, such as Putin and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. Instead, both Bolton and Pompeo seem determined to manage the boss better than their predecessors did, which is no easy task.
The struggle was obvious during one particularly awkward moment at Wednesday’s hearing, when a visibly uncomfortable Pompeo practically begged senators not to compliment him for disagreeing with the White House.
On a final note, don’t miss the very important piece by Senator Richard Blumenthal on Brett Kavanaugh’s troubling record on how the presidency can be outside the reach of the law:
Kavanaugh was thus lending credence to the Nixon White House’s argument that because the Justice Department is part of the executive branch, it has no authority to compel the president to release information relevant to a criminal case. Under this theory, presidents would not only be free to reject burdensome, unfair or otherwise problematic requests for information; they would also be free to reject all requests for information. [...] When it comes to addressing presidential accountability, Kavanaugh has given clear signals about his beliefs. Some observers might find it reassuring to think that Kavanaugh would not rule as his writings suggest. That would be a mistake. It would be far wiser to listen to the message that he has sent for decades — and to do so before it’s too late.