As reported by Laura Clawson, Trump started his day by tweeting a bullshit story—by the right-wing garbage churner Washington Examiner—about ranchers finding what they called “prayer rugs” in the desert just across the border. Whatever it is they found, be it a serape or a poncho, or maybe just a kids’ pajama set from Target, Trump should consider going immediately to the nearest Mosque to have it sanctified because he’s going to need at least three "prayer rugs” before this weekend is out.
As noted by WaPo’s Greg Sargent, there are several takeaways from BuzzFeed’s revelation that Trump attorney Michael Cohen was directed, by the Occupant of the Oval Office, to lie to Congress about that Occupant’s business dealings with the Russian Federation, and his obsequious and continual fluffing of murderous Russian dictator Vladimir Putin during the presidential campaign and afterwards. One of those takeaways involves mouthy Trump spawn, Donald Jr:
The new story suggests Donald Trump Jr. may have committed perjury. The BuzzFeed report says:
Donald Trump Jr., meanwhile, testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 7, 2017, that he was only “peripherally aware” of the plan to build a tower in Moscow. “Most of my knowledge has been gained since as it relates to hearing about it over the last few weeks.”
The two law enforcement sources disputed this characterization and said that he and Cohen had multiple, detailed conversations on this subject during the campaign.
“If there’s contemporaneous physical evidence backing up this reporting,” Vladeck told me, “that evidence could be proof that Junior perjured himself when he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017.”
It will be interesting to see if Donald Jr. exhibits his customary insouciance over the weekend about this. Because the proverbial holes only get bigger when you keep digging.
But it isn’t just Don Jr.’s credibility and current freedom to tweet from anywhere outside a jail cell that may be at risk. The Teflon princess Ivanka also has some explaining to do as well. Because, as pointed out by Raw Story, the Buzzfeed report has her directly in the loop.
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.
Yet here was Ivanka’s mouthpiece today, with a weirdly-worded “denial":
A spokesperson for Ivanka Trump's attorney wrote that she was only “minimally involved” in the project. “Ms. Trump did not know about this proposal until after a non-binding letter of intent had been signed, never talked to anyone outside the Organization about the proposal, never visited the prospective project site and, even internally, was only minimally involved,” wrote Peter Mirijanian.
I guess it all depends on who you consider part of the “Organization.” Her statement notably doesn’t state she wasn't briefed regularly by Cohen. The question is why didn’t she speak up while Daddy continued to lie to the American people about his Russian motives? Was that not important enough for the “little people” to know? Maybe those Chinese trademarks were worth it?
Chris Hayes sums it up well:
This crime family is going down under the weight of its own lies.