Politics ‘Individual 1’

Discussion in 'Blazers OT Forum' started by dviss1, Nov 29, 2018.

  1. dviss1

    dviss1 Emcee Referee

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2011
    Messages:
    29,346
    Likes Received:
    27,156
    Trophy Points:
    113
    ‘Individual 1’: Trump emerges as a central subject of Mueller probe.

    In two major developments this week, President Trump has been labeled in the parlance of criminal investigations as a major subject of interest, complete with an opaque legal code name: “Individual 1.”

    New evidence from two separate fronts of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation casts fresh doubts on Trump’s version of key events involving Russia, signaling potential political and legal peril for the president. Investigators have now publicly cast Trump as a central figure of their probe into whether Trump’s campaign conspired with the Russian government during the 2016 campaign.

    Together, the documents show investigators have evidence that Trump was in close contact with his lieutenants as they made outreach to both Russia and WikiLeaks — and that they tried to conceal the extent of their activities.

    On Thursday, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress when he insisted that Trump was not pursuing plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow after January 2016, casting Trump’s repeated claims that he had no business interests in Russia in a new light. A draft special counsel document revealed Tuesday also indicates that prosecutors are closely scrutinizing Trump’s interactions with a longtime adviser, Roger Stone, as Stone was allegedly seeking information about WikiLeaks’ plans to release hacked Democratic emails.

    Legal experts said it’s still unclear how much peril the president might face as a result of the new evidence Mueller has gathered about the Moscow project and WikiLeaks, but his prominence in the prosecutors’ papers puts the president in an awkward starring role.

    “It’s deeply troubling. It’s not a place that anybody wants to be, or where you would want your friends or family to be,” former federal prosecutor Glen Kopp said. “And it’s certainly not a place that you would want your president to be.”

    Trump, identified as “Individual 1” in Cohen’s guilty plea, was said to have received direct updates from Cohen as he pursued a Moscow Trump Tower project with the Kremlin, up until June 14, 2016. The president also appears in the draft charging document for Trump ally Jerome Corsi, who allegedly told Stone about WikiLeaks’ plans to release damaging Democratic emails in October of that year because he knew Stone was in “regular contact” with Trump. The Washington Post reported this week that Trump spoke with Stone the day after he got the alert from Corsi.

    In the draft documents, prosecutors sought to have Corsi plead guilty to lying when he said he didn’t know about WikiLeaks’ plans and urging others to visit WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to obtain emails damaging to Democrats.

    Trump has given slightly differing accounts of his Moscow business ties over time. In July 2016, he tweeted: “For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia.” A day later he claimed, “I have nothing to do with Russia.”

    In January 2017, he told a reporter: “I have no deals that could happen in Russia, because we’ve stayed away.”

    Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, said Thursday that the president’s written answers to Mueller about the Moscow project, which he submitted just before Thanksgiving, conform with Cohen’s version of events. They discussed a project, starting in 2015, continuing into 2016, and it went nowhere, he said.

    “The president, as far as he knows, he remembers there was such a proposal for a hotel,” Giuliani said. “He talked it over with Cohen as Cohen said. There was a nonbinding letter of intent that was sent. As far as he knows it never came to fruition. That was kind of the end of it.”

    Alan Dershowitz, a Trump ally and constitutional lawyer, said Cohen’s confessions don’t suggest Trump committed any crime but could suggest that Trump wasn’t telling the public the whole truth about the Moscow deal.

    “This is politically damaging, but I’m not sure how legally damaging it is,” Dershowitz said. “This is all about questionable political behavior. It’s a good reason for people voting against Trump. But I don’t see a crime yet.”

    But Tim O’Brien, a Trump biographer and frequent critic, said the developments pose significant new challenges for the president.

    “This is part of the fact pattern that gets to the heart of whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin during the campaign,” O’Brien said. “I think the unforgiving grinding force of the U.S. justice system, which he has tried to undermine since he became president, is encircling him. I don’t think we know where he will land. But he is certainly mired in something that he is ill-equipped, legally and personally, to handle.”

    Some legal experts argued Mueller appears to be drawing a picture of a candidate who was beholden to the Kremlin. Emails released in the Cohen plea show Trump seeking a financial endorsement from the Russian government on a private project while Russian President Vladimir Putin was offering to say flattering things about Trump.

    “It creates the potential for Trump to feel an obligation to pay back President Putin, or Russia in general that . . . do not put the best interests of American forward.” Kopp said. “You are creating a potential vulnerability for a future leader of America.”

    Trump privately stewed as he followed news coverage of Cohen’s plea early Thursday morning, a White House official said.

    A Justice official called the White House Counsel’s Office on Wednesday evening to let personnel know that Cohen would be pleading guilty in a case the following day, according to one person with direct knowledge of the notice. They were not told the details, however, which they learned about shortly before Cohen’s plea Thursday morning.

    Giuliani said the president believed the news development was a gratuitous slap from the Mueller team just as he was about to depart the White House for a trip to the Group of 20 summit in Argentina.

    In public, Trump was defiant, telling reporters that Cohen was a liar and a “weak person” who would do anything to save himself from fraud charges he faces related to his taxi business. Speaking before he stepped onto the Marine One helicopter for his trip, he also denigrated Cohen’s intelligence, calling him “not very smart.”

    “He was convicted of various things unrelated to us,” Trump said. “He’s a weak person, and what he’s trying to do is get a reduced sentence. So he’s lying about a project that everybody knew about. I mean, we were very open with it.”

    He questioned the scrutiny of the Moscow project.

    “There would have been nothing wrong if I did do it,” Trump said. “When I’m running for president, that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to do business.”

    Trump often grows aggrieved seeing Cohen on TV, aides say. Among White House advisers, Cohen is seen as an existential threat — as much or more so than the Mueller investigation itself because of his longtime role as Trump’s fixer. Trump’s legal team did not learn until Thursday that Cohen had sat for dozens of hours of interviews with Mueller’s office, according to a senior administration official.

    Trump was infuriated earlier this year when Cohen released tapes of him, and asked his lawyers and advisers if anything could be done to stop him from releasing any more.

    The Trump legal team cast Cohen as a flawed character whose word is meaningless, as it had when he pleaded guilty in August to eight felony counts, including paying women for their silence about alleged affairs with Trump.

    Legal experts said prosecutors were not likely to build a guilty plea — a brick in the overall case — on the word of one person. The prosecutors’ filings show they have corroborated and buttressed Cohen’s account with contemporaneous emails, and people familiar with the probe say they have also obtained corroborating testimony from other witnesses.

    “This is obviously a significant plea and statement. It means that when the president was representing during the campaign that he had no business interests in Russia, that that wasn’t true,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat in line to become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. “If the president and his associates were being untruthful in real time as they were pursuing this deal, what does it mean now about how much we can rely on what the president is saying about any continuing Russian financial interest?”

    Giuliani said the president and his business have not tried to hide his pursuit of a Moscow tower project, and voluntarily disclosed some of the documents Mueller’s team used in its probe of Cohen for lying to Congress. According to a person familiar with the investigation, Cohen and the Trump Organization could not produce some of the key records upon which Mueller relies. Other witnesses provided copies of those communications.

    In the White House, two aides said Trump had complained more in recent days about Mueller’s prosecutors and has kept close tabs on the comments of Corsi and Stone. Trump has praised his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort extensively for fighting Mueller’s team, which accused Manafort this week of breaching a plea agreement by lying repeatedly to prosecutors as part of his pledged cooperation in the Russia probe. Cohen had not been on the front of Trump’s mind, both of these aides said.

    Many in the White House try to avoid talking with the president about the Mueller probe, for fear they will be subpoenaed. And both of the aides said it was unclear why Trump was complaining more about the investigation recently. During the midterm campaign, the president occasionally told advisers that people had forgotten about the Mueller probe and remarked positively that it was no longer dominating TV headlines.
     
    Chris Craig likes this.
  2. Lanny

    Lanny Original Season Ticket Holder "Mr. Big Shot"

    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2008
    Messages:
    26,638
    Likes Received:
    16,945
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Elec. & Computer Engineer OSU Computer Science PSU
    Location:
    Lake Oswego, OR
    Individual 1, individual 1, hmmm, who could that be?
     
  3. MARIS61

    MARIS61 Real American

    Joined:
    Sep 12, 2008
    Messages:
    28,007
    Likes Received:
    5,012
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    retired Yankee
    Location:
    Beautiful Central Oregon
    Another fictional anti-Trump hit piece from Jeff Bezos.
     
  4. SlyPokerDog

    SlyPokerDog Woof! Staff Member Administrator

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2008
    Messages:
    116,223
    Likes Received:
    114,265
    Trophy Points:
    115
    Individual 1 could be Hillary.
     
    Chris Craig likes this.
  5. EL PRESIDENTE

    EL PRESIDENTE Username Retired in Honor of Lanny.

    Joined:
    Feb 15, 2010
    Messages:
    50,346
    Likes Received:
    22,528
    Trophy Points:
    113
    We have 3 threads on the same subject?

    Not worried, Cohen is not reliable.
     
    MARIS61 likes this.
  6. MARIS61

    MARIS61 Real American

    Joined:
    Sep 12, 2008
    Messages:
    28,007
    Likes Received:
    5,012
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    retired Yankee
    Location:
    Beautiful Central Oregon
    Can we merge them or should I cut and paste the truth to all three threads? :dunno:
     
  7. Lanny

    Lanny Original Season Ticket Holder "Mr. Big Shot"

    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2008
    Messages:
    26,638
    Likes Received:
    16,945
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Elec. & Computer Engineer OSU Computer Science PSU
    Location:
    Lake Oswego, OR
    Trump's truth? No thanks, I've seen enough of that.
     
    BonesJones and Chris Craig like this.
  8. MARIS61

    MARIS61 Real American

    Joined:
    Sep 12, 2008
    Messages:
    28,007
    Likes Received:
    5,012
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    retired Yankee
    Location:
    Beautiful Central Oregon
    Here's Mueller's truth.

    No charges related to Trump.

    Of 33 people charged, 26 are Russians who will never be tried, all accused of financial crimes with Manafort arising out of his role in the Podesta/Clinton Uranium One Treason.

    Aside from 2 innocents who were entrapped in a perjury trap, the rest are Manafort's gang and Cohen, all for their own personal financial crimes unrelated to Trump.

    Carter Page, the innocent American Citizen who was knowingly slandered by the FBI and whom Rosenstein lied to the FISA Court about to get a spy warrant, has never been charged with anything.

    Everyone Who’s Been Charged as a Result of the Mueller Investigation

    By THE NEW YORK TIMES UPDATED NOV. 29, 2018


    Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating possible links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, has issued more than 100 criminal counts against 33 people and three companies. On Thursday, Michael D. Cohen, a former lawyer of Donald J. Trump, pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about his efforts to pursue a Trump Tower deal in Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign.



    Who has been charged with crimes
    Charges

    [​IMG]
    Michael D. Cohen Mr. Trump’s former lawyer Lying to Congress Pleaded guilty Nov. 29, 2018


    Tax evasion, bank fraud, campaign finance violations* Pleaded guilty Aug. 21, 2018
    [​IMG]
    George Papadopoulos Former campaign adviser Lying to the F.B.I. about conversations with people he believed were working on behalf of Russians (pleaded guilty Oct. 5, 2017) Sentenced to 14 days in prison Sept. 7, 2018
    [​IMG]
    Sam Patten Lobbyist linked to Paul Manafort Failing to register to work as an agent of a foreign power* Pleaded guilty Aug. 31, 2018
    [​IMG]
    Paul Manafort Former campaign chairman Tax and bank fraud, false statements, being an unregistered agent of a foreign principal, obstruction of justice Convicted of financial fraud Aug. 21, 2018
    [​IMG]
    Twelve Russian intelligence officers Conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, identity theft, conspiracy to launder money Charged July 13, 2018
    [​IMG]
    Konstantin V. Kilimnik Russian Army-trained linguist and associate of Mr. Manafort Obstruction of justice Charged June 8, 2018
    [​IMG]
    Alex van der Zwaan Lawyer who worked with Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates Lying to investigators about conversations with Mr. Gates (pleaded guilty Feb. 20, 2018) Sentenced to 30 days in prison April 3, 2018
    [​IMG]
    Rick Gates Former campaign adviser Financial fraud and lying to the F.B.I. Pleaded guilty Feb. 23, 2018
    [​IMG]
    Thirteen Russian nationals and three related companies Conspiracy to defraud the U.S., conspiracy to commit bank fraud, identity theft Charged Feb. 16, 2018
    [​IMG]
    Richard Pinedo California man who sold bank accounts online Identity fraud Pleaded guilty Feb. 12, 2018
    [​IMG]
    Michael T. Flynn Former national security adviser Lying to the F.B.I. about conversations with the Russian ambassador Pleaded guilty Dec. 1, 2017
    *Charges that stemmed from Mr. Mueller’s inquiry but were not brought by the special counsel.
     
    EL PRESIDENTE likes this.
  9. MARIS61

    MARIS61 Real American

    Joined:
    Sep 12, 2008
    Messages:
    28,007
    Likes Received:
    5,012
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    retired Yankee
    Location:
    Beautiful Central Oregon
    People whose guilt has been credibly exposed in the press through the FOIA, leaks by Mueller's team, and/or by the Inspector General's Investigative Report, but for some strange reason NOT charged by Mueller...

    Christopher Steele
    Hillary Clinton
    Tony Podesta
    John Podesta
    GPS Fusion
    Glenn Simpson
    Rod Rosenstein
    James Comey
    Lisa Page
    Peter Strzok
    Loretta Lynch
    Andrew McCabe
     
  10. SlyPokerDog

    SlyPokerDog Woof! Staff Member Administrator

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2008
    Messages:
    116,223
    Likes Received:
    114,265
    Trophy Points:
    115
    The Steele Dossier is proving to be correct.
     
    Chris Craig likes this.
  11. julius

    julius Global Moderator Staff Member Global Moderator

    Joined:
    Sep 16, 2008
    Messages:
    42,404
    Likes Received:
    29,999
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    singer songwriter
    Location:
    Washington
    In that case, a brilliantly accurate breaking news piece by Jeff Bezos.
     
    BonesJones and SlyPokerDog like this.
  12. Lanny

    Lanny Original Season Ticket Holder "Mr. Big Shot"

    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2008
    Messages:
    26,638
    Likes Received:
    16,945
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Elec. & Computer Engineer OSU Computer Science PSU
    Location:
    Lake Oswego, OR
    Don't these felons have some sort of connection to Trump or is it all coincidence?
     
  13. CupWizier

    CupWizier Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 21, 2009
    Messages:
    11,265
    Likes Received:
    7,664
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    retired
    No that would be Crooked 1 according to the republicans
     
  14. theprunetang

    theprunetang Shaedon "Deadly Nightshade" Sharpe is HIM

    Joined:
    Oct 15, 2008
    Messages:
    11,497
    Likes Received:
    20,918
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Speaking of which, I need to go take an Individual #1. Be right back.
     
    Lanny and SlyPokerDog like this.
  15. julius

    julius Global Moderator Staff Member Global Moderator

    Joined:
    Sep 16, 2008
    Messages:
    42,404
    Likes Received:
    29,999
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    singer songwriter
    Location:
    Washington
    I think in this case, individual #1 is more like a big steaming individual #2.
     
    BonesJones and theprunetang like this.
  16. Fez Hammersticks

    Fez Hammersticks スーパーバッド Zero Cool

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2008
    Messages:
    28,881
    Likes Received:
    9,530
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Phone Psychic
    Location:
    The Deep State, US and A.
    Hannity is also in the crosshairs.

    So much joy is on the horizon.
     
    Lanny likes this.

Share This Page