Michael Cohen Says He Arranged Payments to Women at Trump’s Direction

"Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, made the extraordinary admission in court on Tuesday that Mr. Trump had directed him to arrange payments to two women during the 2016 campaign to keep them from speaking publicly about affairs they said they had with Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen acknowledged the illegal payments while pleading guilty to breaking campaign finance laws and other charges, a litany of crimes that revealed both his shadowy involvement in Mr. Trump’s circle and his own corrupt business dealings. He told a judge in United States District Court in Manhattan that the payments to the women were made 'in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,' implicating the president in a federal crime. ... The plea represented a pivotal moment in the investigation into the president, and the scene in the Manhattan courtroom was striking. Mr. Cohen, a longtime lawyer for Mr. Trump — and loyal confidant — described in plain-spoken language how Mr. Trump worked with him to cover up a potential sex scandal that Mr. Trump feared would endanger his rising candidacy. ..."
NY Times (Video - The Ever-Changing Hush Money Story)
NY Times: Opinion - All the President’s Crook
Guardian - Donald Trump: 'worst hour' for president as Manafort and Cohen guilty (Video)
The Atlantic: What Michael Cohen’s Guilty Plea Means for Trump
Salon - President Donald Trump’s worst day yet: Manafort, Cohen fall and the walls are closing in

Paul Manafort, Trump’s Former Campaign Chairman, Guilty of 8 Counts
"Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, was convicted on Tuesday in his financial fraud trial, bringing a dramatic end to a politically charged case that riveted the capital. The verdict was a victory for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, whose prosecutors introduced extensive evidence that Mr. Manafort hid millions of dollars in foreign accounts to evade taxes and lied to banks repeatedly to obtain millions of dollars in loans. Mr. Manafort was convicted of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on the remaining 10 counts, and the judge declared a mistrial on those charges. Kevin Downing, a lawyer for Mr. Manafort, said the defense was 'disappointed' by the verdict and that his client was 'evaluating all of his options at this point.' ..."
NY Times (Video - A Trail of Scandals)
The Atlantic: Blind Confidence Couldn’t Save Paul Manafort
The Atlantic: The Plot Against America (March 2018)

New Republic: The Worst Day Yet of Trump’s Presidency
The Atlantic: The President Is a Crook
Washington Post: Is this the worst day of Trump's presidency? (Video)
YouTube: The NY times Michael Cohen Says He Arranged Payments to Women at Trump’s Direction

Trump ‘Could Tip an Already Fragile World Order Into Chaos’

"Two weeks ago, The Washington Post published 'A Trump Dictatorship Is Increasingly Inevitable. We Should Stop Pretending,' by Robert Kagan. Four days later, The Times published 'Why a Second Trump Presidency May Be More Radical Than His First,' by Charlie Savage, Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, one in an ongoing series of articles. On the same day, The Atlantic released the online version of its January/February 2024 issue; it included 24 essays under the headline 'If Trump Wins.' While the domestic danger posed by a second Trump administration is immediate and pressing, Russia, China, North Korea and Iran — sometimes referred to as the 'alliance of autocracies'' — have an interest in weakening the global influence of the United States and in fracturing its ties to democracies around the globe. ..."

NY Times | Opinion 

Washington Post | Opinion: A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending. 

 

The Atlantic: If Trump Wins

 

***NY Times: Judge Pauses Trump Election Case Amid Appeal of Immunity Issue 

 

***NY Times: Justices to Decide Scope of Obstruction Charge Central to Trump’s Jan. 6 Case

 

***Politico: Supreme Court will review scope of obstruction law that Trump is charged with breaking  

 

****NY Times: Unconventional Trial Judge Could Remove Trump From His N.Y. Empire 

*******NY Times: Material From Russia Investigation Went Missing as Trump Left Office   

​Justice Dept. Unseals Indictment Against Trump

"Federal prosecutors unsealed the indictment laying out the government’s case against former President Donald J. Trump on Friday, detailing their allegations that he mishandled classified documents after leaving office and obstructed the government’s efforts to reclaim them. Jack Smith, the special counsel who is bringing the case, will make a brief statement to the press on Friday at his office in Northeast Washington at 3 p.m., his spokesman said. The indictment gives the clearest picture yet of the files that Mr. Trump took with him when he left the White House. It said he had illegally kept hold of documents concerning ‘United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.’ ...”

NY Times: Here are some of the charges Trump faces.

***NY Times: Trump’s Case Puts the Justice System on Trial, in a Test of Public Credibility

***NY Times: Opinion | Trump Left the Justice Dept. No Choice

***NY Times: Worldwide, Trump’s Latest Legal Woes Draw Outrage, and Shrug

NY Times: The Trump Classified Documents Indictment, Annotated

NY Times: Indictment Brings Trump Story Full Circle

NY Times: Inside Trump’s Club When the Call Came: You’re Indicted

NY Times: Trump was recorded saying he knew he had a classified document.

NY Times: Inside Mar-a-Lago, Where Thousands Partied Near Secret Files

 

New York attorney general files civil fraud lawsuit against Trump, some of his children and his business

“The New York state attorney general filed a sweeping lawsuit Wednesday against former President Donald Trump, three of his adult children and the Trump Organization, alleging they were involved in an expansive fraud lasting over a decade that the former President used to enrich himself. In the more than 200-page lawsuit, Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, alleges the fraud touched all aspects of the Trump business, including its properties and golf courses. According to the lawsuit, the Trump Organization deceived lenders, insurers and tax authorities by inflating the value of his properties using misleading appraisals. ...”

CNN (Video)

NY Times: N.Y. Attorney General Accuses Trump of ‘Staggering’ Fraud in Lawsuit

NY Times: Special Master Expresses Skepticism of Declassification Claims by Trump’s Lawyers

NY Times: Opinion | The Inside Joke That Became Trump’s Big Lie

POLITICO: The Best Way To Save The Constitution From Donald Trump Is To Rewrite It

****NY Times: Trump Is Battling a New York Law Used to Take on Corporate Giants, ****NY Times: As Trump’s Legal Woes Mount, So Do Financial Pressures on Him

​GRAND JURY VOTES TO INDICT TRUMP

"What We Know About the Indictment of Donald Trump, and What Comes Next - “Donald J. Trump was indicted in Manhattan on Thursday, becoming the first American president, current or former, to be charged with a crime. His indictment was handed up by a grand jury which has been hearing evidence about Mr. Trump for months. The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which brought the charges, is focused on the former president’s involvement in the payment of hush money to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who said she had an affair with him. Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s fixer at the time, made the payment during the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign. The office of the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, issued a statement on Thursday evening saying that Mr. Trump had been indicted, and that his lawyers had been contacted to arrange a surrender. ...”

NY Times

NY Times: Donald Trump Is Indicted in New York

NY Times: A President Faces Prosecution, and a Democracy Is Tested

NY Times: Opinion | I Worry About a Failed Prosecution of Trump, but I Worry More About No Prosecution

**********NY Times: Trump Charged With 34 Felonies in Hush-Money Case

******NY Times: How Trump’s Playboy Persona Came Back to Haunt Him

****NY Times: For Some G.O.P. Voters, Fatigue Slows the Rush to Defend Trump

The Democratic Party Has Failed—We Need a Radical Vision to Defeat Trumpism

"'Why aren’t I 50 points ahead?' Hillary Clinton asked a group of labor organizers in late September, when she and Trump were neck and neck in national polls. It seemed like a fair question. Throughout his entire campaign, Donald Trump utterly humiliated and disqualified himself in new ways almost every day. Tapes of him bragging about sexual assault dominated the final weeks of the campaign. ... For 40 years their wages have been stagnant even as productivity grows. For some groups, even life expectancy is now declining. Many who are living through this have been yearning for some sort of political revolution for years. ... A vote for Trump symbolized burning it all down. ..."
In These Times
New Yorker: Seven Electors Against Trump
In These Times - A Message to Trump: We’re Not Going Back in the Shadows
Jacobin: The Workers Versus Trump

2016 January: Donald Trump and the Joys of Toy Fascism, 2016 January: Sanders Is Not Trump, 2016 January: Donald Trump’s Twitter Insults: The Complete List (So Far), 2016 April: Lost in TRUMPLANDIA, 2016 November: Scenes From Anti-Trump Protests, 2016 November: Rust Belt, 2016 November: Autocracy: Rules for Survival, 2016 November: Rally in Brooklyn Park Condemns Swastikas and ‘Go Trump’ Graffiti

Trump-Carroll Defamation Trial: Jury Orders Trump to Pay Carroll $83.3 Million for Years of Defamation

E. Jean Carroll, arriving at the courthouse on Friday, had testified that Donald J. Trump’s repeated taunts and lashing out had mobilized many of his supporters, leading to an onslaught of attacks.

"A Manhattan jury on Friday ordered former President Donald J. Trump to pay $83.3 million to the writer E. Jean Carroll for defaming her in social media posts, news conferences and even on the campaign trail ever since she first accused him in 2019 of raping her in a department store dressing room decades earlier. The award included $65 million in punitive damages, which the nine-member jury assessed after finding Mr. Trump, 77, had acted maliciously after Ms. Carroll’s lawyers pointed to Mr. Trump’s persisting attacks on her, both from the White House and after leaving office. On a single day recently, Mr. Trump made more than 40 derisive posts about her on his Truth Social website. Ms. Carroll, 80, testified that his repeated taunts and lashing out had mobilized many of his supporters, leading to an onslaught of attacks on social media and in her email inbox that frightened her and 'shattered' her reputation as a well-regarded advice columnist for Elle magazine. ..."

NY Times 

POLITICO: Trump ordered to pay $83.3M for defaming E. Jean Carroll 

NY Times May 2023: Donald Trump Sexually Abused and Defamed E. Jean Carroll, Jury Finds (Video), NY Times: Read the Completed Jury Verdict Form in the Trump-Carroll Case

In an artist’s sketch, former President Trump walks out of court during closing arguments Friday in New York.

​JAN. 6 RIOT ‘FUELED BY LIES,’ INDICTMENT SAYS

"Former President Donald J. Trump was indicted on Tuesday in connection with his widespread efforts to overturn the 2020 election following a sprawling federal investigation into his attempts to cling to power after losing the presidency. The indictment, filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in Federal District Court in Washington, accuses Mr. Trump of three conspiracies: one to defraud the United States; a second to obstruct an official government proceeding, the certification of the Electoral College vote; and a third to deprive people of a civil right, the right to have their votes counted. Mr. Trump was also charged with a fourth count of obstructing or attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. ...”

NY Times: Trump Indictment (Video)

POLITICO: Trump’s Jan. 6 Indictment Might Just Matter

NY Times: The Trump Classified Documents Indictment, Annotated

NY Times: Trump Jan. 6 Indictment Relies Heavily on House Panel’s Work

NY Times: Trump’s Case Has Broad Implications for American Democracy

***NY Times: Trump’s Classified Documents Inquiry***

***POLTICO: Latest updates: The indictment of former President Donald Trump***

Inauguration Protesters and Police Clash on Washington’s Streets

"A spate of violence erupted on Friday in the nation’s capital, as protesters damaged storefronts, threw rocks and bricks at police officers and lit a limousine on fire. Phalanxes of police officers used pepper spray, flash grenades and other nonlethal crowd-control tools to disperse the protesters. By the end of the day, six police officers had sustained minor injuries and more than 200 people had been arrested. Many of the protesters were dressed in black, wore face masks and carried flags associated with anti-fascist groups. They congregated on a series of streets just blocks from the parade where Donald J. Trump passed as he made his way to the White House for the first time as president, their activities creating a distraction as television networks played live footage of the clashes. ..."
NY Times


Members of Occupy Museums #J20 outside the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Artists Reckon With Trump’s Inauguration
"Kelli O’Hara sang 'A Cockeyed Optimist.' Chita Rivera delivered 'America.' Four more Broadway stars belted out 'I’m a Woman,' and a larger group made melody with 'What the World Needs Now Is Love.' In one of countless displays of cultural counterprogramming to Inauguration Day across the country, Broadway’s biggest stars — a group generally disheartened by the election of Donald J. Trump — performed show-tunes-with-a-message on Friday afternoon at Town Hall in Manhattan to raise money for social justice organizations. With Mr. Trump celebrating the start of his presidency, the singers celebrated art as a comfort, an inspiration and a rallying cry for the coming months and years. ..."
NY Times


An illustration of a crowd in front of the White House during Andrew Jackson's first inaugural reception in 1829.
The Wild Inauguration of Andrew Jackson, Trump’s Populist Predecessor
"Seeking to portray Donald J. Trump as a man of the people, some of his closest advisers have said he is the natural successor to President Andrew Jackson, America’s architect of political populism. With crowds streaming into Washington for the inauguration on Friday, commentators and historians were harking back to the inauguration of the seventh president on March, 4 1829, when a crowd of thousands mobbed the Capitol building and the White House, representing to many at the time the danger of the mob run amok. Biographers, historians and Mr. Trump’s own confidants have not been shy about drawing parallels. ..."
NY Times

A Dark Inaugural"Politicians, preparing for inaugurals, scurry for their histories. The Republican Senator Roy Blunt, who welcomed the crowd to Donald Trump’s Inauguration, chose to commemorate the peaceful transitions of the late eighteenth century, when partisan tensions were high and the Republic might not have survived. The Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, speaking just before the new President, read at length from a letter that Sullivan Ballou, a Union officer, wrote to his wife: 'I know how strongly American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us.' In the faces just behind the new President and his family, viewers could detect the partisan zigzag of our recent political history: the Clintons, the Bushes, the Obamas.  ... This was a dark inaugural. The America Trump described was filled with victims: of 'inner city' poverty, of 'crime and drugs and gangs,' of 'rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation.' But even starker was how forcefully Trump compressed history. ..."
New Yorker

Trump Impeached for Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress

"The House of Representatives on Wednesday impeached President Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, making him the third president in history to be charged with committing high crimes and misdemeanors and face removal by the Senate. On a day of constitutional consequence and raging partisan tension, the votes on the two articles of impeachment fell largely along party lines, after a bitter debate that stretched into the evening and reflected the deep polarization gripping American politics in the Trump era. ... The impeachment votes set the stage for a historic trial beginning early next year in the Senate, which will have final say — 10 months before Mr. Trump faces re-election — on whether to acquit the 45th president or convict and remove him from office. The timing was uncertain, after Ms. Pelosi suggested late Wednesday that she might wait to send the articles to the Senate, holding them out as leverage in a negotiation on the terms of a trial. ..."
NY Times ((Video/Audio)
NY Times: Opinion - Trump Has Been Impeached. Republicans Are Following Him Down.
W - Impeachment of Donald Trump
Vanity Fair: Democrats Charge Trump With Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress
*****NY Times: After Impeachment, an Angry Trump Looks to Vindication in November
*****NY Times: Evangelical Magazine Christianity Today Calls for Trump’s Removal

2019 December: Panel Approves Impeachment Articles and Sends Charges for a House Vote, 2019 December: House Democrats Unveil Articles of Impeachment Against Trump

​Trump Is Found Liable for Sexual Abuse and Defamation

"A Manhattan jury on Tuesday found former President Donald J. Trump liable for the sexual abuse and defamation of the magazine writer E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million in damages in a widely watched civil trial that sought to apply the accountability of the #MeToo era to a dominant political figure. The federal jury of six men and three women returned its verdict shortly after 3 p.m. after deliberating for only a few hours. The jury found that Ms. Carroll had not proved, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Mr. Trump had raped her, as she had long claimed. ...”

NY Times

******Vanity Fair: The Stunning Clarity of the E. Jean Carroll–Donald Trump Verdict

******YouTube: Trump's deposition in E. Jean Carroll lawsuit, Trump Lashes Out At Lawyer, Calls E. Jean Carroll "Mentally Sick" During Deposition, FULL VIDEO: Trump deposition in E. Jean Carroll rape trial

****NY Times: Opinion | Michelle Goldberg | The Fury of #MeToo Finally Comes for the Man Who Inspired It

NY Times: New York Law Gave Jurors Three Types of Battery to Consider in Trump Case

NY Times: Read the Filled-Out Jury Verdict Form in the Trump-Carroll Case

CNN: Jury finds Donald Trump sexually abused E. Jean Carroll in civil case, awards her $5 million (Video)

In on the Joke

"Is Trump still a joke? It’s been two months since the election, and the mind still reels. We may never be able to handle the cognitive dissonance of Donald Trump, commander-in-chief, and Donald Trump, patron saint of talentless celebrities. The new president is a dangerous demagogue who fires up arenas with a hatefully catty speaking style that somehow evokes both Mussolini and your rambling Aunt Irene. This inescapable weirdness isn’t going to change when Trump takes office. Like prisoners huddled around the bulletin board on a demonic cruise ship, we’ll be forced to check the president’s cheerful Twitter posts to learn what horrors the new day will bring. ..."
Jacobin

2016 January: Donald Trump and the Joys of Toy Fascism, 2016 January: Sanders Is Not Trump, 2016 January: Donald Trump’s Twitter Insults: The Complete List (So Far), 2016 April: Lost in TRUMPLANDIA, 2016 November: Scenes From Anti-Trump Protests, 2016 November: Rust Belt, 2016 November: Autocracy: Rules for Survival, 2016 November: Rally in Brooklyn Park Condemns Swastikas and ‘Go Trump’ Graffiti, 2016 December: The Democratic Party Has Failed—We Need a Radical Vision to Defeat Trumpism, 2016 December: An Alt-Right Makeover Shrouds the Swastikas, 2016 December: Sticky Notes Bearing Election Hopes and Fears Removed from Subway

Scenes From Anti-Trump Protests

"Thousands of people across the country marched, shut down highways, burned effigies and shouted angry slogans on Wednesday night to protest the election of Donald J. Trump as president. The demonstrations, fueled by social media, continued into the early hours of Thursday. The crowds swelled as the night went on but remained mostly peaceful. Protests were reported in cities as diverse as Dallas and Oakland and included marches in Boston; Chicago; Portland, Ore.; Seattle and Washington and at college campuses in California, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. In Oakland alone, the Police Department said, the crowd grew from about 3,000 people at 7 p.m. to 6,000 an hour later. ..."
NY Times - Not Our President’: Protests Spread After Donald Trump’s Election (Video)
Washington Post - ‘Not my president’: Thousands protest Trump in rallies across the U.S. (Video)
Dissent: Tomorrow’s Fight
"The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism. Trump’s shocking victory, his ascension to the Presidency, is a sickening event in the history of the United States and liberal democracy. On January 20, 2017, we will bid farewell to the first African-American President—a man of integrity, dignity, and generous spirit—and witness the inauguration of a con who did little to spurn endorsement by forces of xenophobia and white supremacy. It is impossible to react to this moment with anything less than revulsion and profound anxiety. ..."
New Yorker: An American Tragedy
VOICE: It's Not Going to Be Okay
Jacobin: Politics Is the Solution by Megan Erickson, Katherine Hill, Matt Karp, Connor Kilpatrick, & Bhaskar Sunkara
Michael Moore’s “Morning After To-Do List” Facebook Post For Democrats Is Going Viral

2016 January: Donald Trump and the Joys of Toy Fascism, 2016 January: Sanders Is Not Trump, 2016 January: Donald Trump’s Twitter Insults: The Complete List (So Far), 2016 February: Bernie and the Millennials, 2016 April: Lost in TRUMPLANDIA, 2016 April: Bernie Sanders and the History of American Socialism, 2014 September: Anarchism in America (1983), 2015 August: The Prophet Farmed: Murray Bookchin on Bernie Sanders, 2016 August: Jill Stein, 2016 September: “The Spoiler” Speaks, 2016 September: Jill Stein’s Ideas Are Terrible. She Is Not the Savior the Left Is Looking For, 2016 October: Why Bernie Was Right.

Trump Had Role in Weighing Proposals to Seize Voting Machines

 

Former President Donald J. Trump spoke to thousands of supporters at a rally in Texas on Saturday.

“Six weeks after Election Day, with his hold on power slipping, President Donald J. Trump directed his lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to make a remarkable call. Mr. Trump wanted him to ask the Department of Homeland Security if it could legally take control of voting machines in key swing states, three people familiar with the matter said.Mr. Giuliani did so, calling the department’s acting deputy secretary, who said he lacked the authority to audit or impound the machines. ...”

*****NY Times

*****YouTube: Trump Tied Directly To Voting Machine Plot

“About halfway into his Texas rally on Saturday evening, Donald J. Trump pivoted toward the teleprompter and away from a meandering set of grievances to rattle off a tightly prepared list of President Biden’s failings and his own achievements. ... Mr. Trump, who later went on to talk about ‘that beautiful, beautiful house that happens to be white,’ has left increasingly little doubt about his intentions, plotting an influential role in the 2022 midterm elections and another potential White House run. But a fresh round of skirmishes over his endorsements, fissures with the Republican base over vaccines — a word Mr. Trump conspicuously left unsaid at Saturday’s rally — and new polling all show how his longstanding vise grip on the Republican Party is facing growing strains. ...”

NY Times: Trump’s Grip on G.O.P. Faces New Strains

​‘Trump Was at the Center’: Jan. 6 Hearing Lays Out Case in Vivid Detail

“The House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the United States Capitol opened a landmark set of hearings on Thursday by showing video of aide after aide to former President Donald J. Trump testifying that his claims of a stolen election were false, as the panel laid out in meticulous detail the extent of the former president’s efforts to keep himself in office. Over about two hours, the panel offered new information about what it characterized as an attempted coup orchestrated by Mr. Trump that culminated in the deadly assault on the Capitol. The panel’s leaders revealed that investigators heard testimony that Mr. Trump endorsed the hanging of his own vice president as a mob of his supporters descended on Congress. They also said they had evidence that members of Mr. Trump’s cabinet discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. ...”

NY Times (Video)

PBS: The Jan. 6 hearings are starting. Here’s how to watch them (Video)

NY Times: 5 Takeaways From the First Jan. 6 Hearing

NY Times: Trump Is Depicted as a Would-Be Autocrat Seeking to Hang Onto Power at All Costs (Video)

VOX: The January 6 hearings showed why it’s reasonable to call Trump a fascist

POLITICO: Jan. 6 panel lets Trump allies narrate the case against him (Video), 'Checked out': Trump rebukes Ivanka over Jan. 6 testimony (Video)

What is Uncivil Religion?

Mueller Finds No Trump-Russia Conspiracy, but Stops Short of Exonerating President on Obstruction

"The investigation led by Robert S. Mueller III found no evidence that President Trump or any of his aides coordinated with the Russian government’s 2016 election interference, according to a summary of the special counsel’s key findings made public on Sunday by Attorney General William P. Barr. Mr. Mueller, who spent nearly two years investigating Moscow’s determined effort to sabotage the last presidential election, found no conspiracy 'despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign,' Mr. Barr wrote in a letter to lawmakers. Mr. Mueller’s team drew no conclusions about whether Mr. Trump illegally obstructed justice, Mr. Barr said, so he made his own decision. The attorney general and his deputy, Rod J. Rosenstein, determined that the special counsel’s investigators had insufficient evidence to establish that the president committed that offense. ..."
***NY Times
***NY Times: Read Attorney General William Barr’s Summary of the Mueller Report
NY Times: As Mueller Report Lands, Prosecutorial Focus Moves to New York
NY Times: Mueller Delivers Report on Trump-Russia Investigation to Attorney General (Video)
FT: Robert Mueller delivers report on Donald Trump-Russia investigation (Video)
NY Times: For Trump and the System, a Turning Point and a Test (Video)
NY Times: Opinion - The Meaning of the Mueller Report
NY Times: Special Edition: Listen to ‘The Daily’ (Audio)
Guardian: What does the Mueller report mean for Trump? The key questions answered

Lost in TRUMPLANDIA

"'THE FED OWNS COWS!' a protester bellowed at me as I moved blindly toward the doors of a Donald Trump rally. It was February 8, the eve of the New Hampshire Republican primary, and I was surrounded by whirling white. 'Thank you,' I said, shaking the protester’s hand. 'Good luck getting those cows away from them.' Nice, I thought as I walked away. My interviewing skills were as sharp as swords from the mall. Discerning the true nature of the Trump phenomenon, one so baffling it’s in the process of ruining some of the more rational minds of our generation, was probably going to be easy. I had touched down in Manchester a few hours before, just as darkness began to fall together with snow. I entered the Verizon Wireless Arena, a 10,000-seat venue, to see a jumbotron projecting a photograph of Melania Trump in a bikini embracing a blow-up doll of Shamu. A hallucination? It was no longer possible to tell. ..."
New Republic: Lost in TRUMPLANDIA (Mar. 27, 2016)
Washington Post: In a revealing interview, Trump predicts a ‘massive recession’ but intends to eliminate the national debt in 8 years (Video)
New Republic: Bernie's Complaint (Feb. 25, 2016)
Five ways Republican bloodbath could end - BBC
W - United States third party and independent presidential candidates, 2016
Washington Post: How Republicans are gaming the voting system to tip the 2016 election in their favor (Video)
NY Times: Electoral Map Is a Reality Check to Donald Trump’s Bid

2016 January: Donald Trump and the Joys of Toy Fascism, 2016 January: Sanders Is Not Trump, 2016 January: Donald Trump’s Twitter Insults: The Complete List (So Far), 2016 February: Bernie and the Millennials.

Judge Rejects Trump’s Bid to Keep Papers Secret in Jan. 6 Inquiry

 

Former President Donald J. Trump can assert executive privilege, a judge ruled, but President Biden is not obliged to honor that assertion.

“A federal judge on Tuesday night rejected a bid by former President Donald J. Trump to keep secret papers about his actions and conversations leading up to and during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by his supporters.In a 39-page ruling, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held that Congress’s constitutional oversight powers to obtain the information prevailed over Mr. Trump’s residual secrecy powers — especially because the incumbent, President Biden, agreed that lawmakers investigating the Jan. 6 riot should see the files. ...”

NY Times

NY Times: At the Willard and the White House, the Jan. 6 Panel Widens Its Net

NY Times: Trump Officials Illegally Campaigned While in Office, Watchdog Finds

****NY Times: Swift Ruling Tests Trump’s Tactic of Running Out the Clock

***NY Times: Man Sentenced to 41 Months for Assaulting Officer in Capitol Riot

2021 February: 77 days: Trump’s campaign to subvert the election, 2021 February: First They Guarded Roger Stone. Then They Joined the Capitol Attack., 2021 February: A Small Group of Militants’ Outsize Role in the Capitol Attack , 2021 March: Police Shrugged Off the Proud Boys, Until They Attacked the Capitol, 2021 March: ‘We’ve Lost the Line!’: Radio Traffic Reveals Police Under Siege at Capitol, 2021 April: Capitol Police Told to Hold Back on Riot Response on Jan. 6, Report Finds, 2021 May:  Trump Is Marching Down the Road to Political Violence, 2021 June: Senate Report Details Security Failures in Jan. 6 Capitol Riot, 2021 July: Day of Rage: An In-Depth Look at How a Mob Stormed the Capitol, 2021 July: ‘A hit man sent them.’ Police at the Capitol recount the horrors of Jan. 6 as the inquiry begins., 2021 September: Among Those Who Marched Into the Capitol on Jan. 6: An F.B.I. Informant, 2021 October: Jan. 6 Was Worse Than We Knew, 2021 October: 90 Seconds of Rage

Mueller Report Reveals Trump’s Efforts to Thwart Russian Inquiry

President Trump leaving the East Room of the White House on Thursday.
"Robert S. Mueller III revealed a frantic, months long effort by President Trump to thwart the investigation into Russia’s 2016 election interference, cataloging in a report released on Thursday the attempts by Mr. Trump to escape an inquiry that imperiled his presidency from the start. The much-anticipated report laid out how a team of prosecutors working for Mr. Mueller, the special counsel, wrestled with whether the president’s actions added up to an indictable offense of obstruction of justice for a sitting president. They ultimately decided not to charge Mr. Trump, citing numerous legal and factual constraints, but pointedly declined to exonerate him. ..."
NY Times
***NY Times: A Portrait of the White House and Its Culture of Dishonesty
***NY Times: Mueller Report Shows Depth of Connections Between Trump Campaign and Russians
***NY Times: See Which Sections of the Mueller Report Were Redacted
***NY Times: House Democrats Subpoena Full Mueller Report, and the Underlying Evidence
NY Times: The Mueller Report: Excerpts and Analysis
NY Times: Mueller Left Open the Door to Charging Trump After He Left Office
NY Times: What We Know So Far From the Mueller Report (Video)
NY Times: Barr’s Defense of Trump Rewards the President With the Attorney General He Wanted (Video)
NY Times: Opinion - Don’t Trust Barr. Verify His Redactions.

Television screens showing Attorney General William P. Barr’s news conference on Thursday.

'A pretence of justice': the global press on Trump's acquittal

"The international media were scathing in their verdict on Donald Trump’s acquittal in his Senate trial, portraying it as a bitter charade that would allow the president to continue his onslaught on American democracy – with potential global consequences. Germany’s Die Zeit said the outcome of the impeachment process was 'a triumph for Trump – not just over the Democrats, but over democracy'. The end of this 'historic yet absurd process' had made abundantly clear 'how seriously damaged the US political system now is', the paper said. ... France’s Libération said the curtain had fallen 'not before time' on a process that for the past fortnight had 'offered the American public, and the world, a desperate spectacle. A hollow pretence of justice, without testimony or an ounce of impartiality, it ended as expected – in the president’s acquittal.' ... In Australia, the Age warned of the wider consequences of the acquittal. 'Even taking into account Trump’s positives, his negatives – corruption, his reliance on lying, the numerous sexual assault allegations, his disregard for the spirit and letter of the law – are destructive for constitutional democracy,' it said. ... In the Netherlands, De Volkskrant’s Washington correspondent agreed, saying the outcome of the impeachment process was never in doubt: 'If it has made one thing very clear, it’s that he has the undivided support of his party – and that if he wins in November, he will be accountable only to himself.' ... Spain’s El País said this had been the most partisan impeachment process ever, with only a heroic Mitt Romney breaking party lines. ..."
Guardian
Guardian: Trump impeachment
NY Times: What Will Finally Defeat Donald Trump?
NY Times: In Private, Republicans Admit They Acquitted Trump Out of Fear
NY Times: Trump Impeachment Results: How Democrats and Republicans Voted (Video)