BY PRIYANKA ARIBINDI, BRIAN BEUTLER

& CROOKED MEDIA

Thursday, February 28, 2019

—Bellowing ogre Seb Gorka describing the hopes and dreams of all Democrats to CPAC

WEISSELBERG, RIGHT AHEAD!

It’s been 24 hours since Michael Cohen implicated President Trump, his lawyers, and a bunch of Trump organization executives in serious crimes, and the fallout is only just becoming clear.

To begin with, the crimes Michael Cohen described are likely just the tip of the iceberg. When Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) asked Cohen “Is there any other wrongdoing or illegal act that you are aware of regarding Donald Trump that we haven’t yet discussed today?” Cohen responded, “Yes. And again, those are part of the investigation that’s currently being looked at by the Southern District of New York.”

Cohen implicated both Donald Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump in the illegal hush money payments their father made to his former mistresses—part of a conspiracy to defraud voters. He also testified that Donald Trump, Jr., and Ivanka Trump were in the thick of negotiations with the Kremlin over building a Trump Tower in Moscow, which continued until the end of the 2016 campaign.

The person with the most to worry about immediately is Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, whom Cohen placed at the center of all kinds of wrongdoing, from the hush-money payments, to Trump Tower Moscow, to bank, insurance, and tax fraud.

Of all Cohen’s questioners, the most effective was Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who elicited from him a long list of names of Trump associates who can corroborate criminal allegations or possess derogatory information about Trump, and got Cohen to agree that Congress would need to review Trump’s tax returns to assess the extent of his fraudulent behavior.

Because of these stunning revelations, the oversight committee now intends to seek interviews with Trump’s children, and the intelligence committee will interview Weisselberg. The hearing also has increased pressure on House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal to demand Trump’s tax returns from the Treasury Department, as the law allows him to do.

Trump supporters tried to spin the hearing as a bust, but they must know how that it was an absolute nightmare for Trump. And if Republicans had held on to the House in November we might never have learned any of it.

President Trump’s second summit with North Korea Chairman Kim Jong Un ended early and abruptly without any progress toward dismantling North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Trump said Kim Jong Un demanded that all sanctions against North Korea be dropped in exchange for abandoning only some aspects of its nuclear program.

The failure to achieve absolutely anything was somehow not the summit’s only shortcoming. Ahead of the summit, U.S. negotiators dropped the requirement that North Korea fully disclose the extent of its nuclear weapons and missile programs, and Trump even managed to absolve Kim of responsibility for the murder of Otto Warmbier, an American student tortured and imprisoned in North Korea before he died of his injuries. To learn more, check out today’s bonus episode of Pod Save the World, coming soon.

President Trump ordered former chief of staff John Kelly to issue his son-in-law Jared Kushner a top-secret security clearance last year, over the strong objection of intelligence and administration officials. The request was so troubling that Kelly and other officials documented it, along with their objections, in internal memos. Trump has previously denied having any role in Kushner obtaining clearance, as has Ivanka Trump who is also a liar.

House Democrats have opened an investigation into Trump’s abuses of power, including but not limited to his attacks on the courts, the FBI, the Justice Department, and the media, complete with hearings and witness testimony. (Psst, the evidence is all over Twitter).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be indicted on criminal charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust stemming from three separate corruption investigations. He will be given an opportunity to dispute the evidence before he is formally charged. The charges jeopardize Netanyahu’s bid for a fifth term in office, ahead of April’s election.

The Republican position is that Michael Cohen lied about everything, but that he also somehow cleared Trump of collusion with impressive honesty. Never change, Republicans.

Pakistan’s military will release the Indian pilot it captured amid escalating conflict between the countries in the hope of beginning peace negotiations.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s former justice minister has accused Trudeau’s aides of pressuring her to reach a plea deal with a contracting firm she was prosecuting. Without a deal, the company in question, would’ve been banned from bidding on government contracts. One prominent official has already resigned as a result. Trudeau is gearing up for a re-election campaign later this year.  

The Senate confirmed former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler as the Environmental Protection Agency administrator.

Free-agent baseball superstar Bryce Harper agreed to a record-breaking 13-year, $330 million contract with the Philadelphia Phillies. This is the biggest free-agent contract in American sports history, and could not be going to a guy with better hair.

Stevie Nicks has become the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice—first with Fleetwood Mac, and now as a solo artist. The internet, however, is fixated on the revelation that she has a temperature-controlled vault of shawls.

Both Solange and the Jonas Brothers have new music coming out at midnight. Choose wisely.

The Federal Trade Commission has reached its first-ever settlement with a company that paid for fake Amazon reviews to fraudulently promote its products—a longstanding problem on the platform. The company, Cure Encapsulations, promoted an “appetite suppressant” with unsubstantiated claims, and faces a $12.8 million fine.

Why the f@*$ is CNN host Van Jones at the Conservative Political Action Conference saying that conservatives in this country are leading criminal justice reform?

Want to own part of a $2,000,000 Warhol, or a $6,300,000 Monet? The art investment platform Masterworks.io lets you buy shares in high-end—and usually inaccessible—art that has consistently outperformed the S&P 500. Check it out.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) apologized for publicly intimidating Michael Cohen before his congressional testimony, but only after the Florida Bar Association opened an investigation into whether Gaetz’s conduct violated its rules. Matt Gaetz is extremely stupid.

Correction: In yesterday’s newsletter, we wrote incorrectly that the United Methodist Church’s decision to ban same sex-marriage and LGBT clergy differentiated it from most other American Protestant denominations. The decision makes the church on of the few mainline Protestant denominations in the U.S. that refuses to perform same-sex weddings. Apologies for the confusion.

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