Iran rejects Trump offer of talks as ‘humiliation’, without value

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/iran-rejects-trump-offer-talks-humiliation-without-value/

Separately, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Trump’s repudiation of the accord reached in 2015 was “illegal” and Iran would not easily yield to Washington’s renewed campaign to strangle Iran’s vital oil exports.

In May, Trump pulled the United States out of the multilateral deal concluded before he took office, denouncing it as one-sided in Iran’s favor. On Monday, he declared that he would be willing to meet Rouhani without preconditions to discuss how to improve relations.

The head of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations said on Tuesday Tehran saw no worth in Trump’s offer, made only a week after he warned Iran it risked dire consequences few had ever suffered in history if it made threats against Washington.

“Based on our bad experiences in negotiations with America and based on U.S. officials’ violation of their commitments, it is natural that we see no value in his proposal,” Kamal Kharrazi was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency.

Flynn, Comey, and Mueller: What Trump Knew and When He Knew It



https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/07/31/what-trump-knew-and-when-he-knew-it/

The central incident in the case that the president obstructed justice was provided by former FBI Director James B. Comey, who testified that Trump pressed Comey, in a private Oval Office meeting on February 14, 2017, to shut down an FBI criminal investigation of Trump’s former national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Comey has testified the president told him.

In an effort to convince Mueller that President Trump did not obstruct justice, the president’s attorneys have argued that the president could not have broken the law because the president did not know that Flynn was under criminal investigation when he pressured Comey to go easy on Flynn. In a confidential January 29 letter to the special counsel first reported by The New York Times, two of the president’s attorneys, John Dowd (who no longer represents Trump) and Jay Sekulow, maintained that the president did not obstruct justice because, even though Flynn had been questioned by the FBI, Trump believed that the FBI investigation was over, and that Flynn had been told that he’d been cleared.

On its face, this is a counter-intuitive argument—for if Trump believed that Flynn had been cleared and was no longer under investigation, there would have been no reason for the president to lean on Comey to end the FBI’s investigation—telling Comey that Trump hoped that Comey would be able to “see your way clear to letting this go.” Yet Trump’s attorneys have pursued this line of argument with the special counsel because perjury and obstruction cases depend largely on whether a prosecutor can demonstrate the intent and motivation of the person they want to charge. It’s not enough to prove that the person under investigation attempted to impede an ongoing criminal investigation; the statute requires a prosecutor to prove that the person did so with the corrupt intent to protect either himself or someone else from prosecution.

If, therefore, Trump understood the legal jeopardy that Flynn faced, that would demonstrate such intent—and make for a much stronger case for obstruction against the president. Conversely, if Trump believed that Flynn was no longer under criminal investigation, or had been cleared, the president could not have had corrupt intent. But previously undisclosed evidence indicates just the opposite—that President Trump was fully informed that Flynn was the target of prosecutors.

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Paul Manafort is set to go on trial Tuesday, but it won’t be for conspiring with Russians to help elect President Donald Trump. In a hearing last week in US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, Greg Andres, a top prosecutor under Special Counsel Robert Mueller, said that prosecutors “don’t intend to mention alleged collusion with the Russians” during the trial of Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman on tax evasion and bank fraud charges.

Nor have prosecutors accused Manafort of conspiring with Moscow as part of a separate case in Washington, DC, scheduled to go to trial in September, in which Manafort faces charges that include money laundering, fraud, illegal lobbying, and obstruction of justice.

Trump and some of his defenders contend that Mueller’s prosecution of Manafort on charges unrelated to collaboration with Russia during the 2016 election means such evidence does not exist. But that is a flawed assumption. The special counsel has constructed cases that offer the best chance of convicting Manafort, building on investigations that began years before the 2016 race. If Manafort is convicted, prosecutors may hope to use what could essentially amount to a life sentence to push him to cooperate with their broader investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

Mueller also has reason to avoid charging Manafort now with crimes that might involve conspiracy with Russians. (Though “collusion” is not a crime, prosecutors could bring conspiracy charges against Americans involved in disseminating emails or data stolen from Democrats.) Doing so would require Mueller to publicly share evidence for those charges, which would mean exposing information important to his ongoing investigation.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/paul-manafort-donald-trump-russia-collusion/

Donald J. Trump
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Verified account

@realDonaldTrump

Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn’t matter because there was No Collusion (except by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats)!

4:58 AM - 31 Jul 2018

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1024263146008207361

Donald J. Trump
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Verified account

@realDonaldTrump

Rush Limbaugh is a great guy who truly gets it!

3:50 AM - 31 Jul 2018

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1024245909239021568

Donald J. Trump
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Verified account

@realDonaldTrump

The globalist Koch Brothers, who have become a total joke in real Republican circles, are against Strong Borders and Powerful Trade. I never sought their support because I don’t need their money or bad ideas. They love my Tax & Regulation Cuts, Judicial picks & more. I made.....

3:14 AM - 31 Jul 2018

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1024236805477097472

Donald J. Trump
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Verified account

@realDonaldTrump

....them richer. Their network is highly overrated, I have beaten them every turn. They want to protect their companies outside the U.S. from being taxed, I’m for America First & the American Worker - a puppet for no one. Two nice guys with bad ideas. Make America Great Again!

3:23 AM - 31 Jul 2018

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1024239166429769729

Yahoo! News reports:

The Beer Institute, a trade group representing beer producers, estimated that the aluminum tariff would cost brewers $348 million and could lead to the loss of more than 20,000 jobs in the industry.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/trumps-favorite-drink-just-got-expensive-blame/

On Monday, Manafort agreed to dismiss a civil suit challenging Mueller's authority. The suit was dismissed earlier this year, but Manafort's legal team appealed the decision. On Monday night, his lawyers notified the court that both the Department of Justice — including Mueller and Rosenstein — and Manafort agreed to voluntarily dismiss the case.



https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/former-trump-campaign-chair-manafort-first-face-trial-russia-probe-n895741