Tuesday, Feb 03rd
Last update09:11:56 AM GMT
Political Glance
Last month FinCEN, the financial crimes unit of the United States Treasury Department, agreed to give the Senate Intelligence Committee access to the financial records it has on Donald Trump.
Then earlier this month the committee publicly complained that the Treasury hadn’t yet cooperated. But after the Senate blocked the appointment of FinCEN’s new boss, it’s now agreed to give up the records – and they could end up taking Trump down.
Then-Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort met with a Ukrainian business associate who previously served in the Russian army last August, as speculation rose about Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential campaign, the Washington Post reports.
Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik met in a New York City cigar bar and discussed issues including the conflict in Ukraine and unpaid bills from clients, according to a statement from Kilimnik to the Post through Manafort’s attorney.
The statement also says the dinner was the second of two meetings he had with Manafort while Manafort was working for Trump's campaign.
The special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice, officials said.
The move by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to investigate Trump’s conduct marks a major turning point in the nearly year-old FBI investigation, which until recently focused on Russian meddling during the presidential campaign and on whether there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Investigators have also been looking for any evidence of possible financial crimes among Trump associates, officials said.
President Donald Trump plans to select Marc Kasowitz — his longtime, New York-based lawyer — to lead his outside legal team as an investigation of Russian election interference heats up, an administration official said.
Kasowitz has represented Trump in legal matters for decades and is considered to have the president’s trust. He has a well-established rapport with Trump and has spoken to him regularly since Trump was sworn into office.
In selecting Kasowitz, Trump once again is turning to a person with extensive experience working with him — rather than a seasoned, Washington-based operator — to deal with a high-profile challenge.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told House Speaker Paul Ryan a year ago he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin was paying off Donald Trump, according to a report Wednesday evening.
"There's two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump," McCarthy said during a private discussion on Capitol Hill, according to a Washington Post report of the June 15, 2016, conversation. McCarthy was referring to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., who has a reputation for defending Putin and Russia.
"Swear to God," McCarthy added.
McCarthy, Ryan and others had just left talks with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, who had informed them of Moscow's method of financing populist politicians to hurt Eastern European democracies.
The United States Department of Justice has announced that a special counsel has been appointed to investigate Russian interference into last year's presidential election.
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller has been assigned by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to "oversee the previously-confirmed FBI investigation of Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election, and related matters."
The tangled affair now known as Watergate began 45 years ago, before most of today’s U.S. population had even been born. (The median age of Americans is about 38, so most people in the country were born in 1979 or thereafter.)
Thus for most people “Watergate” is a historical allusion—obviously negative in its implications, since it led to the only presidential resignation in American history, but probably hazy in its details.
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