The Porn Star and the President - Part VIII

 

The Porn Star and the President – Part VIII

(A Story of Lying)

Trump and Stephanie Clifford (her real name).

IN PART VII, MICHAEL COHEN TESTIFIES BEFORE CONGRESS – AGAIN. THE FIRST TIME, HE LIED FOR TRUMP. 

THIS TIME, HE CORRECTS THOSE LIES. REPUBLICANS WHO QUESTION THE WITNESS ARE LIVID.

WE PICK UP THE TRAIL AGAIN:

3/4/19: In perhaps the least surprising story of the day, The New Yorker reveals collusion between President Trump and…Fox News! 

We have seen some of the evidence before: the incessant praise for Trump from the hosts of Fox & Friends, the daily dish of Trump lovin’ fed to viewers by the perpetually outraged-at-liberals Lou Dobbs. 

We watched Heather Nauert, former Fox News Bunny, serve as spokesperson for the Department of State. 

We saw Bill Shine, disgraced former Fox executive, hired to lead the White House communications department. 

There was Sean Hannity, popping up onstage at campaign rallies besides his chunky, orange pal. 

Then it was Hannity landing seven interviews with the president and Fox landing 37 more, each chock-full of softball questions…just to be sure the president looked good. 

Sample question from any Fox interview: “Are you the best president in history, Mr. Trump?” 

Trump: “Yes, and thanks for asking.” 

Interview ends. 

 

Fox News performed its own version of “capture and kill.” 

Now it turns out, a Fox reporter had the story of Stormy Daniels and her one-night stand with Donald before the 2016 election. The network performed its own version of “capture and kill,” despite proof Daniels was telling the truth – that Trump had cheated on his third wife, now First Lady. 

“Good reporting, kiddo,” a top executive told Diana Falzone, the reporter on the case. “But Rupert [Murdoch] wants Donald Trump to win. So just let it go.” 

As a writer for The New Yorker explains:

 

Falzone discovered that the National Enquirer, in partnership with Trump, had made a “catch and kill” deal with Daniels – buying the exclusive rights to her story in order to bury it. Falzone pitched this story to Fox, too, but it went nowhere.

 

Falzone was demoted the following January “without explanation.” She sued Fox and reached a settlement. Falzone signed a non-disclosure agreement.

 

So, there you go. 

Fox News: “Fair and balanced.”  We don’t let you hear the bad news about Trump. You decide. 

Also: Non-disclosure agreements are the best kind of news.

___ 

 

3/6/19: Michael Cohen spends another day on Capitol Hill, testifying in closed session before the House Intelligence Committee. This time, he brings several suitcases filled with documents. 

The New York Times reports that Cohen will provide a series of fat checks made out to his name, all signed by the president, or Don Jr., his dear, dumb son. These checks are part of a scheme to cover up the story of Stormy Daniels, for which scheme (in part) Cohen will soon be plunked into jail. The Southern District of New York in its filings on the case named “Individual 1,” the president himself, as an “unindicted co-conspirator,” which (based on the latest revelations) is kind of fun. 

The first check to Mr. Cohen was signed on February 14, 2017, by the newly sworn President of the United States. The day before, Trump had to fire his National Security Adviser, General Michael T. Flynn, for lying to Vice President Pence about contacts with Russians. 

 

Now Trump was signing that fat check – and afterwards, he would celebrate Valentine’s Day by calling in F.B.I. Director James Comey and asking him to go easy on good old General Flynn. 

Keep all of this in mind when you hear the president insist that Comey lies and not him. 

Or Cohen lies and not him. 

Or anyone lies and not him. 

There was another check to his personal lawyer for $35,000 in March, one in April (not yet found), then one in May, drawn on the president’s personal bank account. The June and July checks are still missing. Then we have another for $35,000, signed on August 1, 2017. 

 

On that very day, White House Press Secretary Pinocchio, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, confirmed that the president had “weighed in” on a letter Don Jr. wrote about a secret meeting held in June 2016 with a group of Russian agents. 

In retrospect, you can see how ridiculous the lies told by Trump and his sycophants have been. Sanders insisted then:

 

Look, the statement that Don Jr. issued is true. There’s no inaccuracy in the statement.

The president weighed in as any father would, based on the limited information that he had.

This is all discussion, frankly, of no consequence. There was no follow up. It was disclosed to the proper parties, which is how The New York Times found out about it to begin with.

That statement itself was shot through with untruths. The meeting itself was never “disclosed.” The New York Times dug up the story thirteen months after the conclave concluded. Don Jr. initially lied about the purpose of the gathering. Then dad lied too. Finally, a whole slew of aides, including Sanders, lied to cover up the president’s role in the debacle. If you had the feeling that Team Trump might be rife with liars, you wouldn’t be dreaming. 

In parallel, the checks to Cohen kept on coming – September 12, October 18, and November 21. The last of a dozen came on December 5, 2017, meaning that the president had been part of a scheme to cover up felony campaign law violations for almost a year.  

The evidence builds. Yet, in Trumpistan it makes no dent. As the Times reports:

 

“I think it’s news we knew about,” Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Reform Committee and one of the president’s staunchest allies, told reporters during a break in last week’s hearing.

 

The payments, he said, could have been for services based on a retainer, although Mr. Cohen said there was no such retainer.

 

 

Trump claims to know nothing about the payments. 

Nor should anyone, not even a clueless Rep. Jordan, forget. In April 2018, Trump could still insist to reporters aboard Air Force One that he knew nothing at all about payments to Stormy.

 

Q: Mr. President, did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?

THE PRESIDENT: No. No. What else?

 

Q: Do you know where he [Cohen] got the money to make that payment?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I don’t know. No.

 

One thing President Trump does know, is he knows how to lie.

Oddly enough, the president isn’t done tweet-ranting for the day. At 6:56 p.m. on March 6, 2019, he sums up his legal predicament this way. He didn’t do anything wrong. No, the Democrats are out to get him on anything, even “a punctuation mistake in a document.”

Cohen doesn’t have the periods or commas. 

He has the checks. 

 

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). 

In a rare display of integrity, Judge Andrew Napolitano, perhaps Fox News’s top legal commentator, explains the dangers to Trump in Cohen’s testimony in an editorial in the Washington Examiner:

 

Hidden in the Cohen testimony was an oblique reference to alleged bank and tax fraud that Cohen claimed he helped Mr. Trump commit, contributed to Mr. Trump’s wealth and has the present interest of federal prosecutors in Manhattan. Many of these events took place more than five years ago and thus are not subject to federal prosecution, so why would prosecutors be interested in them?

 

Here is where RICO comes in. RICO is the acronym for a Nixon-era federal statute, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, originally enacted to target the mob. It permits federal prosecutors to reach back 10 years to find any two criminal acts, which need not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt; prosecutors need only demonstrate that they were more likely than not to have occurred. Then the feds can seize three times the wealth that the perpetrators of these schemes amassed. That could bankrupt Mr. Trump.

 

The president has serious and powerful tormentors whom he cannot overcome by mockery alone. He needs to do more than demean them with acerbic tweets, because many of those tormentors can legally cause him real harm. He needs to address these issues soberly, directly and maturely. Can President Trump survive all this? Yes — but not if he has another week like the last one.

 

First, it’s never going to be a good week for anyone who opens a newspaper and sees his or her name attached to a sentence about the RICO Act. 

Second, Napolitano is warning that Trump can only address his problems in a sober, direct, mature fashion. 

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahaha! 

Not gonna’ happen!

___ 

 

3/8/19: Recent polls have Trump in a bit of a hole, with only 43.4% of Americans approving of the job he’s doing. Part of his problem is that most Americans believe he’s a liar. 

Mainly because he is. 

 

Only 35% said Trump. 

His former lawyer, Michael Cohen, is now a convicted felon, headed for jail. But when asked in a Quinnipiac poll, who they believed more after Cohen’s recent testimony before Congress, 50% of Americans said Cohen 

Only 35% said Trump. 

In fact, 65% of Americans said they believed Trump is not honest, and 64% think he committed crimes before taking office. Almost half, 45%, believe he has committed crimes since being elected.