BY PRIYANKA ARIBINDI, BRIAN BEUTLER

& CROOKED MEDIA

Thursday, November 29, 2018

—Far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, having a temper tantrum because she got banned from Twitter

THE MOSCOW PROJECT

Well, here we are. There is now conclusive evidence that the Kremlin and the Trump Organization (including Donald Trump and his children) were in direct contact about potential business deals through the summer of 2016, while the Russian government was illegally interfering in the presidential election on Trump’s behalf. Oh and they’ve been lying about all of it—including under oath.

The revelation is contained in a new agreement between President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen and Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Cohen pled guilty to lying to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations and agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigators, in exchange for leniency.

In the document laying out the charges Cohen has confessed to, Mueller alleges that Cohen dishonestly told congressional committees that the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations fell apart much earlier than they did in order to “minimize links between the Moscow Project and [Trump] and give the false impression that the Moscow Project ended before ‘the Iowa Caucuses’ … in hopes of limiting the ongoing Russia investigation.” Cohen told a federal court in Manhattan on Thursday that he “made these statements to be consistent with [Trump’s] political messaging and out of loyalty with [Trump].”

Beyond exposing new dimensions of the Trump-Russia election conspiracy, the new information could place both Trump, and Donald Trump, Jr., in fresh legal jeopardy.

Both Trump and his criminal lawyer/cartoon railroad tycoon, Rudy Giuliani, responded to the plea by insisting that Cohen is lying. That suggests Trump may have lied to Mueller in sworn answers to to Mueller’s written questions about the Trump-Russia relationship last week. (Heaven forfend!) Giuliani told the New York Times that Trump told Mueller, “there was a proposal, it was discussed with Cohen, there was a non-binding letter of intent and it didn’t go beyond that.” Mueller can now seemingly prove that it did go beyond that. He may also be able to prove, per Buzzfeed’s reporting, that the Trump organization even intended to give Russian President Vladimir Putin the $50 million penthouse suite in the unrealized Moscow Project. (Next, on Cribs...)

Similarly, Trump Jr. testified to congressional committees about the Moscow Project, and may have made illegal false statements about it, just like Cohen did. Incoming House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff wants to turn over transcripts of that testimony to Mueller immediately, and has promised to do so in January if Republicans won’t do it before then. REMINDER: WINNING THE HOUSE WAS VERY GOOD.

The president abruptly canceled a G20 meeting with Putin after the Cohen news broke, though he attributed the cancelation to Russia’s conduct amid hostilities with Ukraine.

The bottom line: Even with a new acting attorney general committed to throttling the Mueller investigation, Mueller’s powers remain awesome. He ramped up his prosecutorial activity dramatically this week, and is poised to push more damning information about the Trump-Russia conspiracy out to the public very soon. But because he’s the president, and corrupt to the core, Trump still holds a lot of cards, and is clearly rattled by these developments. An unstoppable force and an immovable object are colliding before our eyes.

After casting a decisive vote to advance Trump judicial nominee Thomas Farr, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) will ultimately oppose Farr’s confirmation, effectively killing the nomination. Farr is infamous for working to disenfranchise black voters in North Carolina. In July, Scott, the Senate’s only black Republican, brought down a different Trump judicial nominee who had published racist writing in college, increasing anticipation that he’d do the same thing this time. Good for Tim Scott.

Affordable Care Act signups are off pace by 13 percent halfway through this year’s open-enrollment period, driven by Trump administration efforts to push junk plans on consumers, and sabotage the marketplaces by starving them of advertising and outreach funds. Let your friends and family know: The sign-up deadline is December 15. If you’re eligible for ACA marketplace coverage, you’re likely also eligible for generous subsidies. Do it for yourself, and to deprive Trump the satisfaction of destroying Obamacare.  

Yesterday’s report on Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, who struck an unprecedented deal when he was a federal prosecutor to spare a serial sexual predator from an effective life sentence, has reportedly taken him out of the running to become attorney general. However, it is has not threatened his current position, in which he oversees labor laws related to sex trafficking. In the Trump administration, covering up sex crimes will keep you in a cush job indefinitely, but committing sex crimes might get you a promotion.

An investigation of ousted CBS executive Les Moonves revealed that he tried to bury a sexual assault allegation in 1995 by trying to find his accuser acting jobs within the network’s programming—a scheme that ultimately contributed to his exit.

Outgoing Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-ME), who lost this month in Maine’s first ranked-choice election, has now filed a complaint asking a federal judge to grant an injunction against ranked-choice voting, and calling for a new election if the injunction isn’t granted. He’ll presumably have the full support of Paul Ryan, who’s bringing his speakership to a close by casting doubt on the fact that Republicans got wiped out in California, calling the results “bizarre” and the vote-counting “loosey goose.” BYE PAUL.

Deaths from drug overdoses in America reached a record high of 70,237 in 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The increase in deaths associated with fentanyl in particular contributed to these spiking figures. The average life expectancy in the U.S. has also dropped once again—this time from 78.7 years to 78.6—largely because of drug overdoses.

After nearly three weeks of search efforts for remains of those who died in California’s wildfires, thousands of search and rescue workers will return home, and hand their efforts over to Butte County Sheriff’s Office. Nearly 200 people remain unaccounted for.

Earlier this week, 310 Google employees signed on to a public letter calling on the company’s CEO to cancel its plans to build a censored search engine that enables surveillance for the Chinese market, writing, “we object to technologies that aid the powerful in oppressing the vulnerable, wherever they may be.” Earlier this year, nearly 1,400 employees anonymously protested the same project, and some employees have resigned over it. These internal protests can be effective. After employees raised concerns about Google’s partnership with the Pentagon to improve image-recognition of drone strikes, the company ended the project. This time, they’re taking a stand to prize ethical behavior over raking in profits from the largest untapped market in the world. Admirable stuff.

Excuse me, what?

A nine-year-old girl getting a pair of basketball shoes from an NBA superstar is a nice gesture, sure, but Steph Curry working to make sure that Under Armour offers his shoes to young boys and young girls is an important step towards making the opportunities that have always been available for boys available for girls, too. Hey other athletic brands: take notes.

Game recognize game.

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