To say a lot happened on the Russia front this week would be something of an understatement. Here’s our weekly Sum-Up of critical developments on the Trump-Russia investigation.
I wanted to briefly comment and share some perspective on yesterday’s announcement of a Kim-Trump summit this spring. I’m going to format them as a series of propositions or individual items rather than a structured argument. Read More
Sounds like the judge in the trial over Kansas’s strict voter registration law isn’t too pleased with Kris Kobach and his legal team right now.
Tierney Sneed reported Thursday afternoon that Kobach, the Kansas Sec. of State, tried again to introduce some evidence that Judge Julie Robinson had previously blocked him from submitting because his team blew a deadline to show it to the challengers.
“When do we close the door, Mr. Kobach?” Robinson asked. She said it was an “ambush” to try to introduce the new evidence in the middle of the trial.
“That’s not how trials are conducted,” added Robinson, an appointee of President George W. Bush.
This comes after Judge Robinson repeatedly lectured Kobach’s team about trial procedure on Wednesday.
Remember, Kobach chose to represent himself in the trial, using lawyers from the Sec. of State’s office, rather than relying on the state AG.
Since the complexity is great I created this infographic to assist you in following the Stormy Daniels story. To see the full size version, either click the headline of this post or the image itself.
We now know the fourth person who either knows details of Stormy Daniels’ sexual relationship with Donald Trump or has seen or is in possession of the text logs, “certain still images” and possible dick pics. The woman referred to in the agreement as “Angel Ryan” is Jessica Drake. Who is Jessica Drake? She is another porn actress. But that’s not at all. She was also one of Trump’s accusers back in October of 2016.
A TPM Reader flagged this to our attention. I was trying to get solid confirmation. (Drake’s birth name is listed in various places as Angela Patrice Heaslet.) But now CNN has apparently confirmed that “Angel Ryan” is in fact Drake. So that’s settled. Read More
Some helpful sleuthing from TPM Reader JD. “Michael Moshey” appears to be Michael Mosney, Stormy’s ex-husband. Read More
Here’s another aspect of the Stormy Daniels lawsuit that has yet to get much attention. Section 4.2 details other people who Daniels either talked to or gave copies of the texts and images before she made her agreement with Trump and Cohen. Notably, it lists four of those individuals. Read More
The trial over Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s controversial voting law is in its third day, and Tierney Sneed is in Kansas covering all the action for us.
Today, after a bit of a struggle, Kobach succeeded in getting a piece of evidence that’s central to his case admitted. It’s a spreadsheet that he claims shows a significant rate of non-citizen voting. Kobach needs to show that non-citizen voting is a real problem, in order to justify his law requiring people to show proof of citizenship when they register.
You can expect the ACLU to try to raise serious doubts about the spreadsheet’s claims. Still, it sounds a little better for Kobach than what happened Wednesday, when the judge kept having to lecture Kobach’s team of lawyers on the correct trial procedure. Kobach is defending the law himself, rather than relying on the state AG’s office.
Oh and Kobach also reportedly came to court today with an armed escort, citing potential security threats.
You can follow Tierney’s live updates here.
News comes this morning that President Trump is angry with Sarah Sanders for how she handled the Stormy Daniels questions in yesterday’s White House press briefing. Much as I find Sanders a disreputable wretch, it is quite rich to hear he’s unhappy with how she handled the story of his seeking and receiving a restraining order against his porn star girlfriend. Some stories are easier to spin than others! Jay Carney and Josh Earnest had it easy.
Still, it was a fatal error to say repeatedly that President Trump had “won” the case in secret arbitration. Let’s look at specifically what she said.
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This was hinted at in last night’s reports. But the Post has a story this evening suggesting not only that Erik Prince acted as an intermediary in a back channel between the Trump Transition but lied about it to congressional investigators. This goes back to that meeting in the Seychelles where emissaries from President-Elect Trump, Vladimir Putin and the government of the United Arab Emirates met in January, 2017. As the Post story relates, Prince told congressional investigators that he was there to meet with representatives of the UAE. The meeting with Kirill Dmitriev, the head of a Russia state investment fund, was simply a chance encounter. George Nader, Bob Mueller’s newly-cooperating witness, who was there at the meeting and who we discussed earlier, says thats not true. The meeting was set up in advance so that a representative of President-Elect Trump could meet an emissary from Moscow. Read More