An interesting moment in the prosecution’s opening statement in the trial of Paul Manafort: The judge in the case interrupted the prosecutor, who was going on about Manafort’s lavish lifestyle, to note that it’s not a crime to be rich and implore him to focus on the alleged crimes. Our full report from Caitlin MacNeal.
I wanted to share one more observation about Facebook and particularly how it compares to that other online behemoth, Google. As we’ve discussed, both these companies exercise various kinds of monopolistic power and anti-competitive behavior. But there’s one very big difference that is important to keep in mind as we assess their role in the 21st century cultural, informational and economic infrastructure.
Facebook has literally billions of users. Never in the history of the world has one thing had so many members or users or whatever else you want to call it. But if you set aside whatever loss would be suffered by people who want to use Facebook, Facebook could disappear tomorrow and it would have pretty little effect on the Internet as a whole. As I said, you might be bummed you can’t log on to see what your friends are doing. There would be a lot of broken “like” and “share” buttons around the web. Certain businesses, though many fewer than before, might tank because their business model was just an outgrowth of Facebook. But big picture, the Internet as we know it would be pretty much what it is today. Read More
We have a jury seated in the first trial of the Mueller Russia probe.
As we’ve seen today, Rudy Giuliani, like his boss, says a lot of dumb or unguarded things when he speaks off the cuff. Back on July 28th of 2016 had this to say on The Mike Gallagher Show.
Remarking that if the Russian government “could get into the DNC server and be in there for one year, which they were, the DNC server is a more modern server, much better protected than the old equipment that Hillary had hanging around in the garage at home.”
…“If they could get into that DNC server, they owned her server in Poughkeepsie,” Giuliani said, although the Clinton server was located in Chappaqua, New York. “And not only did they own it, you know, but so did the Russians, possibly the Israelis, maybe a couple of our other allies. And we do the same thing, so don’t get all upset.”
Here’s a Getty Images/AFP photo of journalists and others waiting to enter the Albert V. Bryan US Courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia for the beginning of the Paul Manafort trial today. Jury selection starts today. And there’s TPM’s Tierney Sneed, our DC Investigations Desk Reporter who’s been following the ins and outs of the Manafort case since the beginning!
Are you a TPM Prime subscriber? If you are, you make TPM possible. Thank you. Are you a reporter who’d like to join our Investigations Desk? Our award-winning investigative reporting team with over a decade of tenacious reporting. Well, we are hiring two new Investigations Desk reporters. The positions are open in DC or NY. Here’s a listing where you can apply.
Grover Norquist and his friends at the Journal Oped page starting push this a few weeks ago: huge new tax cuts overwhelmingly for the wealthiest Americans by Presidential order. No Congress required. Can he do it? Who’s going to stop him?
Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, the guy who just got subpoenaed in the Michael Cohen probe, was deep in the Trump University scam too. Allegra Kirkland reports.
The first trial to come out of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia probe starts tomorrow in the Eastern District of Virginia. There will be a day or two of jury selection, and then the trial itself will get underway.
Covering the trial from a courtroom in which electronics are banned will present an interesting set of challenges for reporters, including our own. Tierney Sneed and Caitlin MacNeal have a plan that will involve a hotel room, a deli, a pay phone, and some all-out sprints. Caitlin explains it here (Prime access).
Rudy Giuliani just went on Fox News and explained that actually he was denying that the pre-planning meeting took place. The walk back is just as convoluted as the original claims. So I’m going to just show you the video of what he said. Read More
Rudy Giuliani made two TV appearances this morning, one on Fox and one on CNN. Both are pretty convoluted and a bit hard to follow. So they’ve led to various interpretations. But there’s what I believe is one pretty big admission that is at least very new to me and I think a pretty big problem for Trump and Giuliani.
As I’ve mentioned a few times before, one of the oddities of Giuliani’s rolling defense of Trump in response to Cohen’s accusations is this: Giuliani says that the meeting where Trump allegedly learned about the Russia meeting never happened and he (Giuliani) has talked to the participants and they agree it never happened and Trump didn’t attend the meeting or know about the Russian offer. Now, there’s sort of a problem here. Cohen never said just what meeting he was referring to. And how can you be a witness to a meeting that never happened about what was said in that meeting? Read More