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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Ben Jacobs in Washington (now) and Erin Durkin in New York (earlier)

Trump reportedly in the room during National Enquirer hush money meeting – as it happened

Michael Cohen and Donald Trump in September 2016.
Michael Cohen and Donald Trump in September 2016. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Today's news in summary

  • Maria Butina pleaded guilty today for conspiring against the United States at the direction of the Russian government
  • The Senate approved a resolution to cut off support for the Saudi backed coalition in Yemen
  • A resolution blaming Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was unanimously approved by the Senate.
  • President Donald Trump insisted “I did nothing wrong” in his first interview after the sentencing of Michael Cohen.

Thanks for reading. We’ll be back on Friday.

Updated

Donald Trump is not the only person in the White House with bad poll numbers.

Melania Trump’s favorability has collapsed in recent months.

CNN reports:

The first lady, whose favorability stood at 54% in October, has slipped to 43% in just two months.

Additionally, 36% of those polled found her unfavorable, a 6-point increase since October.The 11-point drop-off is notable for Trump, who has for most of 2018 maintained positive polling numbers, staying in the high-40s to high-50s. However, unlike the numbers of her husband, who has steadily maintained a favorable rating of about 40%, public opinion of the first lady has varied.

Federal investigators are looking into whether the Trump inaugural committee misspent funds.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether President Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee misspent some of the record $107 million it raised from donations, people familiar with the matter said.

The criminal probe by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, which is in its early stages, also is examining whether some of the committee’s top donors gave money in exchange for access to the incoming Trump administration, policy concessions or to influence official administration positions, some of the people said.

Giving money in exchange for political favors could run afoul of federal corruption laws. Diverting funds from the organization, which was registered as a nonprofit, could also violate federal law.

Apparently losing Michigan Senate candidate John James is under consideration to be the next White House chief of staff. He was also mooted as a candidate for UN ambassador.

The full roll call vote on the Yemen resolution is now available.

While some Trump supporters want the New Hampshire Republican Party to tilt the scales in favor of the incumbent in 2020, the state’s GOP governor doesn’t agree.

Trump was in room during hush money discussions – report

NBC is reporting that Trump was in the room when Michael Cohen and David Pecker discussed how the National Enquirer could clamp down on negative stories about Trump’s relationship with women.

Updated

Senate unanimously approves resolution condemning MBS on Khashoggi

The resolution introduced by Bob Corker condemning the Saudi crown prince for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi just passed by voice vote.

Senate approves Yemen resolution

The Senate just approved the Yemen resolution to curb U.S. support for the Saudi backed coalition.

It’s not expected to get a vote in the House.

President Donald Trump made a bold statement in his Fox News interview today.

Donald Trump says he has narrowed his choices for chief of staff to five finalists.

“We are interviewing people now for chief of staff,” he said Thursday at the White House, according to the Hill, adding the five candidates are “really good ones” and “terrific people.”

Outgoing Republican Sen. Jeff Flake would like to get his hands on a blanket featured by the Daily Show printed with his “meaningless tweets.”

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is defending bills that lame duck Republican legislators there passed to strip power from his Democratic successor, as well as the incoming Democratic attorney general.

“The new governor will still have some of the strongest powers of any governor in the nation if these bills become law. He will have the power to veto legislation and he will have some of the broadest line-item veto authority of any governor in the nation,” he wrote.

Gov.-elect Tony Evers has appealed to Walker to veto the bills. Walker said in the post he was still reviewing whether to sign the legislation, but made a series of points favorable to the bills.

Sen. James Inhofe is well-prepared with statements printed on cards addressing a story that he purchased stock in a top defense contractor soon after coming out in support of increased defense spending.

He also spoke to reporters in a gaggle, denying wrongdoing.

Democrats are behind an aggressive gerrymandering effort in New Jersey, seeking to write into the state constitution rules that could give them control of state government for decades.

Now Eric Holder, the Obama administration attorney general who is leading a national effort against gerrymandered district lines, mostly by Republicans, is speaking out against it.

“As we’ve seen in states around the country this year, the American people want redistricting reforms that help level the playing field so that elections are decided on who has the best ideas, not which party was in charge of drawing the lines,” Holder told the New York Times. “As currently constructed, the proposal in New Jersey fails to live up to those standards.”

The plan would amend the constitution to give state legislative leaders, all Democrats, more power on a commission that draws district lines. It would also create a “fairness test” requiring district maps to reflect how national political parties have performed in statewide elections for governor, senator and president, which would benefit Democrats who have won the bulk of such elections.

It is also opposed by Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy and a number of liberal activists and good government groups.

Updated

Rep. Adam Schiff, the likely incoming chair of the House intelligence committee, said the Justice Department should reverse its position that a sitting president cannot be indicted.

“I think the Justice Department needs to re-examine that...opinion that you cannot indict a sitting president,” the California Democrat said on CNN.

“I don’t think that the Justice Department ought to take the position, and it’s certainly not one that would be required in any way by the Constitution, that a president merely by being in office can be above the law, can escape the enforcement of the law by essentially waiting out the law, by waiting out the statute of limitations,” he said.

The Justice Department’s current policy would shield Donald Trump from being indicted after his former lawyer said Trump directed him to commit campaign finance crimes.

Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she will abide by a deal to serve no more than four years in the post regardless of whether it passes the Democratic caucus.

“I feel very comfortable about what they are proposing, and I feel very responsible to do that, whether it passes or not,” Pelosi said Thursday at a press conference, according to CNN.

Pelosi gained the support of a group of rebellious Democrats Wednesday with an agreement to limit party leaders to four terms in their posts. Since Pelosi previously served two terms as speaker, she’d be limited to two more terms, or four years.

The proposal will be voted on by the Democratic caucus, where it has met some opposition.

First Lady Melania Trump is not so popular, according to a new CNN poll.

Her favorability rating is 43% in the poll, down 11 points since October. 36% of those polled view her unfavorably.

Senator Claire McCaskill said in a floor speech today that the Senate has “too many embarrassing uncles.”

The Missouri Democrat, who was defeated for re-election, hit “dysfunction” in the Senate during her final speech there, the Hill reports.

“Peter Morgan, an author, wrote that no family is complete without an embarrassing uncle,” she said. “We have too many embarrassing uncles in the United States Senate. Lots of embarrassing stuff.”

Congress passed an overhaul Thursday of its policies for handling sexual harassment claims.

The bill makes lawmakers personally financially liable for settlements resulting from harassment and retaliation lawsuits, according to the Associated Press.

It eliminates mandatory counseling and mediation for complainants as well as a “cooling off” waiting period they are now required to observe before filing a lawsuit.

Donald Trump called General Motors’ CEO “nasty” for closing plants that will lead to thousands of layoffs but claimed the mass job loss “doesn’t really matter” because Ohio is “going to replace those jobs like in two minutes.”

“I think she’s making a big mistake,” Trump said of CEO Mary Barra in a Fox News interview. “To tell me a couple of weeks before Christmas that she’s going to close in Ohio and Michigan - not acceptable to me...General Motors is not going to be treated well.”

Donald Trump is taking credit for messing up the Chinese economy.

“China’s economy, if it’s in trouble, it’s only in trouble because of me. That’s the only reason it’s in trouble,” he said in an interview on Fox News, citing the tariffs he has imposed on aluminum and steel.

“We’ve taken in $11 billion worth of taxes that I taxed China - $11 billion. We never made any money with China. We lost,” Trump said. “Nobody’s ever heard of that.”

Donald Trump falsely claimed during his Fox News interview that he beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election among women voters.

Donald Trump says he wants “somebody that thinks like I do” as his next chief of staff.

After the White House announced John Kelly would depart the job, Trump was asked in a Fox News interview what he was looking for in a new top aide.

“I want somebody that’s strong, but I want somebody that thinks like I do. It’s my vision. It is my vision after all,” he said. “At the same time I’m open to ideas.”

Trump: 'I did nothing wrong'

Donald Trump claimed he “did nothing wrong” after his former attorney implicated him in federal crimes, saying prosecutors had cooked up the charges to “embarrass” him.

“I did nothing wrong,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News the day after his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison.

“I never directed him to do anything wrong. Whatever he did, he did on his own. He’s a lawyer. A lawyer who represents a client is supposed to do the right thing. That’s why you pay them a lot of money, etc., etc…I never directed him to do anything incorrect or wrong.”

Cohen and federal prosecutors say that Trump directed him to arrange illegal hush money payments to two women who say they had sex with Trump.

In the Fox interview, Trump said he regretted ever hiring Cohen, who he said he hired because Cohen did him a favor serving on the condo board for one of his projects.

“It happens. I mean look, it happens. I hire usually good people, but it just happens,” Trump said.

“He did very low level work. He did more public relations than he did law. You’d see him on television. He was OK on television,” Trump said.

“I thought he was a great guy. I thought he was really a nice guy. He was very supportive and I liked him, and he was a lawyer, and because of that I did it. And you know what, in retrospect I made a mistake. Because what he did was all unrelated to me except for the two campaign finance charges that are not criminal and shouldn’t have been there. They put that on to embarrass me. They put those two charges on to embarrass me.”

As the Fox interviewer attempted to change to subject to a poll by the network showing him with a relatively favorable 46% approval rating, Trump pivoted back to the scandals swirling around his administration.

“I think it’s amazing, because I only get bad news. I only get bad stories. You look at the papers, it’s all nonsense,” he said.

Updated

Senate Republicans are meeting for lunch today and the fare is Iowa State Fair themed.

Outgoing Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Corker has just introduced a resolution to “hold Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.”

Among the co-sponsors is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell which is a very good sign that it will get a vote.

President Donald Trump is now returning to a familiar habit and attacking a Morning Joe’s Mika Brzezinski on Twitter

The television host was criticized for calling Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a ““wannabe dictator’s butt boy.” She later apologized in a tweet.

A new poll shows that voter opinion of building a wall on the US/Mexico border doesn’t really change if Mexico isn’t paying for it.

President Donald Trump will apparently spend 16 days at Mar A Lago over the holidays.

The Washington Post reports that Butina is expected to provide evidence against veteran Republican operative Paul Erickson who ran Pat Buchanan’s 1992 presidential campaign.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Butina may only face six months in jail. “The sentencing guidelines cited as part of the plea agreement, however, suggest a sentence of up to six months in jail.”

Maria Butina admitted to acting under the direction of a Russian official and will face a prison sentence of up to five years.

Maria Butina admits to conspiring against the United States

Maria Butina has pleaded guilty in federal court this morning.

The FEC has asked Congress to give it the authority to go after ScamPACs, groups that promise to raise money for candidates but instead use it to line their own pockets.

Act Blue just released a report detailing the amount of money raised through the Democratic fundraising platform during the 2018 midterms.

The president is now weighing in on Michael Flynn’s plea deal as the court hearing for Maria Butina approaches

Outgoing Congressman Ruben Kihuen is preparing to mount a bid for Las Vegas city council after being forced to retire due to a sexual harassment scandal

The Nevada Democrat is taking steps to run for municipal office after he leaves Congress in January.

A House Ethics Committee report said of his conduct “Kihuen made persistent and unwanted advances towards women who were required to interact with him as part of their professional responsibilities.”

There was an interesting dinner party in DC last night.

Updated

A preview is already available of what the 2020 Senate races will look like.

Kyle Klondik currently has three tossup races, Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama, Republican Cory Gardner in Colorado and the special election in Arizona for the seat vacated by John McCain’s death.

A federal judge just threw out a lawsuit from Maine Republican Bruce Poliquin who lost his bid for re-election last month. Poliquin, a two-term congressman, tried to challenge Maine’s ranked choice voting system which elected his Democrat opponent Jared Golden and have himself declared the victor.

In an interview with former Saturday Night Live comedian Joe Piscopo on New York talk radio, top White House trade advisor Peter Navarro didn’t weigh in on Canada’s arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou but did note that China has “a lot of bad apples.”

It was a totally independent act by the Justice Department and so my lane is to stay out of that and let the Justice Department do its thing and see how it plays out but Huawei, I mean the problem we have with China is there’s just a lot of bad apple bad apples, they don’t enterprise out there and we have to be vigilant about that. But it was an independent action by the Justice Department a legal matter and we want to leave it that way.

As Trump’s hunt for a new chief of staff continues, there is one person actively interested in the job.

Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas has been perhaps the most vocal opponent of criminal justice reform in the Senate. Although Cotton has successfully blocked a number of other legislative initiatives in the past, Politico reports that he might have met his match this time.

“We’re getting a lump of coal for Christmas,” said one Cotton political ally.

Yet Cotton is going to continue his opposition, saying he won’t allow quick passage unless he gets votes on amendments that could rupture the bill’s fragile coalition. The government is set to enter a partial shutdown next Friday without bipartisan action, and Cotton could drag out the debate on criminal justice reform until just before that deadline if he so wishes.

One of the looming issues in the 2020 Democratic primary is the allegations of Trump coming crimes.

Ron Brownstein notes: “One of the early choices every 2020 Democratic presidential contender will face is how to react the first time the audience at one of their events breaks into the chant‘Lock Him Up’.”

Updated

Kentucky governor Matt Bevin released a bizarre video yesterday bashing the Louisville Courier-Journal for entering a partnership with the journalism nonprofit ProPublica. ProPublica has won Pulitzer Prizes for its long term investigative journalism projects.

However, Bevin attacked the group in conspiracy laden attacks for funding that it received from George Soros or “George ‘I hate America’ Soros” as Bevin called him.

Bevin is up for re-election in 2019.

While Donald Trump is protesting his innocence on Twitter this morning and slamming Michael Cohen, some Republicans are starting to get worried.

Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana told reporters Tuesday: “If you phrase it [the question], ‘Am I concerned that the president might be involved in a crime?’ Of course. The question is, then, whether or not this so-called ‘hush money’ is a crime. John Edwards obviously was prosecuted for the same thing, and Justice Department failed. … [I]f we take legal precedent, it is not something the Justice Department is going to win on.”

Updated

Opening summary

Good morning.

Nancy Pelosi has locked down the vote necessary to be speaker in January, the Senate will vote on the Yemen resolution and Maria Butina is expected to become the first Russian national to plead guilty in the Mueller investigation.

It’s Thursday in Washington.

Updated

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