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Newly released documents shed light on Mueller-Trump meeting Former special counsel Robert Mueller had taken himself out of the running to be FBI director by the time he met with President Donald Trump about the job, former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told federal investigators. Notes from Rosenstein's May 23, 2017 interview were made public on Monday as the result of a court ruling in BuzzFeed News' Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department. The document sheds new light on the circumstances of Trump's May 16, 2017 meeting with Mueller in the Oval Office. Trump has claimed that Mueller applied for the suddenly vacant job of FBI director in that meeting and turned him down. The next day, Mueller was named special counsel investigating links between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 election. In the interview, according to the notes published by BuzzFeed News, Rosenstein described feeling "angry, ashamed, horrified and embarrassed" at how the abrupt firing of then-FBI director James Comey on May 9, 2017 was handled. "It was also humiliating for Comey," his interviewers quoted Rosenstein as saying. Rosenstein said he spoke to Mueller, a former FBI director, about becoming special counsel the next day. Read the full story. Share this -







ANALYSIS: Trump steps onto world stage in the shadow of impeachment This is the contrast President Donald Trump wanted — at least, in theory. On this side of the Atlantic, he'll be representing the United States in high-level talks with Western leaders about the rising threats of Russia, China and perpetual turmoil in the Middle East. On the other, in his telling, his domestic political rivals in the House Democratic majority will be busy indicting him in absentia in an impeachment investigation he calls a "hoax" designed to undermine his presidency. For Trump, it's an opportunity to distill for voters the argument that he's doing his job while Democrats are ignoring the needs of the American public so they can hurt him politically. Read the full analysis. Share this -







'Obsession,' 'dangerous,' 'basement bunker': GOP impeachment report rips Democrats' inquiry House Republicans have written a 123-page minority report arguing that Democrats have failed to establish any impeachable offenses by President Donald Trump, according to a copy of the report reviewed by NBC News. The GOP lawmakers did not find any wrongdoing by the president and concluded that there was no quid pro quo for Ukraine aid. "The Democrats' impeachment inquiry, led by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, is merely the outgrowth of their obsession with re-litigating the results of the 2016 presidential election," the Republican staff on the House Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees wrote. "Despite their best efforts, the evidence gathered during the Democrats' partisan and one-sided impeachment inquiry does not support that President Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rival to benefit the President in the 2020 presidential election. "The evidence does not establish any impeachable offense," the report concludes. Read the full story. Share this -







It's Nadler's turn to take on Trump. Again. On Manhattan's Upper West Side a few weeks ago, when a few elected officials held a pop-up town hall in front of a Fairway grocery store, voter after voter had the same question for Rep. Jerry Nadler: Why are you here? "‘I'm leaving. I'm leaving Monday morning,’" Nadler told the questioners, according to Scott Stringer, New York City’s comptroller, who was 20 when he began working for Nadler. “Literally, people would say, ‘Why don't you go now?’” The 14-term Democrat has been preparing for this moment since the House impeachment inquiry was formally announced in September. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Nadler is on deck to lead the next phase in the process of determining whether President Donald Trump should be impeached. It isn't Nadler's first brush with presidential impeachment: He was a member of the Judiciary Committee, and a vocal defender of President Bill Clinton, during the process that ultimately led to Clinton's impeachment in the late 1990s. Twenty years later, Nadler, 72, who has a law degree from Fordham, has been clear about his view that this time, the 45th president appears to have committed impeachable offenses. Nadler has repeated that view for months, saying over the summer that there is “very substantial evidence that the president has committed multiple crimes and impeachable offenses” — a statement made even before the revelations concerning Ukraine surfaced publicly. Read the full story. Share this -







Prosecutor says new charges 'likely' in case against Rudy Giuliani associates The Justice Department is "likely" to file additional charges in the case against two associates of Rudy Giuliani accused of funneling foreign money to U.S. political candidates, a prosecutor said Monday. The disclosure was made during a court hearing in New York related to the case of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. The federal prosecutor didn't offer any further details on the nature or target of any additional charges. More charges expected in case against Giuliani associates Dec. 2, 2019 03:59 Parnas and Fruman were charged with violating campaign finance laws. The pair have pleaded not guilty. The two men were carrying one-way tickets to Vienna when they were arrested at Dulles Airport outside of Washington, D.C., on Oct. 9. The indictment unsealed the next day accused Parnas and Fruman of making illegal straw donations, including $325,000 to a pro-President Donald Trump political action committee. Federal prosecutors say the pair also engaged in a scheme to force the ouster of the then-U.S. ambassador in Ukraine. Read the full story. Share this -







Judiciary Committee names witnesses appearing at Wednesday's hearing The House Judiciary Committee has released the names of the witnesses testifying Wednesday's hearing exploring the constitutional grounds for impeachment. Witnesses for the Democrats Noah Feldman, the Felix Frankfurter professor of law and director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli law at Harvard Law School.

Pamela S. Karlan, the Kenneth and Harle Montgomery professor of public interest law and co-director of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at Stanford Law School.

Michael Gerhardt, the Burton Craige distinguished professor of jurisprudence at the University of North Carolina School of Law. Witness for the Republicans Jonathan Turley, the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro professor of public interest law at the George Washington University Law School. The hearing on Wednesday will begin at 10 a.m. Share this -





