The House Intelligence Committee plans to bring in the Trump Organization's longtime Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg to testify, the Daily Beast first reported and a Democratic aide confirmed to Axios.
Why it matters: President Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen testified yesterday that Weisselberg was directly involved in Trump's sketchy legal practices. Cohen alleged that Weisselberg and Trump discussed reimbursements for hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels, and that Weisselberg was aware Trump committed potential insurance fraud by inflating his assets.
The Department of Homeland Security filed a notice Thursday that it's extending special immigration protections for about 300,000 immigrants from Sudan, El Salvador, Haiti and Nicaragua until January 2020, after a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration from rescinding the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program last year.
The backdrop: The immigrants are citizens of nations ravaged by natural or man-made disasters who were allowed to live and work in the U.S. while their home countries recovered. Many have been living in the U.S. for more than two decades, with the government arguing that the program was created to provide temporary aid and shouldn't be continually extended. An end to the program would force immigrants to leave or face deportation.
GOP Reps. Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows, two of President Trump’s staunchest supporters, asked the Justice Department Thursday to launch an investigation into the president’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen for perjury, claiming that he made false statements to Congress during his public testimony on Wednesday.
Details: Jordan, Meadows and other Republicans are using the hearing to taint Cohen’s credibility, referring to his previous guilty plea for lying to Congress. In the letter to DOJ, they wrote that Cohen lied when he said he "never defrauded any bank,” denied any foreign government ties and that he didn’t want to work in the White House. In a statement, Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis accused Meadows and Jordan of misusing "the criminal justice system with the aura of pure partisanship."
In a speech on the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said President Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency to build his border wall was "unnecessary, unwise and inconsistent with the Constitution," and warned the president that Republicans could vote to block the declaration if he doesn't change course, Politico reports.
The big picture: Trump has said he would veto any effort to block the declaration. Nonetheless, Republican Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Thom Tillis have said they will be voting in favor of a resolution passed by the House to end the national emergency, leaving the Senate just one vote shy of rebuking Trump. While Sen. Alexander would not commit to being the fourth vote, his request for Trump to reconsider foreshadows a possible groundswell of Republican resistance as the Senate approaches a vote in the next few weeks.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said Thursday that the panel will seek to interview several of the people that Michael Cohen mentioned during his six-hour testimony, including President Trump's children Don Jr. and Ivanka, as well as Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg.
Why it matters: Cohen testified that he believes Trump Jr. and Weisselberg signed one of the $35,000 checks reimbursing him for a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, which he provided to the committee as part of his testimony. Cohen also claimed that he briefed Trump Jr. and Ivanka about Trump Tower Moscow approximately 10 times, though Trump Jr. testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017 that he was only "peripherally aware" of the project.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) reintroduced a bill Thursday that would legalize marijuana on the federal level and supersede the patchwork of 10 states and Washington, D.C. that have legalized recreational marijuana.
"The War on Drugs has not been a war on drugs, it's been a war on people, and disproportionately people of color and low-income individuals. The Marijuana Justice Act seeks to reverse decades of this unfair, unjust, and failed policy by removing marijuana from the list of controlled substances and making it legal at the federal level."
— Booker
The big picture: The Marijuana Justice Act is being co-sponsored by several of Booker's fellow 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, including Sens. Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to advance the nomination of Neomi Rao, President Trump's pick to replace Brett Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Why it matters: The D.C. Circuit feeds judges to the Supreme Court. As Axios' Jonathan Swan reported, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) had said he had "deep concerns" about Rao's judicial philosophy and that he would only support nominees who have "a strong record on life." Hawley and every Republican senator on the committee nonetheless voted to advance Rao's nomination to the full Senate floor.
Near the end of Michael Cohen's testimony yesterday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked the former fixer whether President Trump had ever run an insurance fraud. Cohen said yes, naming three Trump Organization executives: Allen Weisselberg, Ron Lieberman and Matthew Calamari.
Why it matters: Cohen offered no proof for this allegation — and given his record of lying, his claims can't be believed without evidence. But by making this allegation — and coughing up the names of the executives — Cohen gave House investigators and federal prosecutors yet another trail to chase.
President Trump said early Thursday North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un "felt very badly" about the death of Otto Warmbier and only learned of what happened to the U.S. student afterward.
Details: Trump said after his summit with Kim he took him "at his word" when asked about Warmbier, who was allegedly tortured by North Korean officials while in prison for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster. Warmbier died after he was returned to the U.S. in 2017 in a vegetative state.
After a decade of either rejecting or ignoring climate change, some congressional Republicans are beginning to publicly acknowledge it, and a few are even considering policies addressing it.
The big picture: Democrats’ push on the Green New Deal — a sweeping progressive policy to cut emissions, coupled with other trends, including greater public concern about climate change — is compelling Republicans to be for something — anything — on the issue.
Accusations President Trump's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen made during testimony in Congress were "inaccurate," Trump said early Thursday after his summit with North Korea leader Kim Jong-un ended.
Why it matters: This is the first time Trump has commented on the House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing beyond a tweet before the testimony. Observers say the hearing was a distraction for Trump, who said he watched as much as he could of the testimony, during which Cohen called the president a "racist," a "conman" and a "cheat." "Having a fake hearing like that and having it in the middle of this very important summit is really a terrible thing,” Trump said from Hanoi, Vietnam, where he failed to reach a deal with Kim. "He lied a lot but it's very interesting because he didn't lie about one thing: He said no collusion with Russia. I said, 'I wonder why he didn’t lie about that too like he lied about everything else."
Again and again, President Trump has laid body punches into America's foremost allies, calling them deadbeats and threatening to withdraw from NATO, the military alliance that for 7 decades has helped prevent a new great power war.
The big picture: While they will dispense with Trump's firebrand rhetoric and threats, a Democratic administration in 2020 — should Trump lose his re-election bid — would not bring the Atlantic alliance back to what it was.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats used President Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen's dramatic testimony to Congress Wednesday to lay legal groundwork for House Democratic leaders to pursue Trump’s tax returns, HuffPost reports.
The details: During her line of questioning, Cohen noted Trump had directed his deputies to inflate the value of his assets for insurance purposes, and the president devalued his assets to avoid paying taxes. Cohen also told lawmakers the president exaggerated his net worth in order to obtain a loan from Deutsche Bank in 2014, and Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg would be able to provide lawmakers with more details about Trump’s financial dealings.
