Trump Accuses Adam Schiff of ‘Illegally Leaking to Fake News CNN’

President Donald Trump baselessly accused Rep. Adam Schiff of leaking to CNN on Sunday.

Trump’s accusation, framed with a question mark at the end, came on a busy day of tweeting for the president.

At one point, Trump seemed to blame Democrats in some way for his lackluster North Korean summit, writing: “For the Democrats to interview in open hearings a convicted liar & fraudster, at the same time as the very important Nuclear Summit with North Korea, is perhaps a new low in American politics and may have contributed to the ‘walk.’ Never done when a president is overseas. Shame!”

And then this

[CNN]

Trump points to Dems over failure of North Korea summit

President Trump on Sunday appeared to point blame at Democrats for the collapse of his negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last week.

“For the Democrats to interview in open hearings a convicted liar & fraudster, at the same time as the very important Nuclear Summit with North Korea, is perhaps a new low in American politics and may have contributed to the “walk” Never done when a president is overseas. Shame!” Trump tweeted.

The president was referring to the testimony of his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, which occurred simultaneously with his summit in Hanoi, Vietnam. 

Cohen testified before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, where he accused the president of lying to the public about hush money payments and floated the possibility of Trump’s collusion with Moscow.

Cohen was sentenced to prison last year after pleading guilty to financial crimes, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress. He sentence is set to begin on May 6.

While Cohen was on Capitol Hill, Trump was in Hanoi, at his second meeting with Kim.

Trump entered negotiations with the hope of securing a deal that involved North Korea denuclearizing, but talks ended abruptly without any type of deal, which Trump alludes to in his tweet. 

The president told reporters following the summit that the U.S. was not willing to fully lift sanctions in exchange for partial denuclearization, stating that “[s]ometimes you have to walk, and this was just one of those times.”

A North Korean official disputed that characterization of the country’s position adding that Kim “may have lost the will” to engage in future negotiations.

“This proposal was the biggest denuclearization measure we could take at the present stage in relations to [the] current level of confidence between the DPRK and the United States,” North Korea’s foreign minister said.

[The Hill]

Trump claims unrevealed Cohen book manuscript shows testimony was ‘total lie’

President Trump on Sunday renewed his attacks against his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, claiming that a manuscript Cohen allegedly wrote proved that the attorney’s congressional testimony last week was a “total lie.”

“After more than two years of Presidential Harassment, the only things that have been proven is that Democrats and other broke the law,” Trump tweeted. “The hostile Cohen testimony, given by a liar to reduce his prison time, proved no Collusion!”

Trump has insisted that Cohen wrote a manuscript last year that was a “love letter” to Trump, contradicting his criticism of Trump in his congressional testimony. No manuscript has been publicly released, and Cohen’s publisher said he never turned one in.

Trump on Sunday maintained that Cohen’s unseen book manuscript proved his testimony was a lie. He said in a separate tweet that the “Fake Media won’t show it.” 

“I am an innocent man being persecuted by some very bad, conflicted & corrupt people in a Witch Hunt that is illegal & should never have been allowed to start – And only because I won the Election! Despite this, great success!” Trump said. 

Trump cites Imaginary ‘just released’ book manuscript to attack Cohen

President Donald Trump said Saturday that a “just released” manuscript of a book written by Michael Cohen would show his longtime personal lawyer had lied to Congress, without offering further evidence for the explosive claim.

“Virtually everything failed lawyer Michael Cohen said in his sworn testimony last week is totally contradicted in his just released manuscript for a book about me. It’s a total new love letter to “Trump” and the pols must now use it rather than his lies for sentence reduction!” Trump tweeted.

It’s not yet clear whether the manuscript exists, if Trump has actually seen it or if he is simply continuing a line of attack started on Friday, when the president demanded Congress obtain the alleged manuscript as proof that Cohen was lying in his testimony.

“The brand new manuscript for a new book by failed lawyer Michael Cohen shows his testimony was a total lie! Pundits should only use it,” Trump tweeted minutes later.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment

Last May, the Daily Beast reported that Cohen had written a book tentatively titled “Trump Revolution: From The Tower to The White House, Understanding Donald J. Trump,” but its release was stalled by legal issues.

During congressional testimony this week, Republicans pressed Cohen on whether he had a book deal lined up. Cohen would not rule out that possibility. However, Cohen’s potential publisher has said it “never saw a manuscript” and a lawyer for Cohen said the book never went beyond a preliminary proposal.

[Politico]

Trump Rails Against Mueller: Trying to Take Me Down With ‘BullshIt!’

President Donald Trump railed against Special Counsel Robert Mueller, his team of investigators and former Attorney General Jeff Sessionsduring a lengthy and profane tirade at CPAC on Saturday.

During an extensive improvised riff, Trump praised his own election victory in 2016, calling it “the greatest of all time.”

“You put the wrong people in a couple of positions…and all of a sudden, they are trying to take you out with bullshit!” Trump said, which drew rapturous applause and chants of “Bullshit!” from inside the hall, per reports.

“Robert Mueller never received a single vote,” Trump said, of the investigator appointed to lead a probe into his campaign’s ties with Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Trump then turned his ire to Sessions, who served as attorney general through several years of presidential Twitter abuse, after he recused himself from the Russia investigation given his work on the 2016 campaign.

[Mediaite]

Media

Trump mimics Southern accent at CPAC to ridicule his former AG

After a bruising week of distractions and disappointments at home and abroad, President Donald Trumpturned to performance art and a campaign-style speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference that tried to recast setbacks for his White House and rally conservatives ahead of his bid to be re-elected in 2020.

“You know I’m totally off script right now, and this you know is how I got elected, by being off script. And if we don’t go off script our country is in big trouble, folks,” Trump said.

In his first public appearance since his second summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, the president stepped out on stage and gave the American flag a bear hug, setting off an expletive-laden, off-script campaign-style speech on red meat topics like the Mueller report, tariffs, Hillary Clinton’s emails, tax reform, healthcare and even touched on Tivo and inauguration crowd sizes.

He affected a mock southern accent to ridicule his former attorney general Jeff Sessions to some howls of delight from the crowd.

The president left Vietnam this week early, without any agreement on denuclearization or sanctions. He also saw headlines from home that his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen painted him on the national stage as a crook.

But on the CPAC stage, the president embraced the “love in the room” that sometimes broke into cheers and chants of support.

Flailing his arms and changing his voice, the president re-enacted his call for Russia to hack into Hillary Clinton’s emails and claimed he was only being sarcastic and was misunderstood by the media.

“If you say something like Russia, please, if you can, it is Hillary Clinton’s emails! Please, Russia, please! Please, get us the emails! Please!” Trump said. “Then the fake CNN and others say, he asked Russia to go get the emails.”

The president also revealed that he told first lady Melania Trump that he fired former FBI director James Comey because he was doing a bad job, and not because of Russia, as he has said before.

“When I fired Comey, I said you know, first lady, I said Melania, ‘I’m doing something today. I’m doing it because it really has to be done. He is bad. He’s a bad, bad, he is a bad bad guy, it’s been proven that with all of the emails,’” Trump said.

[ABC News]

Trump Revives Year-Old Feud With LaVar Ball in Weird Tangent on Chinese President Xi Jinping

President Donald Trump relitigated his year-old beef with sports media personality LaVar Ball, whose son, along with two other players, was apprehended in China for theft while he was playing basketball for UCLA in 2017.

“I said, ‘It would be a great thing if you could possibly let them out?’ He goes, ‘So be it. They’re out.’ I said, ‘is this different than our country, eh? Just a little bit different?’” Trump said, repeating the discussion he had with President Xi Jinping to a group of governors at the White House today. “We got them out. Then we came back and the one father said, ‘Well we don’t know that Trump helped. I sent a consultant.’ That consultant would have gotten nowhere.”

Trump has previously stated that the UCLA athletes, who were allegedly caught stealing from a Louis Vuitton store in China, were “headed for 10 years in jail” had it not been for his intervention.

The president repeated that claim this morning.

“I wasn’t happy with those three players because they never gave our country much credit for having gotten them out, and believe me they’d be in jail stealing in a store in China is a very big offense,” he said.

Ball, who has made a name for himself in the sports media world by saying outlandish things amid the rise of his NBA player son Lonzo Ball, repeatedly attacked Trump for the claims. The father even shared an animated GIF on Twitter showing him dunking on Trump.

[Mediaite]

Reality

Donald Trump is again trying to take credit for intervening with the Chinese government for the release of Lonzo Ball for stealing Louis Vuitton bags in China, but Trump didn’t get involved until after the students were already released.

Trump rips Harry Reid, falsely states he ‘got thrown out’ of the Senate

President Trump on Monday lashed out at former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid after the Nevada Democrat criticized him in a new interview with CNN.

In an early-morning tweet, the president falsely stated that Reid — who did not run for reelection and retired from the Senate in 2017 — “got thrown out.”

Trump also said Reid, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year, is “working hard to put a good spin on his failed career.”

“He led through lies and deception, only to be replaced by another beauty, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer,” the president added. “Some things just never change!”

In his interview with CNN, Reid, who said his cancer is now in remission, did not hold back in his criticism of Trump.

“I just have trouble accepting him as a person, so frankly I don’t see anything he’s doing right,” Reid said.

Reid, who was a sharp critic of former President George W. Bush, said he pines for the last Republican to hold the office.

“He and I had our differences, but no one ever questioned his patriotism. Our battles were strictly political battles,” Reid said of Bush. “There’s no question in my mind that George Bush would be Babe Ruth in this league that he’s in with Donald Trump in the league. Donald Trump wouldn’t make the team.”

Reid said calls for Trump’s impeachment — voiced by some Democrats in Congress — would be a “waste of time” because the Republicans in the GOP-controlled Senate are “so afraid of Trump that they’re not going to get involved in this.” (The Senate would need to vote to proceed with Trump’s impeachment.)

But Reid also said Democrats in Congress need not worry about a backlash if they do decide to introduce articles of impeachment against the president.

“I don’t think there would be a backlash,” he said. “Because the vast majority of the people know something’s wrong with Trump.”

[Yahoo]

Donald Trump Blasts Jussie Smollett On Twitter: “What About MAGA?”

“What about MAGA and the tens of millions of people you insulted with your racist and dangerous comments?” President Donald Trump asked Empire actor Jussie Smollett, who Chicago cops now say staged his own January assault Smollett had said was perpetrated by men wearing MAGA hats.

Smollett staged the hoax because he was “dissatisfied with his salary” on the Fox series, and to promote his career,  according to “angry” Chicago Supt. Eddie Johnson at a Thursday morning presser carried on all the cable news networks and ABC News, which is now maybe wishing it had not scored that exclusive Smollett interview on Good Morning AMerica, when he was still pushing his victim of hate crime storyline.

Smollett turned himself in today at 5 AM Chicago time, after which Windy City police held a presser on the actor’s arrest.

Johnson said Smollett paid siblings Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo $3,500 to participate in the phony attack.

The Empire actor, Johnson said, “took advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career. This publicity stunt was a scar that Chicago didn’t earn, and certainly didn’t deserve.”

Trump, apparently exercised that MAGA wearers were not portrayed as victims here too, tweeted to that effect.

POTUS previously had joined in the chorus of politicos decrying the “attack” on the actor, when he got asked about it by CNN contributor April Ryan.

[Deadline]

Trump Cheers on Covington Student’s Lawsuit Against Washington Post: ‘Go Get Them Nick!’

President Donald Trump issued a tweet cheering on the defamation lawsuit a Kentucky high school student filed against The Washington Post for the paper’s coverage of his encounter with a Native American activist last month.

The lawsuit, according to the Post, claims the paper “targeted and bullied” 16-year-old Nicholas Sandmann“because it wanted to advance its well-known and easily documented, biased agenda against President Donald J. Trump.”

“Go get them Nick,” Trump tweeted to the MAGA hat-wearing student. “Fake News!”

The suit was filed by Sandmann’s parents, according to the Post, who are seeking $250 million in damages — the sum Jeff Bezos paid for the paper when he bought it in 2013.

[Mediate]

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