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Trump Russia Tag

Just before President Donald Trump boarded Air Force One, he told the press he has no plans to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Rosenstein is traveling with Trump to Orlando, FL. Speculation has grown around a possible firing of Rosenstein after The New York Times reported last month that he offered to tape Trump and discuss invoking the 25th amendment with Cabinet Members.

President Donald Trump will go on a Twitter tirade in 3...2...1... The New York Times reported that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosensetin, the man who hired Special Counsel Robert Mueller, offered to wear a wire to tape Trump and rally "cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office for being unfit." He suggested that he could bring Attorney General Jeff Sessions and then-DHS Secretary John Kelly to his side. Kelly now serves as Trump's chief of staff.

This is not exactly shocking, but at least there is proof of it. The Daily Caller received emails and text messages from the special counsel's office that show Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team has a pretty close relationship with the press. The Daily Caller reported:
The documents, released in September, span months of communication and include messages from reporters ranging from a variety of outlets, including TheDCNF, The Washington Post and BuzzFeed.

Nellie Ohr, the wife of DOJ official Bruce Ohr and employee at GPS Fusion, has an closed door hearing with Congress on Friday, but now some say she has refused to make an appearance. Ohr worked at Fusion GPS, the company behind the infamous Steele dossier, from December 2015 until right after the election. Her husband spoke with Christopher Steele, the man who put together the dossier, and Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson during that time as well.

Monday, the White House announced Trump's order for "immediate declassification" of the FISA application in the matter of Carter Page, a former Trump campaign advisor, which includes 20 pages of documents. Additionally, and the best part, Trump ordered public release "without redaction" of texts messages pertaining to the Russia investigation from James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort faced a second trial this month on seven counts of foreign lobbying violations and witness tampering. Reports have surfaced this morning that Manafort will plead guilty to two criminal charges. Special counsel Robert Mueller has filed superseding criminal information, which "typically precedes a guilty plea, and a plea hearing for Manafort has been scheduled for 11 a.m. in federal court in Washington, D.C."

Fox News has obtained new text messages between former FBI agent Peter Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page, a former FBI lawyer, that show others within the government leaked information to the media before the Russia probe. From Fox News:
A lengthy exchange dated Dec. 15, 2016 appears to reveal a potential leak operation for “political” purposes. “Oh, remind me to tell you tomorrow about the times doing a story about the rnc hacks,” Page texted Strzok.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) announced on Monday that his office received new text messages between former FBI agent Peter Strozk and his mistress Lisa Page that shows "an apparent systemic culture of media leaking by high-ranking officials at FBI and DOJ related to ongoing investigations." New texts released by Meadows on Tuesday cemented his theory. In other words, the two agencies teamed up to release harmful information to the media about President Donald Trump last year right before Special Counsel Robert Mueller began his Russia-Trump probe.

Friday, former Trump Campaign Adviser George Papadopoulos was sentenced to 14 days in jail. The sentence is out of the norm for such offenses, but the judge wanted to make an example of Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos was sentenced to two weeks behind bars for, "for lying to the F.B.I. about his contacts with Russian intermediaries before the 2016 election, with the judge saying he wanted to send a message to the public about the consequences of impeding an inquiry of national import," reports The New York Times.

The New York Times released a report on September 1 about how the DOJ and FBI tried to flip Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to retrieve information regarding collusion between Russia and then-candidate Donald Trump's campaign. Deripaska's name has come up during Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, but it looks like the ties between the two men run deep and may present a conflict of interest.

Just when I thought it couldn't get worse for Lanny Davis, the lawyer for President Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen, it has and yes it includes CNN. It all goes back to that explosive CNN report in July when "sources" told the network that Cohen claimed Trump knew about the "dirt" meeting at Trump Tower with Russians. BuzzFeed reported on Monday night that source was Davis himself. Here's the buried lede: Davis came out as the source of the story, but CNN's report stated that Davis declined to comment on the story.

On Fox and Friends Monday morning, the Harvard Law professor emeritus explained that while Trump has constitutional defenses in the federal investigation conducted by Mueller, that's not the case in investigation currently underway at the behest of New York's Southern District.

Last Thursday, Lanny Davis, the lawyer for President Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that Cohen was present at a meeting where Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. discussed the Trump Tower meeting. A few hours later, Davis contradicted himself while talking to Anderson Cooper and insisted that Cohen doesn't have information that Trump knew about the meeting before or after it happened. Davis now finds himself in another contradictory situation. He told reporters last week that Cohen's “knowledge about the computer crime of hacking and whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on.” Davis once again has changed his story.

Back in July, Kemberlee blogged about CNN's "explosive" report that, according to "sources," President Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen claimed the then-presidential candidate knew about the June 2016 meetings at Trump Tower between Donald Trump, Jr., and Russians. Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis appeared on CNN on Wednesday night and directly refuted the story.