The U.S. State Department says that U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have discussed South Africa’s land reform. A spokesperson said Thursday that the president asked Pompeo to investigate reports that the South African government is expropriating land owned by white farmers without compensation. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports Pretoria has reacted angrily to Trump’s tweet citing “large scale killing of farmers.”
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Mired in financial woes, Michael Cohen is sticking his hand out and asking the public for help paying for his legal defense, and one anonymous donor already has ponied up $50,000.

Through his lawyer, Donald Trump’s former “fixer” says collecting contributions through a GoFundMe page set up after his guilty plea this week is the only way to ensure the truth comes out about the president.

It’s also the latest sign that Cohen is broke.

Trump’s former personal lawyer owes at least $1.4 million to the IRS after pleading guilty Tuesday to tax evasion, campaign finance violations and bank fraud, and has racked up millions of dollars in debt. Because of his plea, he’s being forced to give up his New York City taxi medallions, which have shrunk in value as Uber and Lyft shake up the industry.

“He’s without resources and owes a lot of money,” Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, said in a battery of television interviews on Wednesday.

Cohen, who once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump, commented in court on Tuesday that Trump directed him to arrange payments of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels and $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal to buy their silence about alleged affairs before the election.

While Trump denies the affairs, his account of his knowledge of the payments has shifted. In April, Trump denied he knew anything about the Daniels payment. He told Fox News in an interview aired Thursday that he knew about payments “later on.”

By Thursday afternoon, the GoFundMe page dubbed the “Michael Cohen Truth Fund” had raised more than $145,000 from about 2,600 donations. Most reaction on social media was incredulous and unsympathetic, but one $5 donor was encouraging, writing: “The USA would love you for your honesty.”

Confusion over the web address for the fundraising page, michaelcohentruthfund.com, led someone on Wednesday to anonymously register a shorter version, michaelcohentruth.com, that redirects to Trump’s re-election campaign website.

Cohen’s crowdfunding campaign, which has a goal of raising $500,000, could be a way for Cohen to bolster his whistleblower status by appealing to Democrats and others who want to see Trump taken down.

It’s not the first time someone who felt wronged by Trump has asked the public to pony up. Fired former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe raked in more than $500,000 in just five days of his legal defense campaign, and Daniels funded her lawsuit against the president with about $500,000 raised from nearly 17,000 donors.

​Loans, debt

Cohen could ultimately need much more to wipe his books clean.

Court papers filed in connection with Cohen’s guilty plea detailed his precarious financial state, as well as his side gigs as a taxicab magnate, high-interest lender, and broker of real estate and handbag deals.

In one arrangement, according to the papers, Cohen used a line of credit he obtained at 5 percent interest to float a $6 million loan to a Chicago taxi operator at 12 percent interest.

Later, when applying for the $500,000 home equity credit line used to finance the Daniels payment, the papers say Cohen failed to disclose $14 million in medallion-related debt. Cohen and his wife claimed on the loan paperwork that they had a positive net worth of more than $40 million.

In April, transaction records show, Cohen put up his multimillion-dollar Trump Park Avenue home — valued at $9 million — as collateral on some of his taxi-related loans.

The value of medallions, the physical plates affixed to cabs that owners are required to display, have dropped precipitously in recent years from highs of over $1 million apiece in New York just a few years ago to nearly a quarter of that amount today.

Cohen has been involved in the gritty New York City yellow cab industry since the 1990s. He’s owned about 30 medallions with his wife and father-in-law, as well as a fleet of 22 cabs in Chicago, records show. Some of them are held through companies with names such as Love Bug Cab Corp. and Tailgater Cab Corp.

In addition to his Trump and taxi work, the court papers say Cohen made $100,000 in 2014 for brokering the sale of a piece of property in a Florida aviation community and $30,000 in 2015 for brokering the sale of a Birkin bag, a highly coveted French handbag.

Davis, who is listed as the creator of Cohen’s fundraising page, told The Associated Press last month that Cohen was footing the bill for his defense after pivoting from loyalty to Trump to looking out for himself, but was “thinking of trying to get some help.”

Ethical issues

A description on the GoFundMe page describes it as a “transparent trust account, with all donations going to help Michael Cohen and his family” as he goes forward with telling the truth about Trump.

Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson said crowdfunding campaigns raise ethical concerns because they allow people to contribute to a political cause similarly to a campaign contribution, but without the same transparency and regulation.

“Who does the lawyer and client feel grateful to?” Levinson said. “Right now, there is no clear way of finding out.”

GoFundMe no longer allows fundraisers to download a list of donor’s information such as email addresses, citing new data protection regulations. Fundraisers can communicate with donors through the GoFundMe site. And although there is an option to make donations appear anonymously on the public-facing part of the website, it appears that the fundraiser can still view the name of these donors.

GoFundMe did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The money also could add to Cohen’s already sizeable tax bill.

Robert Rizzi, a lawyer specializing in tax and government ethics, said the law is unclear whether Cohen would have to pay taxes on the fundraising proceeds. Taxes would apply if the money counts as income, but not if it’s a gift — but gifts must be given “out of detached and disinterested generosity,” Rizzi said.

“There would be an irony in being taxed on money he raised to defend himself for tax evasion,” Rizzi said.
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President Donald Trump drew a sharp rebuttal from his attorney general on Thursday after he gave a scathing assessment of Jeff Sessions as being unable to take control of the Justice Department.

Trump intensified his criticism of the Justice Department in a Fox News interview broadcast on Thursday as the White House grappled to respond to the conviction of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on multiple fraud counts and a plea deal struck by Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen that implicated the president.

He reprised a litany of complaints about the Justice Department and the FBI, attacking both without providing evidence they had treated him and his supporters unfairly.

Trump also renewed his criticism of Sessions, blaming him for what he called corruption at Justice.

“I put in an attorney general who never took control of the Justice Department,” Trump said.

Sessions, in a rare rebuttal to Trump, issued a statement defending the integrity of his department.

“I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in,” he said. “… While I am attorney general, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.”

Sessions, a longtime U.S. senator and early supporter of Trump’s presidential bid, drew Trump’s ire when he recused himself in March 2017 from issues involving the 2016 White House race.

That removed him from oversight of the federal special counsel’s investigation of Russia’s role in the election and whether Trump’s campaign worked with Moscow to influence the vote. Trump has repeatedly called the investigation a witch hunt.

“Jeff Sessions recused himself, which he shouldn’t have done,” Trump said. “He took the job and then he said, ‘I’m going to recuse myself.’ I said, ‘What kind of a man is this?'” However, Trump told “Fox & Friends” he would not interfere in department matters.

“I will stay uninvolved and maybe that’s the best thing to do,” he said in the interview.

At the U.S. Capitol, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who is both close to Trump and a defender of Sessions, said he believed Trump would appoint a new attorney general but should wait until after November congressional elections.

“The idea of having a new attorney general in the first term of President Trump’s administration I think is very likely, Graham said.

‘Every lobbyist in Washington does it’

Trump told Fox he respected Manafort for work he had done for prominent Republican politicians, adding that “some of the charges they threw against him, every consultant, every lobbyist in Washington probably does.”

The Fox News reporter who interviewed Trump said on Wednesday Trump told her he would consider pardoning Manafort. But in the interview that aired Thursday, Trump never said he was considering the pardon.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia hacked and leaked Democratic emails during the campaign as part of an effort to tilt the vote in Trump’s favor. The Kremlin has denied the allegations and Trump has denied any collusion.

Trump said Manafort and Cohen were charged with matters totally unrelated to his presidential campaign, although Cohen told a federal court in New York that Trump had directed him to arrange payments before the 2016 election to silence two women who said they had affairs with Trump.

Asked if he directed Cohen to make the payments, Trump said only that Cohen made both deals. He attacked Cohen, who once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump, for agreeing to a plea deal with prosecutors that made Trump look bad. “It’s called flipping and it almost ought to be illegal,” he said.

Trump was asked whether he thought Democrats would move to impeach him if they won control of the House of Representatives in November. “I don’t know how you would impeach somebody who’s done a great job,” he said. “If I got impeached, I think the market would crash.”
…

U.S. federal prosecutors have reportedly granted immunity to the owner of a tabloid that is a central focus of the investigation into President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen. 

The CEO of the company that owns the National Enquirer, David Pecker, met with prosecutors to describe his involvement with Cohen, Trump, and the hush money that was paid to two women before the 2016 presidential election, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter.

As a result of the information provided at the meeting, Pecker was granted immunity and will not be criminally charged, the Journal said.

Cohen reached a plea agreement with prosecutors earlier this week after detailing the tabloid’s role in payoffs to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal to remain silent about alleged affairs with Trump.

Court papers showed how Pecker offered to help Trump prevent the publication of negative stories about Trump during the campaign.  The documents said Pecker “offered to help deal with negative stories about (Trump’s) relationships with women … by identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided.”

Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday to eight criminal charges, including campaign-finance violations that are linked to the payments.

Pecker, who owns the Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., is a long-time friend of Cohen’s.  

The Wall Street Journal report said at Cohen’s urging the Enquirer started promoting a potential Trump presidential candidacy in 2010 and referred readers to a Trump-friendly website that Cohen helped develop.  Former staffers said the tabloid began questioning President Barack Obama’s birthplace and his U.S. citizenship, a campaign Trump promoted for several years.

The Enquirer endorsed Trump for president in 2016, the first time it had officially supported a candidate. 

There was no immediate comment from the White House.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump is speaking publicly about the possibility of his impeachment.

“If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash,” Trump remarked in a television interview from the White House that aired Thursday morning on the Fox News Channel.

“I think everybody would be very poor because without this thinking you would see numbers that you wouldn’t believe in reverse,” Trump said pointing to his head.

The president then questioned how he could be impeached when has “done a great job.”

Impeachment talk has increased over the past two days after Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was convicted of eight counts of fraud by a federal court jury in Virginia.

The president’s long-time attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, entered a plea in federal court in New York, admitting he paid hush money during the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign to two women who had affairs with Trump and that he did so at the candidate’s direction.

Trump, on Twitter and in the taped television interview, has accused Cohen of saying things that are not true in order to gain favorable treatment from prosecutors.

“For 30, 40 years I’ve been watching flippers,” the president said in the interview. “Everything’s wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go.”

Some political pundits suggest Cohen’s admission to campaign finance violations and implicating the president could be grounds for impeachment, but others are expressing skepticism.

What is certain is that interest in the topic increased tremendously following Tuesday’s dramatic courtroom developments. Queries to the top global search engine, Google, that included the word “impeachment” spiked.

But there is almost no chance at present that lawmakers will pursue impeachment because both houses of Congress are in the hands of Trump’s Republican party, which with few exceptions remains loyal to the president.

If the opposition Democrats are able to gain control of the House of Representatives in the November mid-term election, though, they would be in a position to initiate such proceedings against Trump.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Wednesday impeachment is the only message congressional Democrats “seem to have going into the midterms.”

Democratic party leaders seem to be cautious, however, about embracing impeachment as a campaign rallying theme.

“If there’s evidence that the president should be impeached, let that emerge,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

“I think Republicans would like us to run with the subject of impeachment,” added Pelosi, speaking to reporters in San Francisco. “Let me say this about impeachment: you can’t be political about it. You can’t be political in doing it. And you can’t be political in not doing it. We have to seek the truth.”

Some party strategists express caution that too much talk on the campaign trail ahead of this November’s election could alienate independent voters and rally Trump’s base.

Midterms generally swing in favor of the party out of power and usually generate lower voter turnout than for presidential elections.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump Wednesday criticized the integrity and legal skills of his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, saying on Twitter that anyone looking for a good lawyer should not retain the services of Cohen. Trump was making his first public statements about his former personal attorney, who a day earlier implicated Trump in a campaign cover-up and faces four to five years in prison when sentenced in December. 

Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday to campaign finance law violations as well as bank and tax fraud. Cohen’s pleas came after he testified that Trump directed him to commit a crime by paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal in the closing weeks of the presidential campaign to influence the 2016 election. Both women said they had affairs with Trump before the election. Trump denies involvement.

At about the same time Cohen pleaded guilty, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted of eight of 18 bank and tax fraud charges. The charges against Manafort were brought by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian meddling in the election and potential obstruction of justice.

The charges against Manafort were unrelated to the core of Mueller’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to subvert the 2016 U.S. presidential election in Trump’s favor.

Manafort’s conviction, however, vindicates Mueller’s work as investigators continue to explore potential violations by Trump and those associated with him. Mueller also submitted evidence in the Cohen case to federal prosecutors in New York. 

Trump questioned the integrity of the Manafort case, noting a verdict “could not even be decided” on the 10 remaining charges against his former campaign chief, and again called the Mueller probe a “Witch Hunt!”

Eric Holder, the attorney general under President Barack Obama’s administration, said on Twitter, “In spite of spurious, unjustified and unprecedented attacks, people in federal law enforcement did their jobs and, as usual, did them well. Guilty plea. Guilty verdict. Criminal acts. This is not a witch hunt.”

Despite the widening criminal investigation that raises questions about Trump’s own legal jeopardy and threatens to hurt his Republican Party’s chances in the November mid-term elections, there were no immediate calls for Trump’s impeachment and Republican lawmakers have remained mostly silent.

Democrats, however, quickly reacted to the Cohen and Manafort cases, maintaining they strengthened their belief the Trump White House is beset by scandal.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, a frequent Trump critic and possible presidential contender in 2020, called for legislation to protect Mueller instead of pursuing impeachment proceedings.

“I think that what Congress needs to do right now is we need to make sure that special prosecutor Mueller is fully protected from being fired by Donald Trump,” Warren said during a CNN interview.

The cases have prompted Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to call on Republicans to delay Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, describing the developments as “a game changer.” 

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said Cohen’s “admitted crimes helped Donald Trump win the election. And going forward, if the president were to pardon Michael Cohen or Paul Manafort, I think that would constitute a significant attack on the rule of law in America.” 

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi issued a statement denouncing Trump, but did not call for impeachmentment, saying it is “not a priority” and that Democrats should instead focus on the president’s actions and allow Mueller to complete his investigation.

The senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Jerrold Nadler, is urging committee chairman Bob Goodlatte to hold immediate hearings on Trump’s repeated attacks on the Justice Department and the FBI. Nadler said Cohen’s guilty plea means “the president of the United States is now directly implicated in a criminal conspiracy.”

Democratic Congresswomen Rosa DeLauro said, “The American people deserve answers regarding the President’s role in these corrupt and criminal actions.”

Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani defended his client, saying, “There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the government’s charges against Mr. Cohen. It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Mr. Cohen’s actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time.”

Cohen’s attorney Lanny Davis said in a series of television interviews Tuesday Cohen has information “that would be of interest” to Mueller. Davis said on MSNBC Cohen has details on the  “computer crime of hacking” and “whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on.”

Davis added that Mueller “will have a great deal of interest in what Michael has to say.”

Five Trump associates have either pleaded guilty or been charged with crimes since Trump assumed the presidency, including his former national security adviser, his deputy campaign chairman and an ex-campaign policy adviser.

Trump’s loyalists reiterated the White House’s position that a sitting president cannot be indicted, citing a Justice Department legal opinion that was issued in 2000. Trump’s attorneys have said Mueller would comply with the ruling, but Mueller’s office has not independently confirmed it.

The long-term impact of the cases will likely depend on how they affect voter turnout in November. A string of Democratic victories would limit Trump’s ability to achieve legislative victories and increase the risk of calls for his impeachment.

Some analysts, like Andy Smith of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, believe Trump may be able to capitalize on Tuesday’s political setbacks by convincing his core supporters he is under siege. 

“In mid-term elections, the president’s party tends to be less interested and less motivated to vote. But one thing that will motivate people to get out and vote is if they believe the party is being attacked unfairly,” said Smith.

The cases are unlikely to erode support from Trump’s political base or the Republican establishment, according to Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

“I don’t think there’s any change at all,” he said. “That’s the amazing part of it. The Trump base and virtually the entire Republican Party could care less. The polls will bear me out.”

Josh McGrew traveled more than 85 kilometers (50 miles) from Huntington, West Virginia to support Trump at a campaign rally Tuesday night in Charleston, just hours after Cohen’s guilty pleas and Manafort’s convictions. He labeled the investigations a smear campaign and said his support for Trump remained as strong as ever.
…

President Donald Trump has repeatedly used immigration as a means of rallying voters, both during his campaign and his presidency and is returning to it as a wedge issue for the November elections.

At a rally Tuesday in West Virginia, shortly after news broke that his former campaign manager Paul Manafort was found guilty of financial fraud, and his former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, the president railed against illegal immigration by citing the murder of an Iowa college student, allegedly by an undocumented immigrant.

“You heard about today, with the illegal alien coming in very sadly from Mexico, and you saw what happened to that incredible, beautiful young woman,” Trump said. “It should have never happened. Illegally in our country — we’ve had a huge impact, but the laws are so bad. The immigration laws are such a disgrace.”

Trump was referring to the case of Mollie Tibbetts, 18, who had been missing since July 18 when she went for a jog in Brooklyn, in the midwest U.S. state of Iowa, setting off a massive search. Her body was found early Tuesday when Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 24, led authorities to a cornfield not far from Brooklyn. Soon after he was charged with murder.

Authorities said Rivera is an undocumented immigrant who had been in the area for at least four years, during which time he worked at a nearby dairy farm.Yarrabee Farms said in a statement Tuesday that Rivera had been an employee in good standing.

Rivera’s Facebook page describes him as being from Guayabillo, a community of less than 500 people in the Mexican state of Guerrero.

Iowa’s governor Kim Reynolds, a Republican, also spoke out about immigration policies in a Tuesday statement.

“As Iowans,” she said, “we are heartbroken, and we are angry.We are angry that a broken immigration system allowed a predator like this to live in our community, and we will do all we can bring justice to Mollie’s killer.”

Iowa senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, both Republicans, echoed Reynolds in a joint statement. But Congressman Steve King who represents Brooklyn in the House of Representatives confined himself to sympathy for Tibbetts and her family.

Republican King is normally an outspoken conservative voice for immigration reform.

In a statement posted on Facebook Tibbett’s aunt, Jo Calderwood, called for inclusiveness.

“Please remember EVIL comes in every color,” she saidO “Our family has been blessed to be surrounded by love, friendship and support throughout this entire by friends from all different nations and races.From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.”

Sarah Root

Iowa has been the focus of the immigration debate before, in April, 2016 when Sarah Root, 21, was killed by a drunk driver who was in the country illegally in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Root became a political rallying point.

“One more child to sacrifice on the altar of open borders,” Trump called her during his 2016 campaign.

The American Immigration Council, a lobbying group founded by immigration lawyers, states on its website several studies have shown immigrants are less likely to be arrested for violent crimes than native-born Americans

“For more than a century, innumerable studies have confirmed two simple yet powerful truths about the relationship between immigration and crime: immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes or be behind bars than the native-born, and high rates of immigration are associated with lower rates of violent crime and property crime.”

But the studies have not prevented the conservative media from prominently reporting a story like Tibbett’s. The choice has sparked mixed reactions on Twitter:
…

Washington may be buzzing about presumed double legal blows to President Donald Trump, with the Paul Manafort verdict and Michael Cohen’s guilty plea, but little of it appeared to matter to his supporters in West Virginia.

Trump’s backers dismissed the developments as more proof that his critics are determined to stop him from keeping his campaign promises.

The president spoke Tuesday night at a campaign-style rally in Charleston, hours after Manafort, his former campaign chairman, was found guilty of eight financial crimes, and his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to eight felonies, including two counts of violating federal campaign finance law.

During his rally remarks, Trump returned to several of his favorite themes — calling the media “fake news,” and calling special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election a “witch hunt.” But he did not specifically mention Manafort or Cohen.

Trump supporters dismissed the legal developments and focused on his economic track record.

Kevin Abbott, a coal miner from Gilbert, West Virginia, who lost his job during the Obama administration and gained it back after Trump was elected, lamented what he sees as obstructionist behavior from the president’s critics.

“If people quit road-blocking him, I think he can do amazing things. He has already done so much,” he said. Abbott’s wife Michelle agreed, adding that their lives have “changed tremendously under Trump.”

Reaction from women

The latest polls show that nationally, Trump’s popularity among women has fallen to some of its lowest levels since he took office.

The most recent Gallup polling shows just 35 percent of women approve of the president’s performance, compared with 49 percent of men.

Women at the rally who spoke to VOA said they were unconcerned about Cohen’s admission that Trump directed him to pay two women during the 2016 campaign to keep them from speaking publicly about their affairs with Trump.

“I really don’t think the American people are worried about that,” said Patti Beavers from Mingo County, West Virginia, who was wearing a pink “Trump 2020” hat. She said what matters to her is what Trump can do “for the economy and for America,” and that “he’s keeping his promises, just like he said.”

Beavers said it wasn’t for her to make a moral opinion on Trump. “We all have to be judged in God’s eyes,” she said.

Bonnie Dorman drove five hours from Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, to see the president speak. She applauded Melania Trump, whom she considers a “beautiful, powerful woman” who is “standing by the president’s side every day.”

Dorman said she empathized with women who have been cheated on, and respected the first lady’s decision to “forgive him and put God in her life.”

Shawnery Patrick from Wharncliffe, West Virginia, said everyone has skeletons in their past, but she doesn’t care what Trump did before he became president, only what he has done since.

“That’s what counts to me,” she said. “I feel that he’s done nothing but good.”

White working-class women voted for Trump in huge numbers in the 2016 election, and he may need to count on their support again in the November midterms. They could be the key to whether Republicans — particularly in areas that supported Trump in 2016 — can hold on to their seats.
…

Social media giants Facebook and Twitter said they have removed hundreds of pages and accounts linked to Russia and Iran ahead of the midterm elections in the U.S.

Facebook said it had removed 254 Facebook pages and 116 Instagram accounts that originated in Iran and were part of a disinformation campaign that targeted countries around the world, including the U.S. and Britain.

The social media companies acted on a tip from cybersecurity firm FireEye, which said on Tuesday that the accounts were promoting Iranian propaganda, including discussion of “anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian themes.”

“We’ve removed 652 Pages, groups and accounts for coordinated inauthentic behavior that originated in Iran and targeted people across multiple internet services in the Middle East, Latin America, UK and US,” Nathaniel Gleicher, head of cybersecurity policy at Facebook, said in a blog post.

The removals comes weeks after the company took down several pages of disinformation originating in Russia. On Tuesday, Facebook said it had found more such pages and had removed them. But the company said the Russian pages don’t appear to be linked to the ones originating in Iran.

Also Tuesday, Twitter said it had identified and removed 284 accounts for “engaging in coordinated manipulation” that it said “appeared to have originated in Iran.”

The announcements come after Microsoft said it had taken control of websites it said were trying to hack into conservative American think tanks and the U.S. Senate.

Microsoft said it executed a court order to gain control of six websites linked to the group behind the 2016 hack of the Democratic National Committee.
…

In the most dramatic day yet in the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, federal prosecutors on Tuesday secured the conviction of U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager and a plea agreement from the president’s longtime attorney.

As Special Counsel Robert Mueller continues his Russia probe, the following is a list of people who have indicted or convicted or are being investigated.

The court documents related to Mueller’s investigation are at https://www.justice.gov/sco.

Trump has denied any collusion by his campaign and has long denounced the Mueller probe as a witch hunt. Mueller told Trump’s attorneys in March he was continuing to investigate the president but did not consider him a criminal target “at this point,” the Washington Post reported in early April.

In federal court in New York on Tuesday, Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and other charges, saying he made payments to influence the 2016 election at the direction of a candidate for federal office. The deal included a possible prison sentence of up to five years and three months.

Also on Tuesday, a jury in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia found former Trump election campaign chairman Paul Manafort, guilty on eight of 18 charges of filing false tax returns, failing to disclose his offshore bank accounts and bank fraud. The judge declared a mistrial on the remaining 10 counts and gave prosecutors until Aug. 29 to decide whether to retry him on the deadlocked charges. Manafort still faces separate charges brought by Mueller in federal court in Washington.

Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser to Trump who was also a close campaign aide, pleaded guilty in December to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russia and agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation. On Tuesday, Mueller and Flynn’s defense team asked for more time before Flynn is sentenced.

George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign adviser, pleaded guilty in October to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russia. According to documents released with his guilty plea, Papadopoulos offered to help set up a meeting with then-candidate Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has been cooperating with Mueller. On Aug. 17, Mueller’s office recommended that Papadopoulos serve up to six months in prison for lying to federal investigators and impeding the investigation.

Rick Gates, a former deputy campaign chairman, pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy against the United States and lying to investigators, and agreed to cooperate with the Mueller probe.

​Alex Van der Zwaan, a lawyer who once worked closely with Manafort and Gates, pleaded guilty in February to lying to Mueller’s investigators about contacts with an official in the Trump election campaign. Van der Zwaan, the Dutch son-in-law of one of Russia’s richest men, was sentenced on April 3 to 30 days in prison and fined $20,000.

Twelve Russian intelligence officers were indicted by a federal grand jury on July 13, accused of hacking Democratic computer networks in 2016, in the most detailed U.S. accusation yet that Moscow meddled in the presidential election to help Trump. The Russian government has repeatedly denied meddling in the election.

Thirteen Russians and three Russian entities were indicted in Mueller’s investigation in February, accused of tampering in the 2016 election to support Trump.

Richard Pinedo, who was not involved with the Trump campaign, pleaded guilty in a case related to the Mueller probe in February to aiding and abetting interstate and foreign identity fraud by creating, buying and stealing hundreds of bank account numbers that he sold to individuals to use with large digital payment companies. Pinedo “made a mistake” but “had absolutely no knowledge” about who was buying the information or their motivations, his lawyer said. Sources familiar with the indictment said Pinedo was named as helping Russian conspirators launder money as well as purchase Facebook ads and pay for rally supplies.

Konstantin Kilimnik, a Manafort aide in Ukraine and political operative with alleged ties to Russian intelligence, was charged on June 8 with tampering with witnesses about their past lobbying for Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government.

 
…

U.S. President Donald Trump is lamenting Tuesday’s conviction on federal criminal charges of his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who now faces the possibility of decades in prison.

“It’s a very sad thing that happened,” Trump told reporters on the tarmac of Yeager Airport in Charleston, West Virginia, adding he felt very badly for Manafort, who a jury found guilty of eight fraud charges.

The jury in Alexandria, Virginia, after four days of deliberation, could not reach a unanimous decision on 10 other charges and the judge declared a mistrial on those counts.

“This started as Russian collusion … this is a witch hunt that ends in disgrace. But this has nothing to do what they started out, looking for Russians involved in our campaign. There were none,” Trump told reporters, prior to speaking at a campaign rally in Charleston.

“Fake news and the Russian witch hunt,” said the president on the West Virginia stage. “Where is the collusion?” 

Longtime personal attorney

A more serious potential legal development for Trump came around the same time as the Manafort verdict when his longtime personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen entered guilty pleas to multiple charges and stated that hush payments to two women “for the principal purpose of influencing the election” were ordered by the presidential candidate in 2016. 

Cohen did not directly name Trump as he answered questions from a judge in court Tuesday, but said one of the payments was “at the direction of a candidate for federal office” while the second was made “under direction of the same candidate.”

The amounts involved — payments of $130,000 and $150,000 — match those given to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal in the months before the 2016 election.

The Justice Department said Cohen “coordinated with one of more members of the campaign, including through meetings and phone calls, about the fact, nature, and timing of the payments,” and that the result was that the two women did not publicize their alleged affairs with Trump.

Trump has denied both knowing about the payments or having affairs with Daniels or McDougal.

“The factual basis of the plea, potentially implicating the president in illegal campaign finance violations, adds to the president’s legal jeopardy,” Representative Adam Schiff of California, who is the top opposition member on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, said his client is fulfilling a promise “to put his family and country first and tell the truth about Donald Trump.”

Davis, on Twitter, said if the payments by Cohen to the two women – who have said they had a sexual relationship with Trump – were a crime, “then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?”

Cohen’s plea was entered in a federal courtroom in New York City but did not include an agreement to cooperate with prosecutors, but attorneys say it does not preclude him from assisting the investigation of the special counsel, which brought the charges against Manafort and is examining ties between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.

Trump has frequently criticized the probe, led by former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller, and called for it to be shut down. But the president has refrained from taking action that could lead to the dismantling of the investigation.

White House reaction

Asked to comment about Tuesday’s courtroom actions involving those formerly involved with Trump, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders referred reporters to the president’s tarmac comments about Manafort and to Trump’s outside counsel for reaction to Cohen’s plea deal.

David Abraham, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law, said the Manafort conviction shows “the Mueller investigation has discovered the rot at the core of the Trump circle and though this conviction is on the basis of Manafort’s pre-Trump engagement, it demonstrates the kind of activities and the kinds of people who are at the heart of the Trump campaign.”

“What was important for the Mueller inquiry about this trial is that an across the board acquittal would have fed the resources of the Trump circle who were trying to discredit the inquiry altogether. This is clear and definite proof of the rot,” Abraham added.

One of Trump’s lawyers, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, issued a statement after Cohen’s plea, saying, “There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the government’s charges against Mr. Cohen.”

Giuliani’s statement accused the longtime loyal aide of Trump of “lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time.”

Paul Schiff Berman, a professor of law at George Washington University Law School, said Cohen’s plea could endanger Trump legally.

“Certainly so in the Cohen guilty verdict, he is potentially now an unindicted co-conspirator and could be indicted,” he said. “Now there is an open question as to whether a sitting president can be indicted for a criminal wrongdoing.”

“In terms of a direct political consequence, I’m not sure that there is one, but that doesn’t mean that the pressure doesn’t get stronger and stronger and stronger on Trump,” Schiff Berman added.

U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami, who prosecuted Cohen, said in a statement that the disgraced lawyer’s “day of reckoning serves as a reminder that we are a nation of laws, with one set of rules that applies equally to everyone.”

Asked about the possible legal consequences for the president, Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York who was fired by Trump, said on CNN that “there’s something called impeachment if there’s evidence of a crime.”

Even on the Fox News Channel, which is consistently supportive of Trump, there was brief discussion of the possibility of impeachment proceedings if Democrats are able to take control of the House of Representatives in November’s midterm election.

“It’s all crumbling on top of the president’s head,” NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd said as he came on air on the MSNBC channel just moments after details emerged about the Manafort convictions and the Cohen plea deal.

Manafort faces a second trial next month in Washington, where he will face charges focused on allegations of lying to the FBI, lobbying for foreign governments and money laundering. If convicted, Manafort could receive a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Abraham said Manafort’s trial in September “comes closer to the lobbying for foreign powers and in that sense it comes much closer … to the core of the Trump campaign activities than this trial did.”
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As the November midterm congressional elections draw closer, Republicans are keeping a close eye on President Donald Trump’s public approval rating, which now stands at an average of about 42 percent.

Trump remains in the low 40s in two new surveys. The Gallup weekly poll has him at 42 percent approval, while 52 percent disapprove of his performance in office.

A new Monmouth University poll has Trump’s approval at 43 percent and his disapproval at 50 percent, which Monmouth says is consistent with where his poll numbers have been since January.

Three recent surveys, however, showed the president’s approval rating falling below 40 percent, a possible red flag as Republicans look ahead to the midterm elections. Last week’s Gallup poll had the president’s rating down to 39 percent. July’s Quinnipiac poll had Trump at 38 percent approval, while a recent NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll showed the president at 39 percent approval.

Historically, the president’s party loses more seats in midterm elections when the president’s approval rating is below 50 percent. Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both lost more than 50 House seats in their first midterm election, and their approval ratings were slightly better than Trump’s are at the moment.

Economic focus

The president is hoping a strong focus on the thriving U.S. economy will help Republicans keep both the House and Senate in November.

“Our economy is doing better than it ever has before. It was going in the wrong direction when we came on board, and now it is doing better than ever before,” Trump said at the opening of his recent Cabinet meeting in the White House.

Chief Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow also tried to drive home the message in front of the Cabinet. “The single biggest event, be it political or otherwise this year, is an economic boom that most people thought would be impossible to generate.”

Despite his overall weak poll rating, Trump is getting some credit from voters for the economy.

“We know that Trump’s highest approval rating is now for handling the economy,” said Gallup pollster Frank Newport. “Fifty percent approval rating on handling the economy in our latest poll, and that is pretty good, relatively speaking.”

Opposition Democrats are trying to poke a few holes in the Trump record as November approaches.

“While the stock market is up and the president brags about job growth, what we don’t hear said, which is true, is that workers’ wages have been stagnant or gone down,” said Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. “Workers are actually making less than they were a year-and-a-half ago.”

Numerous distractions

Trump has been unable to stay focused on the economy, to the dismay of many Republicans.

The recent White House distractions include more presidential venting about the Russia probe, Trump’s decision to revoke the security clearance for former CIA Director John Brennan and his spat with former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman.

Democrats were alarmed by Trump’s move on Brennan. “To me, it smacks of Nixonian-type practices of trying to silence anyone who is willing to criticize this president. That puts us again in unchartered territory,” said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner.

Trump’s controversial immigration policies and criticism of his recent summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin may also be keeping his poll numbers low, according to University of Virginia analyst Larry Sabato. 

“And he is not a 50 percent president. He has never been over 50 percent in the polling averages for one single day of his presidency,” Sabato told VOA via Skype.

Impact in November

A number of analysts said Trump’s low approval rating could have an impact on Republicans trying to keep their congressional majorities in November.

“The party of the president typically loses seats in a midterm election,” said Brookings Institution scholar John Hudak. “That is enhanced by a president who is unpopular, and President Trump’s approval rating has historically been unpopular and it continues to be so.”

Trump supporters believe, and in some cases perhaps hope, that voters will give the president credit for the strong economy in November.

“Unemployment in our country, not just among middle-class white Americans like me, but Hispanics and African-Americans, are at their lowest levels since recorded history in 1973,” former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told VOA’s Georgian service. “This president should be praised for that.”

Trump remains popular with his base, but whether that can stem a Democratic wave in November remains to be seen.
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Microsoft said Tuesday it has uncovered new Russian hacking attempts targeting U.S. political groups ahead of the midterm elections.

The company said that a hacking group tied to the Russian government created fake internet domains that appeared to spoof two American conservative organizations: the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute. Three other fake domains were designed to look as if they belonged to the U.S. Senate.

Microsoft didn’t offer any further description of the fake sites.

The revelation came just weeks after a similar Microsoft discovery led Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who is running for re-election, to reveal that Russian hackers tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate her Senate computer network.

The hacking attempts mirror similar Russian attacks ahead of the 2016 election, which U.S. intelligence officials have said were focused on helping to elect Republican Donald Trump to the presidency by hurting his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.  

This time, more than helping one political party over another, “this activity is most fundamentally focused on disrupting democracy,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer, said in an interview this week.

Smith said there is no sign the hackers were successful in persuading anyone to click on the fake websites, which could have exposed a target victim to computer infiltration, hidden surveillance and data theft. Both conservative think tanks said they have tried to be vigilant about “spear-phishing” email attacks because their global pro-democracy work has frequently drawn the ire of authoritarian governments.

“We’re glad that our work is attracting the attention of bad actors,” said Hudson Institute spokesman David Tell. “It means we’re having an effect, presumably.”

The International Republican Institute is led by a board that includes six Republican senators, and one prominent Russia critic and Senate hopeful, Mitt Romney, who is running for a Utah seat this fall.

Microsoft calls the hacking group Strontium; others call it Fancy Bear or APT28. An indictment from U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller has tied it to Russia’s main intelligence agency, known as the GRU, and to the 2016 email hacking of both the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

“We have no doubt in our minds” who is responsible, Smith said.

Microsoft has waged a legal battle with Strontium since suing it in a Virginia federal court in summer 2016. The company obtained court approval last year allowing it to seize certain fake domains created by the group. It has so far used the courts to shut down 84 fake websites created by the group, including the most recent six announced Tuesday.

Microsoft has argued in court that by setting up fake but realistic-looking domains, the hackers were misusing Microsoft trademarks and services to hack into targeted computer networks, install malware and steal sensitive emails and other data.

Smith also announced Tuesday that the company is offering free cybersecurity protection to all U.S. political candidates, campaigns and other political organizations, at least so long as they’re already using Microsoft’s Office 365 productivity software. Facebook and Google have also promoted similar tools to combat campaign interference.

 
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