Federal prosecutors filed three important pre-sentence reports on Dec. 7, including one regarding the former longtime personal attorney for Donald Trump that they said implicated "Individual 1" in felony money laundering.
Experts said that one filing implicated President Trump by saying that Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, helped pay hush money of two payments for more than $100,000 each before the 2016 election at the direction of Trump.
Former Playmate of the Year Karen McDougal (shown in a photo at right drawn from YouTube with President Trump), was one of two women, along with Stormy Daniels (shown below left), who have been widely reported as having had affairs with Trump that were covered up in advance of the 2016 election.
The pre-sentence filings included one against Cohen by New York federal prosecutors and two by Special Counsel Robert Mueller III.
One filing 
describing Cohen's cooperation and another, heavily redacted, asserting that Trump's former 2016 Campaign Manager Paul Manafort deserved a heavy prison sentence because his supposed cooperation was blighted by lying.
The gist is to bring forward new evidence against President Trump.
Trump claimed in a Tweet that the day "totally cleared the president."
One 38-page filing by New York federal prosecutors is a "bombshell," according to U.S. Sen. Dick Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat now a member of the Judiciary Committee and a former U.S. attorney for Connecticut.
Blumenthal, shown below left, told an MSNBC interviewer that the New York filing on Cohen filing essentially names Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator in payoffs via the National Enquirer to hide Trump's adulteries to affect the 2016 election by hiding those facts from the public.
Georgetown Law professor Neal Katyal, right, a former Obama Justice Department solicitor general, also told MSNBC that the filings marked an important juncture.
"What we're looking at today," Katyal said, "is something that very seriously implicates the president in federal felonies."
He noted regarding the Cohen filing: "It's not a filing by Mueller. It's a filing by the Southern District of New York" [that is, by Trump-appointed leaders and career prosecutors in the U.S. Department of Justice].
Shown below are the Justice Integrity Project's roundup of major news and commentaries on the story, as well as other Trump-related, justice-oriented news since Dec. 6. The stories, with hot links to the originals, are arranged in reverse chronological order.
Editor's Choice: December 2018 news and views
Dec. 8
Washington Post, Analysis: 5 big takeaways from the Cohen, Manafort filings, Aaron Blake, Dec. 8, 2018 (print edition). Federal prosecutors drew some more important lines between Russia and those connected to President Trump (shown in a file photo) on Friday, in a trio of filings in the Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort cases.
Beginning late Friday afternoon, we saw Cohen sentencing recommendations filed by both the Southern District of New York and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation (here from New York federal prosecutors and here from Mueller's team), and a document from Mueller’s team laying out Paul Manafort’s alleged lies to it (here).
In all three, the plot thickened for Trump just a little bit. Below are the big takeaways.
New York Times, Opinion: Is Mueller Building an Expansive Obstruction Case? Bob Bauer (professor of law, shown at right), Dec. 8, 2018. The sentencing memos suggest the possibility that Trump and perhaps others were involved in a series of lies from Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen.
The court filings on Friday in the Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort cases require reading between the lines. Some lines, redacted, are missing altogether. However, what has been made public calls for reconsidering the longstanding assumptions about President Trump’s potential exposure to a charge of obstruction of justice.
That discussion has been dominated by the circumstances around the firing of James Comey, the former F.B.I. director. But Mr. Cohen and Mr. Manafort, along with the former national security adviser Michael Flynn, may now have become central figures in inquiries into whether the president, and perhaps others acting at his guidance, directed, encouraged or acquiesced in lies to criminal and congressional investigators.
In the special counsel’s sentencing memorandum, prosecutors credit Michael Cohen with four “respects” in which his assistance has been “significant.” One involves the details Mr. Cohen provided about the “circumstances of preparing and circulating his response to the Congressional inquiries.” In that testimony, he lied about the president’s business dealings with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. We know from Mr. Cohen’s earlier plea agreement that, for his testimony, he was in “close and regular contact” with the White House and the president’s lawyers.
A similar question is presented in the case of Paul Manafort. The memorandum filed by prosecutors set out Mr. Manafort’s breach of his cooperation agreement. Contrary to his express representations to the government, he was in contact with the White House, with a “senior administration official,” in 2018.
The prosecutors make clear that they have evidence of multiple contacts. Who was Mr. Manafort communicating with, and about what? That he was bidding for a pardon is one possibility. Another is that he was making sure that the president knew that he was holding the line — against telling the truth about the matters under investigation.
Bob Bauer is a professor at New York University School of Law and served as a White House counsel under President Barack Obama.
Washington Post, Mueller flashes some cards in Russia probe, but hides his hand, Devlin Barrett and Matt Zapotosky, A 55-page flurry of court filings shows just how deeply the investigations surrounding President Trump have gone, scrutinizing secret Russian contacts, hush money meetings and a tangle of lies designed to conceal those activities.
But for all the cards special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, right, played Friday, it’s still not clear what else he holds, or when he will put them on the table. “The recent court filings by Mueller’s team are more revealing by what they did not include than by what they did,” said Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice.
Washington Post, 5 big takeaways from the Cohen, Manafort filings, Aaron Blake, Dec. 8, 2018 (print edition). In all three court filings Friday night, the plot thickened for President Trump just a little bit. Federal prosecutors drew some more important lines between Russia and those connected to President Trump on Friday, in a trio of filings in the Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort cases.
Beginning late Friday afternoon, we saw Cohen sentencing recommendations filed by both the Southern District of New York and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation (here from New York federal prosecutors and here from Mueller's team), and a document from Mueller’s team laying out Paul Manafort’s alleged lies to it (here).
In all three, the plot thickened for Trump just a little bit. Below are the big takeaways.
Washington Post, Republican anxiety spikes as Trump faces growing legal and political perils, Robert Costa and Philip Rucker, Dec. 8, 2018. A growing number of Republicans fear that a battery of new revelations in the far-reaching Russia investigation has dramatically heightened the legal and political danger to Donald Trump’s presidency — and threatens to consume the rest of the party, as well.
President Trump added to the tumult Saturday by announcing the abrupt exit of his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, whom he sees as lacking the political judgment and finesse to steer the White House through the treacherous months to come.
Trump remains headstrong in his belief that he can outsmart adversaries and weather any threats, according to advisers. In the Russia probe, he continues to roar denials, dubiously proclaiming that the latest allegations of wrongdoing by his former associates “totally clear” him.
But anxiety is spiking among Republican allies, who complain that Trump and the White House have no real plan for dealing with the Russia crisis while confronting a host of other troubles at home and abroad.
Dec. 7
New York Times, Trump Directed Illegal Payments During Campaign, Prosecutors Say, Sharon LaFraniere, Benjamin Weiser and Maggie Haberman, Dec. 7, 2018. Federal prosecutors said on Friday that President Trump directed illegal payments to ward off a potential sex scandal that threatened his chances of winning the White House in 2016, putting the weight of the Justice Department behind accusations previously made by his former lawyer.
The lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, left, had said that as the election neared, Mr. Trump directed payments to two women who claimed they had affairs with Mr. Trump. But in a new memo arguing for a prison term for Mr. Cohen, prosecutors in Manhattan said he “acted in coordination and at the direction of” an unnamed individual, clearly referring to Mr. Trump.
In another filing, prosecutors for the special counsel investigating Russia’s 2016 election interference said an unnamed Russian offered Mr. Cohen “government level” synergy between Russia and Mr. Trump’s campaign in November 2015. That was months earlier than other approaches detailed in indictments secured by prosecutors.
And in a separate case on Friday, the special counsel accused Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, of lying about his contacts with an individual they accuse of ties to Russian intelligence, and about his interactions with Trump administration officials after he was indicted on criminal charges.
Palmer Report, Opinion: Donald Trump’s entire existence has just been set on fire, Bill Palmer, Dec. 7, 2018. Donald Trump began the day with an unhinged meltdown about a woman named “Molly” who doesn’t exist. By the time the day finished kicking him around, Trump was probably wishing he could find a drug dealer willing to sell him some molly. This guy just had one of the worst days we’ve ever seen, and the events of the day have made clear that it can only get worse for him.
The remarkable part about today’s news cycle is that it moved so quickly, we’ve already lost track of things that happened just seven or eight hours ago. Yes, the U.S. Attorney’s office for SDNY formally accused Donald Trump this evening of directing a felony criminal conspiracy to alter the outcome of the 2016 election, and yes, that’s terrible for him. But that was only the half of it.
Earlier today we learned that Trump’s White House Chief of Staff John Kelly is preparing to resign. We also learned, in what can’t be a coincidence, that John Kelly secretly sold out Donald Trump to Robert Mueller on obstruction of justice. We haven’t even been hearing about the obstruction probe of late, and yet it’s clearly closing in on him behind the scene
Mueller Probe: Manafort
Washington Post, Mueller says Manafort told ‘discernible lies,’ including about contacts with employee alleged to have Russian intelligence ties, Rosalind S. Helderman, Dec. 7, 2018. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III told a judge Friday that Paul Manafort (now in pre-sentence detention as a flight risk and shown in a mug shot at left), President Trump’s former campaign chairman, told “multiple discernible lies” during interviews with prosecutors, including about his contacts with an employee who is alleged to have ties to Russian intelligence.
The allegations came in a new court filing by the special counsel that pointed to some the questions prosecutors have been asking a key witness in their closely-held investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.
Mueller’s prosecutors filed a portion of the document under seal and redacted other key points from view.
But they said that Manafort had told numerous lies in five different areas, including about his contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik, right, a Russian employee of Manafort’s political consulting firm who prosecutors have said has Russian intelligence ties. Manafort met twice during the campaign with Kilimnik.
Manafort was convicted of tax and bank fraud charges in Virginia in August. He pleaded guilty in September to additional charges, including conspiring to defraud the United States by hiding years of income and failing to disclose lobbying work for a pro-Russian political party and politician in Ukraine.
Mueller Probe: Cohen
New York Times, Cohen, Trump’s Ex-Fixer, Should Get ‘Substantial’ Prison Term, Prosecutors Say, Benjamin Weiser, Maggie Haberman and Mark Mazzetti, Dec. 7, 2018. Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, should receive a sentence of roughly four years, federal prosecutors in New York said. Mr. Cohen has become one of the biggest threats to Mr. Trump’s presidency, providing material to both the special counsel and Manhattan prosecutors.
Michael Cohen, right, President Trump’s former lawyer, should receive a “substantial” prison term of roughly four years, despite his cooperation, federal prosecutors in New York said on Friday.
Mr. Cohen, 52, is to be sentenced in Manhattan next week for two separate guilty pleas: one for campaign finance violations and financial crimes charged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, and the other for lying to Congress in the Russia inquiry, filed by the Office of the Special Counsel in Washington.
Prosecutors in Manhattan said the crimes Mr. Cohen had committed “marked a pattern of deception that permeated his professional life,” and though he was seeking a reduced sentence for providing assistance to the government, he did not deserve much leniency.
“He was motivated to do so by personal greed, and repeatedly used his power and influence for deceptive ends,” the prosecutors said in a lengthy memo to the judge, William H. Pauley III.
At the same time, the special counsel’s office released its own sentencing recommendation to the judge for Mr. Cohen’s guilty plea for misleading Congress.
The special counsel seemed to offer a more positive view of Mr. Cohen’s cooperation with the Russia investigation, saying he “has gone to significant lengths to assist the special counsel’s investigation.”
Mr. Cohen has emerged as one of the biggest threats to Mr. Trump’s presidency, providing the special counsel’s office and prosecutors in Manhattan with material in dozens of hours of interviews. Robert S. Mueller III, left, the special counsel, has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential ties to the Trump campaign.
Axios, Read the two Michael Cohen sentencing memos, Zachary Basu, Dec. 7, 2018. Special counsel Robert Mueller and federal prosecutors in New York have each submitted sentencing memos for President Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen, after Cohen pleaded guilty in two different cases related to his work for Trump and the Trump Organization.
The big picture: The Southern District of New York recommended Cohen serve a range of 51 to 63 months for four crimes — "willful tax evasion, making false statements to a financial institution, illegal campaign contributions, and making false statements to Congress." Mueller, meanwhile, did not take a position on the length of Cohen's statement, but said he has made substantial efforts to assist the investigation.
Why it matters: These are the "principal" lies Manafort made that ruined his plea agreement with Mueller. The document shows how much Mueller knows about the investigation’s witnesses and their conduct, and could serve as a warning shot to other witnesses not to lie or tell partial truths — which includes the president, who has already submitted his written statement to Mueller’s team.
Roll Call, Analysis: Why Trump’s Call for ‘Overwhelming Bipartisan’ Vote for Barr Seems Unlikely, John T. Bennett, Dec. 7, 2018. Wyden: Bush 41-era AG holds ‘anti-democratic’ view that president is ‘effectively royalty.’ President Trump and acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker on Friday gave a full-throated endorsement to the president’s pick to fill the post, former Attorney General William Barr, but Democratic senators and civil rights advocates are sounding alarms.
William Barr “deserves” from the Senate “overwhelming bipartisan support,” Trump said while addressing a law enforcement conference in Kansas City. “There’s no one more capable or qualified for this position,” he claimed.
Whitaker, right, while introducing Trump at the conference in Missouri, called Barr “highly qualified.” If confirmed by the Senate for a second tour, Barr “will continue to support the men and women in blue,” Whitaker said, adding: “I commend the president for this excellence choice.”
The former AG, however, has amassed writings and comments on executive power that could make for a bumpy confirmation process. For instance, he has written about the need for the executive branch to resist congressional attempts to obtain executive data.
In a July 1989 memo after he joined the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Barr urged the department’s officials to try to avoid lawmakers’ “attempts to gain access to sensitive executive branch information,” as well as hinder a chief executive’s ability to fire a subordinate, the New York Times reported.
“It is important that all of us be familiar with each of these forms of encroachment on the executive’s constitutional authority,” Barr wrote in that memo. “Only by consistently and forcefully resisting such congressional incursions can executive branch prerogatives be preserved.”
Barr also has sharply questioned several key fundamental aspects of the special counsel probe, and Trump used his morning “executive time” to fire off another remarkable Twitter attack on the Russia investigation.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (center) speaks with staff, including spokeswoman Heather Nauert, President Trump's pick for UN ambassador, during a G-20 summit last week in Argentina. (State Department photo by Ron Przysucha / Public Domain via Flickr)
Roll Call, Three Takeaways as Trump Picks Former Fox Anchor for UN Envoy Post, John T. Bennett, Dec. 7, 2018. President makes clear he’s running foreign policy, wants salesperson in New York.
By selecting State Department spokeswoman and former Fox News anchor Heather Nauert as his next UN ambassador, President Donald Trump has further consolidated his control of America’s foreign policy.
“Heather Nauert will be nominated for the ambassador to the United Nations,” Trump told reporters on his way to Marine One on Friday.
Other than her 20-month run as the top spokesperson at Foggy Bottom, Nauert has no diplomatic experience. She spent her entire career before going to State at ABC News and Fox. The latter is Trump’s favorite cable news network, which helped her land the State Department job.
Palmer Report, News Commentary: Donald Trump has berserk meltdown after Rex Tillerson attacks him, Bill Palmer, Dec. 7, 2018. Rex Tillerson, right, will always be remembered as the Secretary of State who called Donald Trump a “f*cking moron” and then still managed to keep the job for several more months. Rex has been rather quiet since running away from the White House and wishing he’d never gone there in the first place.
But now, in an interesting bit of timing, he’s chosen today to publicly drop the hammer on his former boss – and now Trump is having a meltdown about it. Tillerson popped up at a fundraiser for the MD Anderson Cancer Center, a cause we can certainly get behind.
He ended up doing an interview with CBS News while he was there, and let’s just say that the interview didn’t go well – for Donald Trump, anyway. Rex explained that several times, he had to explain to Trump that the things he wanted to do were illegal.
When Rex would explain that the law would have to be changed if he wanted to do it, Trump would lose interest, presumably because that would be too much work. Suffice it to say that Trump isn’t pleased right now.Donald Trump posted this, ahem, interesting tweet in response: “Mike Pompeo is doing a great job, I am very proud of him. His predecessor, Rex Tillerson, didn’t have the mental capacity needed. He was dumb as a rock and I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell. Now it is a whole new ballgame, great spirit at State!” Let’s be clear here: Trump is saying these horrible things about his own former handpicked Secretary of State.
But the big story here may be the timing. Even though Rex Tillerson attended the charity event, he didn’t have to sit down and do that kind of interview while he was there. He seems to be choosing right now to make sure everyone out there knows he’s every bit as not-cool with Donald Trump as ever, just as Special Counsel Robert Mueller is preparing to bring the hammer.
CNN, Exclusive: Mueller investigators questioned John Kelly in obstruction probe, Evan Perez and Dana Bash, Dec. 7, 2018. White House chief of staff John Kelly was interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller's team in recent months, three people with knowledge of the matter told CNN.
Kelly responded to a narrow set of questions from special counsel investigators after White House lawyers initially objected to Mueller's request to do the interview earlier this summer, the sources said. Kelly is widely expected to leave his position in the coming days and is no longer on speaking terms with President Donald Trump, CNN reported earlier Friday.
Kelly, right, is the latest high-ranking White House official known to provide information for Mueller's investigation, though his interview marks a departure of sorts since Kelly didn't join the White House until July 2017. Most of the dozens of other interviews have been with people who were associated with the Trump campaign, were part of the transition or served in the early part of the administration.
The Mueller questions to Kelly centered on a narrow set of issues in the investigation of potential obstruction of justice, chiefly Kelly's recollection of an episode that took place after new reporting emerged about how the President had tried to fire Mueller. The President was angry at then-White House counsel Don McGahn about what had been reported by The New York Times. McGahn had refused to publicly deny the reporting. The special counsel wanted to try to corroborate McGahn's version of events.
The White House counsel's office had initially fought the Mueller request. One source familiar with the matter said that Emmett Flood wanted to make sure "ground rules" were negotiated.
"In order to question a government official about things that happened during the course of government business, you've got to show that it's highly important and you can't get it anywhere else," the source said.
The source noted that the Kelly request came at a sensitive time, following raids of the home and office of Michael Cohen, the President's now-former lawyer.The resistance to Kelly doing an interview represented a key turn by the President and his attorneys who had previously allowed the special counsel to interview current and former White House staff and handed over hundreds of thousands of documents.
The source noted that the Kelly request came at a sensitive time, following raids of the home and office of Michael Cohen, the President's now-former lawyer.The resistance to Kelly doing an interview represented a key turn by the President and his attorneys who had previously allowed the special counsel to interview current and former White House staff and handed over hundreds of thousands of documents.
New York Times, John Kelly Expected to Leave White House Post in Next Few Days, Officials Say, Maggie Haberman, Dec. 7, 2018. John F. Kelly, right, the White House chief of staff, is likely to leave his post in the next few days, ending a tumultuous 16-month tenure still among the longest for a senior aide to President Trump, two people with direct knowledge of the developments said Friday.
Mr. Kelly and Mr. Trump have grown weary with each other. But Mr. Trump, according to several senior administration officials and people close to him, has so far been unable to bring himself to personally fire a retired four-star military general.
Still, both are said to be ready for Mr. Kelly to move on.
It is unclear who the replacement would be. Nick Ayers,left, the vice president’s chief of staff, is seen as a leading candidate. He is supported by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, the president’s son-in-law and daughter, who both serve as senior West Wing advisers and who, according to several officials, are trying to expand their influence internally and in the re-election campaign.
The White House senior staff meeting on Friday morning was canceled, according to three officials. But there is a holiday senior staff dinner scheduled for Friday night, and people said they expected Mr. Kelly to be there.
Trump Nominates Barr As AG
Roll Call, Analysis: Why Trump’s Call for ‘Overwhelming Bipartisan’ Vote for Barr Seems Unlikely, John T. Bennett, Dec. 7, 2018. Wyden: Bush 41-era AG holds ‘anti-democratic’ view that president is ‘effectively royalty.’ President Trump and acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker on Friday gave a full-throated endorsement to the president’s pick to fill the post, former Attorney General William Barr, but Democratic senators and civil rights advocates are sounding alarms.
William Barr “deserves” from the Senate “overwhelming bipartisan support,” Trump said while addressing a law enforcement conference in Kansas City. “There’s no one more capable or qualified for this position,” he claimed.
Whitaker, right, while introducing Trump at the conference in Missouri, called Barr “highly qualified.” If confirmed by the Senate for a second tour, Barr “will continue to support the men and women in blue,” Whitaker said, adding: “I commend the president for this excellence choice.”
The former AG, however, has amassed writings and comments on executive power that could make for a bumpy confirmation process. For instance, he has written about the need for the executive branch to resist congressional attempts to obtain executive data.
In a July 1989 memo after he joined the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Barr urged the department’s officials to try to avoid lawmakers’ “attempts to gain access to sensitive executive branch information,” as well as hinder a chief executive’s ability to fire a subordinate, the New York Times reported.
“It is important that all of us be familiar with each of these forms of encroachment on the executive’s constitutional authority,” Barr wrote in that memo. “Only by consistently and forcefully resisting such congressional incursions can executive branch prerogatives be preserved.”
Barr also has sharply questioned several key fundamental aspects of the special counsel probe, and Trump used his morning “executive time” to fire off another remarkable Twitter attack on the Russia investigation.
Washington Post, William Barr emerges as leading candidate for Trump’s attorney general, Devlin Barrett, Matt Zapotosky and Josh Dawsey, Dec. 7, 2018 (print edition). Former attorney general William P. Barr is President Trump’s leading candidate to be nominated to lead the Justice Department — a choice that could be made in coming days as the agency presses forward with a probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to multiple people familiar with the deliberations.
Update: President Trump on Friday confirmed the nomination.
Barr, 68, a well-respected Republican lawyer who served as attorney general from 1991 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush, has emerged as a favorite candidate of a number of Trump administration officials, including senior lawyers in the White House Counsel’s Office, these people said. Two people familiar with the discussions said the president has told advisers in recent days that he plans to nominate Barr (shown in an official photo from his 1990s term).
Even if Barr were announced as the president’s choice this week, it could take months for a confirmation vote, given the congressional schedule.
In the meantime, acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker would still serve as head of the Justice Department — a decision that has angered Democrats who question both his résumé and the legal justification for his ascension to that job, given that he was not serving in a Senate-confirmed position when Trump selected him as the temporary successor to Jeff Sessions, whom Trump forced out in early November after the midterm elections.
• Washington Post, The Fix: Barr has urged more Clinton investigations and backed Trump’s firing of James Comey.
New York Times, Trump Is Expected to Name State Department Spokeswoman to U.N. Post, Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman, Dec. 7, 2018 (print edition). President Trump plans to nominate 
Heather Nauert, shown above, the chief State Department spokeswoman, to become his next ambassador to the United Nations as he moves to reshape his team for the final two years of his term, a person familiar with the choice said on Thursday.
Update: President Trump on Friday confirmed his nomination.
Ms. Nauert, a former Fox News anchor who has served as the public face of the State Department since last year, would replace Nikki R. Haley, who is stepping down as ambassador at the end of the year. If confirmed, it would make Ms. Nauert one of the most prominent promoters of Mr. Trump’s “America First” foreign policy.
Al.com, Who is William Barr? Trump names Attorney General pick to replace Jeff Sessions, Leada Gore, Dec. 7, 2018. President Donald Trump is nominating William Barr for U.S. Attorney General. “He was my first choice from day one, respected by Republicans and respected by Democrats,” Trump said. “He will be nominated for the U.S. attorney general and hopefully that process will go very quickly, and I think it will go very quickly."
Trump described Barr as a “terrific man, a terrific person and one of the most respected jurists in the country.”
Barr served as AG from 1991 to 1993 under the late former President George H.W. Bush. If confirmed, Barr will replace Jeff Sessions, who resigned at Trump’s request last month. Sessions, a former Alabama Senator who was one of Trump’s earliest supporters, ran afoul of the president when Sessions recused himself from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Matthew Whitaker has been serving as acting attorney general after Sessions' departure.
Barr also served as deputy attorney general from 1990 to 1991 and assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel from 1988 to 1989. He later 
returned to the private sector. A native of New York, Barr is a graduate of Columbia University. He earned his law degree from George Washington University Law School.
Trump also announced he would nominate current State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. If confirmed, Nauert would replace Nikki Haley, who announced in October she would be leaving the post at the end of the year. Nauert is a former Fox News Channel correspondent. She joined the State Department as spokesperson in 2017.
Washington Post, Trump expected to tap Army chief as next chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Greg Jaffe, Missy Ryan and Josh Dawsey, Dec. 7, 2018. President Trump is expected to choose the head of the Army to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tapping a voluble and unconventional combat veteran to become America’s top military 
officer, individuals familiar with White House plans said on Friday.
In a move that reflects his penchant for showmanship, the president plans to announce his nomination of Gen. Mark Milley at Saturday’s annual Army-Navy football game, ending months of speculation about who will replace the current chairman, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., who is due to step down next fall.
According to the individuals, who spoke on the condition anonymity to discuss a decision that has not been made public, Trump considered two senior officers, Milley and the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. David Goldfein, whom Defense Secretary Jim Mattis preferred.
Mueller Probe: Trump Rebuttal?
Washington Post, Trump promises a ‘major Counter Report’ to rebut Mueller’s findings, John Wagner and Devlin Barrett, Dec. 7, 2018. In a string of angry tweets, the president took fresh aim at special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, right, and his team. It came hours before the expected filing of key court documents about former Trump associates Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort.
President Trump said Friday that his lawyers are preparing a “major Counter Report” in response to expected findings from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into possible coordination between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Trump confirmed the plan in a spate of angry morning tweets in which also took fresh aim at Mueller and his legal team, accusing them of conflicts of interest and overzealous prosecutions that have “wrongly destroyed people’s lives.”
“We will be doing a major Counter Report to the Mueller Report,” Trump said. “This should never again be allowed to happen to a future President of the United States!”
The president’s confirmation of the plan appears to have been spurred by reports that his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and others were doing little to prepare to rebut Mueller, who is also looking at whether Trump has obstructed justice.
George H.W. Bush In Perspective
Chief Justice William Rehnquist swears in President George H. W. Bush in 1989 as Barbara Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle (above her) look on.
WhoWhatWhy, Bush 41: The Triumph of Manners Over Truth, Jeff Schechtman, Dec. 7, 2018. Russ Baker looks into the telltale heart of George H.W. Bush and the real (and tragically under-investigated) legacy of the Bush family. While President Donald Trump has used truculence, bluster, populism, and manufactured division to hide the true nature of his agenda, George Herbert Walker Bush used manners, civility, and grace to hide the truth of his and his family’s agenda.
Both are very similar in their objectives. Both have enabled the continued transfer of wealth to the upper echelons of society. Both have sought to protect the interests of corporations and rich friends. But as we witnessed this week, Bush and the Bush family were far more effective with honey than with vinegar.
To wrap up this week of seemingly non-stop hagiographic coverage of George H.W. Bush, Jeff Schechtman talks with Russ Baker about the Bush family and Baker’s blockbuster book Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years.
Fatal U.S. Niger Raid Prompts Anger
Jeremiah Johnson, Bryan Black, Dustion Wright and La David Johnson (left to right), Special Forces personnel killed in Niger. Johnson was left behind for 48 hours.
New York Times, Mattis Erupts Over Niger Inquiry and Army Revisits Who Is to Blame, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt, Dec. 7, 2018. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was livid over decisions taken following an investigation into a 2017 ambush in Niger that killed four Americans on a Green Beret team.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, right, was livid last month when he summoned top military officials to a video conference at the Pentagon to press them about an investigation into (an October) 2017 ambush in Niger that killed four Americans on a Green Beret team. His anger, Pentagon officials said, came from seeing news reports that junior officers were being reprimanded for the botched Niger mission while the officers directly above them were not.
Days later, a senior officer who had largely escaped punishment was told he would be reprimanded. Another senior officer’s actions before and around the time of the mission were also under new scrutiny.
And this week, Capt. Michael Perozeni, a more junior officer who had received much of the public blame for the mission received word from the Army: His reprimand was rescinded.
The turnaround is evidence of the troubled search for accountability in an incident that left a small team of underequipped and poorly supported American soldiers in the African scrub to be overrun by fighters loyal to the Islamic State. More than a year after the ambush — the American military’s largest loss of life in Africa since the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” debacle in Somalia — top military leaders continue to battle over how to apportion blame and who should be held accountable.
Punishments are in legal limbo, as are, apparently, commendations for bravery. An unredacted version of the investigation, promised in May, has yet to be delivered.
And unlike two naval collisions last year in the Pacific that led within weeks to the removal of the commander of the Navy’s largest operational battle force, no top generals have been ushered out the door in the Niger case — an example officials say that Mr. Mattis has been quick to point out.
Mr. Mattis wasn’t the only one angry, Defense Department officials said. Army officials complained to aides that Mr. Mattis and Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had contributed to the morass by allowing Africa Command, whose leader, Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, is also a Marine, to essentially investigate itself by appointing General Waldhauser’s own chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Roger L. Cloutier Jr., to conduct the inquiry.
The blowback from the video conference was almost immediate. Maj. Gen. Edwin J. Deedrick Jr., the officer in charge of administering internal punishments, was quickly told by Army leaders to re-examine some of the reprimands from the investigation.
Background: Washington Post, McCain threatens to subpoena Trump aides on Niger attack that left 4 U.S. service members dead, Karoun Demirjian, Oct. 19, 2017. The Senate’s top Republican on military matters is pushing the administration to brief key members of Congress on ongoing operations and accused the White House of not being upfront about the details of the ambush.
Huawei Charges Revealed
Axios, Canada reveals allegations against Huawei executive, Dan Primack, Dec. 7, 2018. Canadian prosecutors on Friday laid out a series of fraud charges that led to the recent arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Wanzhou Meng, possibly setting the stage for her extradition to the United States.
Why it matters: Meng's arrest and possible extradition has become a flash point in trade tensions between the U.S. and Canada, as Huawei is one of China's most highly-valued technology companies.
Crux of allegation from AG: Between approx 2009 and 2014 #Huawei used an unofficial subsidiary called Skycom to track activity in Iran. Banks in the US then cleared money for Huawei. Unknown to them, they were conducting biz for skycom.
Trump War On Media
Washington Post, Trump called journalists ‘THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!’ A Capital Gazette photographer had a powerful rebuttal, Tim Elfrink, Dec. 7, 2018. Photographer Joshua McKerrow spent Thursday at the Maryland governor’s mansion, where he’s traveled annually for years to cover the holiday decorations with Capital Gazette reporter Wendi Winters. But this year, Winters was absent — one of the five victims killed in a mass shooting in the paper’s Annapolis newsroom in June. So McKerrow was already emotional when he saw President Trump’s latest all-caps broadside against journalists.
“FAKE NEWS - THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!” Trump tweeted Thursday night amid a flurry of outbursts about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.
McKerrow responded eloquently in a thread that is equal parts memorial to Winters and rebuttal of the president’s attacks on journalists at a time when global violence against reporters is spiking.
“Wendi was no ones enemy,” McKerrow wrote in a series retweeted more than 12,000 times as of early Friday.
Palmer Report, Analysis, CNN evacuated over bomb threat right after Donald Trump posts incendiary tweet, Bill Palmer, Dec. 7, 2018. Remember back when a guy in a Donald Trump van was sending bombs in the mail to everyone that Donald Trump was attacking during his Twitter meltdowns? That guy is now in jail where he belongs, but it turns out Trump – predictably – hasn’t learned anything from the experience.
As Donald Trump was having a rabid multi-tweet meltdown on Twitter tonight about various topics, he threw in this all-caps proclamation: “FAKE NEWS – THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!” Just about half an hour later, CNN announced that it was evacuating its headquarters in the Time Warner building in New York City because someone had sent in a bomb threat.
Could this have been a coincidence? Sure, anything is possible. The last time Donald Trump started going off on CNN in such vicious fashion, one of his supporters tried to murder everyone at CNN. Trump’s tweet tonight was another de facto attack on CNN, and everyone knows it, because he directs these phrases at CNN the most often. When the President of the United States declares that CNN is the “THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE” and someone threatens to blow up CNN just minutes later, we have a real problem here.
Fox Shift On Trump?
Palmer Report, Analysis: Even Tucker Carlson now thinks Donald Trump is going down, Bill Palmer, Dec. 7, 2018. Yesterday we brought you the story of how Fox News pundit “Judge Andrew Napolitano” made the surprise pronouncement that he expects Donald Trump Jr to be indicted and arrested. As we pointed out, Fox News talking heads don’t tend to say things like this unless the company’s higher-ups have given them a new script. We were left wondering if other personalities on the network might also start laying the framework for Trump’s downfall.
Sure enough, here comes Fox News host Tucker Carlson joining the fray. He’s now announcing that Donald Trump is “not capable” of doing the job, and that he hasn’t delivered on his promises. That’s quite a change of direction for a guy who generally serves as a Trump cheerleader, while spinning phony conspiracy theories about Trump’s adversaries. Again, this kind of thing doesn’t tend to happen at a tightly scripted propaganda outlet like Fox, unless it comes from the top. So what gives?
It’s worth noting that Tucker Carlson made a point of making these harsh anti-Trump remarks while speaking in a venue other than Fox News. This comes after Napolitano made his prediction about Donald Trump Jr’s downfall during an interview that was also not on Fox News. It’s as if the network has instructed its propagandists to begin indirectly laying the groundwork for making a pivot against Trump, in order to soften up their audience for it before they start doing it live on Fox News.
Climate Change
New York Times, France’s ‘Yellow Vest’ Protests Have a Lesson on Climate Change, Alissa J. Rubin and Somini Sengupta, Dec. 7, 2018 (print edition). Scientists and economists believe that carbon taxes are needed to reduce fossil fuel dependence. The question is how to cushion the blow on the most vulnerable.
The so-called Yellow Vest protests against the tax increase have become the biggest obstacle yet to such attempts to encourage conservation and alternative energy use. The protests point to the difficulties facing nearly all industrialized countries committed to pulling the world back from the cliff’s edge of catastrophic climate change.
France’s cancellation of the tax increase this week in the aftermath of increasingly violent protests signaled the perils and political headwinds that governments worldwide may face as they try to wean their citizens from fossil fuels.
There is little doubt among scientists and economists — many of whom are in Poland for the current round of climate negotiations — that putting a price on carbon is essential in the effort to reduce fossil fuel dependence. The question is how to design a carbon tax, and how to cushion the blow for the most vulnerable.
U.S. Politics
New York Times, North Carolina Republican Owes $34,310 for Voting Operation, Records Show, Sydney Ember and Alan Blinder, Dec. 7, 2018. The campaign of Mark Harris, right, the G.O.P. nominee in a House race mired in voter fraud allegations, owes the money to a consulting group that used a controversial operative.
The operative has been accused of collecting absentee ballots from voters in a potentially illegal effort to tip the election toward Mr. Harris. The Democratic candidate is Dan McCready.
Global Politics
Washington Post, German conservatives pick a Merkel ally to be party leader, signaling continuity and a long goodbye, Griff Witte and Luisa Beck, Dec. 7, 2018. The selection of Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer delivered Chancellor Angela Merkel a badly needed victory that solidifies her legacy and gives her a shot at a gradual and graceful exit.
More On Mueller Probe
Newsweek, Trump Ally Roger Stone Says Mueller Probed His Sex Life: 'What Does Any of That Have to Do With Russian Collusion?' Shane Croucher, Dec. 7, 2018. Roger Stone said 
being investigated by the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller was like undergoing a “legal proctological examination.” Stone, a political consultant and strategist and a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, was an adviser to the 2016 presidential campaign.
Because of Stone's links to Julian Assange, the head of WikiLeaks, which released emails stolen from the Democratic Party by Russian hackers, he is a focus of Mueller's investigation into Russia's election meddling and possible coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
The emails belonging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, were released shortly before the election. Stone denies coordinating with WikiLeaks and Assange on the emails, although the two men were in contact during the election campaign.
“Few Americans, I think, could withstand the kind of legal proctological examination that I have been under for the last two and a half years,” Stone told the American Priority Conference in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.
Washington Post, Neo-Nazi convicted of murder in car-ramming death at Virginia rally, Joe Heim and Kristine Phillips, Dec. 7, 2018. 
An avowed supporter of neo-Nazi beliefs who took part in the violent and chaotic white-supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in this city last year was found guilty Friday of first-degree murder for killing a woman by ramming his car through a crowd of counterprotesters.
A jury of seven women and five men began deliberating Friday morning and took just over seven hours to reach its decision that James Alex Fields Jr., 21, of Maumee, Ohio, acted with premeditation when he backed up his 2010 Dodge Challenger and then roared it down a narrow downtown street crowded with counterprotesters, slamming into them and another car. Heather D. Heyer, 32, was killed and 35 others were injured, many grievously. Fields was also found guilty on eight counts of malicious wounding.
The deadly attack in the early afternoon of Aug. 12, 2017, culminated a dark 24 hours in this quiet college town. It was marked by a menacing torchlight march through the University of Virginia campus the night before, with participants shouting racist and anti-Semitic insults, and wild street battles on the morning of the planned rally between white supremacists and those opposing their ideology.
Trump-Tillerson
Washington Post, Tillerson: Trump asked me to take illegal actions. Trump: ‘He was dumb as a rock,’ Carol Morello, Dec. 7, 2018. Former secretary of state Rex Tillerson gave his first public remarks since he was fired — and elicited a strong response on Twitter from President Trump.
Dec. 6
Trump-Saudi Hotel Payoff Scheme?
President Trump bonds with Saudi Arabian leaders in May 2017 with a ceremonial "Sword Dance" during the first overseas visit of his presidency.
Washington Post, Saudi-funded lobbyist paid for 500 rooms at Trump’s hotel in late 2016, David A. Fahrenthold and Jonathan O'Connell, Dec. 6, 2018 (print edition). U.S. veterans who stayed in the rooms were sometimes unaware of the Saudi government's role in funding the lobbying trips. These bookings fueled a pair of federal lawsuits alleging the president violated the Constitution by taking improper payments from foreign governments.
Lobbyists representing the Saudi government reserved blocks of rooms at President Trump’s Washington, D.C., hotel within a month of Trump’s election in 2016 — paying for an estimated 500 nights at the luxury hotel in just three months, according to organizers of the trips and documents obtained by The Washington Post.
At the time, these lobbyists were reserving large numbers of D.C.-area hotel rooms as part of an unorthodox campaign that offered U.S. military veterans a free trip to Washington — then sent them to Capitol Hill to lobby against a law the Saudis opposed, according to veterans and organizers.
At first, lobbyists for the Saudis put the veterans up in Northern Virginia. Then, in December 2016, they switched most of their business to the Trump International Hotel (shown while under reconstruction) in downtown Washington. In all, the lobbyists spent more than $270,000 to house six groups of 
visiting veterans at the Trump hotel, which Trump still owns.
Those bookings have fueled a pair of federal lawsuits alleging Trump violated the Constitution by taking improper payments from foreign governments.
During this period, records show, the average nightly rate at the hotel was $768. The lobbyists who ran the trips say they chose Trump’s hotel strictly because it offered a discount from that rate and had rooms available, not to curry favor with Trump.
Sex Trafficking
Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), Investigation: The laughable fraud called "Pizzagate" diverts from actual child trafficking tied to Trump, Wayne Madsen (investigative reporter, author and former Navy intelligence officer), Dec. 6, 2018 (subscription required). Trump and his cronies are involved in covering up an international sex trafficking ring involving underage girls and boys.
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