Cohen on Trump Hush Money, Moscow Plans and Wikileaks

Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney and “fixer” Michael Cohen testified Wednesday before Congress about hush payments to alleged former lovers of the president and a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, and said Trump knew in advance about a WikiLeaks document dump that damaged his opponent Hillary Clinton.

Here is where Cohen and his former boss stand on the three key issues:

In April 2018, reporters asked Trump on board Air Force One if he knew about $130,000 in payments made before the 2016 election to former porn actress Stormy Daniels, to keep her quiet about an alleged affair.

Trump denied any knowledge of the payments, and suggested reporters ask Cohen — then still his lawyer — about it. Trump later changed his account, admitting he reimbursed Cohen for the payments but that they were a “private transaction” unrelated to his campaign.

Cohen was sentenced in December to three years in jail for crimes that included violating campaign finance laws via the hush payments made to Daniels and a former Playboy model. Testifying to the House Oversight Committee Wednesday, Cohen submitted a copy of a check issued from Trump’s personal account — after he took office  — “to reimburse me for the hush money payments I made to cover up his affair with an adult film star and prevent damage to his campaign.”

“The President of the United States thus wrote a personal check for the payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws,” Cohen stated. Cohen said the reimbursements were deliberately spread out over 12 months to make them “look like a retainer.”

Cohen has also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress when he previously claimed negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow had ended in January of 2016. He later admitted they continued into June 2016, after Trump had become the Republican White House nominee.  “To be clear: Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it,” Cohen told Wednesday’s hearing. Cohen asserted that personal lawyers for Trump reviewed his testimony to Congress in which he lied about the deal.

Trump has repeatedly argued Russia had no sway over him because he had no business dealings there, as he seeks to deflect suggestions his campaign colluded with Russian meddling in the 2016 election.  After Cohen changed his story, Trump acknowledged his right-hand man had pursued a deal with the Russians well into 2016, but insisted there was nothing wrong with seeking business opportunities while running for office.

Court filings have since revealed that negotiations continued even longer than Cohen had admitted, through October or even November 2016.

Cohen testified Wednesday that Trump knew in advance — and welcomed the news — that WikiLeaks planned to release a trove of sensitive emails hacked from Democratic Party computers by Russian agents.

Cohen said that in July 2016 he heard a phone conversation in which Roger Stone, another long-term associate of the president charged with lying to Congress and witness tampering, had told Trump that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had promised the document dump. According to Cohen, Trump answered “to the effect of ‘wouldn’t that be great.'”

Cohen also said he believed Trump had prior knowledge of a June 2016 meeting between his son Donald Jr, campaign officials and a Russian lawyer peddling “dirt” on Clinton. This was based on him seeing Donald Jr inform his father, at around that time, “The meeting is all set.”

“Mr. Trump had frequently told me and others that his son Don Jr. had the worst judgment of anyone in the world,” Cohen said — adding that “Don Jr. would never set up any meeting of any significance alone and certainly not without checking with his father.” Trump has denied any knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting, or that he discussed the WikiLeaks release with Stone.

source: usa.inquirer.net

Facebook Goes Lukewarm Toward CISPA

Facebook has not completely dropped its support for the controversial and recently reintroduced Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), but the company is approaching the bill cautiously this time as CISPA once again navigates the legislative process.




Facebook, which backed CISPA when it was first introduced last year, does not appear in an updated list of companies and organizations which strongly support the bill (also missing from the updated list is Microsoft and a few other firms).

A Facebook spokesperson indicated to Mashable the company hasn't completely given up hope on CISPA's potential to improve cybersecurity while preserving users' privacy, but the company's statement does not read as strongly in favor of the legislation as it stands.

“Protecting the private information people share on Facebook is the foundation of our service, and we support efforts to improve our ability to protect that information from cyber attack," said the spokesperson in an e-mail to Mashable.

"We are encouraged by the continued attention of Chairman Mike Rogers and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger to this important issue and we look forward to working with both the House and the Senate to find a legislative balance that promotes government sharing of cyber threat information with the private sector while also ensuring the privacy of our users," continued the statement.

Facebook's half-hearted language is a flip for the company — Facebook's Vice President of Public Policy Joel Kaplan called CISPA a "thoughtful, bipartisan approach" that "addresses critical needs in cyber security" when it was first introduced in early 2012. Additionally, CISPA's authors, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), touted Facebook's strong support in prior press releases — something they're no longer able to do.

Why the change? Many of the Internet and Facebook users who rallied against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in late 2011 and early 2012 also oppose CISPA over fears it would violate their online privacy. Some of those users felt betrayed by Facebook's prior support of CISPA, as the company was an ally in the campaign against SOPA. The blowback against Facebook's CISPA support was intense to the point that Kaplan felt compelled to write a blog post in April of last year arguing CISPA would not put Facebook users' privacy at risk.

"Importantly, [CISPA] would impose no new obligations on us to share data with anyone –- and ensures that if we do share data about specific cyber threats, we are able to continue to safeguard our users’ private information, just as we do today," wrote Kaplan.

CISPA would provide a legal mechanism for the government and private businesses to share information about cybersecurity threats with one another. Supporters argue it's a much-needed method of bolstering American cybersecurity defenses, while detractors fear the government will use private businesses' data to snoop on citizens. It passed the House of Representatives last year despite a veto threat from the White House over privacy concerns. It failed to get picked up by the Senate, which continues to debate several alternative approaches to cybersecurity.

CISPA's authors re-introduced the bill in the House earlier this year following negotiations with the White House to address the administration's privacy concerns. About the same time as those meetings were taking place, President Barack Obama signed an executive order in January which in part commands part of the federal government to share cybersecurity intelligence with the private sector — the half of CISPA's information flow which privacy advocates find less objectionable.

The bill has not yet passed out of committee, a required step before going up for a full vote in the House.

source: mashable.com

Senate approves proposal to compel states to enact strict teen driving rules

Congress is employing the same tactic it used to raise the drinking age to compel states to enact new teenage driving laws.

Three decades ago, Washington prodded the states to raise the legal drinking age to 21 by threatening to withhold federal transportation dollars if they didn't.

The threat worked.

Now, Congress is looking at using similar threats to compel states to pass new driving laws covering everything from teen texting to minimum driving ages.

Provisions passed Wednesday in the Senate would urge states to implement, among other new rules, a three-stage licensing process -- first a learner's permit, then an intermediate one and finally a driver's license.

The rules were passed as part of a two-year, $109 billion highway bill. They would also call for restrictions on teenage night driving during the intermediate period, bar most use of a cellphone in the first two stages and ensure regular licenses are not issued before age 18.

The rules would hit some states harder than others, as many already have strict teenage driving laws.

But according to the office of sponsor Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., a number of states fall short of the proposed standards. Three states do not have regulations for nighttime driving -- and South Dakota gives unrestricted licenses to 16-year-olds. Other states would likely be compelled to raise the age at which they offer a learner's permit.

The proposal does not require these changes. Rather, it uses a carrot-and-stick approach by offering grants to states that comply early on and withholding highway funding to states that hold out.

"This legislation will give young drivers better education and more experience before they get out on the roads, keeping us all safer and saving lives," Gillibrand said in a written statement.

The proposal could run into objections from states' rights advocates, as well as lawmakers in rural states where the teenage driving laws tend to be less stringent.

The bill still has to clear the House.

Allstate, though, released a statement praising the bill and claiming it would save lives.

"Car crashes are the leading cause of death for young drivers, and we have a real opportunity to enact legislation that can help make our roads safer," the national insurer said in the statement. "This is a bipartisan issue that affects American families across the country."

According to the SafeRoads4Teens coalition, more than 5,000 people died in crashes involving teen drivers in 2010. The group claims the "patchwork" of state laws leaves some teen drivers "better protected than others."

source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/03/15/senate-approves-proposal-to-compel-states-to-enact-strict-teen-driving-rules/