Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the powerful chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, claimed Sunday 'there is direct evidence' of collusion between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia in the 2016 election.
Schiff cited emails between Russian officials and members of the Trump team, including the president's son Donald Trump Jr., in setting up the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting where the Russians claimed they had dirty on Hillary Clinton.
'There is direct evidence in the e-mails from the Russians through their intermediary offering dirt on Hillary Clinton as part of what is described in writing as the Russian government effort to help elect Donald Trump. They offer that dirt,' Schiff said Sunday on CBS' 'Face the Nation.'
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff claims 'there is direct evidence' of collusion between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia in the 2016 election
Schiff cited emails between Russian officials and members of the Trump team, including Donald Trump Jr. (above), in setting up the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting
'There is an acceptance of that offer in writing from the president's son Don Jr. and there is overt acts in furtherance of that. That is the meeting at Trump Tower and all the lies to cover up that meeting at the Trump Tower and apparently lies that the president participated in,' he added.
'That to me is direct evidence but there's also abundant circumstantial evidence,' he concluded.
He also cited evidence and charges in the cases of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen as part of his proof.
Schiff had Cohen testifying behind closed doors for his committee for almost nine hours on Thursday.
He hasn't given specifics of what Cohen talked about but Moscow's role in the 2016 election was on the agenda.
The topic was also discussed in Cohen's one day of public testimony - Wednesday before the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
Cohen claimed he heard Donald Trump Jr. secretly tell his father ahead of time about an infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting attended by a Kremlin-tied Russian lawyer.
Cohen described being present and hearing cryptic comments by Donald Trump Jr. to his father in early June of 2016 that Cohen believes referenced the Trump Tower meeting with Russians.
'I recalled Don Jr. leaning over to his father and speaking in a low voice, which I could clearly hear, and saying: 'The meeting is all set.' I remember Mr. Trump saying, 'Ok good … let me know,' according to Cohen.
June is when Don Jr., former campaign chair Paul Manafort, and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner met with a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer who had promised dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Trump has denied knowing about the meeting before it happened. Donald Trump Jr. has expressed confidence that he did nothing wrong.
Cohen did tell lawmakers, when asked, he has no direct evidence of collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.
Additionally, Sen. Richard Burr, the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, has said his panel, which is investigating Russian election interference, has yet to find direct proof of collusion.
Schiff said Cohen's claims were additional circumstantial evidence against Trump.
But he didn't go as far as to say the president should be impeached.
'I made this distinction all along and that is while there is abundant evidence of collusion, the issue from a criminal point of view is whether there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt of a criminal conspiracy,' Schiff told CBS News.
He said lawmakers should wait for special counsel Robert Mueller's report before making such a determination. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made the same argument.
'That is something that we will have to await Bob Mueller's report and the underlying evidence to determine. We will also have to look at the whole body of improper and criminal actions by the president including those campaign finance crimes to determine whether they rise to the level of removal from office. I have said that I think we should await the evidence from Bob Mueller as well as our own work,' he said.
Donald Trump Jr. has claimed he did nothing wrong and his father, President Donald Trump, did not know about the meeting ahead of time
Michael Cohen claimed he heard Donald Trump Jr. secretly tell his father ahead of time about an infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting attended by a Kremlin-tied Russian lawyer
Schiff has become a leading target for Republicans since Democrats won control of the House and took control of the investigative process.
The GOP are calling on him to recuse himself from the matter, citing meetings he had with Cohen before the president's former personal attorney testified before Congress and a meeting Schiff had with Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, which produced the unverified Steele dossier that claims the Russians have blackmail evidence on Trump.
Republicans argue Schiff, last year, called on then-House Intelligence Chair Rep. Devin Nunes, one of the president's biggest defenders in Congress, to recuse himself because he met with intelligence sources in the White House during on-going investigations.
That, they claim, means Schiff meets his own standards for recusal.
'Listen to what we find out about Schiff in the Cohen hearing. He talked to Cohen. He met with Glenn Simpson, we found out, even when the own committee said they had problems with the truth in his own hearing. Schiff actually tried to stop us from finding out who paid for the dossier; the Democrats. Schiff has now met Schiff's own standard of why Devon had to recuse himself. Adam Schiff needs to recuse himself for any new investigation,' House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Sunday on ABC's 'This Week.'
Schiff brushed aside the GOP call.
'What McCarthy is upset about is that I invited Michael Cohen to testify and that he accepted, and our staff sat down and interviewed him before his testimony. That's what you do in any credible investigation,' he said.
'The extent of my contact was just inviting him to testify and also trying to lay his concerns about the presence of threats against him and his family, but our staff certainly sat down to interview him and that's what you do in any credible investigation,' he added.
'Mr. McCarthy, I think, can be forgiven for not knowing how to run a credible investigation for the last two years. They did none,' he concluded.
President Trump has also attacked Schiff, calling him 'little shifty Schiff' for expanding the scope of the investigation to a deep-dive into his personal finances.
'They don't have anything with Russia. There's no collusion,' he said. 'So now they morph into 'Let's inspect every deal he's ever done. We're going to go into his finances. We're going to check his deals. We're going to check' – these people are sick,' he said Saturday in his address to conservatives at CPAC.
Cohen returns to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for additional closed door testimony with the House Intelligence panel.
The New York Times broke the news of the now-infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting a little more than a year ago, on July 8, 2017. It has become a focal point in the investigation as to whether or not there was collusion between Team Trump and Moscow in the presidential race.
Donald Trump Jr. gave the newspaper a statement at the time that said the gathering was about an adoption program. His statement did not address whether the presidential campaign was discussed.
The Russian lawyer at the meeting, Natalia Veselnitskaya, has led a multipronged attack against the Magnitsky Act, an American law that blacklists suspected Russian human rights abusers and championed by financier Bill Browder, who Russian President Vladimir Putin named during a June press conference in Helsinki as someone Russians want to speak to in exchange for letting Mueller talk to Russian nationals.
Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya attended the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting
Donald Trump Jr leaving Trump Tower in December 2016
The Magnitsky Act so enraged Putin he retaliated by halting American adoptions of Russian children.
In his statement to The Times about the meeting, Donald Trump Jr. said: 'It was a short introductory meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up.'
He added: 'I was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance, but was not told the name of the person I would be meeting with beforehand.'
On July 11, 2017, the existence of an email chain was reported. Those emails were about setting up the meeting and revealed that Veselnitskaya was said to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
In the email exchange, Trump Jr. was told via an intermediary that the 'high level' information he would be offered about Clinton was 'part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump' and would be 'highly useful for your father.'
Trump Jr. wrote back: 'If it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer.'
The president's son posted the entire email exchange on Twitter after The New York Times informed him they had the emails and were going to publish them.
The emails were sent to Trump Jr via Rob Goldstone, a music publicist who represented Emin Agalarov, whose father, Aras Agalarov, is a major real estate developer close to Putin and who bought rights to the 2013 Miss Universe pageant that took place in Moscow and which Trump attended.
Trump Jr. went on Fox News at the time to defend his actions, saying: 'For me, this was opposition research. They had something, you know, maybe concrete evidence to all the stories I'd been hearing about, probably underreported for years, not just during the campaign, so I think I wanted to hear it out.'
He also said the meeting went nowhere, calling it a 'wasted 20 minutes.'
Trump Jr. additionally told Fox News he did not tell his father about the meeting, saying, 'There was nothing to tell.'
He also gave another statement to the Times about the meeting, saying: 'I was asked to have a meeting by an acquaintance I knew from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant with an individual who I was told might have information helpful to the campaign. I was not told her name prior to the meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to attend, but told them nothing of the substance.'
He continued: 'After pleasantries were exchanged, the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information. She then changed subjects and began discussing the adoption of Russian children and mentioned the Magnitsky Act. It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting.'
Link hienalouca.com
https://hienalouca.com/2019/03/03/there-is-direct-evidence-of-collusion-democratic-rep-adam-schiff-claims-of-trump-campaign/
Main photo article Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the powerful chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, claimed Sunday ‘there is direct evidence’ of collusion between President Donald Trump‘s campaign and Russia in the 2016 election.
Schiff cited emails between Russian officials and members of...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves US News HienaLouca
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/03/03/19/10526512-6766741-image-a-55_1551642035898.jpg
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