Michael Cohen to call Donald Trump a ‘racist’, ‘cheat’ and ‘conman’ in first public hearing

President’s former lawyer expected to say Trump knew of Roger Stone’s contact with WikiLeaks during 2016 campaign

Michael Cohen is to accuse Donald Trump of being a “conman” and a “cheat” who had advanced knowledge that a longtime adviser was communicating with WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign, according to opening testimony he will deliver to Congress on Wednesday.

Cohen’s prepared remarks, confirmed by the Guardian, include a series of explosive allegations about the presidential campaign.

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Paul Manafort seeks leniency from judge as he faces life in prison

Lawyers for former Trump campaign chair suggest he is victim of circumstance whose crimes were ‘garden variety’

Paul Manafort, the longtime political consultant who once led Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, asked a federal judge for leniency Monday as he faces the potential of spending the rest of his life in prison in criminal cases stemming from the Russia investigation.

In a new court filing, Manafort’s attorneys painted the 69-year-old as a victim of circumstance, prosecuted by special counsel Robert Mueller only because the government could not make the case that he colluded with the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. They also dismissed the prosecutors’ characterization of Manafort as a hardened criminal, saying he was merely a wealthy consultant who committed “garden variety” crimes by illegally lobbying for Ukrainian interests and hiding millions from the IRS.

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Schiff threatens to call Mueller to testify if Trump-Russia report not made public

A top Democrat threatened on Sunday to call special counsel Robert Mueller to testify on Capitol Hill, subpoena documents and take the Trump administration to court if necessary, if the full report on the Russia investigation is not made public.

Related: Trump faces a legal reckoning – but are his worst troubles yet to come?

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Mueller: Paul Manafort is hardened criminal who ‘repeatedly’ broke law

Special counsel’s team say Trump campaign chairman deserves second prison sentence which could total 10 years

Paul Manafort is a hardened criminal who “repeatedly and brazenly” broke the law even while serving as Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, special counsel Robert Mueller has said.

Related: 'Even Nixon wasn’t like him': Trump's bid to upend Russia inquiry unprecedented, experts say

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Trump-Russia: FBI had ‘backup plan’ to save investigation evidence – live

Plan created after Comey firing to ensure information would survive firings or reassignments of top officials

Attorneys for the Kentucky student filmed in an apparent confrontation with a Native American elder at the Lincoln Memorial filed a lawsuit against the Washington Post on Tuesday, accusing the news organization of engaging “in a modern-day form of McCarthyism.”

Here is the Complaint filed today against The Washington Post on behalf of Nick Sandmann. All members of the mainstream & social media mob of bullies who recklessly & viciously attacked Nick would be well-served to read it carefully. https://t.co/P3H4x0srlX

CNN hired a longtime Republican operative as the political editor charged with coordinating 2020 campaign coverage, Vox is reporting.

According to a CNN spokesperson, Isgur, who most recently worked as the Department of Justice’s main spokesperson under then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, will coordinate the network’s political coverage for the 2020 election cycle on TV and on CNN’s website. Isgur starts work next month, and will not be involved in coverage of DOJ. She will occasionally appear on TV.

Isgur’s LinkedIn page indicates she has no journalism experience. She has, however, worked for a variety of right-wing organizations and campaigns, including the Carly Fiorina and Mitt Romney presidential bids, the Republican National Committee, and a Ted Cruz US Senate campaign.

I've received a lot of partisan fundraising emails from Sarah Isgur Flores, who will reportedly "coordinate political coverage for the 2020 campaign at" CNN (https://t.co/WrQRFBZZFV), over the years. Here's one in Oct. 2014 in which she said Obama's policies would be "DOOMSDAY." pic.twitter.com/xUhXYYJMZf

CNN's new political editor, ex-flack for Carly Fiorina's campaign and the Sessions DOJ "has no experience in news but a long history as a political operative"

Lots and lots of experienced journos have lots their jobs in the last few months, just sayin'https://t.co/M5OymJoWgl

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Rod Rosenstein, key figure behind Mueller inquiry, expected to step down in mid-March

Justice department says deputy attorney general who brought in special counsel is likely to leave in mid-March

Rod Rosenstein, the US deputy attorney general who appointed a special counsel to investigate possible ties between Russia and President Donald Trump’s campaign, is expected to step down by mid March, a Justice Department official has said.

Rosenstein had been expected to depart shortly after new Attorney General William Barr assumed office. Barr was confirmed for the role by the US Senate last week.

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Trump ally Graham will subpoena McCabe and Rosenstein over ‘coup’

Trump ally Lindsey Graham has promised a Senate investigation into claims senior justice department officials discussed invoking the 25th amendment and removing the president from power.

Related: Andrew McCabe says officials discussed removing Trump after Comey firing

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Paul Manafort should be sentenced to up to 24 years in prison, Mueller says

Trump’s former campaign manager found guilty in August on eight counts of tax fraud, bank fraud and a foreign bank account

Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, should be sentenced to up to 24 years in prison, the special counsel Robert Mueller said on Friday.

Mueller’s team said in a court filing that Manafort should face a prison term of 235 to 292 months, or between 19 and a half and 24 and a half years, for “serious, longstanding, and bold” financial crimes.

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Federal judge finds Manafort lied to Mueller

Former Trump aide breached plea deal by making false statements about dealings with alleged Russian operative

Paul Manafort lied about his interactions with an alleged Russian intelligence operative even after agreeing to cooperate with Robert Mueller’s inquiry, a judge ruled on Wednesday.

Manafort, Donald Trump’s former presidential campaign chairman, was found to have breached his plea deal by making false statements to the special counsel’s team, the FBI and a grand jury about his dealings with Konstantin Kilimnik.

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Democrats and Republicans in last-ditch attempt to avert shutdown – live

As President Trump prepared to speak at the border Monday in another expected call for a wall to curtail illegal immigration, Governor Gavin Newsom defended his decision to withdraw national guardsmen from the California-Mexico border, saying that “this whole border issue is manufactured.”

We’re live with @GavinNewsom as he discusses moving @theCAguard personnel from the border & redeploying them to focus on the actual threats California faces, not the White House’s manufactured crisis. #CaliforniaForAll https://t.co/bcd5KJB0xB

Cliff Sims, the former White House communications aide who wrote a tell-all about life working for President Trump, is suing the president, alleging that he used his campaign organization to selectively enforce nondisclosure agreements to silence or punish former employees, the New York Times is reporting.

Mr. Sims was a White House aide from the beginning of the administration. But it was the campaign organization that filed an arbitration claim against him last week, accusing him of violating the nondisclosure agreement he signed with it during the 2016 presidential race with the publication of his book, “Team of Vipers,” last month.

The White House had dozens of people sign such agreements at the beginning of the president’s term. But those agreements are widely seen as likely unenforceable. In the suit, Mr. Sims says he does not recall whether he signed one when he came to the White House.

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Matt Whitaker set to testify before House committee following dispute – live

Acting attorney general will be first Trump cabinet official to be brought before panel led by Democrats

A look at the front page of the Detroit Free Press memorializing John Dingell, the legendary US congressman who passed away on Thursday.

Ivanka Trump has said she knew “almost nothing” about the prospective Trump Tower project in Moscow that her father was pursuing during 2016 presidential election.

“We were an active business,” Trump said during an interview that aired Friday on ABC’s Good Morning America, while adding her knowledge of the project amounted to “literally almost nothing”.

EXCLUSIVE: Ivanka Trump has "zero concern" about special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. https://t.co/4raDLDD6Xh pic.twitter.com/R18v6BW7gW

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Congress reportedly closer to deal to avert new shutdown – live

Hopes raised for potential deal, reports suggest, to avert another government shutdown when bill expires on 15 February

The NAACP is urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject judicial nominees who refused to say that Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court case that ended segregation in schools, was rightly decided.

A number of Trump judicial nominees considered by Senate Judiciary Committee today refused to say Brown v. Board of Education was correctly decided. For us, that is disqualifying. We urge the Senate to vote NO.

Georgia Rep. Rob Woodall will not seek re-election, per the Atlanta Journal Constitution. It’s a seat likely to be targeted by Democrats.

Breaking: #GA07 Rep. Rob Woodall (R), who won by just 419 votes last fall, to retire. Doesn't change @CookPolitical's Toss Up rating, but does vault #GA07 to the very top of Dems' list of pickup opportunities. https://t.co/XS4PeDhFrA

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Mueller will use Roger Stone’s bank records, texts and emails as evidence

Legal analysts say sizable amount of potential evidence seems to go well beyond the current known charges against Stone

Special counsel Robert Mueller has signaled to defense lawyers for Roger Stone, the longtime adviser to Donald Trump, that prosecutors might brandish Stone’s bank records and personal communications going back several years as evidence in the case against him.

Legal analysts said the move could be significant because the sizable amount of potential evidence listed by Mueller – and its nature, in the case of the bank records – seemed to go well beyond the current known charges against Stone.

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Russians leaked Mueller investigation evidence online, prosecutors say

More than 1,000 files shared confidentially appeared to have been uploaded to a filesharing site, according to court documents

Evidence gathered by Robert Mueller, the special counsel, was obtained by Russians and leaked online in an attempt to discredit his inquiry into Moscow’s interference in US politics, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Related: Mueller investigation is almost finished, says acting attorney general

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State of the Union: Stacey Abrams to deliver Democrats’ response – live

George Papadopoulos, the former Trump campaign aide who served a brief prison stint for lying to FBI agents in the Russia investigation, has a new job at a medical marijuana company.

Papadopoulos joins a medical marijuana startup https://t.co/oIAw6Jzcqs

Coffee magnate Howard Schultz will take his time to decide to pursue a third party presidential bid. The former Starbucks CEO has become a lightning rod on the left in recent days with his public musing about running as an independent.

New: @HowardSchultz may not decide on a presidential run until "summer or fall," his political adviser Bill Burton tells me.https://t.co/0nYekuZNUD

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Trump-Russia investigation almost complete, says acting attorney general – as it happened

Thanks for staying with us through another eventful day. We’ll see you tomorrow.

The Guardian’s Erin Durkin is at former Starbucks CEO and possible independent 2020 presidential candidate Howard Schultz’s first stop of his book tour, which has turned into a town hall of sorts.

Speaking at a New York Barnes and Noble, he ruled out any possibility that he would run as a Democrat, despite his life-long affiliation with the party.

In 2020, the great likelihood is that an independent would just split the anti-Trump vote and end up re-electing the President. That's a risk I refused to run in 2016 and we can't afford to run it now. https://t.co/SmHM6cYUg7 pic.twitter.com/iQ2CK5o2k6

Howard Schultz doesn’t have the “guts” to run for President! Watched him on @60Minutes last night and I agree with him that he is not the “smartest person.” Besides, America already has that! I only hope that Starbucks is still paying me their rent in Trump Tower!

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Trump lifts sanctions on firms linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska

  • Democrats in Congress opposed move to lift restrictions
  • Deripaska is ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin

The Trump administration has lifted sanctions on three companies, including the aluminum giant Rusal, linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Democrats had led a push in Congress to continue the restrictions.

Related: 'Sex trainer' who said she could prove Russia meddled in US election freed

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Roger Stone makes statement outside court after being arrested in Trump-Russia inquiry – live

Longtime Trump ally appeared in federal court on Friday after being arrested in Florida on seven charges including obstruction

Roger Stone has apparently called into InfoWars, the website-cum-radio show of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

The InfoWars website seems to be having some problems, so I couldn’t listen in. But Paul Joseph Watson, InfoWars editor-at-large and noted crank, says Stone told the website:

Stone says just before 6am 29 agents burst into home w weapons, allowed him to dress, scared death out of his wife, taken to FBI Miami Dade, where he says agents treated him very well, then did bond hearing - shackled hands and feet - Special Counsel and US atty there, $250k bail https://t.co/HyKA5Fmmlt

Of course, Roger Stone wasn’t the only Trump ally appearing in federal court this morning.

Around the same time Stone was shuffling into Fort Lauderdale court in chains, Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, was in the US District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington DC.

His eyes tired and his hair streaked with grey, Paul Manafort looked morose and walked gingerly, with a limp, during his first court appearance in months on Friday.

The former Donald Trump campaign chairman, imprisoned in Virginia as he awaits sentencing, wore a suit and was not handcuffed during the hour-long hearing at the US District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington, which focused mainly on procedure.

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Roger Stone indictment packed with details that may make Trump sweat

Indictment reveals a campaign official was directed to contact Stone about ‘damaging information’ – but who gave the order?

The criminal indictment of Roger Stone is packed with the kind of colourful details one might expect from the flamboyant rogue, who has been dealing in dirty tricks for more than 40 years.

Related: Who is Roger Stone, the longtime Trump ally caught in Mueller's net?

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