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Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) on Monday forcefully criticized U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell for saying he hopes to "empower" conservatives in Europe, and said he should be recalled if he makes similar statements in the future.

“An ambassador’s most critical responsibility is to advance our national interests by developing relationships and trust with their host country. They should not meddle in local or regional politics by backing political parties, candidates or causes," Shaheen said in a statement.

"If Ambassador Grenell is unwilling to refrain from political statements, he should be recalled immediately," she continued. "The United States does not accept foreign meddling in our elections, and we shouldn’t have an ambassador attempting to intrude in another country’s political affairs.”

Grenell, who was sworn in last month, told Breitbart News over the weekend that he hoped to empower anti-establishment candidates across the Atlantic, adding that he'd spoken with conservative European leaders who were energized by President Trump's victory.

“I absolutely want to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders,” Grenell said. “I think there is a groundswell of conservative policies that are taking hold because of the failed policies of the left.”

Grenell stood by his remarks on Sunday, but disputed that he was endorsing any political party or candidate.

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Richard Grenell
@RichardGrenell
Absurd. I condemn those comments completely. Don’t put words in my mouth. The idea that I’d endorse candidates/parties is ridiculous. I stand by my comments that we are experiencing an awakening from the silent majority - those who reject the elites & their bubble. Led by Trump.

Germany's foreign minister reportedly reached out to the U.S. to seek clarity on what Grenell meant by his remarks. The German state secretary said she plans to discuss the matter with Grenell this week.
Tags Jeanne Shaheen Donald Trump.

Donald Trump issues a statement saying neither the #Eagles, nor team representatives, are welcome at the White House tomorrow for their Super Bowl visit. Unreal.

Trump just disinvited the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia @Eagles—all of them—because some players refused to go to the @WhiteHouse. They claimed in a statement they "disagree with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem." Culture war.

President Donald Trump claimed Monday that he had the right to pardon himself but wouldn’t do so because he had "done nothing wrong."

"As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?" he tweeted. The tweets came less than 24 hours after Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for the president, said that while Trump’s broad constitutional powers included the authority to end that investigation and pardon himself, he would be unlikely to do either because both would create a path to impeachment.

He's toast!

Why do liberals hate the Constitution so much?

WASHINGTON, June 4 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who has been indicted by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, attempted to tamper with potential witnesses, Mueller said in a court filing on Monday.

Mueller, who is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, asked the judge overseeing the case in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to revoke or revise an order releasing Manafort ahead of his trial.

Donald Trump issues a statement saying neither the #Eagles, nor team representatives, are welcome at the White House tomorrow for their Super Bowl visit. Unreal.

taking "punitive" action against the Eagles because of their speech violate the first amendment rights?

WASHINGTON, June 4 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who has been indicted by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, attempted to tamper with potential witnesses, Mueller said in a court filing on Monday.

The first amendment bars the government from restricting free speech and Trump is government, so does him taking "punitive" action against the Eagles because of their speech violate the first amendment rights?

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Donald Trump issues a statement saying neither the #Eagles, nor team representatives, are welcome at the White House tomorrow for their Super Bowl visit. Unreal.

I have a question for the lawyers out there. The first amendment bars the government from restricting free speech and Trump is government, so does him taking "punitive" action against the Eagles because of their speech violate the first amendment rights?

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s office on Monday accused Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman for Donald Trump, of tampering with witnesses ahead of his upcoming trial on charges involving illegal lobbying work.

In an 18-page motion filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, one of Mueller’s prosecutors, Andrew Weissmann, called for an immediate hearing to determine whether Manafort and another, unidentified person repeatedly contacted two other unnamed people “in an effort to secure materially false testimony” concerning the activities at the center of February’s superseding indictment.

Backed by an affidavit from an FBI agent who has been working on the Manafort case, Mueller’s office said Manafort and one of his longtime associates — described as “Person A” — tried in the wake of the Trump official’s indictment to contact other members of the so-called Hapsburg Group, a collection of former senior European politicians who were working with Manafort and covertly promoting Ukrainian interests in Washington.

After the superseding indictment’s public disclosure, one of the people whom Manafort tried to call “sought to avoid Manafort” and “ended the call,” according to the affidavit. Manafort tried again with an encrypted text message, stating, “This is paul.” Two days later came another text with a news article describing the allegations and another message: “We should talk. I have made clear that they worked in Europe.”

Phone records obtained by Mueller’s office show that Manafort spoke briefly with the person on Feb. 24 — one day after the release of the superseding indictment — and then tried again on Feb. 25 and Feb. 27.

In an interview with federal prosecutors, the person whom Manafort contacted told the government that they “understood Manafort’s messages to be an effort to ‘suborn perjury’ by influencing Person D1’s potential statements,” the FBI affidavit said.

Mueller accused Manafort in February of secretly hiring a “SUPER VIP” group of former European politicians known as the Hapsburg Group as part of his lobbying campaign conducted on behalf of the Ukrainian president at the time, Viktor Yanukovych.

The politicians appear to have included former Alfred Gusenbauer, a former Austrian chancellor, and Romano Prodi, a former Italian prime minister, who both visited Washington and met with members of Congress in 2013 as part of the lobbying campaign, according to retroactively filed disclosure filings. Both men have denied being paid by Manafort.

All you have to do is scroll back thru this thread to see the grunting disaster junkies panting for even more outrageous acts of discourteous boorish behaviour.

Mueller accuses Manafort of witness tampering .

Trump Has Cut Federal Government By 24,000 Jobs Since Taking Office

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Donald Trump issues a statement saying neither the #Eagles, nor team representatives, are welcome at the White House tomorrow for their Super Bowl visit. Unreal.

smh

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Trump just disinvited the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia @Eagles—all of them—because some players refused to go to the @WhiteHouse. They claimed in a statement they "disagree with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem." Culture war.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Only a tiny fraction of the documents seized from President Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen and reviewed by a court-appointed official are protected by attorney-client privilege, according to a court filing on Monday.

Barbara Jones, the court-appointed special master reviewing the documents, said in the filing in Manhattan federal court that out of 291,770 items found on two phones and an iPad, she agreed with lawyers for Cohen, Trump or the Trump Organization that 148 were privileged.

Jones said that out of 639 items found in eight boxes of hard-copy materials, she agreed that 14 were privileged.

Lawyers for Cohen, Trump and the Trump Organization could not immediately be reached for comment. The office of the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, which is investigating Cohen for possible crimes related to his business dealings, also could not be reached.

Monday’s report covered only a small part of the materials seized by authorities in raids on Cohen’s home, office and hotel room in April. Todd Harrison, a lawyer for Cohen, said at a court hearing last week that his firm had received about 3.7 million files.

The investigation stems in part from a referral by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is probing whether Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia.

Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion, and Russia has denied meddling in the U.S. election.

Shortly after the April raids, lawyers for Cohen and Trump asked U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood to allow them to review the seized materials for attorney-client privilege, and bar prosecutors from looking at them until they had done so. Wood allowed them to review the documents, but appointed Jones to vet their claims of privilege.

At last week’s hearing, however, Wood set a June 15 deadline for Cohen’s and Trump’s lawyers to finish their review. She said that if they were not finished by then, the rest of the review would be done by a special team of prosecutors not directly involved in the Cohen probe, as the prosecutors had originally wanted.

US prosecutors have accused Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, of trying to tamper with potential witnesses ahead of his trial.

Robert Mueller, who is investigating alleged Russian election interference, said Mr Manafort had contacted people related to his money laundering and tax fraud case in breach of his bail terms.

Mr Manafort, 69, denies all charges.

They are not connected with allegations of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign during the US election.

Mr Trump denies any collusion and has consistently spoken of a witch-hunt.

Mr Manafort's first trial, on charges of money laundering and illegal lobbying, is due to begin in September.