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Trump lashes out at his former lawyer after guilty plea
Court News |
2018/08/24 10:39
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Facing a growing threat to his presidency, President Donald Trump lashed at his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, a day after the onetime "fixer" implicated Trump in a campaign cover-up to buy the silence of women who said they had sexual relationships with him.
Trump on Wednesday accused Cohen of making up "stories in order to get a 'deal'" from federal prosecutors. Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations that the lawyer said he carried out in coordination with Trump.
"If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don't retain the services of Michael Cohen!" Trump tweeted Wednesday.
Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, said Wednesday that Cohen has information "that would be of interest" to the special counsel. Davis said Cohen is not looking for a presidential pardon.
"My observation is that the topics relating to hacking and the crime of hacking ... that there are subjects that Michael Cohen could address that would be of interest to the special counsel," Davis said in a series of television interviews.
Trump soon weighed in on Twitter, taking his shot at Cohen and praising Manafort, saying he has "such respect for a brave man!"
Manafort, Trump wrote, had "tremendous pressure on him and, unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to 'break.'"
But there was no doubt that Cohen's acknowledgement of a coordinated payoff scheme puts Trump's presidency on the defensive.
"It's going to be hard for the president to try to discredit all this. It's circling him," said David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor who is not involved in the case.
Cohen and Manafort played prominent roles in Trump's political rise in 2016.
Cohen said once he'd take a bullet for Trump, and was intimately familiar with Trump's personal, business and political dealing for more than a decade. Cohen released a secretly recorded audio of Trump discussing a payout made via a third party to model Karen McDougal who says she had a sexual relationship with Trump in 2006. |
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Court won't remove judge, tells Meek Mill to appeal ruling
Legal Business |
2018/08/23 10:39
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The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has denied a motion from rapper Meek Mill to remove a Philadelphia judge from his case after she denied his request for a new trial.
The court said Tuesday Mill's attorneys must go through the regular process of appealing Judge Genece Brinkley's decision, despite their argument she'd been biased.
Mill, whose real name is Robert Rihmeek Williams, has asked that his decade-old drug and gun convictions be thrown out because of credibility issues with the officer who testified against him. His lawyers noted several other convictions involving the same officer have been thrown out by a different judge and the district attorney's office supported the request.
Mill's attorneys say they will now ask the state Superior Court to hear their appeal. An attorney for Brinkley says the denial is "absolutely no surprise."
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Sen. Collins, potential swing vote, meets with Kavanaugh
Headline Legal News |
2018/08/22 00:56
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Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh met Tuesday with Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a centrist who's seen as a potential swing vote on his confirmation, while Democrats push him to release more documents from his years in the George W. Bush White House.
Collins supports abortion rights and has vowed to oppose any nominee who has "demonstrated hostility" to Roe v. Wade. But she has spoken highly of President Donald Trump's nominee, saying he's qualified for the job.
The meeting Tuesday comes as Kavanaugh, an appellate court judge, is making the rounds on Capitol Hill ahead of confirmation hearings in September. One key meeting will be with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who says he'll ask Kavanaugh to fully support releasing documents from the Bush White House that Republicans have declined to review.
Schumer said he will ask Kavanaugh, as he has Republicans, "What are they hiding?" He expects the judge to be able to fully explain his record. "I hope he comes prepared to answer direct questions," he said.
Democrats complain that Republicans, who have a slim 51-49 majority in the Senate, are withholding documents in their rush to confirm Trump's pick for the court ahead of the midterm elections.
Kavanagh, 53, is a conservative who, in replacing retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, could tip the court rightward for a generation.
Several Democratic women senators joined with advocates for women's health care Tuesday to talk about the stakes of adding Kavanaugh to the court, particularly when it comes to access to abortion services.
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German court rules in broadcaster Nazi camp spat with Poland
Court Watch |
2018/08/21 00:56
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A German court has ruled that public broadcaster ZDF can’t be forced to post a specifically worded apology demanded by a Polish court for erroneously calling two World War II Nazi camps “Polish death camps.”
ZDF used that wording in reference to the Majdanek and Auschwitz death camps in advertising a 2013 documentary. After the Polish Embassy in Berlin objected, it changed the text to “German death camps on Polish territory.”
A Polish citizen who was a former inmate of Auschwitz and the Flossenbuerg concentration camp then launched a legal battle with ZDF, which twice apologized to him for the initial error and later published an apology.
In 2016, the plaintiff secured a ruling from a court in Krakow, Poland, ordering ZDF to post on its website for one month an apology stating that the original wording was “an incorrect formulation that distorts the history of the Polish people.” The broadcaster did publish the text from Dec. 2016 to Jan. 2017, but the plaintiff considered its compliance unsatisfactory and sought to have the Polish ruling legally enforced.
Lower German courts ruled that the verdict can be enforced in Germany. But the Federal Court of Justice said that it disagreed because the required formulation would violate the broadcaster’s right to freedom of opinion. |
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Man admits slaying wife, blames her for daughters' deaths
Attorney News |
2018/08/19 00:56
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The father of two young girls found submerged in oil tanks after being missing for days told authorities his pregnant wife killed the children after learning he wanted a separation, and that he erupted in rage after witnessing the killings and strangled their mother inside the family's suburban Denver home, according to court documents.
Days after letting police inside his home so they could help find his missing family, Christopher Watts told investigators "he would tell the truth."
Watts first asked to speak with his father then admitted to killing his wife, Shanann. Watts told police in court papers released Monday that he killed her after witnessing her strangling one of the girls on a baby monitor. The other child had already been killed by the woman, he said.
Watts, 33, faces three first-degree murder charges, two counts of murdering a child under 12, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body. He is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday and is being held without bail.
District Attorney Michael Rourke declined to answer questions about the case Monday but said his office has three prosecutors working on it. Rourke also said it was too early to discuss whether he will seek the death penalty.
Police first visited the family's house on Aug. 13, after a friend asked officers to check on Shanann Watts. She had missed a doctor's appointment and wasn't answering calls or text messages hours after returning home after a business trip, the friend reported.
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