 List of Allegations Summarized from Michael Cohen's Feb.27 Testimony to the United States Congress+ Threating and intimidation of federal witnesses called upon by Congress + Using non-profit funds to purchase private assets and private artwork + Using federal campaign finance money to issue blackmail payments covering up Mr. Trump’s private extra-marital affair + Federal tax fraud and personal income tax fraud and tax evasion in the amount of several million dollars + Bank fraud in the amount of tens of millions of dollars + Using the Office of the President of the United States to threaten civilian institutions including schools, colleges, private media, and non-profit groups + Threatening legal action and physical violence against groups and individuals in order to prevent the release of personal records including school grades, college transcripts, tax returns, financial statements, and Vietnam War records + Censoring and redacting evidence from the United States Congress which implicated the President of the United States, including the testimony given by Michael Cohen on previous occasions + Interference with Congressional hearings regarding his own alleged criminal violations + Managing and pursuing private business interests with foreign adversaries worth hundreds of millions of dollars + Speaking and cooperating with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in order to hack into, weaponize, and release the records and e-mails of Democratic Party members, allegedly in collusion with Russian agents Mr. Trump has also bragged publicly about “getting away” with various felonies, including federal income tax evasion schemes which may be worth tens of millions of dollars. | Fascism and Sovereign Immunity Matthew R. Bishop, World Report News – March 23rd 2019 For my undergraduate thesis, I tried to examine one of modern history’s most relevant and compelling moments. What I decided on was the particular part of the French Revolution when a group of lawyers, citizens, clergymen, farmers, noblemen, and public officials banded together and proclaimed that the reigning King of France can and will be tried for crimes against the country while in office. What makes this moment so critical is that these otherwise ordinary citizens decided to hold their sovereign, their chief executive, accountable to themselves, the citizens and employees. It was the moment when we decided that a king cannot be above the laws of his own country, nor above the well-being of his citizens. That moment was two hundred and fifty years ago. Now we are having this exact discussion all over again, and right-wing pundits would like us to believe that a sitting President cannot or should not be indicted. To suggest that any public office should be immune to charges of treason and conspiracy is an open endorsement of fascism. It is not a conversation that a free, democratic people should even have in the first place. We cannot be afraid to speak the word fascist. We have an ethical obligation to call out fascism everywhere and anywhere we see it taking hold, and today it has already got a stranglehold on the American GOP. Republicans actually want to shield a sitting President from charges of fraud, treason, and conspiracy against the President’s own country. Fascism is already here. It has become a part of our everyday political thinking. And make no mistake, the allegations involved here are of the highest caliber, involving foreign mafia groups, international cartels, Russian foreign agents and assets, and everything else that makes a good James Bond movie. It would be an exciting historical moment, were it not for the growing ideology of fascism that has crept over and consumed the American far-right. We cannot afford to underestimate the number of Americans who are sympathetic to fascism. President Trump ran on a host of fascist promises, from shutting down the free press to imprisoning his political rivals. One in five Americans endorsed that platform when they voted for Donald Trump. Now his electorate is rising up to defend him against dozens of charges, many of them high crimes and felonies, and is even presenting the Ancien Regime argument that a sitting President cannot be tried for crimes against his country. As many as 2.2 million Frenchmen lost their lives in the revolutionary fighting of 1787-1799, corresponding to roughly ten percent of the entire country. They fought and died in that revolution so that later generations would never need to ask this question: Can we put a king on trial for crimes against his own country? Today too many American pundits are rewriting history. They are turning the pages back by three hundred years. They want us to believe that a President cannot and should not answer to the crimes he has committed against his country and against his people. They are erasing the French Revolution, the American Revolution, and all the progress of political thinking accomplished in the past three centuries since before the birth of the Modern Era. We cannot let them. That is why we need this report to be made public. And that is why we need to call out and stand up against fascism every single time that we see it, hear it, or read it. |
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Matthew R. Bishop, World Report News
Washington, D.C. – February 27th, 2019 Mr. Michael Cohen, who has previously appeared before Congress to deliver federal criminal testimony, today appeared again to elaborate on previous allegations and to reveal new hard evidence in support of the outstanding criminal allegations against the President of the United States. Mr. Cohen testified before the assembly and provided the United States Congress with evidence and testimony to confirm or assert the following criminal allegations against President Trump: + Threating and intimidation of federal witnesses called upon by Congress + Using non-profit funds to purchase private assets and private artwork + Using federal campaign finance money to issue blackmail payments covering up Mr. Trump’s private extra-marital affair + Federal tax fraud and personal income tax fraud and tax evasion in the amount of several million dollars + Bank fraud in the amount of tens of millions of dollars + Using the Office of the President of the United States to threaten civilian institutions including schools, colleges, private media, and non-profit groups + Threatening legal action and physical violence against groups and individuals in order to prevent the release of personal records including school grades, college transcripts, tax returns, financial statements, and Vietnam War records + Censoring and redacting evidence from the United States Congress which implicated the President of the United States, including the testimony given by Michael Cohen on previous occasions + Interference with Congressional hearings regarding his own alleged criminal violations + Managing and pursuing private business interests with foreign adversaries worth hundreds of millions of dollars + Speaking and cooperating with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in order to hack into, weaponize, and release the records and e-mails of Democratic Party members, allegedly in collusion with Russian agents. In addition to the documentation, presentation, and testimony given to corroborate the above allegations, Mr. Cohen did confirm that President Trump “did not actually expect to win” the 2016 election, and therefore was continuing with “business as usual”, which may have included working with Russian foreign agents, intelligence officers, and party members. Asked whether or not Mr. Trump would have even been willing to work with agents of a foreign adversary in order to win the 2016 election, Mr. Cohen responded “yes” and that Donald Trump “would do anything to win.” Mr. Cohen elaborated furthermore that he never was under the impression Donald Trump “cared at all for this country”, that he frequently criticized the government, and that he called the IRS “stupid” for giving “someone like a him [Donald Trump]” a federal tax refund. He bragged about dodging his taxes and instructed Mr. Cohen to do likewise. The language now disclosed in the evidence supplied by Mr. Cohen paints a portrait of a man willing to use violence to coerce his enemies and to silence those who might speak out against him. Threats were made not only against the personal safety of President Trump’s enemies, associates, and former business partners, but also against the safety of their families and loved ones. President Trump also directed threats against his former school and college, telling them not to release his grades and threatening violence if they did so. Further evidence and testimony revealed how Mr. Trump regularly refused to pay his vendors, taking advantage of small, vulnerable businesses by sub-contracting or hiring them outright and then not paying their wages, expenses, or invoices after the work had already been completed. Mr. Trump directed Mr. Cohen to call these vendors on a regular basis to explain they would not be getting paid. Established charges have previously focused on key individuals surrounding President Trump, including close family members and the C-level management of Trump Organization, which Mr. Cohen again confirmed in this hearing. But this hearing also nailed down precise criminal and federal allegations against the President himself, including federal tax fraud, personal finance fraud, non-profit fraud, campaign finance fraud, tax evasion, bank fraud, threatening and intimidating court witnesses, threatening and intimidating Congressional witnesses, threatening and intimidating civilian institutions to withhold documents and evidence, covering up criminal charges, and censoring criminal evidence from the United States Congress. Collusion with a foreign adversary (treason) was not brought as a charge today before Congress, and Michael Cohen insisted that he did not have requisite evidence to assert such allegations at this time. He suggested Robert Mueller or the House Intelligence Committee might have that evidence. The majority of these criminal activities occurred during the 2016 Presidential election cycle, and not during the Presidency itself. Although the matter of Russian involvement in U.S. elections and ongoing governance at the executive level is currently classified and is the subject of a House Intelligence Committee investigation, Mr. Cohen did allude to the President’s colluding with foreign adversaries in order to release classified American materials and to pursue private business gains at the expense of American national security. The Mueller Report is expected to arrive soon at the Office of the Attorney-General. The Attorney-General then decides which information contained in the report, if any, may be reviewed by Congress. Congress, in turn, decides whether or not that limited information will be made available to the American public. The Attorney-General is not required to release Mueller’s full report to Congress, and neither is Congress required to release that report to the American public. Whether or not the country moves forward with an impeachment process may therefore depend on how much information is made available regarding the President’s criminal activities not only to the American people, but also to the United States Congress itself, which might be kept in the dark. Impeachment, moreover, is a political process more than it is a legal process. Impeachment is not an automatic, structural reaction to a violation of federal laws while in office. It is not as simple as breaking the law, where someone may file a charge, take you to court, and send you to prison. Impeachment is more like a piece of actual legislation, which members of Congress must negotiate and agree on before moving forward. Therefore, even in the face of such grave and serious allegations, it may remain the case that no impeachment process moves forward at all, especially if key information from the Mueller Report is withheld from Congress or the American people.  U.S. NGO Calls for Sanctions Against Israel
20 June 2018 – Matthew R. Bishop, World Report News Human Rights Watch, one of the leading American NGO-NPOs in the foreign policy space, boldly called for the United States to begin targeted sanctions against Israel and Israeli leaders this past week. The Israeli foreign lobby invests more money influencing the United States Congress than any other country. Israel and the United States, as a result, have historically been inseparable as allies. But, increasingly, American public opinion has shifted against Israeli apartheid policies in Palestine. The call for sanctions against Israel comes nine weeks into the Great March of Return, a massive Palestinian protest movement intended to memorialize the lives lost and the lands stolen by Israeli soldiers and settlers.  Information on the Massacre of May 22nd, 2018, in Thoothukudi, India19 June 2018 – Matthew R. Bishop, World Report News
=== On May 22nd, 2018, a company of non-uniformed policemen opened fire with assault rifles on a crowd of unarmed civilian protestors in the Indian city of Thoothukudi. Thirteen protestors were killed and many more were wounded. The police, according to witness statements, aimed to kill, placing their shots on the torso or the head rather than the legs, arms, or feet. The order to shoot was given by a junior officer who only had the authority to issue that order during the time his senior officer was absent. Normally this individual would not have had the authority to issue this command. The dispute was over a copper smelter in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. For four months the townsfolk of Thoothukudi had been protesting against a copper smelter owned and operated by Sterlite Copper, a subsidiary company of Indian mining firm Vedanta, which itself is a subsidiary of the U.K.-based Vedanta Resources. Citizens and protestors insisted that the smelter was causing rapid, dramatic, and irreversible environmental damages, and that its operation had an adverse effect on their health. Government officials in the state of Tamil Nadu agreed. They formally requested that the copper smelter be closed. Instead, company representatives dismissed government requests, ignored protestor demands, and called upon the police to put down any dissent or insurrection against the mining and processing operation in Thoothukudi. The protests continued for months without progress or results, but also without violence or casualties—until the end of May when non-uniformed police opened fire. The massacre has prompted international outrage. The United Nations demanded that India’s federal government investigate the crime and hold the perpetrators accountable. Powerful politicians in the U.K. have vowed to delist Vedanta Resources from the London Stock Exchange. And Sterlite Copper was forced to close its Thoothukudi operations under a federal order. But Vedanta Resources confirmed it has no plans to close the smelter permanently. In the days after the massacre, the company reaffirmed its no-negotiations policy. Tamil Nadu shut down the site following the deaths of thirteen protestors on May 28th, but Vedanta Resources plans to re-open the smelter and continue operations as soon as the order expires, against government requests, civilian protests, and international condemnation. One day after the shooting, the Madras High Court ruled that Sterlite-Vedanta had acted against the EPA Act of 1986, and ordered the closure of a new expansion site which had been under construction at the time. They also stated that they would be willing to allow the re-opening of the original facility, or of a newer facility, if the company was able to send in a formal proposal which passes the 1986 EPA standards. Police statements one week after the event alleged that protestors had been carrying deadly weapons, had threatened the lives of company and police officials, and had posed a threat to public safety. Eyewitness testimonies refuted these allegations. Protestors insisted that not a single one among them had a weapon, that no such threats were made, and that the police opened fire on the crowd without any legal justifications for doing so. CCTV security camera footage supports the protestors’ narrative of events and finds no evidence of any of the allegations made by the police. At the time of writing, organizers have been trying to put together subsequent protest demonstrations. Witnesses say that police have been going door-to-door and arresting organizers so that no future demonstrations can take place. Sources and Further Reading http://venturesafrica.com/ethiopian-government-set-to-finally-lift-state-of-emergency/ http://www.dw.com/en/global-conflict-continues-to-rise-index-shows/a-44090159 https://www.inc.com/brian-de-haaff/3-ways-remote-workers-outperform-office-workers.html https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/its-up-united-states-make-first-move-bruno-le-maire?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_feed%3BCWlNG2c1TxWankaXjAoexw%3D%3D https://venturebeat.com/2018/06/06/microsoft-launches-underwater-datacenter-off-scottish-coast/ https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=172472573437344&id=135343587150243 https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10205355466283346&id=1749324263 https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10205355466283346&id=1749324263 https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/thoothukudi-firing-inspector-claims-he-gave-shooting-orders-control-crowd-82598 https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/land-allotted-sterlite-expansion-cancelled-tn-government-82081 https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/thoothukudi-violence-un-experts-condemn-police-excess-took-13-lives-full-text-82254 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoothukudi_massacre http://www.vedantaresources.com/ https://www.facebook.com/100011722696886/posts/561677080899710/ https://www.marxist.com/india-police-massacre-peaceful-protestors-in-tamil-nadu.htm Compiled with Eyewitness Statements |
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