Press secretary said in briefing she is ‘not aware’ of anything that would indicate Flynn had committed treason
Flynn is really being hauled over the coals by Judge Sullivan.
Sullivan told Flynn he had committed a very serious offence and said he was not ruling out a prison sentence. From Tim Ryan:
"Arguably, you sold your country out," Sullivan said. "The court's going to consider all that. I cannot assure you that if you proceed today you will not receive a sentence of incarceration."
— Tim Ryan (@tjryan93) December 18, 2018
He went on:
"I'm not hiding my disgust, my disdain for this criminal offense."
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Courthouse news reporter Tim Ryan is tweeting live from the Michael Flynn hearing in Washington DC.
Flynn has just told the court “he does not wish to challenge the circumstances of his FBI interview”, according to Ryan.
Last week Flynn said in a submission to the court that he was mislead by FBI agents when he lied to them.
Special counsel Robert Mueller dismissed Flynn’s claims, telling Judge Emmet Sullivan, overseeing Flynn’s sentencing, to reject Flynn’s attempts to “minimize the seriousness” of his crimes.
Sullivan says those claims could "affect or call into question" Flynn's plea or at the least his acceptance of responsibility
— Tim Ryan (@tjryan93) December 18, 2018
Flynn is at the podium now, answering questions about the claims.
Flynn says he does not wish to challenge the circumstances of his FBI interview
Trump’s charity shutdown comes after months of concerted reporting by the Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold.
Fahrenthold uncovered a slew of alleged misdeeds by the Trump Foundation. Trump used charity money to “pay off legal settlements for his private business, to purchase art that decorated one of his clubs and to make a prohibited political donation”, Fahrenthold wrote today.
The largest donation in the foundation’s history — a $264,231 gift to the Central Park Conservancy in 1989 — appeared to benefit Trump’s business: it paid to restore a fountain outside Trump’s Plaza Hotel. The smallest, a $7 foundation gift to the Boy Scouts that same year, appeared to benefit Trump’s family. It matched the amount required to enroll a boy in the Scouts the year that his son Donald Trump Jr. was 11.
Donald Trump has agreed to shut down his charity, amid a lawsuit alleging “a shocking pattern of illegality” at the organization.
New York attorney general Barbara Underwood announced the shut down of the Trump Foundation on Tuesday. Underwood is bringing a lawsuit against the organization, seeking millions of dollars in repayments.
Underwood alleges Trump used his foundation for personal benefit, including aiding his presidential campaign.
“Our petition detailed a shocking pattern of illegality involving the Trump Foundation – including unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing, and much more. This amounted to the Trump Foundation functioning as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests,” Underwood said.
“Today’s stipulation accomplishes a key piece of the relief sought in our lawsuit earlier this year. Under the terms, the Trump Foundation can only dissolve under judicial supervision – and it can only distribute its remaining charitable assets to reputable organizations approved by my office.
“This is an important victory for the rule of law, making clear that there is one set of rules for everyone. We’ll continue to move our suit forward to ensure that the Trump Foundation and its directors are held to account for their clear and repeated violations of state and federal law.”
Donald Trump appears to have backed down over the looming government shutdown, with the White House suggesting an upcoming budget deal does not have to include funding for a border wall.
In an interview with Fox News press secretary Sarah Sanders said the government has come up with “other ways” to find the $5bn Trump had been demanding.
The president had threatened to shut down the government – he said he would be “proud” to do so – if a budget bill due Friday did not include funding for his oft-promised wall.
But Sanders softened that stance on Tuesday.
“We have other ways that we can get to that $5 billion,” she told Fox News.
“At the end of the day we don’t want to shut down the government, we want to shut down the border.”
Sanders said the Trump administration had identified other ways to come up with the money.
“There are certainly a number of different funding sources that we’ve identified that we can use, that we can couple with money that would be given through congressional appropriations that would help us get to that $5 billion that the president needs in order to protect our border,” she said.
Arizona’s governor has appointed Martha McSally to take John McCain’s seat in the US Senate, according to the Washington Post.
McSally, who lost in her run for Arizona’s other Senate seat in November’s mid-terms, will have to run in a special election in 2020 if she wants to keep her place in the US Senate.
The Republican seemed to have fallen out of the running after clashing with John McCain’s family – the deceased Senator’s son-in-law, Ben Domenech, was particularly critical.
McSally strikes me as an unwise choice for a number of reasons. She's like an NFL team that plays down to its opponents' level - and she'll be tasked with running for re-election immediately. https://t.co/C01s2sL28e
— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) December 14, 2018
But Governor Doug Ducey announced her appointment in a release on Tuesday.
“With her experience and long record of service, Martha is uniquely qualified to step up and fight for Arizona’s interests in the U.S. Senate. I thank her for taking on this significant responsibility,” Ducey said in a statement.
CNN’s Chris Cuomo has been through the Senate reports on how Russia targeted the 2016 presidential election. His takeaway is that “the tactics that the Russians used were really, really similar to what we saw from team Trump”.
Cuomo cited an unnamed senior Trump campaign official who told Bloomberg the Trump campaign were targeting the same groups as the Russians went after: african-americans, young women and white liberals.
In the days ahead of the election the Russian effort focussed on spreading allegations of voter fraud and stolen elections, Cuomo says: “You were hearing the same exact thing from then-candidate Donald Trump.”
The Republican controlled Senate Intel Committee just put out some third party research that provides our best evidence to date of what Russia was doing on social media to muck up our election. The clear goal: help Trump. #LetsGetAfterIt #CuomoPrimeTime pic.twitter.com/kwqTdumoGc
— Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) December 18, 2018
Roger Stone, longtime political advisor to Donald Trump, has taken a lie detector test in an attempt to prove he did not conspire with Russia during Trump’s 2016 campaign.
WSVN reports that the polygraph test was paid for by Stone and conducted by John Palmatier, a former police officer with more than 35 years experience giving polygraph tests.
Stone essentially failed the test – the results were “inconclusive” – first time round. He passed a second test when stating he had never communicated with any Russian entity or Wikileaks about distributing stolen emails from the DNC.
Stone allegedly made contacts with the WikiLeaks organization through an intermediary in an effort to help the 2016 Trump campaign. Stone has denied all wrongdoing but has said he expects to be indicted.
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The jury is very much out on the accuracy of polygraph tests, according to Psychology Today:
Doubts about polygraph tests grew in the scientific community until the National Research Council – an organization of scientists – conducted a systematic evaluation and concluded that the test is lacking in scientific validity (2).
In 1998, the U.S. Supreme court acted to restrict their use in legal proceedings. In particular, defense attorneys can no longer use evidence that their client passed a polygraph test as establishing innocence of a crime.
Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s coverage of the day’s political news.
Michael Flynn is will be sentenced at 11am ET for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia during the presidential transition. Donald Trump’s former national security adviser will discover his fate at US district court for the District of Columbia. Our reporter Stephanie Kirchgaessner will be at court.
Donald Trump wished Flynn “good luck” this morning, in the midst of typically fevered barrage of tweets. Trump also referenced “the whole Russian witch hunt”, “illegal immigration”, and “Crooked Hillary”. Flynn has admitted guilt.
Good luck today in court to General Michael Flynn. Will be interesting to see what he has to say, despite tremendous pressure being put on him, about Russian Collusion in our great and, obviously, highly successful political campaign. There was no Collusion!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 18, 2018
On the president’s agenda today: he’s holding a roundtable discussion on a report by the Federal Commission on School Safety. The commission was set up in the wake of the Parkland mass shooting.