This Tough Guy Wasn't Smarter Than Everyone Else After All

In 2015, Cohen made approximately $30,000 in profit from the sale of a rare and highly valuable French handbag.

After cheating the IRS for years, lying to banks and to Congress, and seeking to criminally influence the Presidential election, Cohen's decision to plead guilty-rather than seek a pardon for his manifold crimes-does not make him a hero.

The special counsel memo states that Cohen's false statements to investigators about the Trump Tower Moscow project "obscured the fact that the Moscow Project was a lucrative business opportunity that sought, and likely required, the assistance of the Russian government." Mueller's office said the fact that Cohen continued to work on the Trump Tower Moscow project -- and discuss it with Trump -- was material to both the ongoing congressional and special counsel investigations, noting in particular that "it occurred at a time of sustained efforts by the Russian government to interfere with the U.S. presidential election."

Mueller argues that the false timeline that Cohen laid out publicly and in his testimony - that the Trump Tower Moscow discussions ended in January 2016 - was a deliberate effort to limit the investigations into Russia's election interference. In pleading guilty, Cohen disclosed that talks about the proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow had extended through June 2016, after Trump had become the presumptive Republican nominee for president, and that both Trump and his family members had been briefed on the discussions. Cohen also acknowledged pursuing plans to send Trump and himself to Russia in service of the project and discussing the proposed development directly with a representative of the Kremlin.

Mueller also filed a separate memo on Friday detailing the alleged lies Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort told prosecutors in violation of his plea agreement. They concerned Manafort’s contacts with Trump administration officials, a suspected Russian spy named Konstantin Kilimnik, a separate Justice Department investigation, and a wire transfer. Much of the document was redacted, but Mueller said text messages show that Manafort was interacting with a “senior administration official” into May 2018.

Mueller said on Friday that Manafort lied to investigators about his interactions with Kilimnik, his former business associate who has ties to Russian intelligence. Specifically, prosecutors discussed with Manafort more than one meeting he had with Kilimnik.

There are very few public details about their interactions. But questions of collusion have swirled around Kilimnik, given his longtime closeness to Manafort and his links to Russian intelligence agencies that were aggressively meddling in the election. Mueller's team said earlier this year that the FBI believes Kilimnik had active ties to Russian spies in 2016. Prosecutors said they caught Manafort in lies about Kilimnik because they have "electronic communications" and "travel records."

Mueller's team said they confronted Manafort with this evidence and he acknowledged his lies. But besides these breadcrumbs, critical parts from Friday's filing about Kilimnik were heavily redacted by Mueller's office.

At a Brexit event for local authorities held in Dublin this week, economist Dan O’Brien echoed those sentiments, adding that the threat of food shortages and supplies in a no-deal scenario shouldn’t be underestimated. According to today’s article, the UK government report has indicated that there would be a 7% drop in GDP for Ireland, while the equivalent for the UK would be a drop of 5%. Tory MP Priti Patel has told the paper that these warnings should have been used as leverage against Ireland to encourage them to drop the backstop. “This paper appears to show the government were well aware Ireland will face significant issues in a no-deal scenario. Why hasn’t this point been pressed home during negotiations? There is still time to go back to Brussels and get a better deal.”

The suspect, Rev. Kenneth Bernard Hendricks, 77, was arrested Wednesday in the town of Naval, an impoverished community in Biliran Province, said Dana Krizia Sandoval, a spokeswoman for the immigration bureau of the Philippines. “We received information from U.S. authorities regarding the alleged sexual exploitation of multiple minor Filipino boys by Hendricks,” Ms. Sandoval said. “Several of his victims have come forward with their statements.”

Mr. Hendricks has been living in the Philippines for 37 years, mostly in the same area, working first as a Franciscan brother before he was ordained into the priesthood, according to people who knew him. “The allegations came as a surprise,” said Rolando Borrinaga, a local historian, who once worked as an altar boy and knew the priest. “I was saddened because all the time that I have known him he has been a good friend and priest.”

Mr. Duterte, who says he was molested by a priest when he was a child, seized on the arrest Wednesday to resume his frequent attacks on the church. He asserted that such abuses were common in the religion. “The most hypocritical institution in the entire Philippines is the Catholic Church and the pope knows that,” he told labor officials during a speech at the presidential palace in the capital, Manila, in which he assailed local bishops.

The Philippines is predominantly Catholic and the church retains strong influence in the country. It has led anti-Duterte protests calling for a halt to his war on drugs, which has left thousands dead. Mr. Duterte’s attacks on the church come as priests in the country have come under at times violent attacks. At least three Catholic priests have been killed by unknown gunmen since early this year after having spoken out against extrajudicial killings carried out in the name of the drug war.

The fossil is from a dog-sized reptile, which lived in the Cretaceous Period, about 100 million years ago and is part of a group of plant-eating dinosaurs called ornithopods. Discovered near Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, this group had beaks with serrated teeth, walked on two legs and were particularly abundant on the ancient floodplains which covered the region at the time. It has been named Weewarrasaurus pobeni in recognition of the fossil’s location, at Wee Warra opal field and in reference to Mike Poben, the Adelaide-based Opal buyer who spotted the jaw bone and donated it for research. “I was sorting some rough opal when, astonishingly, I saw two fan-like ridges protruding from the dirt around one oddly-shaped piece,” he said. “Time froze. If these were teeth, then this was an opalised jawbone fragment.”