Cohen tells ABC Trump directed him to make the hush money payments

Claims the candidate “was very concerned” about how the stories “would affect the election.” No Images? Click here   By Paul Vale     Friday, December 14 COHEN: TRUMP KNEW PAYMENTS WERE WRONG Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen told ABC News his boss knew it was wrong to make hush money payments during the 2016 campaign to two alleged former lovers, but directed him to do it anyway. Cohen, who was sentenced to three years in prison for crimes involving campaign finance and lying to Congress, told George Stephanopoulos that Trump did it because he “was very concerned about how this would affect the election.” [HuffPost] [Tweet | Share on Facebook] TRUMP PRESENT FOR HUSH MONEY TALKS Trump was in the room when Cohen discussed organizing hush payments to the women with the publisher of the National Enquirer in 2015, according to multiple reports. [HuffPost] FEDS PROBE TRUMP INAUGURATION Federal prosecutors are investigating Trump’s inauguration committee for possible misspending of donations. The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office is reportedly looking into the record $107 million raised for the inauguration, including whether the committee’s biggest donors gave money in exchange for access to Trump and whether the committee collected illegal foreign contributions. [HuffPost] KUSHNER FLOATED FOR CHIEF OF STAFF Having run through his first choices for a new chief of staff, Trump is considering son-in-law Jared Kushner for the job. Also in the running is former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. [HuffPost] STRASBOURG GUNMAN KILLED The man who killed three people during a rampage near a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France, was killed in a shootout with police, ending a two-day manhunt. [AP] SENATORS VOTE TO END SUPPORT FOR SAUDI WAR A majority of senators voted to end U.S. support for a Saudi Arabian military campaign in Yemen that has been caused tens of thousands of deaths and mass starvation. The vote provides the strongest rebuke yet of a three-year U.S. policy that the Trump administration says it has no plans to end. [HuffPost] DEHYDRATED GIRL DIES AT U.S. BORDER A 7-year-old girl from Guatemala died of dehydration and shock while in U.S. Border Patrol custody last week. [HuffPost]         CBS PAID HUGE SETTLEMENT OVER HARASSMENT CLAIM CBS secretly reached a $9.5 million settlement with actress Eliza Dushku to silence her complaints of sexual harassment by one of the network’s leading actors, Michael Weatherly. [HuffPost] ‘PUTIN GOT WHAT HE WANTED: CHAOS’ Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said that Vladimir Putin’s multi-pronged attack on the 2016 U.S. presidential election won him just what he wanted: the “chaos” of a Trump White House. [HuffPost] GOP JUSTICE QUITS PARTY OVER KAVANAUGH The chief justice of California’s Supreme Court quit the Republican Party because of misgivings about the confirmation hearings for the then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. [HuffPost] GOP SAYS IN PRIVATE TRUMP IS ‘NUTS’ Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said her Republican colleagues are far more honest about Trump in private, telling MSNBC that they think he’s “nuts, weak, doesn’t really understand government, doesn’t care to understand anything complicated, asks and says the most unbelievable things in meetings that clearly shows he doesn’t understand the subject matter, no intellectual curiosity.” [HuffPost] EU REBUFFS MANY AGAIN European Union leaders have warned Theresa May she cannot expect a “legally binding” commitment that the U.K. will not be tied to the bloc indefinitely through the Northern Ireland backstop — heightening the chance that Britain crashes out of the EU with no deal. [HuffPost UK] NATALIE PORTMAN SLAMS ‘RACIST’ ISRAELI LAW Jerusalem-born actress Natalie Portman slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial “nation-state law” formally recognizing the country as a Jewish state despite its large population of non-Jewish Arabs. “It’s racist and there’s nothing else to say about that,” Portman told the BBC. [HuffPost]       The organizers of a Christmas event that took place in St. Ives, England, are apologizing for the behavior of Santa Claus. When smoke machines from an event one floor below Santa triggered a fire alarm, jolly St. Nick reportedly ripped off his hat and beard and told the crowd of around 50 people to “get the f*** out!” “Sesame Street” has introduced a homeless muppet, to raise awareness of a key issue. Billy Eichner took Lin-Manuel Miranda around New York City to play the game “Is Anybody Happy?” Miss USA, Sarah Rose Summers, faces backlash after being accused of mocking two fellow Miss Universe contestants — Miss Vietnam H’Hen Nie, and Miss Cambodia Rern Sinat — for not speaking English. This is how much you should have saved in your emergency fund. New York Police Department officers arrested a 40-year-old woman Thursday after videos emerged of her kicking and hitting a woman with an umbrella while calling her by an anti-Asian slur during a morning ride on the D train in Brooklyn. NASA’s InSight lander has taken its first selfie from the surface of Mars. Taylor Swift has stumbled into the somewhat delicate matter of privacy concerns with her high-tech effort to identify stalkers at her spring Rose Bowl concert in California. Fans of the pop star were unknowingly monitored by facial-recognition technology. Here are five holiday party ideas that have nothing to do with ugly sweaters. First lady Melania Trump’s favorability rating fell a substantial 11 percentage points in just two months, according to the latest CNN poll. Nancy Wilson, the Grammy-winning “song stylist” and torch singer whose polished pop-jazz vocals made her a platinum artist and top concert performer, has died. Jennifer Lopez arrived at the premiere of her new movie, “Second Act,” in a stunning Giambattista Valli couture creation. Susan Potter donated her body to science. It was frozen, sawed into four blocks, sliced 27,000 times and photographed after each cut to create a virtual cadaver. Actress and director Sondra Locke, who received a supporting actress Oscar nomination in her first movie role for “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,” died last month at 74. Here are 11 gifts for the whole family to enjoy together. 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