Another departure from the White House, but
then it is almost a weekly affair now. This time it is Gary Cohn, his
chief economic adviser. A former president of Goldman Sachs, he was the
head of the National Economic Council. Apparently he was furious at
Donald Trump's import tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Consumer
Reports (CR) is a U.S. magazine. It tests products in order to advise
consumers. In the March 2018 issue, it tested sport-utility vehicles. Now General Motors products were prominent in ads during the
Winter Olympics. Here is how they fared.
Among
compact SUVs, the Subaru Forester was tops, scoring 84 points, GM's
Equinox was at number 8 (scoring 65 points) and its GMC Terrain was last
at number 10 with 55 points. In the Luxury Compact segment, at the top
was a BMW X3; GM did not place in the top 10. In the Large and Midsize
group, Audi's Q7 was the leader with 90 points. GM's Chevrolet
Traverse Premier scored 67, its Buick Enclave 63 points and the GMC
Acadia Denali 57 points.
Consumer
Reports did not recommend any of these GM vehicles for purchase. The
obvious question: If CR is unable to recommend a GM SUV to Americans,
why would any sane German want to buy one? Angela Merkel had a point
and a good one.
To make matters
worse, Mr. Trump was also sued this week. Now Donald Trump has been
involved in a myriad lawsuits but this one is different. Stephanie
Gregory Clifford is an American pornographic actress known
professionally as Stormy Waters, Stormy Daniels or plain Stormy. On
January 12, 2018, The Wall Street Journal ran a story claiming
that Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump's personal lawyer, paid Stormy $130,000 in
October 2016 (just before the presidential election) for her silence
about a sexual liaison with Donald Trump in 2006. Mr. Cohen claims he
paid the money out of his own pocket implying it was without Trump's
knowledge. Wouldn't anyone love a personal lawyer like Mr. Cohen?
To
complete the transaction Mr. Cohen first set-up a company in Delaware, a
state with the most convenient rules. This company then paid a
Stormy Daniels
representative. Why such elaborate precautions? At the time, she was in talks with the Good Morning America TV program and Slate magazine to relate the story of her affair.
Cohen
denies his client had an affair, denies he was reimbursed by Trump, has
a letter supposedly signed by Daniels denying the affair and the hush
money. He claimed in a statement to The New York Times on February 13, 2018, that the money was for matters with no connection to Trump.
Shortly after The Wall Street Journal story, In Touch Weekly
published excerpts of a 2011 interview with Daniels on the subject of
her alleged affair with Trump in 2006 after she passed a lie-detector
test.
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