[WBA-Josh]

Trump has been outplayed from December onwards. He could have had 1.6 billion dollars of funding that the Republican controlled House and Senate both passed. Pelosi and Schumer baited him into boasting that he'd shut down the Government and he'd be proud of it. 35 days of Government shutdown followed by a Committee negotiating a deal to avoid another shutdown and Trump is left with 1.3 billion dollars of funding for 55 miles of barriers. Now he is having his Francis Underwood moment from season 3 of House of Cards by declaring a state of emergency to raid other funds to fund his "glorious wall".

He could have avoided this in December by signing the bill passed by the Republican House and Senate and then continuing negotiations through Christmas and January but he didn't because of his pride and fear of upsetting his base and influential Conservatives like Fox News, Breitbart, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Newt Gingrich. Ann Coulter has turned on him anyway and given him heavy criticism.

This will definitely be challenged in the Supreme Court and if he loses he is back to square one. It also sets a dangerous precedent for future Presidents. What if the next President is a Democrat and they decide to declare a state of emergency for healthcare, education, Climate Change or gun control?

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In the Paul Manafort case, the Judge has agreed with the Special Counsel's Office that Manafort lied to prosecutors during his cooperation. This will mean his sentence will go up.

There is also news of a meeting in New York in August 2016 involving Manafort, Rick Gates (Manafort's Deputy and co-operating witness in the Investigation) and Konstantin Kilimnik at a cigar bar. Mueller's team says it is important to their Investigation so I wonder what was discussed and what happened after. They left separately which makes it look even more dodgy on the surface.