Trump and Schumer Escalate Spat over Iran, North Korea By Mairead McArdle

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer harshly criticized President Trump’s most recent foreign-policy moves Thursday.

After the return of three American prisoners from North Korea Thursday, Trump thanked North Korean leader Kim Jong-un by name, and said Kim “really was excellent” to the prisoners. Schumer, the New York Democrat who took over as minority leader upon Senator Harry Reid’s retirement, blasted Trump’s conciliatory words.

“We can’t be fooled into giving the North Korean regime credit for turning (over) Americans that never should have been detained in the first place,” Schumer argued on the Senate floor Thursday morning. “It is so troubling to hear President Trump say that Kim Jong-un treated the Americans excellently.”

Schumer added that he thought the president’s comments had weakened America’s leverage ahead of his upcoming summit meeting with Kim, which is aimed at denuclearizing North Korea.

“We’re all rooting for diplomacy to succeed on the Korean Peninsula but we cannot sacrifice the safety of American citizens around the world in exchange for an illusory veneer of peace,” the senator said. “I worry that this president, in his eagerness to strike a deal and get the acclaim and a photo-op, will strike a quick one and a bad one, not a strong one.”

Schumer also slammed the president’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear agreement earlier this week, even though Schumer opposed the deal when President Obama signed it in 2015.

Avenatti Accuses The Wrong Michael Cohens Of Making ‘Fraudulent’ Payments Chuck Ross

Michael Avenatti, porn star Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, released a seven-page dossier on Tuesday containing a list of payments purportedly made to Michael Cohen, the lawyer for President Donald Trump.

But there is one problem with the document: two of the allegedly “fraudulent” payments were made to men named Michael Cohen who have no affiliation with Trump.

Avenatti’s report includes a section listing “possible fraudulent and illegal financial transactions” involving Trump’s lawyer. One of the payments is a $4,250 wire transfer from a Malaysian company, Actuarial Partners, to a bank in Toronto.

The other is a $980 transfer from a Kenyan bank to Bank Hapoalim — the largest bank in Israel.

Zainal Kassim, a representative for Actuarial Partners, told The Daily Caller News Foundation Avenatti’s report is a case of mistaken identity. He forwarded an email the falsely accused Michael Cohen sent to Avenatti requesting the lawyer “correct this error forthwith and make it known publicly” there is no connection to Trump’s Michael Cohen.

“You are surely aware of the fact that this is an extremely common name and would request that you take care before involving innocent parries in this sordid affair,” wrote Cohen, who told Avenatti he is an international consultant who was paid by Actuarial Partners for work on a project in Tanzania.

“Actuarial Partners have already received inquiries from the press in this regard, and we would like to see this scurrilous rumour spiked as soon as possible.”