Another plea flip, Trump Tower talks in Mueller probe

Just days after two Trump aides — Paul Manafort and former lawyer Michael Cohen — were found guilty in their respective cases, the Mueller probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections appeared to gain steam.

Sam Patten, an American lobbyist, on Friday admitted brokering access to President Donald Trump’s inauguration for a pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch in a scheme that highlighted the rush by foreign interests to influence the new administration. As part of a plea deal to cooperate with federal prosecutors, Patten pleaded guilty to failing to register as a foreign agent for a Russia-aligned Ukrainian political party and to helping the Ukrainian illegally purchase four tickets to Trump’s inauguration.

In what has been seen as growing frustration over Attorney General Jeff Sessions move to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, Trump said Sessions’ job is safe at least until the midterm elections in November.

On Wednesday, Trump attacked CNN, tweeting that the network had been “caught in a major lie” in connection to an article it published in July about claims made by the president’s former personal lawyer, Cohen, in which Cohen claimed that Trump knew in advance about a now-infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in which Russians were expected to offer damaging information on Hillary Clinton. Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, has admitted he was an unnamed source for the article and has backed away from the claims he made about Cohen.