What a Week Today's Been!

What with all that's been going down on the home front, one might have been wondering where William Barr's been keeping himself, what with being front page news in the whistleblower report and having been mentioned by name by President Trump on the Zelenskyy phone call as being definitely someone who should be contacted with any information he might have about....something to do with Joe Biden or something to do with Ukraine. He's apparently been in Italy--hunting geese. Or chasing them. Something like that.

Everyone is now reminded that Trump did say back in May that Barr would be beating the bushes to get at the origin of the Russian investigation and find the real culprits, even in Australia or Ukraine. I'm just staggered the man is actually going off and doing that. I mean, when Trump said he had people finding out "very interesting things" in Hawaii in the search for Obama's birth certificate, or investigating the rampant voter fraud in California, those were kind of elaborate leg pulls. But this!

Forget about Trump having gotten his Roy Cohn. He's got his attorney general hitting the pavement for him like a private detective. Homuncule Pierrot best mind what he's doing though--it might wind him up in a little gray cell. But everyone is doing it, no? His Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is also off to Europe, with Sebastian Gorka, for some reason. Don't ask me why. Gorka is a man with a very specific set of skills. Just because no one knows what they are is no reason to think they aren't real.

Anyway, today we found out that Pompeo, who seemed a little befuddled about what was in the call summary on the news shows, turns out to have been in on the call.  Do you know who wasn't, though? Recently (it seems like forever ago, but it really wasn't!) fired (or resigned) NSA John Bolton. He did not approve. I once wrote a blogpost called "John Bolton is Still a Bloodthirsty Loon", but you know what? If Bolton wants to dish I will make martinis and listen and drink all the martinis. (He also demonstrates why he was out of the loop on North Korea, but there are no heroes with this one.)

In other news, the IC IG just wanted everyone to know that nobody changed the rules for whistleblowers at the last minute to make this particular report kosher, no matter what the president wants to Tweet. The individual indicated they had first hand knowledge of some things, and second hand knowledge of other things and the report was all good and legal--but you want to know what?

The call summary, though. It still has Trump hanging support over the Ukrainian president's head while he suggests two favors. Congress-approved taxpayer money to help a country under fire from Russia, dangled to help save Trump's orange peel ass. If anyone wants to pretend there is no quid pro quo there (and there doesn't have to be) I would still let them know context is important, because this wasn't the first time Zelenskyy was hearing any of this, apparently. Also, the participation of Pompeo now makes Giuliani's claims that the State Department knew what he was doing seem so much less daft (I mean, still a little, but less).

We still don't know what Giuliani's clearance is. Or if you could really say he was really working as Trump's attorney on this one. (How?) But those things could very well be answered, because Giuliani has now been subpoenaed by the House, and Pompeo is, too.

Apparently, the 2016 election and investigation thereof refuses to die. Would you be surprised to know that Trump may have lied! Lied! To one Robert Mueller? Wow! If only we ever had some prior historical reason to believe that Trump was damn-near congenitally untruthful!

I'm tired folks. I'm thinking I will finish this post, go back on Twitter, and see links to like, a half-dozen more things that got dug up a minute ago. But I will post about them tomorrow, for tomorrow is another day! Or like, a week, in TrumpWorld time.