Feeling Blue Anonish

.@elonmusk conspired with foreign leaders to get Trump elected and make himself the de facto President of the U.S. There is no reason to certify the results of this election. The result was achieved via a foreign influence operation and psychological warfare on our citizens. pic.twitter.com/q3vtKOUwl8

— Andrew—New YouTube Channel @LiveFromTheResistance (@AmoneyResists) December 23, 2024

I mean, my rational brain has no proof of anything going on that would stop Trump (Musk and Vance and their various going concerns through Trump) from taking office, but some part of me really, really thinks there ought to be? 

Like it's dumb and not happening and no controlling mechanism that I know of--but still?

I would very much prefer it if a kind of lunatic corrupt, insurrectionist jackaloon was not going to be made president just because a whole bunch of my fellow countrymen seem to be dumb, spiteful, mis-and dis-informed shooting pigeons. As if there actually were grown-ups somewhere who could call a do-over or takesies-backsies or something. I know these aren't real things!

Obeying in Advance, or: "What Rats Won't Do"

 

#FBI Director Christopher Wray announces that he will step down at the end of the current administration.

Learn more: https://t.co/W7xY34F37h pic.twitter.com/FIJ5QIjI29

— FBI (@FBI) December 11, 2024

I hear scientists are starting to use lawyers instead of lab rats in their experiments. They do this for two reasons. For one thing, they become less attached to the lawyers. For another, there are some things lab rats won't do.    

 I get the idea that one shouldn't obey in advance, I really do.  And I get the argument that FBI Director Wray should have said "C'mon and fire me." Take a damn stand. Show Mr. Trump and the world what you are made of. 

But he did that. Remember when he shit-canned all the tips about Brett Kavanaugh? Because I'm not forgetting that. Remember when he took the job in the first place after Trump, Jeff Sessions, and Rod Rosenstein concocted a reason for Trump to fire Jim Comey that wasn't what Trump expressly told Lester Holt (and Sergey Lavrov) the reason was (to end the Russia, Russia, Russia investigation).

TWGB: The Farce of Law

 

Special Counsel Jack Smith has asked for the dismissal of the election interference case against Trump (without prejudice) and has dropped the challenge to Judge Cannon's dismissal of the classified documents (espionage) case--with respects to Trump, not with respects to his accomplices. 

People are pointing fingers. I see a lot of shit being shoveled Merrick Garland's way. I remember the disappointment folks had with Robert Mueller when Barr terminated his investigation and called for the report, which never did exonerate Trump, except in the eyes of TrumpWorld--and people who hadn't been paying attention. Look--I am not a lawyer, and I don't know what all goes into grand juries, planning a case, and dealing with the sheer firewall of money and privilege that comes with a guy being a former president. like Trump's lawyers were able to throw a lot of chaff up in the sights and gum up the works pretty nicely--no matter what the evidence was. 

There was a pretty damn serious PR game going on, too. And it looks to me like the clear news aspects of what Trump had done, and what those around him had done, got lost.

It seems like a lot to reckon with in a short time. I defer to the expertise of people who are experts about these things, and don't confuse my disappointment with a valid criticism--it truly is not my place to judge that part. I know my limits. 

On the other hand, the political aspect of this farce and who to blame for it all is something I feel competent to judge:

I blame Republicans. The Republican party is without honor. Since the Bush years, I have never gotten a fix on which part of them was dishonesty and which part ignorance, and I have long since stopped caring as both attributes are disqualifying. 

TWGB: With Fear for Our Democracy

 

I will respect the limits of presidential powers that I have for three and a half years. But any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law.

I concur with what Justice Sotomayor wrote today:

"With fear for our democracy—I dissent."

So do I. pic.twitter.com/YmrPBMQhgY

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 2, 2024

I took a weekend-sized break from commenting on the "replacing Biden" discourse in advance of this actual decision.  Chief Justice Roberts can pretend he limited the immunity of a deranged and/or criminally intentioned officeholder to their "official acts", but I fail to see a brightline or obvious test for what that actually means. It is the decision of Humpty-Dumpty: When the court uses a word (or a phrase) it means what they chose it to mean, neither more nor less.   

The contentiousness of the debate over whether Biden. finding himself tongue-tied and twisted in a 90-minute fact-free-for all against a serpent-tongued bigot, misogynist, traitor, rapist, and white collar fraud, should step down pales before this--of course Trump is a bad man and Joe Biden is a good man. But who the fuck among them believes in the American experiment of a country of the people, by the people and for the people?  Because don't be mistaken, and far too many were in 2000 and in 2016:

You aren't just voting for a person, you are voting for a government. Will that administration care about good government that tries to lift us all up because it is the right thing to do? Or are you getting a petty tyrant and corruption? (Please ask yourselves what legalizing bribes and inviting everyone to go on ahead and sue to get the law you like, the congress be damned means--draining the swamp my fat ass.) 

Our talking heads and assorted media jackals aren't up to this shit. If Trump has a political enemies list, then the press-the folks he has called "enemies of the people" are going to be on it, it's just a question of when.  And they want to talk about whether an old man with a cold who has won back our allies, stands up to our enemies, and has reinvigorated our economy glitched during a dog and pony show? 

Are they not up to this historical moment? Do they have no read on the failures of history? Are they entranced by the notion that It Can't Happen Here? 

TWGB: Wheels Within Wheels

 

I joke from time to time that we aren't ever leaving the 2016 election, and it's not actually that funny--we're in 2024, but the Trump hush money trial feels like old home week, what with characters from earlier in the Trump Saga popping back up. This week, we will hear from former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who plead guilty to a campaign finance violation regarding Stormy Daniels, Last week, in a story that was overshadowed by the trial, former 2016 Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort decided to step back from his involvement with the 2024 Republican National Convention--for which he was going to work for free, as he did for Trump's campaign. 

"Free" for a value of "access to our political infrastructure" which actually does have value. 

We are never leaving 2016. The Russian disinfo op that tried to blame Ukraine for the DNC hack that profoundly affected the 2016 election (in Trump's favor?) still has echoes in the Trump impeachment and the current-day GOP House still trying to impeach Joe Biden. The story of what happened to Stormy Daniels, now a little bit better understood as coerced sex--a situation not much different from the "casting couch" or the cartoonish image of a boss chasing a secretary (just imagine it in the White House) reminds us of all the stories we just barely heard in 2016 in the wake of the Access Hollywood video, which were drowned out by Wikileaks.

TWGB: Contempt!

 

Reporter: Are you going to testify?

Trump: I have a gag order. I’m not allowed to answer that question pic.twitter.com/ss1c9flfDL

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 6, 2024

Oh, he's allowed to answer the question. Donald Von Shitzinpantz can testify and talk about testifying, this has been well-established. What he can't do is denigrate the witnesses or the jurors. Now, maybe listening to this lying ass is a form of denigration to the jury--but it isn't prevented by the gag order. And for the nth time--a gag order isn't some brand-new fresh thing invented just to give Trump a hard time. It is a normal application of restraint for a defendant who is already liable to fuck with the witnesses or jury in a way detrimental to the pursuit of justice.

So if someone has a problem with Trump being under a gag order, go look at how Trump tries to fix or even rig things to his benefit. He loves the obstruction of justice because he is not a big fan of justice from Mueller to Merchan to his obviously delayed for all the fuckery reasons federal cases. 

He isn't even a big fan of the Constitution if it stands in his way. 

TWGB: Running Interference

 

It's a funny old thing that Trump wants to scream "ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!" with respects to his two lawsuits today. They are both actually election interference lawsuits, in that Trump took extralegal efforts to interfere with what happened in both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. 

In the so-called "hush money" case that Trump lost his motion to dismiss today, the case really has to do with using his business funds fraudulently to cover up information that would tend to prejudice voters against him: that he had intimate relations with an actor in the porn industry while his third wife had just given birth. This kind of secrecy and coverup is a part of Trump operations in general: he has long been an avid user of employee NDA's (which were, as constructed, not a valid truth-quashing mechanism for political campaigns or White House administrations) , and used his friendship with National Enquirer exec David Pecker to "catch and kill" negative stories. 

Trump is really great at using funds. sometimes fraudulently, to cover up things. Some say he used Trump Foundation money to pay to Florida prosecutor Pam Bondi's political campaign org to stop an investigation into Trump University, (I dunno if it happened that way, but the results are the results.) Trump sued Tim O'Brien for pointing out Trump's numbers never did add up because he hated to be called out on what we could have should have known about his businesses. Was it worth it to give some of us a glimpse into what we learned later when his 2005 taxes were exposed--he's been drawing down his liability from a mega loss in 1995? (He still was benefiting from losses when his last six years got opened up later on.) He mightily fought to keep that tax data unknown. Because he was doing crimes. 

Yesterday's Durham Hearing Was Interesting

 

MAGA wants Durham to be someone he is not and say something he cannot. pic.twitter.com/AJFhrKDf3a

— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) June 22, 2023

There's the rub--at bottom, you can't actually deny the evidence of Russia interfering. What you can do, is ignore the evidence of willingness to accept that interference on behalf of the Trump campaign, but at the risk of seeming out of one's depths--as if it were possible to investigate an investigation and come up knowing nothing about it. Even fash-friendly five-head Matt Gaetz was wondering what Durham had been doing with this time. (ALthough he alleged a "cover-up".)

Or you can make false statements to congress because there are just some things you can't say about Trump and Russia--you know, like it never was a hoax. 

After all, Congressional Republicans just censured Rep. Adam Schiff for just that--telling the truth. And for what it's worth, for all the giddy Republicans who noted that Trump's poll numbers and fundraising could benefit from the indictments against him--how do they think a transparently unfair censure of Rep. Schiff is going to make loyal Democrats react? 

This is where the House GOP is now, Speaker McCarthy barely has a grip on his folks, and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert were inches from a catfight over the privilege and pleasure of impeaching President Biden for...something. Eating crackers, I guess. (They also want to expunge Trump's impeachment, but we will always remember the "perfect phone call.")

What's that tv quote going around? These are not "serious people".

TWGB: The Target

 

We're on pins and needles, aren't we? I mean, news has come out that Trump's lawyers have received a letter that he's a target in the documents' investigation, and we also hear that the grand jury is considering charges for Trump under the Espionage Act and for obstruction.  We also are finding out that Mark Meadows has accepted a plea to some federal crimes in exchange for his testimony against Trump, which overlaps both the Espionage case and the 1/6 investigation--which has the bonus of so much admissible stuff against so many people he was texting with, like a whole lot of people. 

For what it's worth, even if the Espionage Act stuff (Two grand juries? with Jay Bratt whose deal is Espionage Act? Hmm!) seems like the real damaging stuff (I think it's bad, because it certainly looks bad), I'm not overlooking the possibility that Trump also eventually sees some heat from the 1/6 stuff, especially regarding the gathering of R. Congress people and talking to assorted goons to that fell purpose. (I consider Flynn a goon. Some people wouldn't but that just attributes to his success at creative goonery.) Steve Bannon has been subpoenaed in that matter. 

Am I confident that we're going to see some indictments in these things as early as this week?  Hell if I know. I know in the short term, based on what I see on the MAGA comments on Twitter, if it happens some folks are gonna be shirt-ripping mad, and then their mommas are gonna be mad they ripped their shirts. 

A Tale Told by an Idiot, Full of Sound and Fury, etc.

 

I'm not literally calling John Durham an "idiot", mind you, because I don't think he is. I also think Jake Tapper probably has the capacity to read and think critically, and you know--I can technically use stairs and take the elevator at every opportunity. What I think is that Durham was given an assignment that was distinctively difficult: try to make an investigation into a critical national security issue seem like it was unnecessary and unfair to a particular 2016 Presidential candidate.

And the very best Durham could do was suggest that, although DOJ and the FBI don't need to do anything different, and even though out of three cases he got exactly one conviction (sentence: probation) the bottom line is his opinion is that the FBI could have been a little slower before going into an investigation that was like, probably just great to be a preliminary investigation based on the little they knew from Downer and the Aussies. 

And after all the Mueller investigation convictions and the Senate intelligence report into Russia's interference in the 2016 election and the DOJ IG investigation report, I'm going to just laugh and say: "Well, you tried." 

Because that's me, a person who has been paying attention. And I know that for people who were inclined to believe the Russia, Russia, Russia thing was a hoax based on whatever Trump had to say about it are very inclined to take Durham's word that despite the lack of any connecting of dots to support his conclusion that the investigation still seems hinky to him and will fast-forward to that conclusion whether there is any strength to that argument. 

TWGB: Just the Mob, Russia, Echoes of 2016 and 1776

 

Depicted above is Donald Trump, former president, with Skinny Joey Merlino, formerly, to the best of my knowledge, of the Philadelphia mafia, if that's a thing, about which I have little to say. Anyhow, Trump very recently crowed that he had information about every person who came down to Mar-A-Lago and should know who Merlino is and so I would be astonished if this was accidental. Please--he doesn't care. He didn't care about Nick Fuentes, and he doesn't care about Joey Merlino--he needs all the friends he can get. He has long depended upon the kindness of strange people. 

Why is this my lead-in into today's TrumpWorld Grab-Bag? Because this is a long and strange journey spurred by an echo of the 2016 campaign: a former head of FBI counter-intelligence in the NY office was arrested for taking money from a Russian oligarch with ties to the Trump Russia probe.  This is the outcome of an interesting story that gives us a little more about McGonigal back when this was in the grand jury stage. 

The federal scrutiny of McGonigal is especially striking given his work at the FBI. Before his retirement in 2018, McGonigal led the WikiLeaks investigation into Chelsea Manning, busted Bill Clinton's national security advisor Sandy Berger for removing classified material from a National Archives reading room, and led the search for a Chinese mole inside the CIA. In 2016, when reports surfaced that Russia had hacked the email system of the Democratic National Committee, McGonigal was serving as chief of the cybercrimes section at FBI headquarters in Washington. In that capacity, he was one of the first officials to learn that a Trump campaign official had bragged that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, sparking the investigation known as Operation Crossfire Hurricane. Later that year, FBI Director James Comey promoted McGonigal to oversee counterintelligence operations in New York. 

Pretty flipping fascinating, no? Anyway, the NY office was described back in 2016 as TrumpLand and definitely leaked info regarding Anthony Weiner's laptop to various people, prompting James Comey's announcement of the reopening of the Clinton email case, which a lot of folks are pretty sure sank the election for her. And I don't know this for a fact and don't want to impugn the NYT's reporters on this, but even though the CI investigation of Trump in 2016 was based in DC, I would not be surprised if the front page news that the FBI found no connection to Russia in 2016 was leaked from that office. Funny how the folks not looking for it weren't finding it. 

TWGB: How is Trump Doing Today?

 

If your answer to the titular question is "ready to set fire to the Constitution", then yay! You got it in one. Today's manic post on Truth Social reads:

So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great "Founders" did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!

So, I guess he's unhappy?

Now, far be it for me to put words into the mouths of the "Founders" (what is with Trump and the quotation marks?), but our elected officials swear an oath to the Constitution because without laws, we don't have a government, but anarchy. You might even say, if we throw out the Constitution, we "wouldn't even have a country," to use the refrain uttered by Trump and other "Flight 93 election" folks on the right.

It sounds like. once again, Trump is spouting a little too much "truth". Just as he acknowledged taking classified documents transparently, he is now telling us that he wants laws broken to restore him to office. He knows there's no Constitutional basis for any kind of a do-over. but it doesn't matter--he wants another chance and quickly.

It seems like this post coincides with the "revelation" of supposed Biden campaign-influenced suppression on social media of Hunter Biden stories in the "Twitter files" Elon Musk dropped last night. The funny old thing is--there isn't a there, there. To the extent there was any government influence, this happened during the Trump Administration, so whose government was it?  And many career IC officials felt, from experience, the Hunter Biden laptop story should be distrusted because it looked like disinfo.

Experience like the foreign disinfo campaign that went hard in 2016. In favor of Trump.  

It also coincides with another bad week for Trump in the courts,  As in:

Five members of the Oath Keepers were convicted for serious felonies relating to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that the former president instigated. The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows must testify in Georgia’s criminal investigation into his attempt to overturn the state’s results. And a federal judge denied Trump’s claim that he has absolute immunity from civil suits.

And people are still talking about how his friend Ye is having a very public racist meltdown. And also, Pat Cipolone and Patrick Philbin testified before a grand jury Friday and an appellate court dismissed "Loose" Cannon's Special Master ruling. And the Ways and Means Committee has six years of Trump's tax returns. And the Trump Organization fraud case goes to a jury on Monday...

I'm sure Trump is writing a new Constitution on the Mar-A-Lago walls in ketchup at this point. 

But as the old saw about "taking Trump literally or seriously" goes, we've seen by now--after 1/6? I take him very seriously and literally. He definitely is encouraging the breaking of laws to get him reinstalled in office. That's why he has shown so much solidarity lately with those arrested and tried for their participation in the 1/6 insurrection. 

He still means to do terrible harm to this country, and that people still support him is appalling.

TWGB: Something Special?

 

With Trump's announcement that he was going to run in 2024 (not that I think that should have come as much of a surprise--although for my part, I was surprised to see that he not just announced, but also filed FEC papers), I don't think the appointment of a special counsel to insulate the investigate from claims of partisanship and political fuckery sound too far out of whack. 

I mean--it's pointless because Republicans have been crying partisanship and political fuckery all along. Trump's own announcement contained the claim that he was "a victim".  The announcement of the appointment of  a special counsel has GOP stalwarts in much umbrage--which is wild since the new GOP majority in the House has been crowing about how happy they will be to investigate Hunter Biden and impeach the current president. Public perception is a fine thing to talk about, but our national perspective is pretty far out of whack...and on a very particular side. (Although Trump's own AG, Bill Barr, the one who squashed the Mueller investigation, but also negated claims of mass voter fraud, admits that Trump is very likely headed for indictment--I say, he's partisan, but he is not a dummy.)

So really, it's about the end of the 1/6 Committee in the House and Merrick Garland being subject to the clown parade of a GOP-led Oversight Committee. Sure, there will still be some criticism from the right--but hopefully, things proceed from this point will all deliberate speed.

I don't have an opinion about Merrick Garland's or the DOJ's ideas about timing because, as always, I don't play a lawyer on this blog. I'm seeing on Twitter the usual war between the "there's a plan, just be patient" folks (who told us Mueller had it in the bag-- and I am old enough to recall folks wishing one another a very Merry Fitzmas) and the people who believe justice is being delayed and denied RIGHT NOW! Because obviously the man is guilty as a sonuvabitch and so are all his little friends!

It's dueling banjos. There are two things to look at--part of which I know hardly anything about, which is the time it takes to build a case that will be effective in a court of law, and the part I think I've got a handle on--the flagging attention span of the public and the easily-manipulated notion that if the man hasn't been indicted yet, then truly, they must have nothing on him. It might not be true, but it feels true. Because tell me, legitimately: if someone was behind a coup to overthrow the lawful government, or stole top secret documents, shouldn't their ass be under the jail by now?

This is how Trump goes around with his whole chest out telling people he "won't partake" in an investigation as if he was declining a glass of wine. Although there's plenty of evidence, as far as he's walking around able to run for president and be a pest about whether our elections are fair and running his various (under investigation) companies, he can claim he's as pure as the driven snow. 

He's pure as a driven slush fund. 

So, while I'm skeptical about results (after all this time), I don't think the appointment of Jack Smith has anything to do with slowing things down--he's being called up from where he's been prosecuting war criminals at the Hague, and that sounds to me like a guy who can handle a case against heavy hitters. He's not starting from scratch, and he will be getting what the 1/6 Committee already has. I don't have a reason to believe any of this is a set-up for failure.

But this case better move along with strength and speed, because it carries a lot of freight with it, including our national security and the future of democracy. 

TWGB: The Wild Card

 

This was another one of those weeks where it felt like Trump was on the verge of a comeuppance. I'm starting to hate that feeling. It's the kind of hope you feel when you think Michael Myers has been finally shivved for good just before he bounces back up again. 

Sure, he was deposed in the defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll. I note that he spewed the same comments against her, now, as a private citizen, that he did when he was president, and kind of hope that means his defense that he said what he said as a defense of himself as the holder of the officer of president goes away, now that he has said the same thing as a private citizen. I also don't see any indication that he turned over a DNA sample. It just seems to me that if the DNA sample was the thing that definitively "set him free" from her claims, he wouldn't be loath to provide it--so what's the deal? 

There was a time when this kind of scandal might have rocked a political career, and still, the mainstream media treats this man, the one-term twice-impeached self-described pussy-grabber--as a completely viable 2024 presidential candidate, even while he is under investigation for stolen government documents under the Espionage Act, his business is under investigation in a civil case in NY, his conduct related to the 1/6 insurrection attempt is under investigation by the 1/6 Committee,  and his attempt to fraudulently disrupt the Georgia vote count is under investigation by a grand jury in Georgia. 

Durham Yeet

 

For a little while, there. MAGA had a lot of faith that the Durham investigation was going to lead to some kind of version of the Qanon "storm" where just loads of the Deep State operatives who always had it out for Trump would finally get their asses in serious trouble. The theory, as far as I can understand it, is: there were people in the USG sympathetic to the DNC who engaged in some kind of shenanigans to create a totally FAKE!!! investigation into Trump's completely innocent Russia connections to try and DESTROY HIS PRESIDENCY!

Durham was going to be the guy who uncovered the vicious plot against the one term-twice impeached wonder and suddenly, after a methodical study of all the facts, thoroughly exonerate Trump and his absolutely sterling and not at all dodgy character as not just a 2016 candidate for office but as a human, a father-figure, an aspiring Christian and a chosen leader for a more righteous America, and justify everything he ever did in his four years, forever and ever, we are not owned and turning into corncobs, AMEN!

And that did not happen, because the entire concept is incredibly faulty and not based on any facts in the entire world. So once again, Durham tries to get some kind of conviction, and it does not happen. 

TWGB: The Clown Suit

 

I got home from work and discovered to my joy upon hitting up Twitter at the dinner table (don't judge!) that Trump, pro se!  (something, something, idiot for a client) had filed for a bad court thingy against the federal government for being big meanies and taking his precious. 

I mean, the search warrant was as very warranted as a very warranted thing, if you go by the standards of: the FBI actually got reams of the sort of thing they went in to retrieve because it was, in fact, holed up where the informant(s) claimed they were. But Trump has various objections to this standard 4A process, to wit:

1) I was complying in every way possible except for handing over all the docs and actually lying about still having them.

2) It's very unfair to bring politics into this, but DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?

3) Did you know this would make my superfans really angry? You won't like them when they are angry!

And then they came for the wealthy and well-connected, and I Laughed my ass off.

 

a Trump lawyer (Alina Habba) floats the idea that the FBI planted evidence at Mar-a-Lago. That's the second time today a Trump lawyer has floated this. pic.twitter.com/vdIjxFTtp4

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 10, 2022

Maybe there is something explosive in there, but it was as rigged as an election that more or less behaved as the poll numbers always suggested.  It really sounds to me like someone is hedging expectations for a big and damaging reveal. They, unlike you and I, have seen the warrant. 

The GOP is steadily going ahead with the "If it can happen to Trump it can happen to you" line. Look at the 1/6 rioters who came to the Capitol because Trump told them to, and look at Trump, who initiated the lies that got them there, still walking around as free as a bird.  No--things happen to you if you don't have the insulation of money and connections. Things aren't supposed to happen to people like Trump--and that is exactly why he behaves the way he does. 

Police have been planting things like small quantities of drugs and toy guns besides the bodies of slain youth in some communities. They sometimes have done so to live people, who don't have the resources a former president does, to perhaps gather around himself a roundtable of helpful GOP congresspeople to strategize with. 

People lose their freedoms, their life savings, and their homes due to unfortunate circumstances all the time. Trump stole top secret US documents like they belonged to him for a reason we don't even know and just got served a search warrant to get the things back (or it there more to it--worse? If it looks bad it is bad?), and his GOP buddies lined up to protect him. That isn't a former president, that's a capo. They support him, but what part is respect and what part fear?

I feel like it's a lot of fear, because given what he does, I don't know how he gets respect. Maybe Republicans are just badly potty-trained and can't sort out the difference between fear and respect. 

But I laugh whenever I see "If they can do this to a former president, they can do this to you" stuff.  Sure. Me and my how would I even get 15 boxes of top secret information ass is sweating that ridiculous supposition.  I also never started an insurrection or extorted another world leader.  What a load of stupidity! He has rights, in court, where I guess we can get a load of his actual, not public relations, defense. 

TWGB: It Really Ties the Room Together

 

Breaking News: Thomas Barrack, a friend of Donald Trump and one of his top 2016 campaign fund-raisers, was indicted on federal charges of violating a law requiring lobbyists for foreign interests to disclose their work.https://t.co/G8FNAZWqGs

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 20, 2021

I couldn't help but chuckle to myself when I read about Barrack's arrest for working on behalf of UAE to influence Trump, because, goddamn it, didn't everyone? Well, maybe not UEA (although, I mean, Elliott Broidy) but you know. Barrack influenced Trump's campaign speech in a way favorable to UAE the same way Manafort influenced Ukraine policy during the 2016 campaign. He wrote an op-ed just like Mike Flynn did his oped for Turkey. (You know when Giuliani wasn't palling around with Russian-affiliated Ukrainians he was also doing his bit for Turkey, right? It's hard to keep things like this straight, but I do try.) And everyone knows Trump for whatever reason was always trying to have good relations with Russia. So what was the stated Trump foreign policy? 

Right: America First.  It's a punchline like "The Aristocrats" is a punchline, and the joke is pretty scandalous if not outright foul.

I was a little surprised that it didn't have anything to do with the Presidential Inaugural Committee stuff (I guess that was top of mind for me, thinking about how Allen Weisselberg was looped into that mess and yet they weren't going after him for that right now, either), but then I started thinking about Thomas Barrack the way one does.  Because he ties the room together. The little story that kind of never got to be the scandal it should be about what for all the world looked like the US was supporting SA and UAE blockading Qatar--and how Jared Kushner ended up getting his big old steaming 666 Fifth Ave debt taken care of (well, if the Chinese won't help...what can one do?) Barrack was right there.

Oh yeah, and then there was that madcap scheme he had with Flynn to sell nuclear tech in the Middle East because you know what? Why not? (You might wonder why Flynn, a paranoid Islamophobe, would think this idea was great, and the answer I have for you is, uh, well money, right? Because whenever I see that bantam rooster crowing about his patriotism, I feel like like I just ate a whole tinfoil sandwich.)

There's probably more there, but it's late at night and I'm just thinking about how that 74 year old wealthy dude is going to sit in jail thinking about stuff until next Monday. 

And I can't help but chuckle.

This TrumpWorld Grab-Bag Hates Disco

 

It's always amazing to me that when I try to do an omnibus post of TrumpWorld news, there's still some crumbs left behind. For example, when I posted my latest regarding the Barr memo and the McGahn testimony stuff (of which, I guess there will be more to come) I didn't include the funny old news that former Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, is suing former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the US Government for his legal fees. I guess it's because I wanted to focus on the Russian 2016 matter (the impeachment that wasn't, since Barr snaffled the Mueller Report) and this was so very late 2019 and early 2020. But of course, it's meaningful--why is Sondland important?

It's because he threw Giuliani under the bus and copped to how Trump directed Ukraine policy to be run through Rudy Giuliani of course. That is very significant, what with the current legal cloud Trump's former (I guess?) pro bono lawyer is under (which has been growing!). 

So here's the deal--were Sondland's legal fees supposed to be covered by the State Department by law, or was there an agreement? And what kind of agreement was it, and did it get reneged because Sondland said the wrong thing? 

I think that's a hell of a multipart question, right? So, I think some answers might be suggested if this shit gets settled RIGHT AWAY. And that's because there are reasons some folks might not want this one to drag out, because Mr. Sondland said everything that would keep him from being caught perjuring himself during the impeachment hearing, but he didn't say everything he possibly knew. (That's my completely unprofessional opinion, so, FWIW). Also Mike Pompeo wants very badly to be running for president and used his office to help him set up, so he isn't about to to let that get fucked up. And you know, covering up how much fuckery was involved in Trump's 2020 campaign (where he still lost the election, by the way) is practically a "personal favor" to so many people. So really, what's $1.8 million? It's petty cash for this banana stand and how Trump would do it, TBH. 

I guess some questions might get answered if this drags out, too (and in the Giuliani matter, the discovery is really like, in the iClouds and whatnot), so. Happy findings!

Here's the funny old thing--back when Giuliani seemed to be a patsy for laundering Russian disinfo for the 2020 election which is still is ongoing wherever election fraud narratives are sold? There's reason to believe TrumpWorld knew exactly what they were doing and didn't give a shit, because there was money involved.  Sort of like how they don't give a shit about the Jan. 6 insurrection attempt--they would not like to offend the sources of their patronage. No wonder McConnell thinks putting the kibosh on investigations is a really personal favor. 

But this is TrumpWorld doings that basically still benefit...Trump. The guy whose business practices are under investigation because...like, duh? Who might not even be a viable candidate come 2024 but is still being treated like the leader of a party that simply has no vision. 

Because if they bothered to look, who knows what they would discover? 

Old TrumpWorld Grab-Bags Never Die

 

It's amazing to me that six whole months after Donald J. Trump, twice-impeached one-term president and current Florida Man, dramatically lost the 2020 election and then whined about it incessantly, I'm still writing TrumpWorld Grab-bag posts. Why can't I just treat him like any other private citizen newbie blogger trying to figure out his platform who really needs help?

Because this country either takes a long hard look at this guy right here, now, and the damage done, or nothing, not one thing, gets better. That's why. The Republican party needs to address how damaging and bad he was so they can improve, if that's ever going to be a thing. The Democratic party needs to address how damaging and bad he was so they can understand how you can not rely on Republicans' good intentions or judgment to save us. We all need to understand why crime-adjacent amoral reality show hosts aren't fucking responsible government leadership material. And we need to get to just how much he fucked up if we ever want to unfuck it.

Anyway, you might ask yourself, where is that unsealed Barr memo we were supposed to be getting? And then cursed Merrick Garland out for not wanting to release all of it. (Or, I don't know, maybe you're normal people, but if so, what are you doing here?)  So, I get the equity of the thing--the DOJ has ongoing matters and maybe not all their business needs to be out in the street, so this is protective--not of Barr, but just the agency in general. It's also a little political: 

Why, no! Nobody here is slavering for the heads and entrails of the previous administration's stalwart cover-up artists, that would be petty and beneath us and besides....

We have time.

The idea that DOJ doesn't go after a sitting president is one of those known but untested things--it's right up there with the extent of executive privilege. Mueller took it for granted in his report. I keep going back to the "murder on 5th Avenue" hypothesis though--what if you got him dead to rights? What if the president is engaging in unlawful activity for no discernible national interest at all, but only self-interest? That's an investigation in and of itself--what is the interest, which might not be readily discernible but still exists, for a president to ostensibly be covering up his own dirt like a cat in a litterbox? But you know--for the people? My gut feeling says --no Trump was covering up his own dirt for himself. 

Maybe Congress will have the Russian investigation obstruction elucidated for them a bit when former White House counsel Don McGahn testifies in a closed-door hearing as soon as next week (instead of like, a year and half or so ago when it should have been).  McGahn has always been a little fascinating to me as having been involved in a complicated maneuver (as I understand it) of being asked to fire Mueller, and then lie about whether he was asked to fire Mueller, and then be asked to lie about being asked to lie. (Trump loves to get people fired, even if it's stupid--getting Comey fired got him the Mueller investigation. If Mueller was fired, that would have been super Saturday Night massacre. And he also wanted to fire his own appointed FBI Director, Christopher Wray, because something something Russia, something something "election security".  Weird, right?

Anyhow, in more Mueller-era stuff, some of the redacted information from the Manafort trial has been unsealed, and whoo! Manafort and Gates were just all over the place contacting Konstantin Kilimnik with polling data and whatnot and discussion of a Ukraine plan that would have Russia in control of part of the region. (Yes, this mattered during 2016, and regarding the first impeachment. TrumpWorld using Ukraine to get/keep Trump in power. It still matters.)

If we're still getting stories relating to the 2016 election--here in 2021? How long will be be looking at the 2020 shenanigans--what with the ongoing rehashing of the election results and the attempted insurrection and all? (And what shenanigans they were! And in the case of the "fraudits" and voter suppression laws, still are!) I may very well be writing these things forever.