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: What Rats Won't Do But Durham Might

 

So, a funny thing happened in the news that probably only makes sense to old heads who have been doing TrumpWorld for all this time--apparently, the hero that was going to save Trump from the whole Russia, Russia, Russia thing still hasn't found the no good dirty scoundrels who implicated Trump in a counter-intelligence investigation to the whole-ass nemesis people sometimes quite plausibly think Russia is, but along the way he did find Italian officials who said maybe Trump was up to some financial crimes. Because it was a day ending in "y" or something. I dunno. 

Now the TWGB stylesheet having one entire unpaid employee (me) insists I interject the following observation: if it looks bad, it is bad. The baddies who said Trump's campaign was probably likely breached by Russian operatives were George Papadopoulos to Alexander Downer. Don Trump Jr. himself via email telling all and sundry folks boasting they were from the Russian government and were here to help.  Paul Manafort changing the Republican platform re: Ukraine. (Look , that article throws a whole cast of characters around and to ease your minds, hush, you know who worked for Yanukovich and has Maidan blood on his ever-loving ostrich boots, it's Manafort. Shh. Don't get it too twisted.) 

Now, I think it's just great Barr was working with Durham, bustling about Europe, raising questions about why Trump was being treated like Russia targeting him was somehow between anyone else but Russia and the Trump campaign, exactly when the 2019 impeachment thing was happening and we were discussing how Trump was fulfilling Putin's best wishes for Ukraine by denying them military hardware in exchange for Trump being given a better shot at being re-elected. 

It's just great because how stupid is anyone who isn't connecting these dots just yet--Durham will never find the damn dirty folks who implicated Trump in the Russia matter because a lot of what implicates him is him. So what else can we have? Side quests. 

They just don't go anywhere great either.  Frankly, I'd love to know what the Italian government shared about Trump. And why Barr and Durham never followed up on it. Did they bury it, the way Barr tried to bury the Mueller report? So, a special counsel is supposed to be independent, but it looks to me like Durham and Barr were cheek and jowl for a while and they covered up Trump's dirt like cats kicking about in a litter box. 

Now, in whole other news, John Eastman is up for disbarment in California, and has some supporters who are sketch as hell.  Trumpworld is like purgatory for lawyers and where folks are tested and figured out in the balance. I say supporters of Eastman are not honest--their hearts are heavier than the feather of Maat and they must do penance before they see the after-Trump life. But that is just like, my opinion. 

UPDATE: Think about the sanctions/disbarment/suspensions/need for their own lawyers that so often confronts legal professionals who work for Trump. It really seems so not worth it eventually. I would love if more people realized working for Trump will get you gout before it gets you clout. 

Giuliani, True Believer

 

Rudy says Sean Hannity, John Solomon, Bill Barr and Mike Pompeo betrayed Trump by suppressing and helping to cover up the Hunter laptop story in 2019-2020 when he brought it to them. pic.twitter.com/VHEZSdPlCk

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) December 13, 2022

You know, I am cynical. But take the "two watches" thing: I think there could be something badly wrong with Giuliani, and I'm not actually just riffing off of his claims that other people are actually old/sick/nuts/dying.  None of the above people named: Hannity, Solomon, Barr, or Pompeo, were actively hostile to pitching anti-Biden disinfo. From the first impeachment, we know very well that all the above-named were on board with the search for Biden dirt.

John Solomon, who was featured on Hannity with his fabulist takes, was found by The Hill to be pushing poorly sourced and misleading bullshit--that mostly came from Rudy Giuliani. For their part, Barr admitting he was accepting information from Giuliani, and Mike Pompeo disagreed with the narrative that Hunter Biden's laptop was a Russian disinfo op. 

They weren't disagreeable to what Giuliani was pushing out, necessarily. But take where Barr ended up on that score: he wasn't going to go out of his way to endorse a dodgy product. I think all of these Trump supporters realized there has to be a morning after and there's a little thread of credibility you need to keep for yourself. And maybe they didn't like what they were smelling from Giuliani. 

And also, maybe Hunter Biden just sues your whole ass off if you are wrong. 

Giuliani is all in. Other people might want to have lives after Trump. Giuliani is this guy. Some gimmick is getting Trump back in office, and maybe, maybe, Giuliani won't even be an unpaid lawyer for Trump anymore and won't have to go without a pardon in his pocket. 

A guy can dream, right? AG Giuliani in Trump's second term. Loyalty paid off. (And it will never happen.) 

And needless to say, if Kevin McCarthy wants to go all in on hearings for the intelligence community professionals who signed a letter saying they didn't think the laptop story sounded kosher--he might just be airing why people who know what they are talking about think TrumpWorld is horrific for national security by politicizing every fucking thing without weighing actual national interest and truth concerns. 

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. 

Things that Make No Sense

 

EXCLUSIVE: Trump told his White House team he needed to protect Russiagate documents ... which he called his 'evidence' of a deep state plot against him.https://t.co/MBHBkGWFcB

— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) September 8, 2022

I can't really remember which one of the Trump hangers-on who opined something on Twitter to the effect of "What if the documents Trump took to Mar-A-Lago had information that was exculpatory about the Russia investigation?" (If your Twitter-fu is better than mine--please help me dig up who that was. I thought it was Mulvaney, but that wasn't it.) And it struck me, that was just stupid.

For one thing--there's the whole Senate Intelligence Report to contend with.  We know the Russia investigation started with George Papadopoulos shooting his mouth off.  We know that Trump constantly referred to the "Russia, Russia, Russia" thing (I for one, always hear "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!" when I see that, but of course, I am a person of a certain age) as a "hoax", but then again, he thinks climate change is a hoax too, and no, it is very real. 

(We don't really talk about how Hurricane Maria was Trump's "worse than Katrina" but I wish we would.)

I also remember AG Bill Barr, the latest truth-telling former Trump SOB flying around to Italy and elsewhere looking for exculpatory stuff to defend Trump on Russiagate, for whatever reason. And by the way, what have we heard from Durham, lately?

If there was anything at all exculpatory regarding Trump and Russia, he would have held 1) a press conference 2) a parade and 3) the nuts of anyone who shafted him to the fire. It doesn't make any sense that he would just ferret the stuff away at Mar-A-Lago, per his own folks' (well, Kash Patel, and he certainly a stable dude, right?)  public statements, with a standing order to declassify, and say absolutely nothing about it at all. 

If Trump had anything in his possession that somehow meant that Russia did not wage a digital campaign against Hillary Clinton and APT 29 did not hack the DNC and spill info through Wikileaks and that Roger Stone and other friends of the campaign weren't in touch with Assange, and Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity weren't spouting Russian disinfo talking points, well, boy, I dunno.  That would surely be really different from the reality I know. 

What makes more sense to me is, there is something in there tangential to Russia that actually screws him over that isn't even being talked about. (Every denial is a confession.) And he would really rather it not get looked at, which is why he "secured" it. But because he took it and it got seized, eventually everyone is going to look at it. Unless it's one of the missing docs that hasn't been recovered yet because it ended up somewhere other than Mar-A-Lago. 

Which is why I don't care if subpoenas/search warrants are still ready for elsewhere in Trump's domain. TBH.  

TWGB: Barr, The Master of Muppets, and the Nuclear Hackeysack

 

Martha: He called you a RINO
Barr: A RINO for him is anyone who disagrees with him that the election was stolen. pic.twitter.com/aNER1VubFu

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 6, 2022

Einstein called it a "gedankenexperiment"--it's where you think something out instead of just believing you know what you might not know. MAGAs follow from Trump's pronouncements to presume that if Trump calls someone a RINO--that is what they are. If he calls the press "lying", they assume that is what the media do--they lie, because the obviously not ever lying Trump said so. Trump has found himself at odds with the media, with people who have worked for him, with politicians who formerly agreed with, at least, his policies. What if the common denominator here is Trump himself--a difficult and self-defeating person whose life is the center of a perpetual clusterfuck machine?

Like I said, it's just a thought experiment, but one that Republicans need to engage in, because they have been the ones making origami swallows of their conscience and their reputations on his behalf. Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon allows for a special master in Trump's stolen documents case, which bodes to slow down the investigation, and even rejected an amicus curiae from former GOP officials who understand very well what Trump did wrong. Aw, c'mon Aileen? Are we really that obtuse? She could have just booted this case on jurisdictional grounds and not been the one to decide to slow down the process with an unnecessary Special Master. This is muppetry. She gave Trump's legal team more than it asked for, and I think entirely for appearances' sake. So as not to get a visit from Trump's flying monkeys. Or at least, I think that's the least stupid interpretation of why she might have. I certainly hope the reason isn't more transactional. 

Bill Barr Isn't Buying It

 

Former Attorney General William Barr appeared on Fox News to say there is no “legitimate reason” for classified documents to have been at Mar-a-Lago and cast doubt on the idea that they had somehow been declassified. Watch: https://t.co/NobM6J2aKR

— CNN (@CNN) September 2, 2022

You could say Barr's institutionalist instincts are tardy, but when they kick in, here, and also with rejecting the Big Lie over widespread voter fraud, they are firm. The man has a quite understandable line: he may be a partisan, but he will not be an idiot. And if a line of argumentation is simply foolish, it doesn't matter what cause it serves if it is beneath one's honor to try to use it.

As with praising Liz Cheney with faint "Damn, girl!", taking note of Barr making a simple acknowledgement of an absolutely obvious thing feels like something I ought to temper before losing my liberal street cred. I am not an utter Machiavellian with respects to how we get by in this political stew, though. It's lovely to think, that, along with a coordinated distancing of various far-right folks who want to move on to DeSantis (Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, Laura Ingraham) that Barr is scenting gangrene in the open wound Trump has been and is finally suggesting that the party amputate. 

It's a Confession, if You're Listening

 

Here's a first--I'm linking to Newsmax because they have themselves a scoop even if they don't know it because Trump made a confession:

Trump fired his ire at the committee, and rejected a hearing claim he mocked Pence as "a wimp" for not kicking the Electoral College vote certifying President Joe Biden's election back to the states. 

 "I never called Mike Pence a wimp," Trump said. "I never called him a wimp, Mike Pence. Had a chance to be great. He had a chance to be frankly, historic. 

 "But just like [former Attorney General] Bill Barr and the rest of these weak people — Mike and I say it sadly, because I like them — but Mike did not have the courage to act. Bill Barr was afraid of certain things, and you know what they were: Please don't impeach me. Don't impeach me. 

 "'Bill Barr, please,' I said. 'What's wrong with being impeach? I was impeached twice and my poll numbers went up.'

Of all the dumb things to reject having done, saying he didn't call Pence a "wimp" (or, the word he wouldn't say there, of all places, "pussy") feels really tame against the actual claim that he vilified the man as a traitor in the hopes that an angry mob would dispatch him. Of course he's being stupid about the impeachment claims. Trump was impeached only once before 1/6. Once. He's retconning what he said. Did his numbers go up? Into 2020, the hell year? 

That's just a stupid thing to assert. But he also did state that he told Pence to kick the Electoral College vote to the state legislatures. And the 1/6 committee says they can verify Trump's involvement in the fake elector plot--that is to say, the scheme of what would happen right after Pence did throw the matter back to the state legislators.  This was the reason that people from Giuliani to Ginni Thomas were working state legislatures hard, to get some of them to overturn the will of the people. That's why Rep. Scott Perry and a raft of PA people need to get their asses looked at. And Michigan, too, and Arizona, and Wisconsin. Because Trump's scheme had them lined up for mischief, and it was this scheme Pence said no to: being Mr. Trump's conveyor belt. 

He's Attached to Reality, All Right

 

Former Attorney General Bill Barr on Pres. Trump pushing baseless conspiracy about Dominion voting machines: "I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has lost contact with — he's become detached from reality." https://t.co/NRwraEI6rO pic.twitter.com/Mx6vQUR9Xq

— ABC News (@ABC) June 13, 2022

 Not everyone is the hero of their own story when they tell it, but very few people make themselves out to be the villain. Bill Barr might have seen through the conspiracy theories that Trump claimed showed that he won, but he helped in his way with creating the illusion that maybe there was something to the voter fraud issue all the same. And if he thought that Trump was actually not in his right mind (as it is possible that Mike Pompeo and Steve Mnuchin considered as well) then he could have just said so.

It clears Trump to claim he was detached from reality, in a way. Poor old Trump, not knowing how to handle a loss, unable to accept it in the gilded frame of reference of his towering ego.  What's a belief to someone like Trump though? He believes he's worth TEN BILLION DOLLARS, give or take. Some people believe Trump is a Christian, but I think he'd be a Hare Krishna if there was any juice to it. It's like telling him something is good or bad, legal or illegal. Believing makes it so, if you have lived an utterly unaccountable existence. 

But two things happened with the curious belief.  He had the presence of mind to try and keep contesting the election on the basis of it, and to fundraise. He's still doing the latter. There's a whole "Trump Won" grift industry out there. It's a fable, but it's profitable. Even if entirely untrue, Trump will hold onto the claims until he's wrung the last iota of value out of it. 

Barr commented that Trump started making these claims directly after the election was called, before those claims could remotely be investigated. This is because he was always going to make those claims. He laughed when referencing D'Souza's "2000 Mules" nonsense. It should be embarrassing for the GOP that people can still make money off of this bullshit, but man, they still do. It's funny that people exist to be fleeced, and it's also very much not. 

How many elected officials and party hacks have also profited off the voter fraud fable? How many people were threatened or materially harmed? It gets less and less funny. Trump is not detached from reality, but even if he was--is the party that has been his support system and cover-up team all, also, detached from reality? Not quite right in the head? 

No. They are completely sane and fully knowledgeable that the claims about Chinese thermostats and Italian satellites and Venezuelan voting machines and North Korean ballots are bullshit, but they have lied right in their voters' faces and took their money and asked for their votes. 

Let me repeat that: they are completely sane and lied right in their voters' faces and took their money and asked for their votes. 

Is it any wonder they would rather people not watch these hearings, and that they want to discredit them?  They saw who these people they have been lying to can be on 1/6 and what they are capable of if their ire is roused. And I wonder if they ever thought what would happen if those voters realized they were being used as sheep--sometimes merely used for fleecing, and sometimes served up as mutton? 

They didn't just let Trump lie in people's faces and take their money. They helped. Even when people were getting death threats. When their families were being threatened. When the violence broke out 1/6 and subsequently people died. 

Get attached to that reality. It's not even about what Trump believed. What they fuck did his little friends think? 

Are They Still Proud?

 

The House 1/6 Committee has shown us the path that Donald Trump--who unquestionably lost the 2020 election--took that led to the events of January 6. They started by demolishing the Big Lie--Donald Trump was told that his weird theories about how the election was rigged against him were bullshit--and by his own Attorney General no less!  They went on to demonstrate how that lie was used to radicalize people to move against the government--even while they called themselves patriots. They demonstrated that the violence that day was not some mild set-to amongst angry tourists, but an actual insurrection attempt, involving known violent shit-stirrers who had stock-piled weapons in the hopes of making whatever horrific display we saw (and it was--if you have the wit to only pay attention) even worse.

We saw a riot. We may have narrowly missed a massacre. 

As it was, Capitol Police recount slipping in the blood of their injured comrades. It was a battlefield more than a regular police effort at crowd control. 

This was Trump's fault (the failure to call in the National Guard was his--was he not President, even if only for the next couple weeks?), but he certainly had every bit of help from the usual suspects, didn't he? Like the GOP congress-creatures who asked for pardons--consciousness of wrong-doing? Like Fox News, who aired their prime-time opinion "talent" without commercials in fear that some enterprising souls might change the channel to discover that the Big Lie was a lie and that the insurrection was an insurrection. 

The US Senators who didn't convict Trump in his second impeachment, because they were complicit?

Trump knew that he lost and he violated the trust that was put in him to uphold the Constitution. Maybe his rabid fan-club didn't understand what that trust meant. Much as I have disagreed with him many times, Vice-President Pence understood it. Rep. Liz Cheney understands it. The failure to have a peaceful hand-over of power in response to the will of the people as expressed at the ballot box was a breach of trust in our institutions; the resulting and engineered national security threat was domestic terror. I would consider it treason--it weakened the United States and revealed a soft underbelly to the watching world. 

Donald Trump planned an assault against the homeland, on US ground we consider nearly holy. 

He belongs the fuck in prison, but I would settle for exile. And the same for his accomplices. Maybe not after the manner of the fictional Lt. Philip Nolan (although Trump himself should live out his life and be interred on a garbage scow), but the kind where they can not touch politics, not to run, to fundraise, to so much as paste up a poster for dog catcher, so long as they live. The kind where they never grace or disgrace the public airwaves again with any lie, big or small. 

I have remained sick at heart for what they tried to do to this country I love--and this hearing touched that part of me again. The scoundrels knew it would be moving and feared it would be persuasive, and so belittled it and warned people away from it as "boring".  The shame is theirs. The disgrace is theirs. They have nothing to be proud of. 

Durham Didn't Deliver

 

Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann is acquitted of lying to the FBI in the first trial of special counsel John Durham's investigation https://t.co/ddFPzN2GgS

— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) May 31, 2022

Every now and then I just stop myself in the middle of whatever I'm doing and ponder that there is a subset of people in this country who genuinely are like: "Why would there be an investigation into the Trump campaign possibly coordinating with Russian intelligence like that was a bad thing or something?" as if, and no, I don't know how this happened, they do not understand that yes, this would be a bad thing.

While the forewoman of the jury has a point that the charges were a waste of time, I guess we did find out one new thing--the Alfa Bank traffic thing is still kind of a puzzle. But what kind of investigation goes on for three years and at best serves up something that feels like "it should be a crime to do opposition research on Trump, for reasons." Like, the real crime here is noticing that something looks bad. And then for fuck's sake talking about it. 

The hilarity I feel is that this is a standard that doesn't seem to exist with anyone else. I keep saying, "it looks bad because it is bad" because Trump defenders seem to have come to the belief that any criticism or claim against Trump (and associates) is automatically partisan or illegitimate. And yet, from George Papadopoulos to Paul Manafort to Mike Flynn, to OMG Don Jr.'s bizarre sit-down at Trump Tower, from Michael Cohen's Trump Tower Moscow dealings to Jeff Sessions' denial of Russian contacts when he had net with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, to Trump's very public "Russia if you're listening..." shenanigans, etc. something was very obviously up with them. 

Screw the Steele dossier (which plays a part in a future Durham production number); in retrospect the worst things we've learned about the Trump crew came from their very own words and actions. What Durham's doing is a distraction to point fingers at the Clinton campaign or the FBI, but it boils down to something that isn't really criminal, just sad:

No fair peeking at Mr. Trump. No fair telling on him! 

The investigation just has the flavor of a burnt offering to satisfy the palate of the toddler Trump, who insists that everything is rigged against him, and everyone is being so unfair, and he deserves a do-over because of all the big meanies who expected him to not be corrupt and stuff and to be held accountable. 

So, of course Trump's defenders now claim the trial was rigged. The jury was predisposed to be against the Trump campaign. So unfair. Because they still don't get it. The Clinton campaign had every right to be critical (it was a political campaign they were trying to win, for crying out loud) of what turned out to be true: it looked bad.

It was.  Nothing changes that. 

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.

TWGB: Rudy Giuliani's Going to Go Through Some Things

 

There are times when I wonder just how good a lawyer Donald Trump's free lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, actually is. For example, when search warrants were served on his residence and his office, he seemed to think the FBI would want Hunter Biden's hard drives, which he for some reason had lying around. But the thing is--it's not a warrant for Hunter Biden's stuff, it's a warrant for Giuliani's stuff, because he was lobbying to oust the US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, among other things. 

This isn't technically about Hunter Biden at all, even though Giuliani seems a little obsessed.

It's also a little hard to blame the Biden Administration for an investigation that was opened during the Trump Administration. It's especially hard to say Giuliani didn't know waaaayyyy back in 2019 that he was getting into some deep water, because the FBI warned him back then that he was making himself a target for Russian disinfo and spreading it hither and yon. 

Which gets at one of the things that has been eating at me since 2016--how in the hell does any reasonably intelligent person come to understand that Russia is trying to influence an election in favor of Donald Trump, and come away with the idea that it's because a Trump presidency is in the US's best interests? How in the hell, understanding what happened in 2016, were they still falling for it for the 2020 election?

The answer is that reasonable intelligence has nothing to do with it. The truth doesn't matter to people who want power for their own ends, and the idea that they are doing any of this for love of country is just sick and laughable. 

But as for the warrants, why! there was plenty of probable cause--I mean Giuliani wasn't actually making a great secret of what he was doing at the time with his classic op sec sensibilities. And as for his utter indignation that he was being searched when a covert warrant (so, uh, a perfectly legal previous search, right?) would have gotten the investigation everything they needed--

To paraphrase Stringer Bell, was he taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy and uploading it to his iCloud? (These TrumpWorld people--they don't learn. Not Roger Stone, not Giuliani, none of them.) Yeah, Giuliani is going to go through some things, Victoria Toensing is, Joe diGenova is....

And really, if they're looking for someone to blame, maybe they need to like, look within. Just saying!

UPDATE: The Washington Post has issued a retraction of its claims that Giuliani received a warning from the FBI, but for the love of all that's good--why would anyone with sense literally even need one? 

Don't Stand So Close to Me

 

Bill Barr is said to have gotten several briefings about the investigation, at least partly to ensure that the then-attorney general didn’t inadvertently find himself standing next to Matt Gaetz at any public events https://t.co/03A5WDAYb8

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) April 2, 2021

Gaetz used cash apps allegedly to pay for the company of women and showed nudes of women he was with to his colleagues, even apparently on the House floor. So, long story short: he wasn't really going out of his way to cover up that he was skeevy, either. He also may have used campaign funds, because, why not make everything worse? 

I guess I'm saying it looks bad.

Ah. That's Why.

Attorney General William Barr said Monday he sees no reason to appoint a special counsel to lead the federal investigation into Hunter Biden, or to further probe President Trump's unsupported claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. https://t.co/JQwINmKTu7

— NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) December 21, 2020

The difference between Barr's POV and Trump's is....quite something. I am expecting some elaboration via Tweet by the President* almost certainly will be forthcoming. (And coming and....)

(Just like we're calling Joe Biden the President-Elect right now, I'm thinking there should be some special term for Trump at this point. "President-Reject"?)

What Rats Won't Do

 

So, this definitely has the lush, rich, crazy suspect-lettered feel of a "resigfiring" all over it, so we all need to ask ourselves, was it just not releasing the Durham investigation stuff (because I see that's about to get all kinds of bulked up), or was it that, plus not advertising the fake claims of election fraud, or was it also something to do with maybe not helping with illegal pardons (yeah, right) or was there somehow something else Barr wasn't going along with? Because the mind does wonder. 

Or maybe Trump got some feelings after Biden crossed 270 electoral votes today and just had to yeet something big out there, and Barr was the biggest thing he could find. You just never entirely know.

TWGB: The Pardoner's Tale

 

President Trump has been discussing the possibility of issuing pardons for his family members and some close associates, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell NBC News. https://t.co/fMlVbecclY

— Breaking News (@BreakingNews) December 2, 2020

I have a funny feeling that there is a good bit of distance between what Trump considers "illegal" and what, say, the law, considers "illegal", so maybe the feeling of being "embattled" that the president has is actually a consideration that people might have the gall to side with the law in the event of his leaving office. He's aware laws might have been broken; he's of a different mind about whom they should apply to.

The idea that he can just issue pre-emptive pardons to his family members that are really broad and not at all about something specific sounds great, and why haven't more presidents done things like that? (After all, close adviser Sean Hannity says Trump should definitely do this, and throw himself in for good measure.) It seems like it might not actually be what the Chief Executive has pardon power for, in other words, but what do I know? 

I know AG Barr during his confirmation hearing indicated that he believed it would be wrong for a president to dangle a pardon in exchange for not ratting him out. Would that apply to something like Trump's willingness to pardon Flynn after it became evident that he was not cooperating with the Mueller investigation? Maybe, maybe not--but if it was a clear as all that (like, he had every right to pardon someone even if it was a matter that traced back to himself), why not just go right to the pardoning regarding Roger Stone instead of all the DOJ business with requesting a reduced sentence before commuting his sentence? 

In TrumpWorld, it has seemed a bit like reality is whatever Trump gets away with. Take the possibility that Giuliani has been looking for a pre-emptive pardon (he says no, and I certainly have no reason not to disbelieve him) regarding the federal investigation into his association with illicit campaign finance schemes and international shenanigans in Ukraine. I've always thought there was a mutual, but fraudulent benefit to Giuliani's relationship as Trump's free personal lawyer, and there's nothing like pardoning Giuliani to basically admit--yeah, it was just like that. (And wouldn't that blast client/attorney privilege to heck?) That sounds to me like something that could pose a difficulty for both of them in the post-Trump presidency.

Eh. As I always say, if something looks bad with this lot, it probably is. Whatever could I make, then, of the news that the DOJ is investigating a White House "bribery for pardon" scheme? I mean, this president, solicit a bribe and abuse power--impossible! (Heh!) You know, unless it was something really good like dirt on a political rival or maybe, at this point, cash money (those notes are coming due, and sadly, the grift only pays for so much).

All I know of is, it's a sad thing that when the names of the lobbyists for this scheme, and the potential recipient of this ill-gotten grace are redacted, there are so many, many possible names of people in the Trump orbit that the mind can go to of genuinely dishonest, unethical, and legally compromised people who might be involved.

There should be a moral to this tale, but it's TrumpWorld, kid. You should know by now morals have little to do with it.

Where Does it All Go?

 

Trump: Four or five months ago when we started this whole thing because you know before the plague came in, I had it made. I wasn’t coming to Erie. I mean I have to be honest, there was no way I was coming. I didn’t have to.... pic.twitter.com/DeTV4jiLmS

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) October 21, 2020

One of the things Trump fans are clinging to is the possibility that the businessman in Trump is going to pull all of this (gestures wildly at flaming mess) together and do smart things in a possible second term. I don't know why they think that, since he could have done smart things in his first term if he really wanted to. But I also don't know why they still believe that he was a great businessman after the details of, well everything about his business, have been floating around in the--

Oh, that's right. They think it's all "fake news". And I guess Lesley Stahl's interview with him will also be discounted as being somehow rigged against him, just like the debates have been, because Donald Trump is a special little snowflake. (But it really does seem to have gone badly based on White House reactions.) I wonder what could have triggered Trump's ire? I mean, she's a pro. 

It could be anything, but it's probably either COVID or his low polling numbers, I'd say. After all, the news that Trump had a hidden bank account (not mentioned on his financial statements) in China only just dropped, so that couldn't have been it. (Although, wow, that kind of undercuts his claims regarding Biden-related China corruption, in that Trump's fictional $1.5 billion claims are distinctly stupid. The real story is actually Hunter Biden can make his own damn money. Whether Trump can is probably more open to debate.) It also reminded folks on Twitter that a White House advisor claimed he got info on Biden via China, which is just precious because he didn't and it was the same thing Trump was being impeached for when he claimed it, and also Trump basically on the phone to Fox & Friends was trying to coax in public and out loud that Bill Barr should investigate/charge the Bidens with....something just Tuesday morning. (Can we impeach him again? Can we impeach Barr?)

And let's be really clear--it's the Trumps who are rampant with nepotism and grift, really. 

So Trump is apparently experiencing all kinds of flailing and shit-lossage right now. Which is an excellent time to bring up how his campaign money game is being run like a roulette table by a sweaty gambling addict who owes bad people big money and can't keep his shit sorted.

It's not that any campaign is bad with money--it's that Donald J. Trump, Super-Jenius' campaign is dumb with money. The burn rate is amazing, and so much is going to Trump properties and odd LLC's (sure). But Trump the Campaign is strapped, even though his convention was held at the White House (and yes, he's totally using the White House for campaign stuff, let's just admit it, and Hatch Act violations all over the damn place). And all the lawsuits. (Those will be an ongoing thing, for sure, win or lose.)

And maybe his campaign doesn't need anything but love, After all, remember 2016? But this is definitely not 2016. And he might be stiffing some of the wrong people this time. 

I dunno. There are obviously VIPs that could find a way to inject cash into the campaign, I wouldn't be surprised. And let's not forget those who contributed so lushly to his inaugural fund last time either. (Do be a love and follow the links for amusement and a shared theme.) My strong feeling though is that the cash shortage is nothing compared to the credibility deficit. What does he have to believe in?

 

The October Surprise is We Made it to October

 

I'm not sure what we're supposed to do with information that some computer shop got hold of a hard drive that is from Hunter Biden and is now in the hands of maybe the FBI and also too Rudy Giuliani who is very strong on the cyber. (Like, this is a thing he took money from people to consult on, which is actually embarrassing.) 

So now that the Durham investigation and the "unmasking" thing are apparently duds, we're going to go back to the Ukraine well that got Trump impeached, huh? If that's where the guy holding superspreader events all over battleground states want to go, to advertise his alleged post-Covid-19 fitness while the pandemic still rages and while his actual unfitness for the job was determined well before he botched the pandemic response, well, ok. As for me, I spent the last nearly four years documenting TrumpWorld Grab Bags of the depth and depravity of this Administration, and this counts as the most desperate and fail-flail stuff I have ever seen from a pack of racist cretins and inveterate liars. 

Naturally, Biden has no record that such a meeting as is the focal point of the email allegation from the hard-drive "evidence" ever took place*--"but his emails" is just recycled 2016 hash, and I would adore to know what emails between Jared Kushner and MbS looked like. I don't want to hear about familial corruption from the Trump Administration/family, who are literally soaking in it. 

Trump is desperate for an October Surprise. He will try different things, some entirely stupid. But it's too late--remember how this whole year has gone? Yeah. That's him. That was his watch. He fucked everything up and is now looking for a lifeline. 

I am not even arsed to play this game anymore and chase down all the ways this shit is fake, because even if it was all 100% true, Trump fucked up everything. The economy is bad. The unemployment is bad. The COVID-19 deaths and infection rates are bad. The polarization and mistrust are bad. His relentless lying is bad, and getting worse, because his brain is bad. 

Even if Biden is flawed or his son is a wee bit of a money hungry fuckup--everything in TrumpWorld is worse than we deserve. And Biden is not that flawed. He has the unfakeable funk of a person who actually gives a damn about this country. Trump World's shitheaded rumor mongering shows he never has. 

*UPDATE: And as Steve M. notes, even if such a meeting did take place, it isn't a big deal--or wouldn't be unless you are already primed to knee-jerk assume there must be something wrong there. Long story short--this is for keeping Trump's rubens on the ranch, but it won't derail folks who already know well and good why they are Team Biden.

Trump: Vote Early and Often!

Turns out, in fact, criminal voter fraud exists

In North Carolina, it's "unlawful...for any person with intent to commit a fraud to register or vote...more than 1 time, OR TO INDUCE ANOTHER TO DO SO" h/t @jgeltzer @JoshStein_ isn't this a crime in NC?
https://t.co/AWM8HhKn4N

— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) September 3, 2020

So, after years of Republicans going on about voter fraud, and Trump himself going on for years about how the election is going to be "rigged", Trump is actually going to be like this, and his Attorney General is going to be like this?

I mean, sure, I guess pulling off a win would be easier if he could get Republicans to vote twice and made sure Democrats couldn't vote once, but that's really not how it's supposed to work, and, all that "one person, one vote", functioning-democracy business aside, doesn't Trump come off like a filthy little cheat?