TWGB: Back to the Scene of Every Crime

 

Donald Trump calls this "a day of love" and said no one died. pic.twitter.com/hEYF7aw2OM

— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) October 17, 2024

Trump pretends there were no guns and maybe no one died or maybe only one person did.  And he wants to pretend they all did come out--the people he calls "we" and sometimes "hostages", for reasons that had nothing to do with his campaign quite openly promoting "Stop the Steal" and having campaign events after the election was over. He helped the disaster that followed because it was a little violence party held in his honor. And he did feel honored. Never try and tell me he didn't. 

He even has his current running mate saying he thinks Trump might have won in 2020. I want someone to ask Vance very pointedly which of the dumb things he believes in: is it the Italian servers? The Chinese thermostats? The German servers Gina Haspel nearly died to defend? Is it the bamboo ballots shipped in from China--or the ballots shipped in from North Korea? Is it the Dawn of the Dead voting by so many deceased people that no one could check it, or was it the supposed hordes of immigrants with some kind of very authentic fake ID? What incredibly stupid conspiracy theory of all the incredibly stupid conspiracy theories that flew about in 2020 does JD Vance want to swear to ascribe to? And what is his proof? 

If he wants to lie so pathologically out of any one of his two pathologically lying faces, I need notes. 

TWGB: King Goon Found Guilty of All 34 Counts

 

Let's just take a beat to bask in what should be a solid moment for criminal justice: a trial concerning a former president with charges determined by a grand jury was brought before another jury, who, having weighed the evidence, found him guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying documents with the purpose of laundering the hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels with the intent to hide Trump's sordidness for the sake of election interference. 

Despite the jurors having to be held in anonymity for their own protection, despite Trump's repeated violation of his gag order, despite his traipsing of various political figures into the courtroom--it was demonstrated that they, the regular folks on that jury, could read the evidence and determine there was no reason but Trump's ambition to be president that accounted for these payments and the false business documents trying to cover up that a payoff had been made. It isn't rocket science, and the chain of evidence wasn't obscure. 

And because Trump is King of the Goons, the Goons are coming out to dismiss the entirety of our justice system, pretend King Goon was victimized and railroaded, and demonstrate that they are willing to destroy our faith in our Constitutional system if it didn't find their little adjudicated pussy-grabber, fraudulent, bankrupt, moron, knuckle dragger, racist pig purely innocent of what all the documentation involved, not merely the testimony of the witnesses, demonstrated quite factually he was guilty of. 

I've spoken before about the categorical error of the Republican Party that they confuse Identity Politics as being to blame for things when the reality is that people face consequences in the real world for their actions. Trump was not found guilty because he is the leader of the GOP or because he is the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee, He is guilty because he was the guy in the dock, who fucked Stormy Daniels and directed his "fixer" to pay her off, and then tried to launder it through his business. That is all. If this was the leader of the GOP and the presumptive nominee for the 2024 presidential contest and had not done that--he would not be in this situation.

He fucked up. He. Did. That. It is not the sin of other folks for noticing it and holding him to account. 

Just So We're Clear About Trump's Trial

 Trump is lying about his defense and what he was supposedly forbidden to do:

Here's another Trump lie. His lawyers, formally notified the court that Trump did not want to pursue an advice-of-counsel defense, which makes his post below a flat out line. pic.twitter.com/dHLZX7QNOm

— David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) May 29, 2024

If Trump pursued an advice of counsel defense, he would have to give up privilege over his communications with Cohen (and that might have been tricky). Same thing with whether he could take the stand--of course he could, His lawyers would have asked him questions within the limits of the gag order and could coach him how to not fuck up--but he would have, and it would have introduced various indiscretions on his part that would impeach him as a witness.

Trump is his own bad news. He's a serial liar and scofflaw. 

Trump also complained about witnesses who were not called up--does he mean Allen Weisselberg? Because nothing was stopping his defense from calling him, other than whether he would have helped their case.

Trump is referring to Allen Weisselberg.

When the judge suggested that he could ensure Weisselberg was brought to court, Trump’s lawyer protested, noting that he wasn’t on the witness list.

Trump’s team could have called Weisselberg to the stand but didn’t want to do so. https://t.co/ZXRV6ObfdQ

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) May 30, 2024

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.

Stormy Daniels Makes a Point

 

Trump's attorneys have tried to slut-shame and impeach the testimony of Stormy Daniels because her testimony is damaging to Trump and her story is exactly what he never wanted voters to hear in 2016: he's a creep, sex with him is coercive yet boring, and left her with bad feelings. If she was about to say, as Marla Maples was supposed to have said, it was the "best sex ever", he might once have thought that a very good advertisement (along with other stories about the Donald's social life, some very made-up). The Trump team's foolish tactics left them trying to get a mistrial because of testimony that they felt "went too far"--and they also asked to lift the gag order on Trump to let him respond to Daniels.

These requests were denied. One reason is that Trump only selectively chose Stormy Daniels as a witness he wanted the gag order lifted for, and behind that there is Trump's savage record of misogyny and his own stated tendency to want to destroy people he views as disloyal.

TWGB: Fresh New Contempt

 

🚨This appears to be a gag order violation. Habba’s title is Trump’s “legal spokesperson.” The gag order also restricts Trump from “directing others” to make statements like this about witnesses in addition to Trump making statements. https://t.co/vYvJyhOUVn

— Ben Meiselas (@meiselasb) May 8, 2024

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but in a situation where re-posts count as violations of the gag order, yes, it seems very likely to me that Trump's paid spokesperson trashing one of the witnesses would also count: he is just trying to use other people's mouths to say what his can't.  

It's clear that Stormy Daniels' testimony made Trump very uncomfortable, and looking again at her story, I see why: it isn't really a story about a fully consensual fling. Although there is some playfulness (the rolled magazine part), the invitation to dinner to have...not-dinner and the discussion of a possible Celebrity Apprentice spot that now looks more like there were sexual strings attached, it seems clear she felt obligated or manipulated into sex. I don't think that it makes him look MORE of a creep to me but solidifies the type of creep he is. 

But at the same time, "family values" choir boy Speak Mike Johnson was saying this:

 

TWGB: This Situation is not Hypothetical

 

In today's SCOTUS hearing, Samuel Alito argued that immunity for former presidents is good, actually, because without it, ex-presidents might refuse to leave office peacefully if they lose reelection...

Make it make sense. https://t.co/HepJVcgN2Q

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) April 25, 2024

If I were to take Justice Alito as a good-faith interrogator adhering to the actual facts of the Trump presidency--the actual president this case is about, and not some future generic president we're just having a classroom thought-experiment about, are we supposed to play along and imagine a path where 1/6 does not happen because Trump can rest safe in his bed at Mar-a-Lago certain that no ill shall befall him, because he had immunity. So, he just gracefully turns over the keys to the established firm:

And maybe that even means he is just fine keeping those documents from the White House that he doubtless acquired during his presidency--several boxes of, in fact--and selling them, because we are just going to assume a president does official things officially, and not shady-ass criminal stuff because one has always been a shady-ass criminal? 

On a day where Justice Brown-Jackson noted that immunity (or should we rather call it, impunity?) would turn the Oval Office into a center of criminal activity, we received testimony that Hope Hicks and Sarah Huckabee Sanders were in contact--via their White House offices, with David Pecker regarding the election interference/hush money cover-up scheme. 

TWGB: Where's the Cavalry?

 

Trump's trial, in a way, involves a bit of myth-making--today we learned that, per an agreement between Trump and David Pecker of the National Enquirer, stories were placed in the paper regarding Trump's 2016 political opponents that were wholly false. So if you were wondering about Ted Cruz's dad, the mad assassin, or Marco Rubio's love child, well--they were bogus. This puts a real damper on the idea that the 'catch and kill" part of the deal, where the public did not read negative stories about Trump's wayward libido had something to do with Trump's desire to protect his family--it was about politics, i.e.--election interference.

Trump also seems to want to create another myth--that there ARE SO throngs of supporters who would be protesting the case against him right now, if they weren't being thwarted by...something. There just...aren't, though. And he's been telegraphing as hard as he can via his gag order violations that he wants someone to save him so bad, too! Where is the cavalry?

Yeah, about the gag order. Trump's lawyers didn't have a great defense for Trump's multiple gag order violations that survived actually looking at the posts Trump has made. But there's nothing accidental about the violations--I think they are very intentional. Trump is what could be called a "habitual line stepper" in any event, but he's smacking right up against witness intimidation and jury tampering quite deliberately, both to see how far he can go and to try and draw a penalty in the hopes it signals to his cavalry that the time has come. 

TWGB: Where Did it Go?

 

So, it looks like Trump is broke. He got Chubb to do his E. Jean Carroll thing, but they'll be fucked if they are standing his fraud trial bond. His lawyers say he can't get that bond, and no shit. This man had debts before he even ran for president. He has big loans from all kinds of people. And he barely owns any properties at all in full or outright. This is actually a pretty old story--Trump never has been worth what Trump says he is.  Trump's value has been about Trump's word--and we know what his word is worth now. 

Even after the NY AG seizes his properties, he may still owe. That's where we are. Because I don't know for sure that he put anything up for collateral for the Chubb bond for the Carroll case, but probably? And what isn't encumbered? 

But here's my naïve question for you all, my readers, in all seriousness, if Trump has been overstating his property valuations to get favorable loan terms, and evading taxes on his business wherever he could, and engaging in various frauds, like Trump University and his slush fund charity and so on, and money laundering and the like--where does his money go that he can't find a half billion in liquidity? Is it a thing where the money is gone and he's just a whole shitting inept businessman who frauded his face off and still ended up in a hole? Or did he invest elsewhere (offshore, you could say) where the money is available to him and he isn't letting other motherfuckers get hold of it? 

Do you think if he graciously lets us see his tax returns for the last couple of years like a responsible presidential candidate, we'll even know? 

South Carolina Sweet Tea Leaves

 

I spend way too much time on Twitter, but I know Twitter is not real life. Dean Phillips just finished 3rd in South Carolina. Despite polling that only had Joe Biden at 69%, he won SC with about 96%. (Maybe they were looking at the results upside-down?)

I see people online trying to say there was really low turnout. President Biden is the incumbent. Nobody expects him to lose. It isn't a sign of ,as far as I can tell, anything, and the spin people are putting on the low turnout takes me back to, um, former President Trump's numbers in Iowa. I also want to point out that SC isn't a state Biden would expect to win in the general (although, no kidding, I'd love to pretend Democrats were competitive everywhere) 

Here's the thing that is interesting to me--South Carolina has open primaries, but you can't vote in both and they are held on separate dates. So what I'm wondering is, what's going to be the turnout for the Republican SC primary, held after the Nevada contest (which looks like a dog's breakfast, and why would any political machine do that to themselves?)  

TWGB: It's A Bad Week. For Trump, That Is.

 

This is a short one, but Trump got told to shut his face, he really is considered a rapist by regular folks, and also, too, he can't move his hush money trial to federal court because why even?  

So, I know, I know, these aren't the biggest things on the big old list of Trump fails, and especially not while we're awaiting the 1/6 indictments or looking forward to his charging in Georgia, and so on. But I just wanted to point out that Trump is definitely getting his time in court for his huge, big, being a sleaze stuff. 

Which people are noticing more and more. 

UPDATE: You know it's bad when he's like this:

Donald Trump says that it would be "very dangerous" for Jack Smith to put him in jail because of his "passionate" supporters. pic.twitter.com/DsWNbRMWZR

— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) July 20, 2023

Is that a threat? Maybe he should be charged for making threats. It really feels like all the more reason why he, and the unreasonable and violent people who like him, should be held accountable, right? Because he's going off.  Off like old raw bacon in the sun. 

UPDATE: If Trump was going to do something he never did before, what would it be? Please a woman? Tell the truth? Give to charity? Be entirely honest? Act like an adult? Pick up the tab? I am sure he's trying to be threatening, but um. There's an awful lot Trump can be trusted to have not ever done before.

TWGB: Finally!

 

Trump truly respects the Grand Jury that returned a vote for indictment on a whopping 34 counts against him, so I don't really understand what all the consternation is about, because they were definitely not a rubber stamp and extremely listened to the legal scholars. Are we supposed to believe this is a witch hunt now, after Trump already admitted it was no such thing? Honestly! What these good citizens determined was that Donald Trump should get his day in COURT to DEFEND HIMSELF against the charges and bring the evidence that the WITCH HUNT is VERY BOGUS AND BAD!

Am I being wry? Yeah. I just yesterday said Bragg might be pulling an okey-doke by making like the indictment was far in the future, and I've been talking about how this case is dead simple and also not--because Trump is very bad and his situation looks very bad. When I hear 34 counts, I know the Pecker vault is open and there is more to the story. But Trump's defenders aren't hearing what a normal person would:

Are we supposed to believe there is a two-tiered legal system where it is a White, politically connected male whole ass billionaire, who is disadvantaged by our current legal system? Like, is he definitely being served by one lone public defender who has no access to the media or any other venue but the court where this civil servant is working x number of other cases, and tries to make Trump plead instead of fucking up the court system for the next umpteen years instead of lawyers who for whatever reason think they are being paid to go on Fox News, OANN and Newsmax all the time to try this case in the court of public opinion and maybe create civil chaos? 

Yeah, that's mental. What Trump also has in his corner is R. Congressmen who have his back as much as they did during his first impeachment, his 2020 election loss (that they challenged) and his second impeachment. They don't apparently give a fuck about the law, the Constitution they swore an oath to just as much as he did and violated it or the very concept of the rule of law and the idea that no one should be above the law. 

But once again: are we supposed to believe that Trump is somehow the disadvantaged one here? The former president, the billionaire, the twice impeached, the admitted pussy-grabber, the seditionist backed by Putin? 

TWGB: We Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

 

So, it wasn't actually Tuesday that the indictment of former president Donald Trump happened, and I'm not really surprised, because why in the world would we take for granted something he says, anyway? While his planned protests (a disturbing idea in and of themselves) weren't especially robust, he got the turnout I should have known he would have been looking for--a lucrative one. Because it's all about that grift, isn't it? He plucked the pigeons for over $1.5 million. 

The emails are kind of disgusting if you aren't a MAGAt. Save our country (from, what, due process of a reasonably-suspected felon?) and it could happen to you! (sure, I don't know how many porn stars you've ever had to pay off to protect your presidential campaign, but sure--it could happen to you!) They operate on the same absurd logic he used during both of his impeachments--they aren't doing this to me--they are doing this to you. 

But of course that is stupid. He pays fines himself. He goes to prison alone. You, the hypothetical Trump supporter, do what political supporters of other candidates have done since forever. You loved Nixon, but now you are okay with Ford. You wanted George Bush but you got Ronald Reagan. You wanted John McCain, but you got George W.  You wanted Newt Gingrich but you got Mitt Romney--look, there has to be a morning after Donald Trump. He's not the only Republican on the face of the planet who can credibly run for president if you can call running for president after one disastrous term with two impeachments, a net loss of jobs, an insurrection and a post-presidential term classified documents scandal plus the threat of multiple indictments on the docket a credible run! 

TWGB: Helsinki Vibes

 

It's funny that Trump put a post up on his Truth Social thingy that wanted to remind people of how he out loud in 2018 admitted he believed Putin over the intelligence agencies of the United States, and how he bad-mouths these agencies and basically always acts like Putin's very own bottom bitch every chance he gets, like somehow that's supposed to be attractive. I'm so sorry to all you real Trump is a he-man believers, but this is bottom bitchery. He got caught fucking with the enemy and he blames people with eyes to see. But he was serving Putin all the while.

Of course, his twisted egomaniac ass denies he got help from Russia, Russia Russia. But he did though. Never forget he did. They even tried to help in 2020 but were stymied by people being aware of his actual performance in office. And Trump paid them back by being a whole ass bottom bitch.  Over and over and over again. 

A Celebrity Apprentice TrumpWorld Grab-Bag

This week was rife with tales of TrumpWorld government departures and speculation about who was next. The firing of Rex Tillerson left some speculating whether the "suicide pact" resignations would be enacted. There was some fluttering rumor 24 hours or so ago that H.R. McMaster was due to leave and the General Kelly was likely to resign. So far, McMaster is safe (or as safe as one can be in that milieu) and as this anecdote supports, Kelly is still fitting in quite nicely as Trump's CoS with all the dignity that position entails:

According to those sources, Kelly recounted a very awkward conversation with Tillerson during which he informed the secretary that President Donald Trump would very likely soon fire him. The awkwardness was less a result of the contents of the conversation than its setting.

Tillerson, Kelly told the room, was suffering from a stomach bug during a diplomatic swing through Africa, and was using a toilet when Kelly broke the news to him.

Sources were stunned that, even in an off-record setting, Kelly would say this—to a room filled with White House officials and political reporters—about Tillerson, who does not officially leave the State Department until the end of the month.

Classy!

Someone certainly had to go. It couldn't be McMaster (and I think this is because the firing got leaked before Trump could pettishly do it by Tweet which just killed the drama) but Trump was planning on fucking with Deputy FBI Director McCabe anyway. And with a couple days to go before he was safe to get his pension and retire--Boom! Time of career death 10 PM EST on a Friday. As one does. If one is AG Jeff Sessions, and supposedly recused from things having to do with the Russian election interference investigation, of which the Comey firing which McCabe has important details about is a part, and which now folds into the Mueller investigation that also includes obstruction of justice because (taking a deep bloggy breath) Trump didn't fire Comey because of his tenderness over how Hillary Clinton was treated by the FBI during the 2016 election, and that surely has nothing to do with his direction to Sessions regarding McCabe in this instance. (I don't really think the recommendation of the OIG matters that much here because we have Twitter-proof that Trump was always fixing to have McCabe fired. Trump couldn't help but let us all know via Twitter because, I think, he doesn't really have much of an internal life.)

In other words--Trump was feeling bitchy and needed to holler "Off with their heads" like the little Queen of Hearts he is. But I don't think it will be without repercussions. If the result from media coverage isn't the pick-me-up the White House Celebrity Apprentice Boss was looking for, Trump has a little list (or a big one) of people he can go to remove (Shulkin, McMaster, really, why isn't he thinking of getting rid of Ryan Zinke? That guy is awful!) to try and give his mood a boost. But some personnel decisions can come back to bite him. McCabe's might, in part because he telegraphed via Twitter his feelings. And also because it ties in to whether McCabe is a witness regarding the obstruction of justice charge(s).  And because he screwed over a guy with 21 years of honorable service to the FBI as a demonstration to other law enforcement professionals who might not actually receive the takeaway perception Trump hoped they did.