Russia

Trump Blatantly Lies About Russian ‘Witch Hunt’ According to the Journalist He Misquoted

Posted by on December 18, 2018 at 12:18 pm. NO Comments :

With each new day Donald Trump demonstrates evermore fear and desperation due to the mounting evidence of his collusion and conspiracy with Russia to undermine an American election. He behaves precisely the way one would expect a guilty man to behave, by distorting facts, distracting from the issues, and maligning his critics. It would be pathetic if it weren’t so troubling and dangerous.

Donald Trump

On Tuesday morning Trump went to new extremes to absolve himself of any liability for his felonious actions. In a series of frantic tweets, Trump presented what he said was a case for his innocence made by journalist Michael Isikoff, co-author with David Corn of Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump. Isikoff was interviewed by John Ziegler, however, Trump got his analysis of Isikoff’s remarks from Fox News, as usual. But what Trump tweeted (here, here, and here) was far removed from reality:

“Russia Dossier reporter now doubts dopey Christopher Steele’s claims! “When you get into the details of the Steele Dossier, the specific allegations, we have not seen the evidence to support them. There’s good grounds to think that some of the more sensational allegations…..”

“….WILL NEVER BE PROVEN AND ARE LIKELY FALSE.” Thank you to Michael Isikoff, Yahoo, for honesty. What this means is that the FISA WARRANTS and the whole Russian Witch Hunt is a Fraud and a Hoax which should be ended immediately. Also, it was paid for by Crooked Hillary & DNC!”

“Michael Isikoff was the first to report Dossier allegations and now seriously doubts the Dossier claims. The whole Russian Collusion thing was a HOAX, but who is going to restore the good name of so many people whose reputations have been destroyed?”

There is a whole lot of wrongness in there to unwrap, starting with Trump’s typically childish insult of Steele as “dopey.” More to the point. Trump falsely asserts that the FISA warrants are a fraud even though none of this addresses them. What’s more, the Steele dossier was not a primary source of evidence for granting the warrants. Also, Hillary Clinton didn’t pay for the dossier. Her campaign paid Fusion GPS to do research and they hired Steele.

So Trump is attempting to use Isikoff’s comments as absolution for his crimes. But Trump left out the most critical parts of the interview. Those omissions were pointed out by the interviewer, the interviewee, and his co-author. Isikoff had plenty to say about Trump’s adventures with Russia that the President failed to mention. For instance:

“In broad strokes, Christopher Steele was clearly onto something. That there was a major Kremlin effort to interfere with our elections. That they were trying to help Trump’s campaign. And that there were multiple contacts between various Russian figures close to the government and various people in the Trump campaign. That much, I think, has been established by the public records.”

And also that:

“The Trump campaign and its campaign operatives, Donald Trump Jr, Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, were active in ways that was clearly inappropriate and that they shouldn’t have done. And that they concealed this from the voters.

“And the Moscow Tower project going on in June of 2016, with direct conversations between Michael Cohen and an assistant to Dmitri Peskov, a press secretary to Vladimir Putin, was incredibly significant, concealed from the voters, and gives the lie to Donald Trump’s repeated statements during the campaign that he had nothing to do with Russia. That nobody connected to his campaign had any contacts with anybody in Russia.

“I mean, the President during the campaign, as a candidate, seriously mislead the American public about what was a very important issue. And that was the questions about what the Russians were up to and his own dealing with the Russians. So all of that is true.”

What more needs to be said? Isikoff clearly stated that Trump was deeply involved with Russian figures and that he lied about it repeatedly. But Trump ignored all of that and distorted Isikoff’s words to say the opposite, and ironically, thanked him for his honesty. That tells you all you need to know about Trump’s aversion to honesty and his determined intent to mislead and spread falsehoods at every opportunity. It’s in his nature, and we can expect it to continue until he is removed from office. Hopefully in handcuffs.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

‘Explosive’ Fox News Story on ‘Abnormalities’ of Russia/Trump Probe is a Fizzling Stink Bomb

Posted by on October 3, 2018 at 7:56 pm. 2 Comments :

The controversy over the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court has pretty much taken over the media for the past week or so. It’s an important story, but not the only one with profound implications for our nation’s future. For instance, remember that story about Donald Trump colluding with Russia to steal the 2016 presidential election and then obstructing justice to cover it up?

Fox News, Donald Trump

Apparently Fox News just recalled that story as well. So they had to find something – anything – to write about it to keep their spin on the matter fresh in the public’s mind. Just in case special counsel Robert Mueller happens to release any reports or new indictments. But the story that Fox came up with is a pitiful pile of nothing that only serves to advance the baseless ranting of a couple of ultra-partisan, extremist, Republican wingnuts.

The article’s provocative headline screams out “Top FBI lawyer Baker offers ‘explosive’ testimony on ‘abnormal’ handling of Russia probe into Trump campaign.” The gist of this yellow journalistic mush concerns testimony given to a closed-door congressional committee by former FBI lawyer, James Baker. Fox News asserts that the testimony revealed “explosive” information about how the Bureau acted in an “abnormal fashion” and engaged in “political bias.” But the sources for this scoop were House Crackpot Caucus leaders Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan. These paragons of rightist propaganda had this to say about the testimony:

“Some of the things that were shared were explosive in nature,” Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told Fox News. […] We found the source to be pretty explosive,” said Rep. Jim Jordan.”

Well then, that settles it. You can’t argue with hardline, substantive facts like those. And that was literally all this pair of GOP gossips had to report. Yet somehow Fox News expanded it into a an article that even they couldn’t pretend had any meat to it:

“The lawmakers would not provide many specifics about the private transcribed interview, citing a confidentiality agreement with Baker and his attorneys. […] Meadows and Jordan would not elaborate on the source, or answer questions about whether the source was a reporter.”

So the entire body of evidence for this story was the unsubstantiated ravings of two notorious fake news disseminators who are frequent Fox guests. They offered no information that was either “explosive” or “abnormal,” other than in its utter uselessness as a news source. But it was enough to get Fox News to feature it with a boldface headline that advanced its empty premise. And that is exactly how deceitful State TV operations like Fox conduct business in totalitarian regimes like Russia and North Korea. Clearly Fox News is taking lessons from Trump’s pals. Or is it the other way around?

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Poor Trump: He’s ‘Sad’ that He Doesn’t Have an Attorney General Who Will Help Him Obstruct Justice

Posted by on September 19, 2018 at 11:24 am. 1 Comments :

For someone who has sold himself as being tough and unbending, Donald Trump sure whines an awful lot. But then again, he actually did say that “I am the most fabulous whiner.” So America should not be all that surprised when he incessantly complains about how he is being treated so unfairly and that everybody is out to get him.

Donald Trump

The latest example of the Crybaby-in-Chief’s infantile carping came during an interview with The Hill on Tuesday. There was little in the way of actual newsworthy revelations in the discourse, but Trump did let it be known that he was a sad puppy. “I don’t have an attorney general,” he said. “It’s very sad.” He went on to whimper that he’s “not happy at the border,” and “not happy with numerous things.” Poor baby.

His problem lies mainly with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who Trump thinks has let him down. He believes that when Sessions recused himself it was unnecessarily hurtful to Trump. He said that Sessions was “mixed up and confused” at his confirmation hearing and that “it turned out he didn’t have to recuse himself.” Of course, that wasn’t the truth. Sessions was required by law to recuse due to his personal relationship with Russian operatives and his involvement in the campaign that was under investigation.

On Wednesday, Trump awkwardly tried to walk back the comments in the interview. The morning press gaggle inquired about his remarks concerning Sessions (video below). “I’m disappointed in the Attorney General for numerous reasons,” he said. “But we have an attorney general.” Well, that clears that up. However, when he was asked if was going to fire Sessions, he gave a clear signal of no confidence saying that “We are looking at lots of different things.” So maybe he will fire Sessions. Or maybe he’ll throw him into an alligator-infested swamp. Or maybe he’ll dress him up like a Barbie doll. You know, lots of different things.

The only thing that is certain is that Trump’s disappointment stems from Sessions not helping him obstruct justice with regard to the special counsel investigation. He wants Sessions to fire Robert Mueller and put an end to those pesky questions about his unsavory connections to Russia. He’s tired of hearing about all of his former associates (Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, etc.) pleading guilty and becoming witnesses for the prosecution. And he’s desperately frightened that he’s going to be held accountable for his treasonous activities.

Trump has good reason to be afraid. The walls are closing in around him and his family. And the potential charges extend beyond the Russia affairs to his personal affairs – both sexual and business related. Trump is a festring legal boil that is ready to burst. So naturally he is lashing out and blaming others for his own failures. Speculation is rampant the Trump will fire Sessions after the midterm election in what may be a much broader purge of anyone he considers less than worshipful. But if he does that he will likely wind up all alone in that big, old drafty White House. So sad.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Trump is in a Panic Sweat as He Binge Watches Fox News for Leaked Conspiracy Theories

Posted by on September 17, 2018 at 12:38 pm. NO Comments :

Monday morning we have been treated to a new episode in the continuing series of Donald Trump’s epic saga “How Can I Make Myself Look Even More Guilty?” It’s the tale of a traitorous president who thinks that by repeatedly lashing out against the valiant guardians of the law he will escape accountability for his treasonous crimes. In this outing we see our lead character colluding with Fox News to weave a narrative that mocks reality.

Donald Trump Fox News

Over the weekend there was a dearth of Trump tweets for an extraordinarily long seventeen hour span. The only plausible reason for this was that Fox News was covering Hurricane Florence non-stop and couldn’t engage in their usual advisory role for the President. Since Trump doesn’t have the foggiest notion what he actually believes, he was left dumb by the absence of his brain trust. But now that the hurricane has been demoted to old news by Fox, the pundits are back fulfilling their duties to the White House.

In a tweet dripping with the panic sweat of a caged rat, Trump once again portrays the investigation of his activities as a “totally illegal Witch Hunt.” Proving that he doesn’t know the meaning of the words “witch hunt” or “illegal.” Furthermore, Trump acquired his latest paranoid delusion from his senior White House advisers at Fox News. Here is what he posted:

The Fox News story, as reported by Catherine Herridge (video below), did assert that former FBI attorney Lisa Page testified in a closed-door session of Congress that that there was no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia. Herridge said that:

“A transcript reviewed by Fox News shows that during her recent closed-door interview on Capital Hill, Page testified that collusion was still unknown nine months into the FBI’s Russia case when the special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed. Quote: ‘I think this represents that even as far as May 2017, we still couldn’t answer the question.'”

Herridge later characterized Page’s testimony as an “admission that there was no evidence of Russian collusion.” But that is not what Page said. According to Herridge’s own reporting Page merely said that it was an open question. If anything she was saying that, while there was evidence, there wasn’t hard proof. What Page actually said was that “it still existed in the scope of possibility that there would be literally nothing.” That means there was a chance nothing happened, not that nothing happened.

Contrary to Trump’s assertion that “the case should never have been allowed to be brought,” this is exactly the sort of scenario that calls for a special counsel to conduct a more in depth and independent investigation. Still, the Justice Department, acting with an abundance of caution, didn’t request a special prosecutor until after Trump fired FBI director James Comey, signalling the possibility of obstruction of justice. And it cannot be reiterated enough that it was a Trump appointee (Rod Rosenstein) who named a life-long Republican (Robert Mueller) for the job.

So Trump is, once again, demonstrating that he spends an inordinate amount of time watching Fox News and regurgitating the nonsense he learns from it. That’s no longer in question. What isn’t being asked is how Fox News got Page’s testimony from a closed session of Congress? Who leaked it and why only parts that help Trump (if they are deliberately misinterpreted)? What about the rest of her testimony? Shouldn’t that be released now to insure that the leaked portions are viewed in their proper context?

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the remainder of Page’s testimony to be made public. The Republicans in charge of that information don’t want a fair reading of what took place. That’s why they cherry-picked some ambiguous comments and delivered them exclusively to Fox News. And it was tailor made for their number one viewer to validate his already preposterous fantasy that there is a nefarious “deep state” cabal working to destroy him. What a coincidence.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Guilty Conscience? Trump Rattles Off Four Times ‘This Has Nothing to do with Russian Collusion’

Posted by on August 21, 2018 at 3:30 pm. 4 Comments :

Donald Trump’s campaign chairman and personal attorney/fixer are both officially felons. And now that there are verdicts in two of the most closely watched criminal cases of the year, Everyone was anxious to hear what the Unindicted Co-Conspirator-in-Chief would have to say about it. And if you were expecting a message of respect for the judicial process and the rule of law, you are going to be bitterly disappointed.

Donald Trump

Trump spoke briefly after the convictions of Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen as he deplaned for a rally in West Virginia. His comments were a mix of sympathy, defiance, and self-serving bluster that demonstrated his contempt for the legal system that is still closing in around him:

After briefly expressing how sad he is about Manafort, who he said is “good man,” Trump launched into a defense of himself that no one asked him about. He had a desperate need to make sure that everyone knew that “It doesn’t involve me” and that “This has nothing to do with Russian collusion.” In fact, he mentioned the Russia affair four times in less than one minute. He closed by repeating that Manafort’s conviction had nothing to with Russian collusion, and then called it a “witch hunt” for the second time in this short clip.

Any first-year psychology student would recognize Trump’s anxiety and repetitious dialogue as the ravings of someone consumed by fear and knowledge of guilt. He continuously yowled his self defense more than he did any support for his former campaign chairman, Manafort. What’s more he didn’t mention Cohen’s name at all. That could signal his preference for Manafort, who some speculate will get a pardon. As for Cohen, he explicitly incriminated Trump in the Stormy Daniels hush money affair, so his prospects are much gloomier. That may explain why Trump couldn’t even say his name.

For the record, this does involve Trump. Cohen’s plea deal references him as the “candidate” with whom he conspired to suppress the Daniels story. And it surely has something to do with Russian collusion from the standpoint that Manafort convictions might persuade him to be more cooperative with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

It will be interesting to see what the Republicans in Congress have to say about Cohen’s pleading guilty to eight felony counts. During the Clinton administration they thought it justifiable to impeach the President for having lied about an extramarital affair. But Trump has now been implicated in both an affair and an illegal conspiracy to cover it up. Shouldn’t that warrant at least one of the Articles of Impeachment to be brought against him?

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

HUH? Kellyanne Conway Asks the Press ‘Why is Everybody So Obsessed with the President?’

Posted by on August 17, 2018 at 11:18 am. 2 Comments :

The key surrogates in Donald Trump’s administration are a notorious confederacy of liars and knee-jerk defenders of the indefensible. People like press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the White House communications office turned obfuscation and deflection into an art form. As result, it is almost impossible to get a straight or truthful answer from this administration on any subject of importance.

Kellyanne Conway

However, they hit a new low with what may be one of the dumbest questions ever asked by a presidential spokesperson. Kellyanne Conway stopped to respond to a few questions from the press gaggle at the White House on Friday morning. Referring to the dictator-style revocation of CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance, a reporter asked Conway as she walked away if Trump was “politically targeting his enemies.” That, of course, goes without saying. It’s something he has always done and no one could credibly deny it.

So naturally, Conway turns around and returns to the media scrum to deny it (video below). She began by saying that Brennan is a cable news pundit now who has “no interest in furthering the national security interests of this country.” That’s an absurd charge to make against someone who has spent his whole life in public service and particularly national security. She then complained about Brennan’s assertion that Trump did collude with Russia, saying that he should have told that to Congress when he testified before them. She added “It’s a great question. You oughta noodle it.” Really?

Conway, though, is ignoring two obvious noodlings that could explain it for her. First of all, much of Brennan’s testimony was in closed session and may very well have raised alarms about Trump’s nefarious associations with Russia. That cannot be made public. Secondly, there has been a lot of information uncovered since his congressional testimony more than a year ago that provides additional evidence of Trump’s guilt. Brennan’s conclusion that Trump did indeed conspire with Russian operatives to advance his candidacy is one that is shared by many in the intelligence community.

But when it comes to stupid questions, Conway offered one of the worst in replying to further questions by the press corps:

“Why is everybody so obsessed with the President of the United States that they can’t even begin or finish a sentence without mentioning his name five times. It’s kind of weird. And it’s infecting people on the news now who fancy themselves security experts.”

So Conway just asked a bunch of White House correspondents why they ask so many questions about the person it is their job to ask questions about. Weird. It’s like complaining about a waiter who keeps asking people what they’d like to order. What’s more, no one is has a greater obsession with the President than Donald Trump. He takes every opportunity to make sure that his name and face are plastered across all the media and that the nation’s attention is always focused on him.

So would Conway prefer that the press didn’t pay as much attention to him as they currently do? That would drive him even crazier. And it would surely be a disservice to the American people who rely on the press to keep them informed. But Conway’s question reflects the adversarial position that the Trump administration has with the First Amendment. They would love to deny the media – and the people – the critical information needed to sustain a free democracy. But then a free democracy is not what the wannabe dictator Trump wants.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Worse Than Omarosa: Trump Quotes Fox News Host Jeanine Pirro’s Insane Rant on Russia and Mueller

Posted by on August 12, 2018 at 10:57 am. NO Comments :

This Sunday will likely be remembered as the Omarosa Media Blitzkrieg, with its flurry of newsmaking interviews of the disgraced former Assistant to the President. While Donald Trump has already labeled her a “low life,” he has yet to explain why he gave her such a senior post in his Administration of Dunces in the first place, given how well he knew her.

Donald Trump, Jeanine Pirro

Among Omarosa’s criticisms of Trump are her assertions that he is flagrantly racist and misogynistic, and is suffering from a severe mental decline. Both of those are hardly breaking stories considering Trump’s history as a serial sexual predator and his very public display of dementia. And while the press is eating up Omarosa’s allegations, they are simultaneously casting doubt on her credibility.

However, there are many more players in the Era of Trump with far less credibility than Omarosa, starting with The Donald himself, a well-documented and unrepentant liar. And many of those credibility-challenged losers have their own shows on Fox News. Prominent among them is “Judge” Jeanine Pirro, who recently said that special counsel Robert Mueller is a greater threat to America than Vladimir Putin. And on the latest episode of her program she goes even further into the realm of deranged conspiracy crackpot. Her nine minute opening tirade sets the tone with this goofy introduction (video below):

“I’ve had a change of heart. Unlike everyone on the right, I don’t want the Mueller investigation to end so soon. I want it to keep going on and one and on. Because everyday it gets closer to proving Russian collusion. The collusion, however, with Russia and team Obama. Not Trump.”

Remember that claim that Pirro is supporting the ongoing Mueller probe. It will come into play in her closing. In between she hits on a bevy of previously debunked nonsense that even her colleagues at Fox News have renounced. Notably, the Uranium One story that was so expertly unraveled by Shepard Smith. She also railed against the entirety of the investigation of Trump’s collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice. She falsely claimed that the basis for the probe was the Christopher Steele dossier. She repeatedly called the dossier “discredited” despite the fact that much of it has been affirmed and none of it has been proven untrue. Smith laid these facts out as well.

However, revisiting lies that have already been exposed wasn’t enough for Pirro. She had to create a brand new scandalous allegation to smear the otherwise golden reputation of Bob Mueller. So Pirro goes off on some peculiar and wholly unsubstantiated allegations about a preposterous charge that Mueller took money from a Russian oligarch to finance FBI operations. She never bothered to cite a source for that charge of criminal behavior. But she did have a question for Mueller:

“Bob, my question to you is ‘How could you possibly be investigating Donald Trump when there is no credible basis for your investigation?’ And ‘What the hell have you and your Trump-hating, conflicted team of prosecutors come up with in the last nineteen months other than a tax evasion case that doesn’t involve Trump, Russia or collusion of any sort.'”

Seriously? Of all the question’s that Pirro could ask Mueller she chose one that is patently absurd and answerable by public records? She doesn’t know that Mueller has already indicted dozens of people for election related offenses, and that five have pleaded guilty? And she isn’t aware that Mueller has much more information about Trump and company than he’s disclosed to date? Yet Omarosa is being pilloried (deservedly so) for her credibility, but Pirro has a show on Fox News.

Pirro’s credibility isn’t all that needs to be questioned. We also have to wonder about her cognitive faculties. Because she closed this televised tantrum with a particularly pointed accusation aimed at Mueller:

“Bob, I really thinks it’s time for you to give up your phony investigation and get yourself your own criminal defense attorney.”

Let’s just set aside the reckless and unsupported charges that Mueller is guilty of some unspecified crimes. We know those exist only in the imaginations of wingnuts like Pirro. But recall how she began her monologue saying that she wants the Mueller probe to go on and on and on. And by the end of her rhetorical seizure she’s calling for him to “give up your phony investigation.” Make up your mind Judge. You sound as demented as the president whose – let’s say boots – you’re licking. But at least it got you a mention from the Commander-in-Tweets:

Pirro must be so proud that Trump picked the most easily recognized bullcrap from her interminably boring assault on Mueller and the truth. They really are a cute couple – of liars and traitors.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Why Trump’s Loony Charges of Russian Collusion By Hillary Clinton Will Blow Up in His Lying Face

Posted by on August 6, 2018 at 11:42 am. 3 Comments :

In the process of his rapid descension into panic and fear, Donald Trump is becoming ever more frenzied and detached from reality. He knows that the law is closing in on him and his family (who he just threw under the bus) and he’s grasping for any lifeline to keep from sinking into the abyss of his treasonous criminality.

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton

Among the tactics Trump has settled on is an effort to snare Hillary Clinton in a Russian collusion story of her own. This fictional construction has already been hammered to death by Trump’s pals at Fox News, so his cult followers are primed to buy into it. But there are a couple of significant problems with this desperation ploy.

The gist of Trump’s scheme asserts that Clinton is the one who has conspired with the Kremlin to bring down the candidacy of Trump. Never mind that Vladimir Putin admitted at a joint press conference in Helsinki that he wanted Trump to win. The President’s angle is that Clinton and/or her campaign paid Russians for dirt on Trump that they would use to his detriment in the election. And that is his basis for claiming that Clinton is the real colluder. He’s addressed it many times on Twitter, including this past weekend. For instance:

However, that fairy tale is just plain ludicrous. What Trump is referring to is the now famous Steele Dossier. It was researched and complied by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent who was regarded as credible by his American counterparts. He did have Russian sources from whom he extracted information. That’s called investigating, but it’s not colluding. And he didn’t pay for the information. He was paid by a firm, Fusion GPS, that was originally contracted for opposition research on Trump by a conservative website, but he was not paid by Clinton or her campaign.

In addition to that, the data in the dossier was never used by the Clinton campaign. So the allegation that she engaged in this alleged collusion to harm Trump doesn’t make any sense. Contrast that with the evidence that Trump was colluding. He personally promoted the information that was obtained by his son and his campaign manager in meetings that they lied about later. He even asked the Russians to do more hacking to steal even more data from Clinton. Which they did.

But the real problem for Trump is that he keeps hedging his claim that there was no collusion with the false assertion that collusion isn’t a crime. That’s like a murderer saying “I didn’t shoot the guy, and was nowhere near the scene. But anyway, it was a self defense.” While “collusion” is not a word in the criminal statutes, the crime does exist as a combination of related offenses such as conspiracy. And it is illegal to interfere with an election and to solicit or accept money or other things of value from foreign governments.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

So every time that Trump pretends that collusion is not a crime, he is outright lying. But worse, when he demands that Clinton be investigated for collusion, he is conceding that it actually is a crime. So which is it? Trump wants everyone accept his premise that “Crooked Hillary” should be investigated and prosecuted (lock her up) for colluding with Russia. Therefore, the same standard would have to be applied to Trump. By casting blame on Clinton, Trump is actually making the best argument for bringing himself to justice. And the good news is that that is exactly what special counsel Robert Mueller is doing.

Trump Confesses Collusion with Russia While His Lawyer Jay Sekulow Lies About Trump Tower Meeting

Posted by on August 5, 2018 at 3:06 pm. 1 Comments :

On Sunday morning’s edition of This Week, George Stephanopoulos asked Donald Trump’s attorney Jay Sekulow about his prior statements concerning the infamous meeting in Trump Tower. That was where Don Jr, Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and other Trump associates conspired with Russian operatives to acquire emails stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Donald Trump

As a refresher, what Sekulow said at the time was that the meeting was an innocent gathering to discuss adoption issues. He further said that Donald Trump knew nothing about it and had no role in the false explanations that were disseminated to the press.

Of course, we now know that Trump dictated those phony excuses. And we know it because Sekulow admitted it in a letter to special counsel Robert Mueller. What’s more, Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, is said to be ready to testify that Trump was aware of the meeting before they took place, and approved of it. At this point that’s almost academic since the evidence shows that Trump was talking about the ill-gotten fruits of the meeting in public in advance of it.

Remember, this was a meeting in his own building, with his son, his son-in-law, and his campaign manager, to discuss Russian dirt on his opponent, during his campaign. Gee, why would anyone think he knew anything about it? Nevertheless, that was the position of Sekulow and the whole Trump regime. But on This Week Sekulow said this (video below):

“I was in the case at that point a couple of weeks and there was a lot of information that was gathering, and as my colleague Rudy Giuliani said, I had bad information at that time. I made a mistake in my statement. I talked about that before. That happens when you have cases like this.”

Actually, that is most definitely not what happens in cases like this. In cases like this it is imperative that attorneys collect and disseminate only well researched and documented information. Anything less is a flagrant disservice to their client, as is evident by what’s going on now. But that isn’t the worst thing about Sekulow’s remarks.

The worst part is that the entire statement is riddled with lies. If Sekulow had “bad information” at the time, then why didn’t he correct the record after he was able to get good information. He had over a year to do that. He had access to the people who attended the meeting. Why didn’t he get statements from them to set the record straight? In fact, why didn’t they offer corrections themselves without being prodded by Sekulow? They knew what he said on TV and they knew is was false. Every one of them let the lies fester for a year. And, of course, Trump himself knew that what his lawyer said wasn’t true, but he didn’t bother to correct him either.

What’s more, you have to ask why Team Trump told so many lies about the meeting in the first place. If they all considered it to be innocent and legal there should be no reason to invent fictional scenarios that were sure to be uncovered eventually. That’s not the way innocent people behave. And they allowed those lies to gather mold for months, purposefully deceiving the American people as well as the investigating authorities.

And, for the first time, Trump himself has acknowledged that the subject of the Trump Tower meeting was to obtain dirt about Clinton from Russia. That’s a bombshell admission that also reveals that he lied when he told the press that it was about adoptions, and also when he dictated the lies that Don Jr told.

This tweet is confession that Trump colluded with Russia to get dirt on Clinton. It’s as simple as that. Furthermore, it isn’t legal and it isn’t done all the time. To the contrary, this has never been done, that anyone knows of. And it is strictly against the law to conspire with a foreign government to interfere with an election. It’s also illegal to accept cash, or anything of value (like stolen emails), without disclosing it in campaign finance reports.

Since we know that Trump and company have lied about whether there ever was a meeting with Russians, and then lied about the subject of the meeting, and then lied about the participants, and then lied about why they told the previous lies, then it’s a good bet that the lies Trump just told will also be exposed in short order. That being his claim that he didn’t know about the meeting. Anyone who believes that is terminally naive. It’s just a matter of time before the truth about this comes out, just like the truth about the meeting did. And when it does you can expect Trump start tweeting about illegal MS-13 immigrant children on a nationwide killing spree who refuse to stand for the national anthem.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Shepard Smith of Fox News Untangles the ‘Patently False’ Lies of Trump re: the Russia Probe

Posted by on August 1, 2018 at 3:24 pm. NO Comments :

It’s getting harder and harder to figure out why Fox News is allowing Shepard Smith to remain on the air. In the recent past he has made a some startlingly harsh condemnations of Donald Trump that were rooted in actual facts. You know, the sort of information that Fox News struggles to suppress for the other twenty-three hours of the day. It’s the sort of honest reporting that is contradicted by Fox’s primetime shills Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson.

Fox News, Shepard Smith, Donald Trump

On Wednesday Smith launched into an explanation for Trump’s latest tweetstorm that railed against Robert Mueller’s Russian collusion hoax rigged scam witch hunt (did I get them all in?). Aside from exposing his palpable fear and desperation, Trump is piling up more lies that now even Fox News is finding it hard to excuse. Smith began his take-down of Trump (video below) with an introduction that summed things up nicely saying that:

“The White House today echoed President Trump’s false tweet claiming that the [Steele] dossier was the foundation of the special counsel, Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.”

Then Smith played a clip of press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders at today’s press briefing saying that “the entire investigation is based off of a dirty, discredited dossier.” Notice that Sanders has adopted Trump’s speaking patterns. Smith followed that by displaying Trump’s tweet saying that the “rigged witch hunt” by “17 angry Democrats” and “started by a “fraudulent dossier” was “an illegal scam.” You have to give him credit for stuffing so many inane cliches into a single tweet. But it’s Smith who really gets credit for having the courage to tell the truth on Fox News to their audience of glassy-eyed Deplorables:

“in the main, and in its part, that statement is patently false. According to the Republican majority on the House Intelligence Committee, the feds started the Russia investigation in July of 2016, after then-Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. The diplomat then gave that information over to the FBI.

“And while the U.S. intelligence community has not confirmed parts of the dossier, there are elements of it that are confirmed true. No part of it, to Fox News’ knowledge, has been confirmed false. The special counsel, Robert Mueller, is a registered Republican. The Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, is also a Republican. The Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, who swore in Rosenstein, is also a Republican. President Trump, a Republican, appointed Sessions [and Rosenstein too].

“The dossier is 35 pages of research memos Christopher Steele wrote during the 2016 campaign. He’s a former British intelligence agent. A research firm called Fusion GPS compiled the memos. They alleged conspiracies between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to help Mr. Trump win the election over Hillary Clinton.”

If just a small bit of this actually got through to Fox News viewers it might have a discernible impact on the nation’s collective ability to recognize the truth. But most of this won’t even get through to Hannity or the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. It’s a sad commentary on the depth of the delusion that the Trump Cult has spread across Republican America. These cretins are actually supportive of Russia’s interference in our democracy. So why would they be bothered by Trump issuing tweet commands to his A.G. to stop the Mueller probe?

In response to that tweet Sanders told the press corps this afternoon that Trump was just expressing his “opinion,” and that it wasn’t an order directed at Sessions. She had to downplay it in this way because otherwise it would be unambiguously obstruction of justice. In fact, it still is. If your boss said that you should stop working on some terrible project right now, would you consider that only his opinion and that you could ignore it? If Trump succeeds in coercing Sessions to stop the Mueller probe it’s just more evidence of his intent to illegally interfere with the administration of justice. And, by the way, there are way more than 17 angry Democrats. There’s at least 65 million (more than voted for Trump), plus a few sane Republicans who can’t stomach his treason.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.