Robert Mueller

Yes, Jim Jordan is a Loathsome Creep, But Let’s Not Forget About Trump’s Sexual Deviancy

Posted by on July 3, 2018 at 11:46 am. 1 Comments :

Another day, another Republican sleazeball is revealed. This time it’s the grating and obnoxious Donald Trump cultist, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio. Jordan has repeatedly been shamed for his ignorance and bombast as he pursues a zealot’s path toward fame and possible leadership in the GOP-controlled (for now) House of Representatives. But now he is the subject of a scandal that is far worse than the imaginary conspiracy theories he promotes.

Jim Jordan

Jordan is being accused of “turning a blind eye” to years of sexual abuse by a team doctor when Jordan was the wrestling coach at Ohio State. He denies having any knowledge of the abuse, but members of the wrestling team say that they personally reported it to him and sought his help, which he never provided.

Jordan is going to have to come up with a better story than ignorance. And this affair will surely hamper his obsessive efforts to slander Trump’s critics, particularly those involving Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigations into Trump’s collusion with Russia. obstruction of justice, and various financial improprieties. It will be hard for Jordan to address his “witch hunt” crusade without having to answer questions about his dubious past. In fact, you might not see Jordan on TV for a while.

While all of that is important and deserves the attention of the press and the public, it is also a reminder that the President of the United States is still the nation’s most prominent sexual predator. We, as a nation, cannot let let his abhorrent behavior go unpunished. Trump’s abusive acts have been well known for some time. He even admitted to criminal sexual assault in the “grab ’em by the pussy” video from Access Hollywood. But he was elected president anyway by so-called “family values” voters who dismissed his contemptible conduct in favor of rank party politics. And he has the full support of Fox News, a network whose corporate culture virtually encourages sexual harassment.

This would be a good time to watch the video produced by Brave New Films, if you haven’t already done so. It’s a compilation of sixteen of Trump’s accusers describing the acts committed against them. It’s a moving presentation that needs to be seen by as many people as possible. In a just world it would be ample evidence to remove the Predator-in-Chief from office. And here is where you can contribute to Jordan’s congressional opponent, Janet Garrett.

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

WITCH HUNT? Trump’s Latest Tweets Expose His Rapidly Accelerating Desperation and Fear

Posted by on June 23, 2018 at 12:17 pm. NO Comments :

And on it goes. Once Donald Trump decides to throw a tantrum over some perceived unfairness directed at him (which is anything that he regards as less than slobbering adoration), he latches onto it like a pit bull with a bloody steak bone. He won’t let up no matter how definitively he is shown to be deserving of the criticism or how badly he is proven to be wrong about whatever he is raging against.

Donald Trump

On Saturday morning Trump was at his usual post: hate-tweeting everything he just saw on Fox News and blathering about what a victim he is of the evil forces seeking to undermine his presidency. Has there ever been a leader who whined more, and was so proud of it? Seriously, he actually bragged about being “the most fabulous whiner.” And determined to hang on to that record, Trump tweeted another in his series of blind attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of his collusion with Russia and other associated crimes:

For a “rigged” witch hunt, it has managed to bag an exceptionally large number of witches. There have already been dozens of indictments and four guilty pleas. Some former Trump associates are cooperating with the special counsel, and there is speculation that Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, may soon join that group.

And it’s because of those facts that Trump is exhibiting some acute behavioral distress. The levels of obvious desperation and frantic fear keep increasing with each new incriminating revelation that emerges. Trump grows more distraught every day and with every new and panicked tweet. The frequency of those Twitter outbursts tells a story that is hard to interpret as anything but severe terror on Trump’s part.

David Gelles, a CNN producer, has compiled an accounting of Trump’s twitter activity, specifically with regard to his mentions of the scary “Witch Hunt.” The numbers reveal a progression into the dread that is haunting Trump’s diseased psyche:

Notice that just this year Trump has stepped up his “Witch Hunt” postings from one in January, to twenty-two, so far, in June. At this rate he’ll be posting nothing but “Witch Hunt, Witch Hunt, Witch Hunt, Witch Hunt, Witch Hunt…” by July. And it’s no wonder. There is a fair chance that Mueller will issue a report before the end of August. If he doesn’t, he will likely have to wait until after the midterms in November because he won’t want to release a report within sixty days of an election.

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

So Trump may be anticipating a conclusion to the investigation sooner rather than later. Hence the ramped up panic-tweets. Trump has never been a good poker player. He has tells that give away virtually everything that’s on his diminished mind. This Twitter activity is a pretty reliable indicator that he’s shaking in his Ferragamos. And for the country’s sake. let’s hope his fear is justified.

No Evidence of Bias: Trump’s ‘Witch Hunt’ Lie Gets Burned to Ashes By Democratic Congressman

Posted by on June 19, 2018 at 12:40 pm. 5 Comments :

Last week the Inspector General of the FBI released a comprehensive report on the Bureau’s handling of probes into Hillary Clinton’s email. Donald Trump and his fluffers in the right-wing media immediately set out to convince the American people that the report “totally exonerates” him. It didn’t do anything of the sort.

Robert Mueller Trump

However, facts have never stopped Trump and Co. from blathering incoherently about his infallible awesomeness. And his obsessive need to constantly exalt himself was exhibited yet again on Tuesday during a speech before the National Federation of Independent Businesses. Although it was difficult to find anything in his address that related to independent businesses.

The speech (which aired in full only on Fox News) was a typical Trumpian stemwinder that caromed wildly between unrelated subjects primarily focused on praising himself and smearing his critics. He once again falsely blamed Democrats for his own policy of traumatizing innocent immigrant children. And, of course, he ranted idiotically about Democrats wanting open borders and welcoming MS-13 gang members. He accused the media of helping child traffickers. He proposed cutting off aid to countries where immigrants come from (which would only result in more people needing to leave those countries). And he actually adopted the crackpot conspiracy that the children in his concentration camps are “crisis actors.”

Included in this televised meltdown was another stab by Trump to pretend that the FBI’s IG report exonerated him from charges being investigated separately by special counsel Robert Mueller. The IG’s report had nothing at all to do with that. Trump’s latest tantrum was triggered by hearing himself saying the name of Hillary Clinton. He segued from that to a conclusion that the IG report had incriminated Clinton. It didn’t. Trump whined:

“Didn’t she already have her chance? I tell you what, when you read that IG report with these really dishonest people – and I was never a ‘Deep State’ guy – lemme tell ya, we got some bad people that are doing bad things. But when you read that IG report about how she got away with what she got away with, it’s a disgrace.”

Back in the real world, the report did not find any wrongdoing by Clinton whatsoever. In fact, it wasn’t even part of the purpose of the inquiry. The IG was looking into the the conduct of the Bureau and it’s employees. It did find that there was some inappropriate activities by the director, James Comey, and a couple of agents. But on the whole it concluded that Clinton was more often the victim of the bad behavior at the Bureau, and that it likely led to disadvantaging her – not Trump – in the election.

This fact was addressed in a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee where the IG, Michael Horowitz, and the current FBI Director, Chris Wray, testified. The Republicans on the committee were uniformly focused on trivial aspects of the report that they twisted into impotent attacks on Clinton. However, they ignored the more salient aspects, including the conclusion. The Democratic ranking member of the committee, Elijah Cummings, did not ignore that. Cummings, quoting the IG report, said:

“We found no evidence that the conclusions by the department prosecutors were affected by bias or other improper considerations. Rather, we determine that they were based on the prosecutors’ assessment of the facts, the law, and past department practice.”

No Evidence of Bias. That should put a big fat period on the debate over whether the FBI acted out on any internal bias. It should, but when you’re dealing with a dishonest crybaby like Trump, and his genuflecting defenders, anything goes. Trump will never stop whining about his delusional “Witch Hunt” because deep down he knows that it is a false narrative.

He knows that he’s guilty and that he’s very likely going to be exposed and held to account. He sees his former lackeys (Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, etc.) flipping on him, or getting ready to. And nothing he does hinders the progress of special counsel Mueller. So he has little else to offer in the way of a coherent defense other than to shout maniacally in all caps. And that is already wearing thin.

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

Former Fox News Military Analyst: I Am Convinced Vladimir Putin Has a Grip on Donald Trump

Posted by on June 7, 2018 at 12:28 pm. 5 Comments :

The evidence that Fox News is nothing but a conduit for pro-Trump propaganda with a blatantly conservative bias is voluminous and undeniable. Nevertheless, they continue to pretend that they are a legitimate news enterprise. Even though they abandoned their “fair and balanced” slogan, they replaced it with “Real News, Real Honest Opinion” in an attempt to mirror Trump’s anti-media rhetoric.

Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin

However, every now and then some truth from behind the Curtain of Lies seeps out. Sometimes it comes from Republicans who are too embarrassed to stand by some ludicraous claim by Fox News and/or Trump. Sometimes it comes from a network guest or host who has diverted from the mandatory talking points (i.e. Shepard Smith). And sometimes it comes from someone who has escaped the Fox gulag and become free to speak unencumbered by Fox’s forced doctrine and threats from their boss.

One of those refugees is Lt. Col. Ralph Peters. He is a staunch conservative who has had his share of repulsive commentaries while he was a Fox New military analyst. But on Wednesday Peters made his first non-Fox television appearance with an interview by Anderson Cooper on CNN. His unrepressed rage and disgust for his former employer was a startling thing to behold. So startling, in fact, that it needs no elaboration. Feast on these remarks by someone who once called President Obama a “pussy” on the air (video below):

“Robert Mueller is as noble — and I use that word carefully — as noble a public servant as you will find. And the assaults upon his character, upon his practices, upon his investigation just betray our fundamental principles.”

“I think [Fox News is] doing a great deal of damage still. We won’t know how bad for years to come when we see the ultimate results.”

“With the rise of Donald Trump, Fox did become a destructive propaganda machine, and I don’t do propaganda for anyone.”

“As a former military officer, you took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. And I saw, in my view, Fox, particularly the primetime hosts, attacking our constitutional order, the rule of law, the Justice Department, the FBI, Robert Mueller, and, oh, by the way, the intelligence agencies. And they’re doing it for ratings and profit. And they’re doing it knowingly, in my view, doing a grave, grave disservice to our country.”

“I suspect Sean Hannity really believes it. The others are smarter. They know what they’re doing. It’s — it’s bewildering to me. I mean I want to just cry out and say, how can you do this? How can you lie to our country?”

“I think we’re in a constitutional crisis right now. And we’ll end up either, barring unforeseen circumstances, either with impeachment or before the Supreme Court or both.”

“You have a president who believes he is above the law, who does not understand our system of government, does not respect our system of government, and willingly subverts our system of government.”

“I think a lot of Trump supporters are so embarrassed by how it’s all turned out that they just cling to him. They won’t let any facts penetrate their reality. [They insist that Trump] is some sort of messiah.”

“I am convinced that Vladimir Putin has a grip on President Trump. And, Anderson, when I first learned of the Steele dossier, it just rang true to me because that’s how the Russians do things. And before he became a candidate for president, Donald Trump was the perfect target for Russian intelligence. Here’s someone who has no self-control, a sense of sexual entitlement and intermittent financial crises. I mean that’s made to order for seduction by Russian intelligence.”

“When you look at Trump’s behavioral patterns, his unwillingness ever to criticize Vladimir Putin, his slow rolling sanctions, his unwillingness to create problems with Russia, even though, as he attacks NATO, disrupts relations with the E.U., how can you not draw the conclusions that Donald Trump, the president of the United States, is frightened of Vladimir Putin”

“The Mueller investigation is the most important of my lifetime. And I’m 66 years old. I lived through Watergate.”

Everyone will have their favorite quote from those displayed above. Maybe Peters’ characterization of Fox News as a “destructive propaganda machine.” Or perhaps that he thinks Sean Hannity is stupid enough to believe the crap he spews, and the rest are all liars. There is so much to choose from. Fox News was contacted for a comment on this righteous rant. They declined, saying that they stood by the brief statement they made when he left the network two months ago. They never refuted a single thing Peters said. You can watch the entire CNN segment here:

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

Trump DID Collude With Russia – Says Former Fox News Chief Campaign Correspondent

Posted by on June 5, 2018 at 12:25 pm. 3 Comments :

It’s a day that ends with the letter “Y” so obviously Donald Trump is posting on Twitter about how the special counsel’s investigation of him is just a “Russian Witch Hunt Hoax” designed to frame him for crimes that he is totally allowed to pardon himself for (except that he isn’t).

Donald Trump Vladimir Putin

In today’s tweet Trump takes aim at his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions (again). Trump believes Sessions should have told him about his intention to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation. Never mind that that would have required Sessions to know the future because there was no investigation at the time. Nor did Sessions have any idea that he would need to recuse himself, because that didn’t become necessary until after he testified at his confirmation hearing about meetings with Russians (which he falsely denied).

Now a new book is providing additional evidence that Trump and his campaign did collude with Russia. What’s makes this book significant is that it contains new revelations by “Campaign Carl” Cameron, formerly of Fox News. Cameron was interviewed by ThinkProgress and elaborated on some the things that are outlined in detail in this book: How To Go Viral and Reach Millions.

Cameron’s account included Trump’s connections to various Russian operatives, Wikileaks, and the corrupt data enterprise, Cambridge Analytica. However, much of the story involves Trump’s close association with the notorious dirty trickster, Roger Stone. According to ThinkProgress:

“‘Trump confidant Roger Stone’s success was having the connections and creating the opportunities for [Russian intelligence officer] Guccifer2.0 and other Russian groups to really start taking advantage of social media and pounding these negative memes that Hillary’s a crook, et cetera,’ Cameron explained to ThinkProgress’ Joe Romm”

It has been well documented that Stone was working with Julian Assange and Wikileaks to disseminate anti-Clinton propaganda and stolen emails. His relationship with the hacker Guccifer only exacerbated his complicity when it became known that Guccifer was a working for the Kremlin. Cameron further revealed that:

“The president, Roger Stone, and other campaign officials have put a lot of effort into lying about their meetings and contact with Russians linked directly to the Kremlin and its cyber attack on the United States. But they put even more effort into coordinating their message with the Russians. It will be up to Mueller to determine just how extensive that coordination was.

“As Cameron explained to ThinkProgress, a key goal of this coordination was to create opportunities for Russian intelligence and Russian trolls. The point was to viralize the anti-Clinton memes and narratives to suppress the vote for her.”

Despite the mantra from right-wing media (especially Fox News) that there hasn’t been any evidence to tie Trump to collusion, the truth is that the evidence is abundant and more than incriminating enough to sink Trump and his whole crime family. And this new contribution from someone who had a place of prominence in the Fox propaganda machine only makes what is already known even more damning and perilous for Trump.

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

Trump is Admitting Guilt if He Pardons Himself, Requiring Impeachment for Confessed Crimes

Posted by on June 4, 2018 at 1:31 pm. 2 Comments :

For the past several weeks Donald Trump’s TV lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has assumed the role of saying idiotic things that put the President in deeper legal peril. Now it appears that Trump was not sufficiently satisfied with Giuliani’s efforts, so he has taken over that role himself.

Donald Trump Tyrant Dictator

In a series of tweets that mainly demonstrate his fear and guilty conscience, Trump has explicitly made the case for his inevitable prosecution and impeachment. Of course, he doesn’t have any idea what he actually said or what the consequences will be, but he’s typically adamant about what he’s painfully ignorant of. In a tweet that blows up his whole claim of innocence, Trump said this:

Trump could not be more wrong. Most legal scholars agree that there is nothing in the Constitution or case law that permits a president to pardon himself. In fact, it flies in the face of the Founders insistence that the United States is a government of laws, not men (John Adams, 1780), and that no one is above the law. The ability to self-pardon would empower a president to evade accountability for any criminal act. It’s the doctrine of dictators and tyrants.

More importantly with regard to Trump, the acceptance of a pardon is, under the law, an admission of guilt. In the Supreme Court’s decision of Burdick v. U S, the Court said unambiguously that “…a pardon […] carries an imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it.” Therefore, if Trump were to issue a pardon to himself it would also serve as his confession to the underlying crimes.

No matter what one’s opinion of the validity of the pardon, it would be unarguable that the President was accepting as truthful the charges against him. And by doing so he would be making himself subject to impeachment. The severity of a legal breach that warranted a pardon could not be excused under the “high crimes and misdemeanors” standard for removing a president from office. And a responsible Congress that respects the Constitution would have no choice but to impeach. Unfortunately, that may not describe the present make up of the Republican suck-ups currently holding the congressional majority.

In addition to Trump’s tweet assuming presidential authority to evade the law, he also tweeted something that illustrates how poorly he understands the law:

It would be interesting if someone could ask Trump exactly what constitutional clause he is citing. Because there isn’t actually any language in the Constitution that supports his claim. And if there were it would just raise additional questions. For instance, if he believes that the appointment of a special counsel is unconstitutional, then why did he himself ask for the appointment of one to investigate Hillary Clinton? And why did he ask that Robert Mueller’s team expand their jurisdiction to include Democrats?

Even more curious is that Trump would allow his Justice Department to proceed with a process he now asserts is against the law? That, in itself, would be grounds for impeachment as a violation of his oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” And his characterization of this being merely a game he is playing is a disgraceful insult to American principles of justice.

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

Trump clearly has no respect for the law or the Constitution he so cavalierly references. He doesn’t bother to educate himself about the legal matters he puts into the public debate. He is oblivious to his hypocrisy in how he would enforce the laws that he doesn’t understand. And all of that is wrapped in his brazenly ego-driven self-interest. It’s the perspective of a wannabe dictator who is frustrated by the constraints on absolute power articulated in the Constitution that he plainly despises.

Giuliani Says the Reason Trump Can’t Testify is Because He’s Either a Liar or a Mental Defective

Posted by on June 3, 2018 at 11:53 am. 5 Comments :

Rudy Giuliani continues to be the gift that keeps on giving. Every time he appears on television he manages to dig his only client, Donald Trump, into a deeper, more vermin-infested swamp hole. If we didn’t know better, we might be inclined to believe that Giuliani is a part of the “Deep State” that is conspiring to destroy Trump and replace him with a Hillary Clinton lizard clone.

Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump

Sunday morning on ABC’s This Week, Giuliani was interviewed by George Stephanopoulos. Among the subjects discussed was the special counsel’s investigation into Trump’s collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice. Despite Trump’s repeated, panicky tweetstorms insisting that he’s innocent, this inquiry has already produced dozens of indictments and five guilty pleas. Trump’s painfully obvious consciousness of guilt was on display this week when he accused the Justice Department of leaking a letter to Robert Mueller that Trump or his lawyers most likely leaked themselves.

During the interview Giuliani was asked about the prospects of Trump being questioned by Mueller. For months the Trump team has been wavering on this matter with contradictory assertions that he would love to sit down with the special counsel or that he would foolish to do so. Stephanopoulos eventually asked specifically about the recent discovery that Trump’s lawyers outright lied about whether the President dictated Don, Jr.’s response to his meeting with Russians at Trump Tower. And Giuliani took that as cue to put Trump in a distinctly negative light (video below):

Stephanopoulos: It’s not a complicated thing. The President was there. He was dealing with the letter. First it was all denied. And now you’re saying he dictated it.
Giuliani: Jay [Sekolow] would have to answer that. I think Jay was wrong. This is the reason you don’t let the president testify. Our recollection keeps changing, or we’re not even asked a question and somebody makes an assumption.

Well, that clears things up. Giuliani is saying that Trump must not be allowed to testify because he is likely to commit perjury. Either that or he is too mentally impaired to remember critical details of his own behavior. But it’s even worse than having a poor memory. Giuliani is saying that Trump’s recollections of specific events might actually be different depending on when you ask him. That’s an admission that Trump is, in effect, unfit to hold office.

On an interesting side note, Giuliani didn’t say what he thought Sekulow was wrong about: His first statement that Trump had nothing to do with Don, Jr.’s response, or the one in the letter to Mueller saying that Trump dictated it. Either way, the fact that Giuliani also threw his colleague, Jay Sekulow, under the bus is just icing on the psychotic meltdown that Rudy was having on the air. So far Sekulow has not commented on Giuliani’s assertion that he was wrong about – something.

The bottom line here is that Giuliani is actually right. Trump is very likely to either lie or reveal his decaying grasp of reality if he testifies for Mueller. That’s obviously a dangerous course of action for the President. But more troubling is the fact that if Trump is too impaired to meet with Mueller, then he’s also too impaired to meet with Kim Jong Un, or Vladimir Putin, or even members of Congress. How can Republicans – or America – tolerate a president who, by his own attorney’s account, can’t consistently inhabit the real world?

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

Gaslighting: Did Trump’s Own Lawyers Leak the Memo He’s Accusing the Justice Dept of Leaking?

Posted by on June 2, 2018 at 1:11 pm. NO Comments :

The New York Times has published an article about a memo by Donald Trump’s lawyers that asserts essentially that the President is above the law. The memo asserts that the Constitution empowers Trump to terminate any inquiry and, therefore, makes him immune to prosecution or even questioning by legal authorities.

Donald Trump

That, of course is nonsense and has no legal foundation. Nevertheless, the Times’ article states that:

“President Trump’s lawyers have for months quietly waged a campaign to keep the special counsel from trying to force him to answer questions in the investigation into whether he obstructed justice, asserting that he cannot be compelled to testify and arguing in a confidential letter that he could not possibly have committed obstruction because he has unfettered authority over all federal investigations.”

This is the sort of unfounded logic that has been promulgated by Rudy Giuliani and the Trump-fluffers on Fox News. There is no legal precedent for that conclusion, and the memo doesn’t even cite any. But what makes this even more interesting is that Trump blasted the release of the memo before it was actually released. He tweeted:

First of all, the special counsel investigation is a bargain compared to previous investigations, and it has already produced dozens of indictments and five guilty pleas. But more to the point, where did Trump get the idea that the memo was leaked? The story had not yet been published. Potential leakers might include the Times, or someone interviewed by the Times. But in order to figure out who was most likely to leak this information, you have to ask the old conspiracy question: Who benefits?

There is very little to suggest that any opponents of Trump would benefit from the disclosure of a legal position that Trump is above the law. The most likely beneficiary would be Trump himself, as he and his legal team seek to make that theory mainstream. It’s a theory that has already been advanced by his legal representatives and his supporters on Fox News.

If Trump wanted to push the notion that he cannot be questioned or indicted, then a good way to do that would be to get the New York Times to publish his own lawyers’ interpretation of the law. But he couldn’t allow it to be known that the leak came from his team. So he would then post a tweet pointing the finger of blame to the Justice Department or the special counsel, who he has already sought to discredit.

However, by posting the tweet before the article was published, he reveals that he was already aware of the article. How did that happen? Perhaps because it was him or his people who leaked the memo in the first place. The Times reporter, Michael Schmidt, was concerned about the President’s tweet and posted a tweet of his own:

If Trump or his team were responsible for the leak, Schmidt could not say so without violating an agreement with his anonymous source. But his tweet suggests that Trump’s involvement was more than a little suspicious. So that puts Trump in an advantageous position. He can say what he wants about the article, the memo and how it all became public, without having to worry about being exposed as the source. That is, unless Schmidt were to regard Trump’s dishonesty about the leak as a de facto breach of the agreement that would free him to acknowledge the identity of the source.

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

All of this is highly speculative at this time, but it’s worth considering. Particularly in light of Trump’s penchant for gaslighting America. He is a known liar who will use any and every tactic for obfuscation and deceit. Which makes the probability of him leaking this memo and them blaming it on a Justice Department he despises pretty damn high.

Trump and Fox News Whine About the Cost of Mueller Probe – But Here’s Why it’s a Bargain

Posted by on June 1, 2018 at 12:01 pm. 5 Comments :

It’s just another typical Friday morning in America where the President of the United States is venting his pent up rage on Twitter. The spectacle of Donald Trump’s embarrassing and dishonest tweetstorming has become as routine as the sunrise. And this morning’s episode of “As the Trump Tweets” was every bit as confounding as all the episodes that preceded it.

Donald Trump

Among the topics that riled up the Tweeter-in-Chief was how much money was being spent on the special counsel investigation into his collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice. Trump is aghast that the reported price tag so far has reached nearly $17 million dollars. Of course he surely didn’t know know that until he saw it during his “Executive Time” watching Fox News. They featured a segment on this with their chief intelligence correspondent, Catherine Herridge. She replied to a question as to whether there were “Any new details about the skyrocketing costs of the Russia investigation?” She said (video below):

“Well, we’ve got the report itself. And according to that report the taxpayer funded special counsel Russia probe spent nearly $17 million, as you say, since they opened, or Robert Mueller took over the investigation last year. […] according to the Justice Department report about $10 million has been spent between October and March. That includes $4.5 million spent by Mueller’s team and another $5.5 million spent by the Justice Department on other expenditures that are attributable to the investigation.”

Herridge then parroted Trump’s tweet that said precisely what she just finished saying, but added his customary partisan bullpucky that there was “No Collusion, except by the Democrats.”

However, neither Trump nor Fox News provided any context for the this expense report other than falsely portraying it as “skyrocketing.” The truth is that $17 million dollars is not especially high for this sort of legal inquiry. The Republican investigation of the Clintons over Whitewater cost more than $80 million (and found no evidence of wrongdoing). The total costs of the GOP-run Benghazi hearings were more than $20 million (also no wrongdoing. The investigation into Iran-Contra cost about $47 million. The cost of sixty votes attempting to repeal ObamaCare was at least $87 million. And Trump’s visits to his resort at Mar-A-Lago cost $67 million.

Put another way, the federal budget is currently about $4.1 trillion. Which means that $17 million is only about 0.0004% of the budget. It would be like someone making $50,000 a year and spending 20 cents. And it has already produced dozens of indictments and five guilty pleas. That seems like a pretty cost efficient expenditure for rooting out the traitorous behavior of a president and his cronies, and their efforts to obstruct justice. Don’t ya think?

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

Trump Zings AG Sessions with Quote by GOP Chairman that Ignores His Debunking of ‘Spygate’

Posted by on May 30, 2018 at 9:53 am. NO Comments :

Republican House Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy attended a classified Department of Justice briefing last week with the congressional “Gang of Eight” (top members of both parties). The meeting was arranged by Donald Trump to improperly disclose information about an informant used by the FBI during its investigation of suspicious contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives. This is the core of the controversy that Trump has been railing against for months as he tries to discredit the FBI and the inquiry by special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump refers to it as a hoax and calls it the “Collusion Witch Hunt.” Never mind that there have already been dozens of indictments and five guilty pleas. That’s a lot of witches, and it’s a long way from being over.

Donald Trump Jeff Sessions

Shortly after the meeting Democrat Adam Schiff told the press that there was nothing in the presentation that confirmed Trump’s wild accusations that the FBI planted a “spy” in his campaign. But Republicans said nothing at all, fueling speculation that what Schiff said was accurate. Now Gowdy has come forward and corroborated Schiff’s account. He said that:

“I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got, and that it has nothing to do with Donald Trump.”

So Gowdy disagrees completely with Trump’s baseless “spygate” malarkey. However, on Tuesday evening Trump held a rally in Nashville where he brought up the matter and stated as a fact that the FBI had infiltrated his campaign. He offered no further proof of the allegation, but he got the response he expected from the glassy-eyed disciples in his audience. Which is what he was going for on Wednesday morning when he tweeted some remarks from Gowdy that left out entirely the sharp rebuking above. Trump focused on whether or not he should have selected Jeff Sessions to be his Attorney General:

The problem with that version of events is that Sessions could not have known at the time of his appointment that he would have to recuse himself. For one thing, there was no “most important case” in progress at the time of Sessions’ appointment. For another, the reason for the recusal included Sessions’ testimony at his confirmation hearings where he denied having any contact with Russians. That was false. Consequently, he made himself a potential witness in the investigation which required his recusal. So Trump is criticizing Sessions for not having “shared these reasons for recusal before he took the job,” which would have been impossible without being able to see into the future.

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

All of this points to additional evidence of Trump’s guilt and subsequent efforts to obstruct justice. Add to this the new report that Trump tried to get Sessions to reverse his recusal, which would have been a clear violation of legal ethics. Not that ethics ever had anything to do with what Trump does or says. But that attempt has now become another plank in Mueller’s probe.