Liz Cheney: The ‘Supreme Dereliction of Duty’ By Trump Could Warrant Criminal Referral

With the ongoing horrors of the Russian genocide on Ukraine, it’s easy to forget the domestic horrors that are still percolating here at home. Although it’s been more than a year since Donald Trump incited deadly riots in Washington, D.C., the need for accountability has never diminished. Indeed, recent polls show – and Trump bizarrely brags – that 67% of Americans say that Trump is responsible for the violent January 6th insurrection.

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Donald Trump, Prison

The House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection is continuing its exhaustive process of acquiring testimony and documentation of the crimes of Trump and others in his conspiratorial cabal. And Attorney General Merrick Garland said earlier this month that the Justice Department’s investigation won’t end until everyone is held accountable:

“Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday that when it comes to politically sensitive investigations, the Justice Department does ‘not shy away from cases that are controversial or sensitive or political. To do that would undermine an element of the rule of law, which is that we treat like cases alike without regard to the subject matter,’ Garland told reporters in response to a question about the January 6 investigation.”

RELATED: Crybaby Trump Whines that ‘They Wanna Put Me in Jail’ – Just Because He’s a Criminal

So while it appears that the probe is dragging on interminably, there are also signs that the wheels of justice are turning and that the perpetrators will face consequences. That prospect was addressed during an interview with a Republican Committee member , Liz Cheney, on Meet the Press:

Chuck Todd: Should we expect criminal referrals on this? And should we expect something – how much new do you think the public will learn that will actually change the way they thought about January 6th?

Cheney: I think certainly our first priority is to make recommendations. And we see things like do we need enhanced criminal penalties for the kind of supreme dereliction of duty that you saw with president Trump when he refused to tell the mob to go home after he had provoked that attack on the Capitol.

So there will be legislative recommendations and there certainly will be information. And I can tell you I have not learned a single thing since I have been on this committee that has made me less concerned or less worried about the gravity of the situation and the actions that president Trump took and also refused to take while the attack was underway.

First of all, Todd’s question implies that the public needs to learn something new that will change their minds about Trump’s guilt. And while there’s always room for more, the majority of the American people are already convinced of of his culpability.

More to the point, Cheney’s response reveals that the Committee is collecting abundant evidence that could result in indictments. Her reference to Trump’s “supreme dereliction of duty” was not made casually. And her observance that the more information that comes out, the more Trump’s wrongdoing is apparent, cannot be providing Trump much comfort.

RELATED: Trump Publicly Confesses to Coup Attempt in Tweet that Pence ‘Could Have Overturned the Election’

The January 6th Committee has compiled a massive amount of evidence and deposed numerous Trump insiders. They are building a strong case supported by first hand testimony and unimpeachable documentation, including untold hours of damning video. And while the pace is frustratingly slow, the direction is unambiguously toward conviction.

Nevertheless, the public needs to stay alert and continue to put pressure on the legal and political players who control the process. That’s the path to holding Trump and his seditious confederates accountable, and to achieve the righteous goal of justice: Lock Him Up!

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Trump Unleashes a Wacky New Tweetstorm of Lies About Corruption in Ukraine

The Republican Party is demonstrating an evermore eager determination to abandon principles and embrace the dishonesty and self-exaltation of Donald Trump. As his impeachment in the House nears, Trump has escalated his efforts to muddy the debate with proven falsehoods about his interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Donald Trump, Toilet, Bathrobe

Trump has lately taken the position that the only thing he was interested in with regard to releasing military aid to Ukraine was the alleged corruption in their government. Never mind that the State Department had already affirmed that the concerns about corruption had been resolved and the aid was approved for disbursement. And forget the fact that Trump never even mentioned corruption in his phone calls with Zelensky. He spoke only about the mysterious DNC server and the Biden family. Which raises the question: If Trump believed that Ukraine was too corrupt to get aid funds, then why did he think they were capable of conducting an investigation of the Bidens?

There is no doubt that Trump engaged in an extortion plot to force Ukraine to join the Biden smear campaign or forfeit aid that they desperately needed to fight Russian aggression. Trump even admitted it on national TV. And yet, Trump continues to brazenly lie about his affairs with Zelensky.

During his regularly scheduled Sunday Morning Tweetstorm, Trump posted a flurry of tweets quoting Sen. Ted Cruz defending the President. And when you have to rely on Ted Cruz for your defense, let’s face it, you’ve already lost. Cruz was the target of numerous attacks by Trump, including allegations that he wasn’t eligible to be president because he was born in Canada, and that his father participated in the plot to assassinate John Kennedy, and even that his wife was ugly. Cruz responded by calling Trump a “pathological liar,” “utterly amoral,” “a narcissist at a level I don’t think this country’s ever seen” and “a serial philanderer.” That was then, this is now…

Suffice to say that none of that bears any resemblance to the truth. Democrats have never “admitted” that they can’t prove a crime. Quite the opposite. Extortion, bribery, obstruction of justice, campaign finance violations, and witness intimidation are all crimes. Not that any crime is necessary to warrant impeachment, but the fact is there are many that Trump violated.

What’s more, Cruz is reiterating the falsehood that Trump was concerned about corruption. And of course, he fails to provide any scrap of evidence of that. So instead, he employs the common GOP deflection of accusing the Bidens of crimes for which there has never been any proof. But the worst of what Cruz said was in this same interview on Meet the Press (video below). Host Chuck Todd asked him…

TODD: Do you believe Ukraine meddled in the American election in 2016?
CRUZ: I do! And I think there’s considerable evidence of that.
TODD: (Incredulously) You do?
[…]
TODD: Is it not possible that this president is capable of creating a false narrative about somebody in order to help him politically?
CRUZ: (Laughing) Except that’s not what happened. The President released the transcript of the phone call. You can read what was said on the phone call.
TODD: You, yourself thought the Biden part was troubling.
CRUZ: Chuck, let me point out a game that the media is playing.

Whereupon Cruz proceeded to avoid the question and change the subject. But he maintained his position that Ukraine had interfered with the 2016 election, a position not shared by any of the experts in the intelligence community. Cruz asserted that Ukraine’s interference consisted of a Ukrainian official writing a newspaper op-ed that was critical of Trump. That’s freedom of speech, not election interference. And it’s not remotely similar to Russia’s covert campaign of espionage, hacking, and a massive social media propaganda project.

Nevertheless, these are the arguments that Trump sought to focus on with multiple quote-tweets of Cruz. It exposes his desperation more than anything else. And while it’s obvious that Trump and his sycophantic surrogates are furiously trying to shift the subject to Joe Biden, none of that absolves Trump of guilt for the many crimes he has committed. So WTF is the point? Regardless of what happens with Biden, Trump still deserves to be impeached, removed from office and prosecuted.

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

Blindered Trump Flunky Larry Kudlow Doesn’t See a Recession Now, Or in 2007 Either

The past week has generated considerable concern about the state of the economy. And among the most anxious observers is Donald Trump, who knows that his reelection is dependent on being able to tout a positive outlook. However, due to his own ignorance and incompetence, the real world isn’t cooperating. The stock market is down for the third consecutive week. The dreaded yield curve inversion,” a fairly reliable signal of an imminent recession, took place. And there’s a global slowdown in manufacturing and consumption.

Donald Trump Rally Trash

So how is the Trump White House responding to these warnings that will impact every American? They are sending out their most accomplished liars to peddle utterly false impressions of the health of the economy. Topping that list is Trump’s Director of the National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow. He’s a notorious failure whose record for accurate predictions is almost comical. The President hired him after watching his Trump-fluffing performances on Fox News.

On Sunday morning Kudlow made the news talkies circuit to blatantly mislead the nation about their economic future. His performance was notably ineffective, at least partly because he appeared to be stinking drunk, which the Internet couldn’t help but notice. More importantly, his summary of the rosy scenario that the White House is pitching could not have been more deliberately deceitful. In an exchange with NBC’s Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, Kudlow engaged in this fantasy (video below):

Todd: The private sector seems to be concerned about the trade war with China, that there are some rough waters ahead. Maybe a recession, that those odds have risen. What do you see?
Kudlow: Well, I tell you what. I sure don’t see a recession. […] Most economists on Wall Street towards the end of the week have been marking up their forecasts for the third and fourth quarter. That echoes our view. What we’ve got here, consumers are working at higher wages. They are spending at a rapid pace. They’re actually also saving while they’re spending as an ideal situation. So actually I think the second half of the economy is going to be very good in 2019. No, I sure don’t see a recession.

First of all, it is patently untrue that “most economists on Wall Street … have been marking up their forecasts.” To the contrary, many have been sending up flares to warn of what they see as an inevitable decline. To be sure there are those with more optimistic views, but those types of Pollyannas have always been around just prior to the sky actually falling. Case in point…Larry Kudlow in 2007, who insisted that “The pessimistas were wrong…There’s no recession coming.” That was just a few months before the worst recession in nearly a century:

Kudlow went on to justify his horribly missed call by lying that “Every other forecaster” was saying the same thing. While he was not alone, there were some more accurate predictors, including current presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren. And Warren is cautioning people to be aware of another similar downturn. Some of the indicators are economists’ estimates of third-quarter GDP growth at about two per cent, way short of the four percent that Trump promised. Also, the manufacturing sector is slumping with output that has fallen 0.4 percent in July. Plus, the University of Michigan’s survey-based index of consumer confidence fell sharply in August, reaching its lowest level since 2016.

Meanwhile, Trump is telling his glassy-eyed disciples attending his cult rallies that “You have no choice but to vote for me, because your 401(k), everything is going to be down the tubes. Whether you love me or hate me, you have got to vote for me.” So did Trump just admit that voting for him would result in an economic catastrophe? That would be uncharacteristically honest of him.

Of course, he didn’t actually mean that. He was engaging in his classic brand of fear mongering to make sure his cult followers stay frightened and in line. But the truth is that Trump couldn’t care less about the financial prospects of the American people. He is solely focused on his own interests – either personal finances or reelection – and that is what’s driving everything he does and says. His Deplorables won’t learn that until it’s too late. But hopefully they will be spared that suffering, which can be avoided if citizens come together to vote Trump out or back Congressional efforts to impeach him.

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

Still Obsessed with Losing the Popular Vote, Trump Babbles Incoherently About Winning It

The United States of America is currently burdened with a president who suffers from a sever case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Donald Trump’s psychological impairments are obvious to objective observers and represent a clear and present danger to the welfare of the nation – and the world. He is utterly incapable of performing the duties of the presidency without placing his own interests before those of the people he is sworn to serve.

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton

Trump’s raging ego and self-exaltation has been demonstrated time and time again in the two and half turbulent years that he has occupied the White House. He cannot admit mistakes even when the evidence is unarguably documented. He incessantly brags on his own behalf for “accomplishments” that don’t exist. Those include “resolutions” of problems that he created himself like a firefighter moonlighting as an arsonist. And he has repeatedly forced his subordinates to sit around a table and utter slobbering tributes to him in a perverse spectacle of supplication and sycophancy.

So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Trump continues to be plagued by one particularly humiliating failure. His historic loss of the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election gnaws at him like a famished piranha. He can’t stop thinking about it, or lying about it. And that fetish reared its ugly head again in an interview with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press Sunday morning. The discussion was pure Trumpian bombast and delusion (video below):

Todd: You didn’t like the fact that you lost the popular vote. That bothered you didn’t it?
Trump: Well I think it was a – well again, I’ll say something that again is controversial. There were a lot of votes cast that I don’t believe. I look at California…
Todd: Mr. President, that’s just…
Trump: Excuse me. Take a look at Judicial Watch. Take a look at their settlement. California admitted to a million votes. They admitted to a million votes.
Todd: A million votes of what? What are you talking about?
Trump: Judicial Watch made a settlement.
Todd: About what?
Trump: There was much illegal voting. But let me tell you about popular vote. I like popular vote. I think I do better with the popular vote.

Trump is still insisting that millions of illegal votes were cast in California, despite having been thoroughly debunked without a shred of evidence. And his comment that there were “votes cast that I don’t believe’ is both deranged and frightening, given the approaching 2020 election.

But then Trump wades into lunatic territory with his demand to look at a settlement with the ultra-rightist Trump-fluffers at Judicial Watch. Trump claims that it reveals an admission by California authorities that “a million votes” were cast illegally. Trump couldn’t explain what he was talking about, even after prodding by Todd. So he clumsily changed the subject.

The settlement that Trump was referring to was one wherein California agreed to remove a million and half votes “inactive” voters from the registration lists. These were names of people who had not voted in several elections and had either died or moved. There was not a single one that had cast any vote, much less an illegal one. As reported by the Associated Press:

“At issue was how election officials were handling records of voters who hadn’t voted in repeated elections and were not part of active voter rolls in the state. […] Paul Mitchell of the nonpartisan research firm Political Data Inc. called the case insignificant because it involves inactive voters who ‘are not getting voting materials, they are not casting ballots, they are not showing up in precincts.'”

Trump’s flagrant lies sound more and more like the rambling blather of senile old coot with a tenuous grasp of reality. And it’s always aimed at glorifying himself in a manner that is wholly undeserved and positively loony. His preposterous self-image is all the more ridiculous considering that he is the only president in the history of Gallup polling to have never cracked 50 percent approval.

And yet, Trump still believes that, but for some imaginary voter fraud, he won the popular vote, and would do so again. This sort of mental infirmity would be bad enough in your crazy retired uncle who sits on the porch all day yelling at clouds. But for someone who holds the nuclear launch codes, and threatens to annihilate foreign countries, this is untenable and downright scary.

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

In Unhinged Speech Trump Slobbers Over Foreign Despots While Attacking America’s Free Press

The President of the United States left Washington, D.C. this Saturday, but didn’t head south to his luxury Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach as usual. Instead Donald Trump went up to Pennsylvania to deliver a campaign speech on behalf of Rick Saccone, who is at risk of losing to Democrat Conner Lamb next Tuesday in a district that Trump won by twenty points. The rally was reminiscent of Trump’s aimless campaign speeches in 2016 where he pontificated like a mad evangelist for an hour or more.

Donald Trump

In keeping with his practice of shrieking sermonizing, Trump made a point of attacking what he considers the the scourge of his existence: the media (video below). He rattled off the sort of derogatory slander that would ordinarily be reserved for bitter enemies of all that is righteous. It was a storm of damnation, both personal and broadly general.

For instance, Trump lashed out at NBC’s Meet the Press calling it “A show now headed by sleepy eyes Chuck Todd. He’s a sleeping son of a bitch, I’ll tell ya.” Remember, this speech was at a daytime rally with children present. He also went after an unnamed “certain anchor on CNN” who he said was “fake as hell, CNN. The worst. So fake. Fake news.” And he wasn’t letting NBC off either. He ranted that they were “perhaps worse than CNN, I have to tell you. And MSNBC is horrible.” Continuing down that path of raw animosity he called MSNBC “third rate. And NBC, which is horrible. Their newscast, by the way is not doing well. On NBC network. They’re heading down the tubes.”

This might be a good time to inject some facts into the discussion. NBC’s newscast anchored by Lester Holt has won ten consecutive quarters in the key advertising demographic of 25-54 year olds. They were also number one in the most recent sweeps period of February 2018. And their morning news program, the Today Show, topped their competition (ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS This Morning) in both the demo and total viewers. As for MSNBC, Rachel Maddow has been beating Trump’s BFF Sean Hannity on a regular basis.

But Trump wasn’t about to let mere reality interfere with his delusions. He went on to make a ludicrous and utterly nonsensical prediction about the media that he despises so, and which he is convinced hates him. Pointing to the press at the rally he said…

“Six months prior to the election, every one of those guys – ‘We really endorse Donald Trump. We think he has to win.’ You know why? Because if I don’t win the election their ratings are gonna go so far down they’re gonna be out of business, every one of them.”

WTF is he trying to say here? That the media that he accuses of trying to destroy him will suddenly reason that it’s in their interest to support him? If that’s true, then why wouldn’t they support him now for the same reasons? What’s more, he’s implying that the media’s surging ratings are the result of having him around to attack. Which means that more viewers are watching because they enjoy seeing him get hammered. That’s actually true. Every poll shows that Trump has the lowest approval rating of any president ever recorded. So people probably are happy to see him get cut down by responsible journalists whose reporting of Trump’s failures is just part their job.

The tone that Trump sets in these rallies is decidedly hostile and un-American. He praises China’s Xi Jinping, who just maneuvered himself into being president for life (of which Trump is envious). He declares that he blindly trusts Kim Jong Un’s promise to refrain from missile and nuclear testing. He protects Vladimir Putin’s Russia from sanctions mandated by Congress as punishment for their election tampering. Trump speaks of these and other anti-democratic tyrants in radiantly glowing terms. But he viciously insults fellow Americans who practice their Constitutionally protected right to freedom of the press. And he thinks that’s how to MAGA – or KAG, as he now says (Keep America Gross).

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

The Trump Era Logical Dissonance Wrapped Up in One Unbelievably Incoherent Sentence

OK, this comment by Donald Trump’s Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, perfectly encapsulates the entirety of the Trump Era logical dissonance. It’s an indicator of just how toxic the effect of Trump’s idiocy is on all of those around him.

Donald Trump Effect

In an interview with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, Ross makes this statement that is saying absolutely nothing coherent, and then denies that he even said what he just said. The subject was Trump’s asinine proposal to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum products, mostly from our allies.

“Whatever his final decision is, is what will happen. What he has said, he has said. If he says something different, it’ll be something different.”

Well, thanks for clearing that up. I have nothing to add.

See it for yourself:

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

TRUMP: ‘Does Anybody Really Want to Throw Out’ DREAMers? YES, You Do! (VIDEO)

Within the past twenty-four hours Donald Trump has surpassed his ordinary level of chaotic confusion. And that’s saying something. It began with the news that he had met with Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. They reportedly discussed the status of the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), after he rescinded the executive order issued by President Obama.

Donald Trump

According to Pelosi, they agreed to codify DACA into law. But it didn’t take long for Trump’s team to flip and shoot that down, insisting that there was no agreement. And then, in another flop, Trump tweeted this:

So Trump wants to know if anyone really wants to throw out the DREAMers. And the answer to that is a resounding “YES!” Trump himself wants to throw them out. He said exactly that to Chuck Todd on Meet the Press in August of 2015:

CHUCK TODD: You’ll rescind the DREAM Act executive order–
DONALD TRUMP: You’re going to have to.
TODD: DACA?
TRUMP: We have to make a whole new set of standards. And when people come in, they have to come in legally–
TODD: So you’re going to split up families?
TRUMP: Chuck.
TODD: You’re going to deport children–
TRUMP: Chuck. No, no. We’re going to keep the families together. We have to keep the families together.
TODD: But you’re going to keep them together out–
TRUMP: But they have to go. But they have to go.
TODD: What if they have no place to go?
TRUMP: We will work with them. They have to go. Chuck, we either have a country or we don’t have a country.

The gall of this lying cretin to pretend that he’s concerned about these young people who have demonstrated their patriotism, is gravity-defying. He could have simply said that he was convinced by Schumer and Pelosi that this was the right thing to do. Instead he chose a flagrantly dishonest path in order to exalt himself. So even when he tries to do the right thing, he wraps it in lies and conceit.

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

Profiles in Cowardice: Republicans Are Refusing All Interview Requests to Defend Trump’s Bigotry

On Thursday morning Donald Trump tripled down on his support for the Confederacy and the bigotry it fought to preserve. His latest tweetstorm gushed over the “beauty” of the statues of traitors that he says “will be greatly missed.” And he’s right. They will be missed by the white supremacists and racists who have been applauding Trump’s advocacy of their cause.

Shepard Smith Fox News

However, outside of the alt-rightists and Klan members that have rallied around his pro-Nazi remarks, Trump has garnered scant support from his own Republican colleagues. Many have taken to putting out their own condemnations of the violence instigated by bigots in Charlottesville. They include GOP leaders like House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Unfortunately, in most cases they merely express opposition to racism without holding their president accountable for exacerbating the hate.

These weakly conveyed messages of tolerance demonstrate the fear that Republicans have of directly countering Trump. They remain committed to his presidency and his agenda. They just can’t bring themselves to utter his name in conjunction with the division he is fomenting.

They also can’t bring themselves to defend him on television. Every cable news network is complaining that their efforts to book Republicans to defend the President are coming up empty. This is an astonishing turn of events. Publicity-hungry politicians are actually declining to appear on TV to promote their party and president. Here are some examples of the media response to this unprecedented situation:

Chuck Todd, MSNBC: We invited every single Republican senator on this program tonight, all 52. We asked roughly a dozen house Republicans including a bunch of committee chairs and we asked a half-dozen officials. And none of them agreed to discuss this issue with us today.

Wolf Blitzer, CNN: We did reach out to Republican leaders throughout the day. They all, at least for now, refused to join us. But the invitation is clearly still very much open.

Shepard Smith, Fox News: Our booking team reached out to Republicans of all stripes across the country today. Let’s be honest. Republicans don’t mind coming on Fox News channel. We couldn’t get anyone to come and defend him here. We thought in balance, someone should do that. We worked very hard at it throughout the day. We were unsuccessful.

That’s right. Even Fox News, the PR division of the Republican Party, is unable to convince a single Republican to go on the air to support their leader. They can still book GOP advocates of nuking North Korea or throwing millions of Americans off of their healthcare plans. But asking them to backup the President’s recent cheerleading for neo-Nazis is apparently where they draw the line.

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

It remains to be seen how long they can hold out. Trump is already tweeting attacks on party mates who dare to criticize him. Thursday morning he unleashed his typically infantile insults on Senators Lindsay Graham and Jeff Flake. Expect those Twitter tantrums to continue as Trump’s ultra-sensitive ego is bruised by others disloyal to Dear Leader. Before long the only people willing to defend Trump on TV will be David Duke and Ivanka. And I’m not all that sure about Ivanka.

Trump’s Lawyer Repeatedly Contradicts President’s Claim that He’s Under Investigation

Donald Trump and his administration are not known for their ability to communicate a consistent, coherent message. They have a history of wildly contradictory statements and absurd deflections from reality. So it isn’t surprising that Trump’s new lawyer, Jay Sekulow, has continued that tradition. He made several appearances on the Sunday morning news shows that did nothing but contribute to the confusion surrounding the investigation into Trump’s obstruction of justice.

Sekulow Trump CNN

On all of these programs the discussion was related to a story in the Washington Post saying Trump is under investigation. The Post reported that on the basis of five (count ’em, five) sources who requested anonymity. Of course, Trump has previously railed against the use of anonymous sources despite using them himself when it suits him. However, professional journalists have relied on such sources with great accuracy for as long as there has been journalism.

Trump’s response to the story was expressed in a tweet that apparently confirmed the Post’s account:

That’s simple enough. The President is explicitly agreeing with the Post that he is being investigated. And the investigation concerns, in part, the events leading to the termination of former FBI Director, James Comey. He’s also blaming it on someone at the Justice Department who told him to do it. Never mind that he told NBC’s Lester Holt it was his decision alone. A decision that he made before consulting the DOJ. The bottom line is that everyone is on the same page with regard to the existence of an investigation. Right?

Wrong. Mr. Sekulow, Trump’s attorney, objects. On each of his Sunday interviews he blatantly contradicted his client. He repeated that the President is not now, nor has he ever been, under investigation. But his attempts to support that argument were ludicrous. Let’s begin with the most friendly forum for Trump’s representative, Fox News. Chris Wallace noted that Sekulow himself said that Trump is being investigated.

Sekulow: [Trump] is being investigated for taking the action that the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, recommended him to take by the agency that recommended the termination.
Wallace: First of all, you’ve now stated that he is being investigated after saying that he …
Sekulow: No.
Wallace: You just said that he’s being investigated.
Sekulow: Let me be crystal clear so you completely understand. We have not received, nor are we aware of any investigation of the President of the United States.

Wallace deserves some credit for not letting Sekulow get away with contradicting both himself and Trump. But Sekulow’s attempt at crystal clarity just dodges the substance of his own prior remarks. So let’s move on to Meet the Press with Chuck Todd:

Todd: Let me begin with getting some clarification here. The President tweeted this week “I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director.” When did the President become aware that he was officially under investigation by the special counsel?
Sekulow: The President is not under investigation by the special counsel. The tweet from the President was in response to the five anonymous sources that were purportedly leaking information to the Washington Post about a potential investigation of the President.

Sekulow’s reply doesn’t begin to answer the question. In fact, it makes no sense. How does Trump’s alleged response being aimed at the Post’s story change the meaning of it? That question comes up again when Sekulow appears on CNN’s State of the Nation with Jake Tapper (video below):

Tapper: The President said “I am being investigated” in a tweet and people take his word on that. But you’re his attorney. You’re saying that when the President said that he was not accurate.
Sekulow: No. The President was – It was 141 (sic) characters. There’s a limitation on Twitter, as we all know. And the President has very effective utilization of social media. So here’s what we have. The President issued that tweet, that social media statement based on a fake report, a report with no documented sources from the Washington Post. […] The President’s response was as it related to the Washington Post report. He cannot in a Twitter statement include all of that in there. But the Washington Post statement came out that morning. There should be no confusion. The President is not under investigation.

Now Sekulow is asserting that the Post’s story is fake. Of course, he doesn’t provide any evidence to substantiate that allegation. As a lawyer he should know better. But even that reckless remark doesn’t explain why Trump said that he is being investigated. Sekulow tried to bolster his defense by asserting that Twitter’s character limit is what prevented Trump from being clear. But Trump’s tweet contained only 111 characters. So he had twenty-nine to spare. And according to Sekulow, “the President has very effective utilization of social media.” So he could easily have added “WaPo Says,” or even “the fake news WaPo says.” So there was no impediment by Twitter on Trump making an accurate statement.

At this point it should be noted that Sekulow is not telling the truth about whether Trump is under investigation. All he can say honestly is that he isn’t aware of any investigation. He cannot say that there isn’t one. Wallace called him that and he agreed. Nevertheless, he repeated the same falsehood on the other programs. It’s a propaganda tactic aimed at convincing people that Trump is pure as the driven snow. But his execution is so inept that he just winds up muddying the waters and making his client look guilty. Which I suppose is a professional hazard for lawyers with guilty clients.

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

ALTERNATIVE FACTS? The Trump Team’s War On The Media – And Reality

It didn’t take long for Donald Trump and his press team to fulfill the most dire predictions made regarding his hostility toward the media. During his campaign, alarmed press advocates called him out as “an unprecedented threat to the rights of journalists.” His treatment of reporters covering him was brazenly antagonistic and insulting. And now that he has been sworn in as president, he hasn’t moderated his animosity in the least.

Kellyanne Conway

At a hastily assembled appearance at CIA offices, Trump spoke mainly about his “running war with the media.” He made a point of disparaging them as “the most dishonest human beings on earth.” Why he thought that was an appropriate subject for this audience is a mystery. But it was also the theme of the day for his staff.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer called the White House press corps together to deliver a statement. What transpired was shocking and unprecedented. For his first showing in the White House briefing room, Spicer unleashed a torrent of invective and lies which he read awkwardly from prepared notes. He lied about things for which there is video proof. He elevated a tangential issue above far more important matters in the news. His ranting reflected Trump’s thin-skinned narcissism and ego-drive obsession with approval. His angry and partisan insults were disrespectful and somewhat fascistic as he instructed reporters on what they should cover. He clearly doesn’t understand his role as a conduit for informing the public. And he concluded by stomping out without taking a single question.

Worst of all, Spicer’s complaints were a collection of verifiable lies. Among the falsehoods he sought to disseminate are these, which were all proven to be untrue by PolitiFact:

  • “This is the first time in our nation’s history that floor coverings have been used to protect the grass on the Mall.”
    FALSE: They were used in 2012 for Obama’s second inauguration.
  • “This was also the first time that fencing and magnetometers went as far back on the Mall, preventing hundreds of thousands of people from being able to access the Mall as quickly as they had in inaugurations past.”
    FALSE: The Secret Service, who are responsible for these matters, refutes this.
  • “No one had numbers, because the National Parks Service does not put any out.”
    FALSE: While the Parks Service doesn’t put out numbers, other parties do.
  • “We know that 420,000 people used the D.C, Metro public transit yesterday, which actually compares to 317,000 for president Obama’s last inaugural.”
    FALSE: The D.C. Metro actually provided different numbers that show Obama’s attendance were substantially higher.
  • “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period. Both in person and around the globe.”
    FALSE: Obama’s first inauguration drew 1.8 million people (seven times more), and the television audience was 38 million (seven million more).

Spicer spoke about his intention to “to hold the press accountable.” However, it remains unclear what he means by that. Sunday morning, Trump’s senior advisor, Kellyanne Conway, told NBC’s Chuck Todd that “our press secretary, Sean Spicer, gave alternative facts.” As Todd pointed out, another term for “alternative facts” is falsehoods.

Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, also commented on this subject. He said that “The point is not the crowd size. The point is the attacks and the attempt to delegitimize this president.” Priebus is asserting that an honest presentation of the facts “deligitimizes” his boss. He may have a point.

All of this is reminiscent of remarks made by another Trump surrogate during a radio interview in December. Scottie Nell Hughes declared that “There’s no such thing unfortunately, anymore, as facts.” That viewpoint is an admission that they can’t possibly persuade anyone to support them if they have to rely on reality. Consequently, they resort to creating their own reality and sucking the weak into it.

Finally, on a peculiar side note, the video below is from CNN. That’s because the video on the all-new White House website is something of a digital monstrosity. It’s about an hour and forty-seven minutes long. However, the first hour and thirteen minutes is just silence with a blue card saying the statement is “Beginning Shortly.” That’s followed by about twenty minutes of an empty podium in the briefing room. Then we get to the actual six minute statement by Spicer. And finally, the video closes with another eight minutes of a blue card saying “Just Concluded.” Either they don’t have anyone who can edit a video, or they meant to bury the six minute statement in nearly two hours of nothing. Given what he had to say, that might be a pretty reasonable strategy. Unfortunately, we may be in for another four years of this obfuscation and incompetence.

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