Trump Literally Pledges to Stage ‘RIGGED’ Trials to Punish Democrats for Upholding the Law

If there is anything that America has learned in the past few years about Donald Trump, it is that he is congenitally disposed to violate the law whenever he deems it to be in his interest to do so. Those who have followed his misconduct in the business world, prior to his political misadventures, have known this all along.

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Donald Trump, Constitution

Some of Trump’s past wrongdoings have come to light only after he entered politics. And in some measure he has been held accountable. For instance, his phony Trump University was shuttered and he was ordered to pay $25 million in restitution. His charitable foundation was also closed, and he and his family were prohibited from operating any such enterprise in New York for five years. More recently, his Trump Organization, the core of his real estate business, was found to have committed financial fraud, and he is currently in court where the penalties will be assessed and imposed.

SEE THIS: Crybaby Trump Returns to the New York Courtroom Where He Whines that ‘This is a Rigged Trial’

On Wednesday Trump made another appearance at the New York courtroom where his former attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, is testifying. On this occasion, as on others, Trump took to his pitifully failing social media scam, Truth Social, to whine that he is a victim of a massive cabal that is determined to destroy him. He yowled that…

“I have a very partisan and angry Judge, a Corrupt Attorney General, and am not allowed a Jury Trial under the Statute they have chosen to use (for the very first time ever!). The good news, that even the Fake News is seeing, is that the facts are ALL on my side! [and that] This is a RIGGED TRIAL, right out of a Banana Republic, but sadly, it gives the Republicans the right to do the same thing when we assume office.”

Setting aside his tedious babbling about partisan judges and corrupt Attorney Generals, Trump made an explicit promise to any of his cult disciples who might be listening. Referring to the prosecutions that he insists are unconstitutional witch hunts, Trump says that Republicans now have “the right to do the same thing when we assume office.” So he is, in effect, pledging to conduct unconstitutional witch hunts if he gets the opportunity.

That shouldn’t surprise anyone. Trump has spent the past three years trying to unlawfully reverse the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. To that end, he has threatened government officials and filed dozens of frivolous lawsuits, which he lost. He currently has 91 felony charges pending against him. And three of his former lawyers have already pleaded guilty to election interference.

SEE ALSO: Trump Lies that Sidney Powell Was Never His Attorney After Her Election Interference Guilty Plea

Trump’s post was also notable for lying that, due to the statute that was “chosen,” he was not “allowed” to have a jury (if he wanted a jury he should have broken a law that permitted one), that the statute was never used before (yeah, it was), and that the media sees that the facts “are ALL on my side” (only if you limit your media to Fox News and Newsmax).

It isn’t unusual for a criminal defendant to complain about a prosecution being unfair or unlawful. But it is profoundly bizarre to then promise to exact revenge by engaging in the very same unlawfulness that was alleged. But that’s how Trump’s mind works. He thinks that if his car were repossessed for non-payment by the dealership, it would be okay for him to steal another car off the lot.

What’ more, Trump made some comments outside of the court that violated the gag order he was already under to refrain from disparaging or intimidating court personnel or witnesses. The Judge fined him $10,000, and warned that any further violations would result in more severe sanctions.

These are all additional reasons why Trump – or any of his MAGA cult – must not be allowed to hold any positions of power. They will abuse it for their own benefit, at the expense of the nation. They have no respect for the law, the Constitution, or democracy. And Trump has provided us with explicit evidence – in his own words – of the mob-like tactics he would impose were he to be reelected.

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LOL: Trump Quotes Some Old Praise By His Former Fixer, Michael Cohen, Who He Then Calls a Liar

The soap opera that is chronicling Donald Trump’s legal quagmire continues to unfold with Trump himself providing the most perverse plot twists. His relentless determination to sabotage his own self-interests is a case study in narcissistic sociopathy, wherein the subject is convinced of his own infallibility, and even immortality.

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Donald Trump, National Enquirer

On Tuesday morning Trump returned to the New York courtroom where he is being tried for financial fraud. His presence was neither requested nor necessary. He just wanted to show up on the day that his former attorney, Michael Cohen, was scheduled to testify. Trump attempted to set up this face off previously, but Cohen had it postponed due to illness. Trump made an appearance anyway so that he could complain – again – about what a poor, pathetic, victim he is.

SEE ALSO: Crybaby Trump Returns to the New York Courtroom Where He Whines that ‘This is a Rigged Trial’

The Cohen testimony was rescheduled and he arrived at court ready to square off with Trump and his attorneys. However, in advance of that testimony, Trump posted a comment on his pitifully failing social media scam, Truth Social, that featured the following twelve year old quote from the Huffington Post of Michael Cohen sucking up to his then-boss:

“Trump lawyer Michael Cohen told The Huffington Post that Trump is worth ‘a lot … substantially more than what’s recorded in Forbes.’ ‘They don’t take into account the value of the Trump brand, of the mark, one of the most valuable marks that’s ever been created,’ Cohen said. ‘He has very little debt, triple-A assets.’ (HuffPost, April 2011)”

At the time Cohen was a devoted lawyer representing Trump and described himself as “fiercely loyal to him and committed to protecting him at all costs.” A quote that Trump also posted. Cohen later recanted those complimentary remarks, admitting that he lied on Trump’s behalf and at his direction.

Trump’s reference to those flattering statements show that he is relying on Cohen’s loyalty and honesty to defend himself against the charges of financial fraud that the court has already ruled are valid. But before court on Tuesday Trump called Cohen “a liar trying to get a better deal for himself.”

That brief statement holds a surprising quantity of bullcrap. First of all, Cohen was already tried and has served his sentence, so there’s nothing pending to make a deal on. Also, calling Cohen a liar violates the gag order prohibiting Trump from attacking witnesses in the case.

But more to the point, Trump is now maligning Cohen as a dishonest witness who must not be believed. That’s right, the same guy who Trump just embraced for his honesty and adulation is simultaneously a scoundrel who can’t tell the truth. Trump is, in effect, discrediting his own character witness. Who else but a “stable genius” like Trump would execute such a boldly schizoid strategy?

For his part, Cohen told reporters before he entered the courtroom that “This is not about Donald Trump vs. Michael Cohen, or Michael Cohen vs. Donald Trump. This is about accountability, plain and simple. and we leave it up to Judge Engoron to make all the determinations on that.” Whatever one thinks of Cohen, he clearly has a more rational approach to how behave in such legal proceedings.

Trump, on the other hand, continues to demonstrate that he is an attorney’s worst nightmare. In addition to Cohen’s relationship with Trump leading to a conviction and prison sentence, three of Trump’s former lawyers (Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, and Kenneth Chesebro) have pleaded guilty in the election interference case in Georgia. You really have to wonder how Trump gets anyone to represent him at this point when all they get is indicted, imprisoned, or stiffed – or all of the above.

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WOW! Trump Thinks He Found Proof that Michael Cohen Lied About the Stormy Daniels Hush Money Affair

The seething fear of Donald Trump continues to boil over into ever more belligerent and bizarre outbursts on his failing social media scam, Truth Social. For several days Trump has been posting repetitious and offensive assaults on the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who is reported to be nearing a decision on indicting Trump.

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Donald Trump, National Enquirer

Among Trump’s blathering broadsides are racist and anti-Semitic insults aimed at the Black D.A. Trump refers to Bragg as “A SOROS BACKED ANIMAL,” who is seeking to destroy the country. And he attempts to persuade the NYPD to shirk their duties to protect New Yorkers from the StormTrumpers who are threatening to riot if Trump is indicted.

RELATED: Trump Can’t Imagine the NYPD Defending the City If His Indictment Triggers Riots By His Followers

On Thursday morning Trump persisted with his impertinent prattle in post that reeked of the meritless pride of a confirmed malignant narcissist. He expressed his astonishment at having discovered what he thinks is a bombshell revelation that blows the roof off of the Stormy Daniels “hush money” affair.

The letter was from the attorney for Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), and said in part that the $130,000.00 that Trump paid to Daniels to buy her silence “does not constitute a campaign contribution.” It went on to say that…

“In a private transaction in 2016, before the U.S. presidential election, Mr. Cohen used his own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford. Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the payment directly or indirectly.

“Contrary to the allegations in the complaint, which are entirely speculative, neither Mr. Cohen nor Essential Consultants LLC made any in-kind contributions to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., or any other presidential campaign committee.”

To that Trump responded…

“Wow, look what was just found—A Letter from Cohen’s Lawyer to the Federal Election Commission. This is totally exculpatory, and must end the Manhattan District Attorney’s Witch Hunt, immediately. Cohen admits that he did it himself. The D.A. should get on with prosecuting violent criminals, so people can walk down the sidewalks of New York without being murdered!”

There is an impressive quantity of bullpucky in there. Let’s break it down…

First of all, this letter was not “just found.” It is not exculpatory at all. It won’t end the D.A.’s investigation. It isn’t a witch hunt. Cohen’s “admission” was a lie. And millions of New Yorkers walk the streets without being murdered every day. In fact, crime is down.

The truth is that the letter Trump claims to have found contains nothing new. The claim by Cohen that he “used his own personal funds” for the Daniels payoff has been a part of the public record for at least five years. Cohen told the same story to the New York Times on February 13, 2018. And that article was referenced in a March 8, 2018 letter sent to Trump by the then-ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, Jarry Nadler, seeking more information about the hush money.

SEE ALSO: Trump’s Attorney Admits that Trump Lied About Making Hush Money Payments to Stormy Daniels

What’s more, the phony surprise by Trump is all the more preposterous considering that the claims by Cohen in his February 8, 2018, letter to the FEC were rendered moot when he later pleaded guilty to lying about that. It were those lies that sent Cohen to prison. The Justice Department explicitly referenced these claims in their charging document on August 21, 2018, and noted that “COHEN caused and made the payments described herein in order to influence the 2016 presidential election.”

So to summarize, Trump is bragging that he “found” a letter wherein Cohen lied about matters that everyone already knew that he lied about because he pleaded guilty to doing so and even testified before Congress to that effect. If this is the best that Trump can do to extricate himself from this mess, no wonder he resorts to infantile insults and name-calling. He’s desperate and afraid and at some level knows that he’s going down.

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Fox News is Referenced in the Mueller Report Four Times, and Each Makes Trump Look Worse

With the release of the redacted version of the Mueller report by Donald Trump’s plant in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr, there is going to be a flurry of furious spinning by Trump’s devoted martinets in the right-wing press. Trump himself will continue his frantic robo-rant of “no collusion, no obstruction,” as he has been doing for months.

Fox News, Robert Mueller

Naturally, Fox News will assume its predictable role as the main line of defense for Trump. They will focus exclusively on any positive angles among the vague interpretations of Mueller’s report offered by Barr or other Republican partisans. And they will brazenly ignore anything in the report that is remotely detrimental to Trump, of which there is a significant amount. Even Chris Wallace of Fox News noted that “There is a lot of stuff in here that is damaging to the president, politically embarrassing to the president.”

However, Fox News itself had a place in the Mueller report with four references to Trump’s State TV affiliate. The following passages from the report illustrate just how deeply integrated Fox is with Trump and his associates. For instance:

Page 70:

“That night, the White House Press Office called the Department of Justice and said the White House wanted to put out a statement saying that it was Rosenstein’s idea to fire Comey. Rosenstein told other DOJ officials that he would not participate in putting out a ‘false story.’ The President then called Rosenstein directly and said he was watching Fox News, that the coverage had been great, and that he wanted Rosenstein to do a press conference. Rosenstein responded that this was not a good idea because if the press asked him, he would tell the truth that Comey’s firing was not his idea.”

What we have here is Trump keeping tabs on the investigation by watching Fox News, and then trying to get Deputy AG Rosenstein to lie for him about FBI Director James Comey’s firing. That’s obstruction of justice right there. The fact that Rosenstein refused doesn’t make Trump’s attempt any less illegal. And then there’s this:

Page 99:

“[Reince] Priebus recalled learning about the June 9 meeting from Fox News host Sean Hannity in late June 2017. Priebus notified one of the President’s personal attorneys, who told Priebus he was already working on it. By late June, several advisors recalled receiving media inquiries that could relate to the June 9 meeting.”

It’s rather remarkable that Priebus, Trump’s chief of staff, found out about the infamous Trump Tower meeting (with Don Jr, Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and some Russian operatives) only by watching Fox News. That’s how out-of-the-loop Trump’s closest White House aide was, but also how integral Fox News is to Trump’s affairs. And that’s not all:

Page 126:

“In a Fox News interview on August 22, 2018, the President said: ‘[Cohen] makes a better deal when he uses me, like everybody else. And one of the reasons l respect Paul Manafort so much is he went through that trial-you know they make up stories. People make up stories. This whole thing about flipping, they call it, I know all about flipping. The President said that flipping was ‘not fair’ and ‘almost ought to be outlawed.'”

In this “interview” with the unabashedly pro-Trump “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends, Trump is laying the groundwork for threats directed at his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, while simultaneously praising his more loyal campaign chairman, Manafort. This is a fairly clumsy attempt at witness tampering. Which he did some more of here:

Page 151:

“In January 2019, after the media reported that Cohen would provide public testimony in a congressional hearing, the President made additional public comments suggesting that Cohen’s family members had committed crimes. In an interview on Fox on January 12, 2019, the President was asked whether he was worried about Cohen’s testimony and responded:

‘[I]n order to get his sentence reduced, [Cohen] says “I have an idea, I’ll ah, tell-I’ll give you some information on the president.” Well, there is no information. But he should give information maybe on his father-in-law because that’s the one that people want to look at because where does that money-that’s the money in the family.'”

Trump made these accusations during an interview with his adoring acolyte, Fox News host Jeanine Pirro. They were directed against Cohen’s family as a flagrant attempt to scare him into keeping his mouth shut.

It’s hard to see why Mueller didn’t think he had sufficient evidence to indict Trump, or at least to recommend that Congress take up an inquiry that could lead to impeachment. And as guilty as Trump now appears to be, it’s plain that Fox News was a willing accomplice every step of the way. It is not insignificant that Fox was referenced four times in the report. They were further included in twenty-seven footnotes. No other national news network was referenced in the body of the report even once. What does that tell you?

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

Devastating Poll: More Americans Believe Convicted Liar Michael Cohen than Donald Trump

In more than two years as President, Donald Trump’s approval rating has never risen above fifty percent. It’s a singular achievement in failure that no other president in history can claim. He is unchallenged as the most unpopular president ever. And yet, in his fantasy bubble world he still believes (and tweets) that he is universally beloved.

Donald Trump

Trump is so delusional that he frequently refers to himself as “your favorite president” in tweets (here and here and here and here and here and here and here). However, the truth is hard to avoid considering the wealth of data that exposes how reviled he is by everyone other than his Deplorable base. And a new poll by Quinnipiac University really drives home the point in a brutal way that will surely trigger spasms from the Twitterer-in-Chief.

Quinnipiac asked 1,120 voters “In general, who do you believe more: President Trump or Michael Cohen?” Fully half of the respondents said they believe Cohen more. Only thirty-five percent said they believe Trump. Let’s put that in perspective. It’s a pretty crushing judgment when a president is viewed as less believable than a confessed, convicted liar. But then again, we’re talking here about a president who has been documented to have lied more than 9,000 times since his inauguration.

Making matters worse, a plurality (44-36) say that “Cohen told the truth during his testimony before the U.S. House Oversight Committee.” In addition, a plurality of forty-one percent approve of the way Democrats handled the Cohen hearing. But a majority disapprove of the Republicans’ antics. And a broad majority (58-35) say that “Congress should do more to investigate Michael Cohen’s claims about President Trump’s unethical and illegal behavior.” And sixty-five percent say that Trump is not honest.

There’s a lot of other bad news for Trump in this poll. Overall, his approval rating is a dismal thirty-eight percent. He’s underwater on the questions of leadership skills, caring about average Americans, foreign policy, and immigration. Fully seventy-one percent say that he’s a bad role model for kids.

What’s more fifty-four percent say that special counsel Robert Mueller is “conducting a fair investigation.” Sixty-four percent say that “Trump committed crimes before he was president.” And a plurality of forty-five percent say he committed crimes while president.

Considering how furiously Trump has been trying to malign Democrats, Mueller, and what he calls the “Russia Witch Hunt Hoax,” these poll results reveal that his efforts have been profoundly unsuccessful. The majority of the American people are clearly unwilling to succumb to his lies and flagrant distortions of reality. And they haven’t been distracted by his attempts at misdirection (i.e. border walls, North Korea) or his retaliatory attacks on his political opponents and the media.

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

In fact, Trump’s wild flailing only serves to make him look more desperate, frightened, and guilty. While it might make him feel better, and fire up his most devoted cult followers, it is having zero impact on the electorate at large. Which will make it that much easier to hold him accountable via congressional investigations, special counsel and U.S. Attorney probes, and maybe even impeachment. Hopefully his day of reckoning will come before he does much more harm.

Trump’s Lies are Crushed By Senate Intel Vice-Chair: ‘There’s Plenty of Evidence’ of Collusion

Donald Trump has been stuck in a frantic and tedious loop of whiny denials for the past couple years. It consists primarily of him impotently proclaiming his innocence with regard to his nefarious associations with Russian operatives in an effort to steal the 2016 presidential election. For the most part his factless proclamations have only served to make him look more guilty.

Mark Warner, CNN

Among his most persistent citations of innocence has been a repeated reference to remarks by the Republican chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr. Last September Burr told reporters that he had not seen any direct evidence of collusion or conspiracy with Russia on the part of the President. Note that he did not say it didn’t happen, only that his committee had “no hard evidence” of it. But that was enough to trigger Trump into making multiple identical tweets on the subject. It began on Sep 12, 2018, and continued on Feb 7, 2019, and Feb 8, 2019 and Feb 9, 2019 and Feb 10, 2019 and Feb 22, 2019 and Feb 25, 2019.

Some of these tweets were Trump unleashing his standard “Witch Hunt” rants, and others were retweets from the likes of Sean Hannity. But they all said exactly the same thing incorrectly quoting Sen. Burr: “No Collusion!”

Well, on Sunday morning Trump’s favorite proof that he was a squeaky clean paragon of virtue fell apart. Sen. Mark Warner, the Vice-Chair of the Intelligence Committee appeared on CNN’s State of the Union and explicitly contradicted Trump’s distorted version of events. His remarks could not have been more clear:

“Anyone who says there’s no evidence of collaboration – there’s plenty of evidence. […] The notion that there’s no evidence is just factually wrong. Just in the public domain there are literally reams and reams of evidence of Russian outreach to Trump officials and clear interest from Trump officials, including the President’s own son, welcoming the opportunity to get dirt on Hillary Clinton.”

Warner outlined a small portion of the evidence that was just revealed during the recent House Oversight Committee’s hearing with Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen. He cited three pieces of evidence from Cohen’s testimony:

“One, the fact that Donald Trump and Michael Cohen mislead the American public for months about the whole notion of trying to continue to get a Trump Tower project going in Moscow. […]

“The second is the evidence that Mr. Cohen put out that he was in the presence of Donald Trump when Roger Stone called indicating that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange from Wikileaks, indicating that Wikileaks was about to drop a bunch of very damaging information about Hillary Clinton. […]

“And finally we have this whole question wherein Mr. Trump knew about the meeting in Trump Tower that included Don Jr, Jared Kushner, the campaign manager, Paul Manafort. Clearly a meeting that was not about Russian adoption, but was about the idea of turning over dirt on Hillary Clinton.”

For good measure, Warner’s counterpart in the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, spoke on the same issues on CBS’s Face the Nation, saying that “there is both ‘direct evidence’ and ‘abundant circumstantial evidence’ of collusion with Russia.” He elaborated:

“They offer that dirt. There is an acceptance of that offer in writing from the president’s son, Don Jr., and there is overt acts in furtherance of that. That is the meeting at Trump Tower and all the lies to cover up that meeting at the Trump Tower, and apparently lies that the president participated in.”

So this should put an end to the fallacy that there is no evidence against Trump for conspiracy with Russia. Quite the opposite is true. There are mountains of evidence. And that’s even the position of the Vice-Chair of the Senate committee that Trump is so fond of citing on his own behalf. But don’t expect this to end Trump’s plaintive wailing that he’s innocent. When has reality ever interfered with his determination to disgorge obvious lies to shield himself from the consequences of his criminal behavior?

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

Plead the 25th: Trump Disgorges an Insane Tweetstorm About an Imaginary Michael Cohen Book

Like Clockwork. Whenever Donald Trump is the most fearful about his snowballing legal peril, he lashes out from his Twitter throne with the most deranged and groundless spasms of utter nonsense he can contrive given his obviously advanced mental infirmity. And on Friday morning he didn’t disappoint. The fury that he unleashed only affirms just how recent events have driven him to near incapacitation.

Donald Trump

Trump just returned from Vietnam where he engineered an historic failure to achieve any of the progress that he promised prior to his meeting with his girlfriend (“We fell in love”), Kim Jong Un. As Jimmy Kimmel put it, “Trump literally got more done in his summit with Kim Kardashian.” And while Trump was embarrassing America abroad, his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was dishing on him in a hearing before the House Oversight Committee. His testimony was so damaging that even the senior judicial analyst at Fox News recognized that Trump could be liable for as many as four felonies.

It’s at times like these that Trump totally freaks out and decides to go public with his delusions and make things even worse. The following tweets are some of the best arguments that Trump is suffering from senile dementia and needs to be evaluated for a possible invocation of the 25th Amendment. He starts off with this pile of blathering falsehoods:

First of all, nothing about this was either “new” or “just released.” In fact, the Daily Beast reported on a proposal for a book by Cohen last May. It was tentatively titled “Trump Revolution: From The Tower to The White House, Understanding Donald J. Trump.” But it was scrapped due to his legal problems that were beginning to spin out of control. Also, why is Trump always so obsessed with people writing him “love letters,” ala Kim Jong Un? And then Trump tweets that:

Congress cannot demand something that doesn’t exist. There was never a book published or even submitted to the publisher. So it’s impossible to figure out what Trump is referring to that is so head spinning. But it shouldn’t surprise anyone if the pitch for the book featured a vastly different characterization of Trump than the one that Cohen is presenting now. A year ago he was still shilling for the President and telling what he now concedes were lies. The difference between his statements then and now is that now he’s making them under oath. Nevertheless, Trump continues:

No – It’s clear that Trump does not see. The case for his conspiracy with Russia is stronger than ever. And there is still no evidence of any wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton, even after thousands of hours of investigations by a Republican congress. If there were, Trump’s Justice Department would have brought indictments. What’s more, the only reason Trump’s finances are being scrutinized is that there is so much evidence of criminal activity. If this is a “Witch Hunt” then it’s already found a vast coven of witches. And finally:

How does Trump know what Cohen’s book manuscript shows? Does he have a copy? Why doesn’t he just release that to the public? Perhaps because it doesn’t exist. Even the prospective publisher said that he never received a manuscript. And Trump shouldn’t be portraying others as lying “on a scale not seen before,” considering the documentation of his lies since taking office that now exceed over 8,000. As for Lanny Davis (who is not Hillary Clinton’s lawyer), why does Trump care what he has to say? He is representing Cohen and will surely take positions that advance Cohen’s interest. And he’ll probably be more effective than Trump’s legal team headed by the always entertaining Rudy Giuliani.

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

So Trump is once again displaying the signs of a man consumed by fear who has no idea how to respond to the numerous and legitimate allegations swirling around him. So he posts incoherent tirades on Twitter that are filled with lies and slander. And for some reason he thinks this will be helpful. Well, he’s kind of right. It will be very helpful to special counsel Robert Mueller and the prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.

UH-OH: Michael Cohen Paints ‘Grave Picture’ for Trump, Says Fox News Sr. Judicial Analyst

The testimony in the House Oversight Committee by Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen on Wednesday provided both fireworks and yawns. Much of what was discussed was already known, but was given more weight by the dramatic nature of a congressional hearing. The fireworks were mainly due to Republican efforts to malign Cohen while obediently defending the President and deflecting from any potentially bad news.

Fox News Judge Napolitano

However, there were some revelatory moments that could expose Trump to some legal jeopardy if they are confirmed by other evidence or testimony. The risks for Trump were so apparent that even the senior judicial analyst on Fox News noticed. Andrew Napolitano was interviewed by Neil Cavuto after Cohen’s hearing (video below). His observations were decidedly unlike those that might be expected on Trump’s favorite propaganda network. He began by addressing the coordinated strategy of the committee’s Republicans to portray Cohen as an incorrigible liar. “If he’s that kind of a monster, Mr. President,” Napolitano asked, “why did you keep him around for ten years?”?

That’s a good question. He might also have pointed out that if lying was such an unforgivable sin, then how can the GOP continue to excuse Trump, whose documented record of lying has exceeded more than 8,000 falsehoods since he took office. But it was Napolitano’s legal analysis that really put Trump’s troubled future into perspective. He offered a brief synopsis of the legal peril that the President may soon find himself in. The upshot, according to Napolitano, is that in Cohen’s testimony “there’s at least four potential felonies” that Trump faces. Napolitano said that:

[Cohen] paints a potentially grave picture for the president. If the conversation he says he overheard with Roger Stone is true, then the President lied under oath. Because the President swore to the accuracy of his answers to the written question from [special counsel] Bob Mueller, one of which was ‘Did you speak to Roger Stone about Julian Assange?’ Answer: ‘No’

“If what Michael Cohen says is true about the President meeting with the Russians in Trump Tower in June of 2016, then he lied under oath, because he told Bob Mueller he didn’t know about it.

“The payments by Donald Trump, signed while he was president, to Michael Cohen, showing a debt to Michael Cohen. The President swore in his financial statements filed with the Department of the Treasury, he didn’t have any debts with Michael Cohen. And two months after he swore to the accuracy of that he starts writing checks of $35,000 a month to Michael Cohen. That extends the conspiracy to defraud the Federal Election Commission of accurate campaign information into the President’s presidency.”?

If this were an analysis by a Democrat or a liberal pundit it wouldn’t be especially notable. But for the senior judicial analyst at Fox News to be pointing out these legal problems for Trump is rare and, from Trump’s perspective, worrisome. Not that Trump isn’t already worried. His incessant tweeting about “Witch Hunts” and his childish insults aimed at his critics is the obvious behavior of someone consumed by fear. In remarks Trump made about Cohen’s testimony from Hanoi, he reinforced that image of a cornered rat:

“He lied a lot, but it was very interesting, because he didn’t lie about one thing: He said no collusion with the Russian hoax.”?

Actually, Cohen never said that there was no collusion. He only said that he had no direct evidence of it, but that he had his suspicions. So Trump is still desperately trying to distort reality to fit his twisted version of it wherein he can be free of the frightening consequences of his unlawful acts. And if his precariousness legal status is so apparent to a Fox News analyst, then he truly does have something worry about.

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

Trump and Fox News Seek to Deflect from Michael Cohen Testimony By Accusing Democrats of Infanticide

On Wednesday morning the long anticipated testimony of Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, began before the House Oversight Committee. His prepared opening statement revealed that he intends to provide both testimony and documentary evidence that Trump is “a racist, con man, and cheat.” This has predictably triggered Trump who retweeted an absurd comment that did nothing but expose his flagrant fear of the truth.

Fox News, Laura Ingraham, Planned Parenthood

The fear of Cohen’s testimony has also infected Trump’s sycophantic defenders at State TV (aka Fox News). But their strategy for diverting attention away from the hearing has devolved into one of the most repulsive and dishonest series of accusations ever made, even by the low standards of the Trump era Republican Nationalist Party.

The onslaught began the night before the hearing with Fox’s primetime host, and devoted white supremacist, Laura Ingraham. In a segment that featured a chyron saying that the “Left Wants to Destroy Everything Traditional,” Ingraham practically drooled while asserting that “”Hitler, just like Planned Parenthood, practiced and defended mass extermination.”

So it’s Ingrahams’s position that individual women who choose to exercise their Constitutional rights regarding difficult health decisions are the equivalent of a murderous dictator who purposefully engaged in genocide? And this is the issue that Ingraham needed to raise on the eve of the Cohen testimony? Clearly her intent was to inflame a hostile fury among Fox’s viewers with the hopes of inciting an anger that would cloud their perspective of the pending hearing. And she wasn’t alone.

The following morning the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends broached the very same topic with the help of Trump’s White House counsel, Kellyanne Conway. And even though the subject of the segment was spelled out in the chyron reading “Michael Cohen Testifies on Capital Hill Today,” Conway unleashed a searing assault on Democrats that was completely false and defamatory:

“[Democrats] are for infanticide. They are for late-term abortion, taxpayer funded abortion, mid-term pregnancy abortion, sex selection abortion – when you don’t want another daughter, fine – just find out the sex of the baby and then exterminate it. Guess what? Now they’re for post-birth abortion.”

None of that is remotely true. However it is provocative and incendiary and intended to whip up a hysteria among the Deplorables watching Fox News that would shove aside any real discussion of the Cohen hearing. But these attempts to suppress any leakage of the news from the hearing only affirm just how terrified they are of the truth getting out. It’s a tactic that drips with fear. And it will work pretty well on Fox News viewers. Unfortunately for Trump, that is an ever-shrinking sector of the population.

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

Donald Trump’s Top 10 ‘Witch Hunt’ Tweets in 2018

The new year is here, and with it the obligatory “Best Of” and “Top 10” lists. And News Corpse isn’t about to be left out of all this fun. So our contribution to this annual tradition consists of some of the most newsworthy revelations that graced the the official communications platform of the President of the United States of America: Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, Witch Hunt

That’s right. Trump’s obsessive tweetstorming was a unique feature of his presidency that brought with it many of the lies and and insults for which he is now notorious. But no messaging by this belligerent blowhard was more profound than those that railed furiously over what he called the Russian, hoax, rigged, phony “Witch Hunt.”

Trump’s endeavor became a full time occupation at the White House that resulted in 131 tweets wherein he referenced a Witch Hunt in some context. That includes seven that were deleted and re-tweeted for misspellings (mostly of the same word: council/counsel). There were numerous outbursts aimed at specific individuals including James Comey, Hillary Clinton, and his own now-former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And many were contradictory or outright distortions of the truth. Three were just the words “WITCH HUNT” in all caps with no further comment.

But in the spirit of the season’s ritual of limiting recognition to a select few, what follows are what we regard (somewhat randomly) as the Top 10 tweets about Witch Hunts by Trump in 2018:


This one rang in the new year on January 10, 2018, and boldly claimed to know how Democrats and Russians were responding to the affair. He was certainly wrong about the Democrats, but he was probably right about the Russians laughing.


Oh those poor young and beautiful traitors like Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Michael Cohen. Their reputations ruined mainly because they lied and were dumb enough to associate with Trump.


Here Trump lays the groundwork for granting himself a get-out-of-jail-free card. Why would he even bring this up if he did nothing wrong?


Nothing says “I tried to stay uninvolved” like posting 131 tweets ranting about the injustice of being held to account by your own Department of Justice. As for the expense, Trump tweeted four times his assertions related to the cost of the special counsel investigation. It went went up rapidly from $10 million, then $20 million, then $30 million, and finally $40 million, all within the past year. That’s some pretty high inflation. In any case, the asset forfeitures from the Manafort case alone are worth more than that, so the probe is actually making a profit. And they haven’t even got to Trump’s assets yet.


Trump isn’t going too far by baselessly accusing a United States Senator of drunkenness, is he? And for the record, there are more than thirteen angry Democrats. It’s closer to 65,000,000, plus many more Independents and woke Republicans.


Something tells me it doesn’t help Trump’s argument that he isn’t colluding with Russia, by whining about his declining relationship with Russia.


This tweet is just included because we thought it necessary to have one with “FAKE NEWS” in it.


Trump is a master of projection. He is the one who has been maligning government officials in the FBI, Justice Department, and Congress. But now he’s trying to attach the McCarthy label to special counsel Mueller, who is just dong his job. Trump is also the big crybaby.


The best evidence that Trump’s mind is totally gone is that he really thinks he would have a seventy-five percent approval rating were it not for the so-called Witch Hunt. He’s barely cracking fifty percent with Rasmussen, the most biased right-wing pollster in the business.


This is a lovely example of Trump’s mob mentality. Calling someone a “rat” generally refers to a low-level hood who tells police the truth about his crime boss (i.e. Trump). Also, the FBI didn’t break into Michael Cohen’s office. They had a warrant issued by a judge. Cohen welcomed them in and later complimented them on their courtesy and professionalism.

Rest assured that 2019 will see a whole new collection of Twitter freak outs from Trump. As Mueller closes in on the President he will get ever more frantic and crazed with his reactions. If you thought “covfefe” didn’t make any sense, you aint seen nothin’ yet. Just wait until the special counsel report is released, or Congress begins holding oversight hearings. Trump’s madness has only just begun to manifest itself. And if he isn’t restrained, it could get dangerous.

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