Robert Mueller

FFS: Trump Whines to Putin About American Media, Says He’d Like to ‘Get Rid of Them’

Posted by on June 29, 2019 at 12:41 pm. 3 Comments :

With each new day Donald Trump manages to debase and humiliate America with his reckless and hateful comments and tweets. And this noxious behavior seems to get ramped up when he ventures overseas. This often results in his creating international incidents that stir up more controversy back home. It’s as if he thinks he has some sort of immunity from criticism while on foreign soil, so he lets his guard down and unleashes ever more embarrassing and destructive commentaries.

Donald Trump

One example that occurred during Trump’s trip to Japan was his response to questions from reporters about Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. Taking the side of Vladimir Putin again, he told the press that Putin “strongly denies” any meddling in the election. This is after U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously concluded that they did. It’s after the report by special counsel Robert Mueller that explicitly cited the “sweeping and systematic fashion” with which Russia interfered. And yet Trump thought it was appropriate to joke about the matter with Putin. When asked if he would tell Putin to stop his interference, Trump turned to Putin with a smirk and said “Don’t meddle in the election, President.” They both laughed.

Another example was when Trump told reporters that “nobody has directly pointed a finger” at Mohammed bin Salman for the brutal murder and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamil Khashoggi. Well, that’s if you consider the CIA and the United Nations nobodies. Then Trump went further to refer to MBS as his “friend.” Which places him on a lower rung than Kim Jong Un, with whom Trump “fell in love.” But still pretty cozy.

However, nothing Trump said comes close to the abhorrent comment he made about his relationship with American media. Of course he is well known for maligning them in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” And he has threatened both reporters and news organizations with prohibitions and suppression of their First Amendment rights. But on this occasion Trump went further by actually expressing his interest to “get rid of them.” That led to this nauseating exchange (video below):

Trump: Fake … fake news. Great term, isn’t it? You don’t have that problem in Russia. We have it. You don’t have it.
Putin: Yes, yes. We also have. It’s the same.

It is astonishing, even for Trump, that he would engage in a jovial discussion about the presence of a free press in America with the dictator of a country where journalists are often murdered for being critical. To the extent that Trump was correct about Russia not having the problem, it’s only because the “problems” in Russia are dead. And Trump favorably pointing out that Russia is free of these journalist pests exposes his thinly veiled jealousy. Clearly he wishes that he didn’t have that problem in the U.S.

The sheer quantity of heinous Trumpian scandals is threatening to overwhelm our capacity for shock. But we must never allow ourselves to become numbed to this sort of loathsome rhetoric. It is vile, unconscionable, dangerous, and un-American. It cannot be tolerated or dealt with passively as if it’s merely a childish tantrum. It is the language of tyrants, and aspiring autocrats like Trump. Do not forget, or forgive. Trump must be held accountable and restrained from pursuing his perverse and corrosive agenda.

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

Fox News is Already Trash-Talking Mueller’s Upcoming Congressional Testimony

Posted by on June 26, 2019 at 11:31 am. 1 Comments :

When you are Donald Trump’s State TV media mouthpiece, why should you wait three weeks until one of the most potentially consequential congressional hearings of all time? That must be the thinking in the editorial suites of Fox News as they prepare to malign and belittle Robert Mueller, who will be testifying before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees on July 17.

Fox News, Robert Mueller

On Wednesday morning the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends brought up the subject of Mueller’s upcoming testimony. They were clearly worried about what he might say and how the public might respond to a complete airing of the conclusions of the special counsel’s investigation. That may be because objective analyses of the report agree that it is a virtual criminal indictment of Trump and his associates.

The report states unequivocally that there was Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election that was intended to help Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton. It states that Trump could have been indicted, but for a controversial Justice Department memo that recommends against the indictment of a sitting president. And it enumerates at least ten instances of obstruction of justice committed by Trump.

Much of these conclusions were lost in the media cacophony that erupted when the report was released. And most the cacophony was orchestrated by Fox News and Trump’s dishonest and tedious repetition his “no collusion, no obstruction” mantra.

So when Mueller testifies next month it will be the first time that the American people will hear the special counsel explain the often ambiguous passages in his report. He will surely be asked whether he would have indicted Trump were it not for the DOJ memo. He will be asked if he was referring to impeachment when he said that the Constitution provided ways to hold the President accountable other than through the criminal justice system. He will be asked to make a distinction between not having sufficient evidence to indict and not having any evidence. And he will be asked about the spurious charges that he and his team were conflicted, and claims that the investigation was biased from the start.

It will interesting and informative for most Americans to hear the answers to these and other questions. But not for the Trump-fluffers at Fox News. They would prefer to sweep Trump’s crimes under the carpet. And with that goal in mind, they have already begun a campaign to denigrate the hearings and slander Mueller (video below). Fox and Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade came out swinging wildly on Wednesday saying that…

“I don’t think he knows the details of the report. He is like the King of England on this. He assigns the people. They’re gonna say ‘Why are most of them Democratically affiliated? Aren’t you concerned about the perception if you hire people like that to do this job? Do you understand why some feel there was an agenda in there?'”

Really? First of all, there is no King of England. But more to the point. Kilmeade’s assertion that Mueller was ignorant of the details of his own report is ludicrous. And Kilmeade failed to back up that nonsense with anything resembling logic or reason. In fact, he immediately veered off into a rant about the makeup of the special counsel’s team. And even that was a lie. Mueller himself is a lifelong Republican who was appointed by a Republican (Rod Rosenstein), who was appointed by Trump.

This is just another example of Fox News shilling for the President they worship like a cult leader. They are laying the groundwork to dismiss whatever truths come out of the hearings. Because there is nothing more dangerous to Trump’s Republican Nationalist Agenda than the truth. So be prepared for more of this unhinged hostility between now and July hearings. And expect Trump to join in with his own deflections and lies. In fact, Trump has three weeks to contrive some national “emergency” to completely torpedo the hearings or otherwise diminish their effectiveness in informing the American people. This is how aspiring dictators behave. And Fox News is fulfilling its role as Trump’s Ministry of Propaganda.

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

Trump’s Bizarre Reasons for Accusing His White House Counsel McGahn of Lying Under Oath

Posted by on June 14, 2019 at 12:13 pm. 3 Comments :

One of the unique characteristics of Donald Trump’s criminal behavior is that, unlike most other criminals, he actually ends up admitting his wrongdoing in public and insisting that there’s nothing wrong with it. That was surprisingly well demonstrated on Thursday when he told George Stephanopoulos that he would happily accept and disseminate dirt on his political opponents, which is against the law.

Donald Trump

And one of the reasons that Trump is so comfortable making such public confessions is that he knows he has Fox News (aka State TV) to clean up after him. That’s what took place on Friday morning when the President did another call-in interview with the devoted Trump-fluffers on Fox and Friends. It was easily predictable that Trump would book this segment following a gaffe that was essentially an admission of treason.

However, even that brownnosing do-over was stepped on by Trump himself with the release of another clip from the Stephanopoulos interview. In this discussion Trump launched into a familiar and tedious denial that he ever sought to have special counsel Robert Mueller fired. That’s a claim that has been refuted by several of his close aides, including his White House Counsel, Don McGahn. Stephanopoulos noted that McGahn had testified to Mueller that Trump did ask him to talk to the Justice Department and make it clear to them that Mueller “had to go.” Which led to this incriminating exchange (video below):

Trump: I don’t care what he said. It doesn’t matter. That was to show everyone what a good counsel he was.
Stephanopoulos: But why would he lie under oath to Robert Mueller?
Trump: Because he wanted to make himself look like a good lawyer. Or he believed it because I would constantly tell anybody that would listen, including you, including the media, that Robert Mueller was conflicted.

First of all, when Stephanopoulos asked why McGahn would lie under oath, Trump didn’t reject that premise. In fact, he attempted to justify it. So Trump is accusing his White House counsel of committing criminal perjury. It will interesting to see if Attorney General William Barr will now open an investigation into that and issue an indictment for McGahn. (Don’t hold your breath). Because either McGahn is guilty of perjury, or Trump is lying about it.

Secondly, Trump’s first explanation for McGahn’s alleged perjury is that McGahn was seeking to “make himself look like a good lawyer.” How? By lying under oath? How does it burnish his credibility to implicate Trump in a scheme to fire Mueller? Trump is apparently conceding that testimony linking Trump to obstruction of justice is the honorable thing to do. Of course it is. Telling the truth would surely cast a positive glow on McGahn or any other witness. But accusing McGahn of doing the right thing is an odd defense from Trump’s perspective.

Finally, Trump’s other explanation for McGahn’s testimony is that McGahn, and “anybody that would listen,” were deluged with complaints by Trump that Mueller was conflicted. That assertion has always been a deliberate lie on Trump’s part. But his admission here that he has been inundating everyone around him with that allegation could itself be construed as obstruction of justice. He’s trying to materially harm the investigation by falsely impugning the integrity of the special counsel.

So Trump is providing a perverse set of arguments in his defense. On one hand, Trump thinks that his White House counsel is a perjurer for having told the truth about him. On the other, Trump is obstructing justice by lying about Mueller. And if you’re having trouble figuring that out, or why Trump would be asserting such a preposterous defense, it just means that you’re a normal, logical person. Unlike the sociopathic narcissist currently residing in the White House.

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

This Is Impeachable: Trump is Now Governing By Secret Initiatives with Foreign Leaders

Posted by on June 11, 2019 at 12:20 pm. 4 Comments :

There is already an abundance of evidence that Donald Trump has broken numerous laws that warrant, at the very least, an impeachment inquiry. They include over 127 communications with Russian operatives during the 2016 campaign, at least ten instances of obstruction of justice, multiple cases of financial and tax fraud, and much more. Many of these criminal breaches were spelled out in the report by special counsel Robert Mueller. And even Fox News has stated unequivocally that there is evidence of both collusion and obstruction.

Donald Trump

Nevertheless, it seems that Trump commits new crimes everyday. And the startling part of that is that he often admits on television. Which is precisely what happened on Tuesday morning during one of his now infamous helicopter press conferences. There were many absurdities and lies during this live mental breakdown, but on a couple of occasions Trump actually incriminated himself as something of a dictator and/or traitor.

Both of these confessions involved Trump revealing that he has been secretly engaging in foreign policy affairs and making agreements that have not been vetted, ratified, or even seen by Congress. What’s more, he still refuses to disclose the substance of these agreements to anyone. Take for instance his declaration of a secretly negotiated agreement with Mexico. In a dramatic moment, Trump pulled a single piece of paper from his pocket and said…

“That’s the agreement that everybody says I don’t have. [Reporter asks to see it] No, because I’m gonna let Mexico do the announcement at the right time. But here’s the agreement. It’s a very simple agreement.

First of all, there’s a reason everybody says he doesn’t have an agreement. It’s because Mexico said so, along with multi-sourced reporting that the terms Trump is celebrating were actually negotiated months ago. It’s also highly suspicious that Trump just happened to be carrying this alleged agreement with him on his way to his helicopter. not to mention that one piece of paper hardly represents what would have to be a complex treaty.

The second item was Trump’s disclosure that he had just received another love letter from Kim Jong Un. This time he didn’t produce a paper prop as proof of the correspondence, but he was clearly moved:

“I just received a beautiful letter from Kim Jong Un. I can’t show you the letter obviously. But it was a very personal, very warm, very nice letter. I appreciate it. And I’ll say it again, I think that North Korea has tremendous potential…under his leadership.”

This is the sort of mushy romance that Trump previously revealed when he said last year that he and Kim “fell in love.” But why can’t he show it to reporters – and the American people? After all, he is merely our representative, not a king. If he is getting letters from hostile foreign leaders, they are part of the public record of the Office of the President, not his personal stash.

By admitting that he is conducting these negotiations in secret, and committing the nation to agreements that haven’t been seen by anyone but him, Trump is confessing to yet another set of impeachable offenses. He doesn’t have the authority to negotiate in that capacity, nor to obligate the nation to the terms of an undisclosed agreement. Congress needs to put an end to this tyrannical behavior. And the only way to do that is by including these offenses in the Articles of Impeachment that they should already be drafting.

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

Uh-Oh: Fox News Law Expert Makes a Strong Case for Trump’s Impeachment

Posted by on June 8, 2019 at 11:51 am. 2 Comments :

Returning from another “Make America Gag Again” trip abroad, Donald Trump was greeted by a nation shamed by his boorish behavior and prideful display of ignorance. He insulted the memories of American heroes and embarrassed himself at diplomatic events. It was a spectacle of incompetence and ego that was heralded by his State TV (aka Fox News) bootlickers.

Donald Trump, Andrew Napolitano

Upon his return to the U.S., Trump immediately launched into one of his favorite, and most obvious diversionary tactics. He hurled impotent threats of punitive tariffs at Mexico if they didn’t do something about the migrant situation. But he quickly caved in because even the Republicans in Congress recognized that those tariffs would be devastating to U.S. businesses. The deal he reached was nothing more than a warmed over version of what already exists.

What Trump is attempting to divert attention from is the increasing support in Congress, and the general public, for his impeachment and prosecution. That support is driven by the mounting evidence of his criminal activity and obstruction of justice. But if anyone thinks that this is a purely partisan movement, they haven’t been watching Fox News lately.

The Senior Legal Analyst for the right-wing network, Judge Andrew Napolitano, just released a video wherein he outlines in detail why impeaching Trump would be legally well founded. And he bases his analysis solely on what is already publicly available via the report by special counsel Robert Mueller. Ironically, this is the report that Trump originally said “totally exonerated“ him. But now he and his shills at Fox News are denouncing it as “pure, political garbage.” That, however, is not the opinion of the top legal expert at Fox (video below):

“While there was some evidence of collaboration between Russian agents and the Trump campaign – like 127 telephone communications between them – there was not enough evidence to establish the crime of conspiracy.”

It’s important to note that insufficient evidence to indict is not the same as no evidence. And 127 phone calls has to be more than social or coincidence. Napolitano also raised the fact that there were “roadblocks” to Mueller’s investigation of the President and that they were put there by Trump. That, according to Napolitano, was obstruction of justice:

“If the subject of a criminal investigation tells the people that work for him to lie to the FBI and falsify evidence so that the FBI will not find out whatever the subject does not want them to know – as Mueller said Trump did between ten and eleven times – that is obstruction of justice and it is for a corrupt purpose.”

Napolitano goes on to explain that obstruction of justice is an impeachable offense and was used against both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. He also debunks the theory that sitting presidents cannot be indicted, because that would imply that they are above the law, which would be a breach of American jurisprudence that says that no one is above the law.

In his conclusion, Napolitano observed that “Democrats are hungry for [impeachment]” and that “the evidence is there.” That’s an unambiguous judgement that the likelihood of Trump’s guilt is sufficient to warrant further investigation, trial, and removal from office. And this isn’t some wild-eyed, radical, Democrat saying so. All of which puts Trump in the uncomfortable position of being convicted in the court of conservative opinion. And that was the last bastion of his defense. The rest remains for Congress to do its job and uphold the dignity of their institution and of the nation.

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

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6044897633001/#sp=show-clips

Asshattery: Hannity Lashes Out at Mueller and the Report Trump Said ‘Totally Exonerates’ Him

Posted by on June 7, 2019 at 11:12 am. 6 Comments :

There’s a point at which it is impossible to ignore that Donald Trump and his sycophantic bootlickers at Fox News are anything but irredeemably deranged. That point actually came long ago, but they keep reaffirming it every day with new and more absurd diatribes intended to sanitize Trump’s criminal presidency. It’s a futile exercise in shameless hackery that can only be pursued if one has zero self respect or integrity.

Fox News Sean Hannity

So naturally, Sean Hannity jumps in with both feet to demonstrate how devoid of reason the right’s defenses of Trump can be when they really put their diseased minds to it. On Thursday night he complained bitterly about Nancy Pelosi saying that she didn’t want to impeach Trump, she wanted him in prison. Hannity portrayed that as the sort of comment made in “banana republics.” Apparently he forgot that Trump leads his cult rallies in chants of “lock her up” every time hillary Clinton’s name is mentioned.

Then Hannity devoted most of the rest of his Fox News Trump-Fluffing Hour to the premise that Robert Mueller (a decorated war hero and life-long Republican public servant) is actually the leader of an evil liberal cabal bent on orchestrating a coup against the impeccably virtuous Trump regime. Never mind that Trump has been implicated in numerous criminal activities that extend from his private businesses to his presidential campaign to his inauguration and to his hopelessly corrupt administration. Not to mention his many conspicuous attempts to obstruct justice.

The whole of Hannity’s argument is that the report issued by special counsel Robert Mueller somehow proves that he set out from the start to frame Trump. Which is a pretty startling charge considering that Trump himself described the report as “complete and total exoneration“ and that Mueller “acted honorably.” But Hannity wasn’t having any of that (video below):

“We start tonight with a massive development out of the Mueller partisan witch hunt. Tonight more evidence has emerged that Bob Mueller’s 448 page report was nothing but pure, political garbage garbage full of errors put there purposely. […] He and his merry band of all Democratic donors, no Republican donors, all Trump haters – that means they lied in that report.”

Most of Hannity’s loopy rambling was based on the ludicrous and unsupported musings of conspiracy crackpot John Solomon. He was unable to comprehend that a Russian operative identified in the Mueller report might also have met with U.S. intelligence agents without that meaning he was a actually an American agent himself. In fact, U.S. intelligence agents actually make a point of encountering foreign agents as part of their investigative and surveillance duties. But that didn’t stop Hannity from making this the basis for his unhinged rant. And his preposterous attacks on Mueller just escalated as he went on. For instance:

“What this ends up being is outright deception, outright lying by Mueller, and of course his Democratic donor friends that he appointed.”

“Everything Mueller said in 9 1/2 minutes was false, it was phony, it was fake, it was innuendo, and Attorney General Barr pretty much bailed him out.”

“The pattern is clear. What we see now time and time again. The special counsel manipulates information to unjustly impugn a duly elected president of the United States.”

So Hannity is convinced that Mueller, who was appointed by a Republican Assistant Attorney General, who was himself appointed by Trump, is a Democratic plant tasked with spreading lies to destroy Trump. What an amazingly devious plot. How did Democrats get these Republicans – and even Trump – to participate in this Machiavellian scheme? But Hannity wasn’t through. He still needed to reinforce Trump’s whiny defense tactics by shamelessly parroting them:

“There was no collusion. There was no obstruction on the Trump campaign’s part. There was no conspiracy. All the Trump haters on Mueller’s team, well they just reverted to plan B. That’s a 448 page smear campaign. They created a document definitely intended to fuel even more lies, more conspiracy theories from Democrats and, of course, their allies in the abusively biased and corrupt media mob. It was a political hit job from the beginning through and through. And the President was right, it always was a witch hunt. And as far as Mueller was concerned, mission accomplished.”

Mission accomplished, indeed. Hannity truly served his purpose as Trump’s valiant martinet, maligning all those who dared to criticize Trump or attack him with the truth that he so despises. It’s a wonder how Hannity gets through these drooling harangues without bursting a vein in his forehead. But he does it in service to his master and Dear Leader who, despite holding the most powerful job in the world, is a pitiful victim of a bunch of snowflake Democrats and liberals. So sad.

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

Still Not Presidential: Trump’s D-Day TelePrompTer Spiel Marred By Disgraceful Political Rant

Posted by on June 6, 2019 at 11:24 am. 6 Comments :

On the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, Donald Trump delivered a well-crafted speech paying tribute to both the fallen heroes and our wartime allies. He particularly distinguished himself by not wandering off-script and into one of his notoriously deranged, self-serving, and hostile tirades directed at his perceived political foes. And right on cue, much of the press covering the event remarked with some measure of astonishment that Trump might have finally become “presidential” and grown into the job.

Donald Trump, Presidenty

Really? How many times does this have to happen? On several occasions during his tumultuous presidency, Trump has managed stick to the words prepared for him by his professional speech writers. And each time he completes that feat the media fawns over him and his allegedly newfound respectability. But without exception Trump has disappointed them by reverting to his normal boorish self, usually within a few hours.

This time was apparently no different. Shortly after Trump delivered his premasticated oratory, Fox News released a clip of an interview he did with one of their primetime Trump-fluffers, Laura Ingraham. She sat with him for this insolent banter at the Normandy American Cemetery. Ingraham initiated the inappropriate dialog with a blatantly political question about whether he would mind if special counsel Robert Mueller testified before Congress. Trump mustered up his trademark loathsomeness and offered this reply (video below):

“He made such a fool out of himself because, what people don’t report is the letter he had to do to straighten out his testimony because his testimony was wrong.”

First of all, Trump is confused because there has not been any “testimony” by Mueller. And let’s just set aside the fact that Trump is now staunchly opposed to Mueller testifying about the report that he says exonerates him. Because all innocent people want to suppress what they contend is proof of their innocence, don’t they? Also, it’s unseemly for Trump (a five time draft dodger) to be attacking Mueller (a decorated war hero) on this occasion, and at this place.

The meat that goes along with this whine is Trump’s assertion that Mueller “made a fool out of himself” because of some mysterious letter that allegedly admitted he was wrong about something that Trump fails to identify. The only plausible letter that Trump could be referencing is one that Mueller put out after his press conference on the completion of his investigation. But that letter merely affirmed his position on the relevence of a Justice Departemnt memo regarding whether a president could be indicted while still on office. The letter didn’t change anything about what Mueller said in either his press conference, or in the report itself. He stood by his conclusions that his office “would not reach a determination…about whether the President committed a crime” and that “if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”

Of course, Trump wasn’t through embarrassing himself and America. For the second time in a week he breached diplomatic protocol by devolving into rank politics while overseas. His comments about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (complete with a new, infantile nickname) were bizarrely unprovoked and insulting:

“But Nancy Pelosi, I call her Nervous Nancy, Nancy Pelosi doesn’t talk about it. Nancy Pelosi is a disaster, okay She’s a disaster. Let her do what she wants, you know what? I think they’re in big trouble.”

So while the press is all starry-eyed about Trump’s prefab speech, it’s important to remember that Trump will always be Trump. It’s a painful exercise to have to endure the media’s affinity for staged rhetoric when we know that Trump doesn’t mean a word of it, or even understands what he’s reading. And he can be counted on to revert to his customarily vile character before even a single day goes by. Just has he has done this time as well.

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

https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/status/1136653145369526272

Trump Orders Fox News VP Hope Hicks to Break the Law By Withholding Docs From Congress

Posted by on June 4, 2019 at 12:22 pm. 4 Comments :

One of the most brazenly dishonest claims emanating from Donald Trump was expressed recently in this tweet saying that “there has NEVER been a President who has been more transparent.” Of course, the truth is that Trump has been extraordinarily resistant to allowing full and unfettered investigations into his activities as President, as a candidate, and as a private businessman.

Hope Hicks

Trump famously refused to grant special counsel Robert Mueller an interview. He declined to answer questions in written form. And most recently he decreed that he will fight any and all requests for information coming from Congress, and will oppose any attempts to subpoena documents or testimony. He has already seen to it that senior administration officials have put themselves in legal jeopardy by failing to comply with lawful subpoenas. They include White House counsel Don McGahn, Attorney General William Barr, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

However, now Trump has taken another unprecedented step into the realm of pure totalitarianism to which he clearly aspires. He sent a letter to former White House aides Annie Donaldson and Hope Hicks advising them to break the law as well by ignoring document subpoenas. These women are no longer in the employ of the President and their compliance is not covered by assertions of executive privilege. Donaldson was the deputy White House Counsel under McGahn. But Hicks, who served as Trump’s Communications Director, has a unique problem.

Hope Hicks is currently the Executive Vice President and Chief Communications Officer for the Fox Corporation, which is the parent company of Fox News. That means that Trump is actually ordering an employee of Fox to disobey a congressional subpoena. Any other corporation would have a hard time justifying adherence to such a request. Particularly a news enterprise that is supposed to be independent of political associations.

The question of Fox’s political independence, of course, is a joke. There has never been a news enterprise more closely tied to an American president than Fox News is to Donald Trump. They were responsible for his election. And ever since they have showered him and his agenda with praise, while viciously attacking his critics. The top figures on the network (Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs, etc.) have appeared at his cult rallies and given him private advice on both politics and policy.

Nevertheless, it is troubling that Trump is in a position to bark orders at executives of Fox News. This surpasses the ethical depravity of his recent call for a boycott of AT&T in order to punish CNN. If Fox obeys Trump’s commands they are complicit in his efforts to cover up his crimes. What’s more, they are derelict in their duty to cover the news by endorsing the President’s attempts to suppress it. They are, in effect, making themselves accomplices to obstruction of justice.

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

Fox News has not commented on Trump’s illegal demands on Hicks to withhold information that Congress has constitutional authority to request. But they have previously defended Trump when he ordered former staffers to disobey subpoenas. So why would Fox change their opinion now? Well, for one thing, the others were not employed by Fox. Will that matter to a network whose political partisanship is so obvious? We’ll see. But don’t expect Fox News to the honorable thing. It’s not in their blood.

Dazed and Confused: Trump Can’t Keep His Mueller Stories – or Anything Else – Straight

Posted by on May 30, 2019 at 12:03 pm. 3 Comments :

Since Donald Trump ordered the White House Press Office to stop doing daily press briefings nearly three months ago, the only media access to the President has been his impromptu harangues on the White House lawn in front of the whirring blades of his helicopter. And there has been a noticeable deterioration of his mental faculties in each one of these reality TV style spiels. The latest on Thursday morning is a real display of his paranoid dementia.

Donald Trump Zombie

Trump addressed several subjects including his insistence that Russia didn’t help him get elected. In his typically narcissistic fashion he told the assembled press “You know who got me elected? I got me elected.” He also briefly touched on the matter of his potential impeachment. In doing so he demonstrated that he has no idea how it works. He doesn’t know what “high crimes and misdemeanors” means. And he he wonders how the courts could allow it. Of course every high school civics student knows that impeachment is entirely within the jurisdiction of Congress and the courts have nothing to with it.

However, perhaps the most ludicrous exchanges occurred when Trump was lashing out at special counsel Robert Mueller. The recent public statement by Mueller affirmed that his investigation had found evidence of criminal activities and obstruction of justice by Trump (even Fox News said so), but that no indictments were filed due to an old and questionable policy memo at the Department of Justice. This predictably triggered Trump’s worst instincts to attack Mueller and his work (video below):

“He was conflicted. Look, Robert Mueller should have never been chosen because he wanted the FBI job and he didn’t get it, and the next day he was picked as special counsel. So you tell somebody ‘I’m sorry, you can’t have the job.’ and then after you say that he’s gonna make a ruling on you? It doesn’t work that way. Plus we had a business dispute. Plus his relationship with Comey was extraordinary.”

None of this is new in the armory of Trump’s assault rhetoric. It has all been used before by Trump so many times that he seems to be stuck in an endless and tedious tape loop. But he is also contradicting himself with regards to his opinion of Mueller. It was just two months ago that Trump told reporters that he believed that Mueller had “acted honorably” following the completion of the probe. He even gloated that “The Mueller report was great. It could not have been better.” That moment of confidence, however, was short lived.

Now Trump is back to maligning Mueller as “conflicted” for reasons that totally reside in his warped imagination. Mueller was not seeking to return to the FBI. He met with Trump only as a courtesy and to provide consultation. Mueller also did not have a “business dispute” with Trump. Although there was a minor incident when Mueller resigned his membership at Trump’s National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, because he no longer lived in the area and wasn’t using it. And Mueller has never been a close friend of James Comey. In fact, they were not even casual friends. Comey testified before Congress that he had dinner once with Mueller, but had never been to his home, didn’t have his phone number, and didn’t know the names of his kids.

But Trump wasn’t through. He still needed to repeat the same lies a few more times to make sure his gaslighting would take hold among his cult disciples.

“I think he is a totally conflicted person. I think Mueller is a true never-Trumper. He’s somebody who dislikes Donald Trump. He’s somebody that didn’t get a job that he requested that eh wanted very badly. And then he was appointed. And despite that, and despite $40 million dollars, eighteen Trump haters, including people who worked for Hillary clinton, and some of the worst human beings on Earth, they got nothing. It’s pretty amazing.”

What’s “pretty amazing” is that Trump thinks that the career law enforcement professionals that Mueller recruited from the FBI and the Justice Department are “some of the worst human beings on Earth.” That puts them in the same league – in Trump’s mind – as child molesters, drug traffickers, and terrorists. And despite the obvious insanity of these remarks, Trump’s supporters in his administration, in Congress, and in the general public, still don’t think he’s nuts. Which leads once again to the perennial question: WTF is gonna take?

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

UH-OH! Fox News on Mueller: This Was Not, As Trump Says, ‘No Collusion, No Obstruction’

Posted by on May 29, 2019 at 12:14 pm. 3 Comments :

Special counsel Robert Mueller took the stage on Wednesday to clarify that his investigation was not an exoneration of Donald Trump in any way shape or form. While his remarks did not expand on what he previously wrote in his report, they were a spotlight on the most relevant facts that contradict Attorney General William Barr’s dishonest mangling of the report’s conclusions and Trump’s specious claims of innocence.

Fox News, Robert Mueller

But there is something that is far more devastating for Trump than anything the special counsel said. And that’s the analysis on Fox News after Mueller’s statement. The network immediately turned to their chief political anchor, Bret Baier, for commentary on the unusual and surprising public address by Mueller. Baier wasted no time making the point that Mueller’s remarks would be troublesome for Trump (video below). He said that…

“I was struck by the tone and tenor of those remarks as he laid out his case wrapping up this report. This was not, as the president says time and time again, ‘no collusion, no obstruction.’ It was much more nuanced than that. […] He said specifically that if they had found that the President did not commit a crime on obstruction, they would have said that.”

Baier also blasted Barr’s misrepresentation of the Mueller report saying that it was more nuanced than Barr’s portrayal and “In fact, it was almost exactly the opposite.” That’s the Fox News way of saying that Barr lied through his teeth. But that’s not all. There were other portions of Mueller’s statement that should also worry the White House. Including his explanation for why no criminal charges were brought. Mueller reiterated his opinion that a Department of Justice memo prohibited him from indicting a sitting president. That opinion is rejected by many legal experts and has never been affirmed by any court. But Mueller is a stickler for procedure. Consequently, his decision not to indict doesn’t mean that no crimes occurred, only that he didn’t believe that he had jurisdiction to press charges.

What’s even worse for Trump is that Mueller unambiguously threw the question of criminality squarely into the lap of Congress. He said that…

“Charging the president with a crime was not an option that we could consider” [because] “the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.”

That’s an explicit reference to the constitutional duties of Congress and its responsibility to initiate impeachment proceedings. Mueller could not be more clear. It emphatically refutes Trump’s tedious and repetitive whining about “witch hunts” and “hoaxes.” But that didn’t stop Trump from issuing the same impotent defense via his campaign that there was “no collusion…no case for obstruction [and that] Trump has been fully and completely exonerated.” Only a confirmed Trump cultist could still believe that.

It’s going to become harder for Trump’s allies and supporters to remain on board this sinking ship. It’s ability to stay afloat has been largely due to the buoyancy of Fox News propaganda. But with analyses like that of Baier – who was joined by Fox’s senior legal analyst Andrew Napolitano, their ultra-conservative contributor Andrew McCarthy, and others – the USS Trump is taking on water at a dangerously high rate. So expect to hear some more frantic gurgling by Trump in the hours and days to come.

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