Trump 17: James Comey and the Goblin of "You're Fired"

[PreciousPantsofDoom]

5 hours ago, fraurosena said:

I'll bet you when the going gets tough, he'll just get up and try to walk out, saying "That's enough. I'm done." like he did when that reporter started asking him difficult questions.

And then I'd like to see the equivalent of that moment in a Few Good Men where Jack Nicholsons character, who is so arrogant that he doesn't even realize he has just fucked himself,  tries to walk away from the stand and is humiliatingly stopped by the MPs and taken away.  

[onekidanddone]

@fraurosena thanks for the screen shot. HA! Fox Spews interviews somebody at the Tasty Diner.  I find that too funny.  I've think sat at that very booth.  The TD (Tasty Diner) was one of my hangouts ages ago in another life.  Open 24 hours it is a Bethesda landmark, and about the only place left from the old B-Town (Bethesda, Maryland) of my teen years.

[GreyhoundFan]

@JMO -- thank you! I needed that chuckle. He certainly is a toddler, isn't he?

 

"‘I wish he’d quit tweeting’: Many Trump backers say it’s time for him to put down his phone"

Quote

NICEVILLE, Fla. — On any given day, President Trump is known to fire off tweets that grab the attention of those inside the Beltway.

On Friday, for example, he got started at 6:51 a.m. decrying the “fabricated” story about possible collusion between his campaign and Russia before threatening to cancel press briefings, jabbing at the credibility of his staff and sending a thinly veiled threat to former FBI Director James B. Comey.

This is not unusual. Earlier in the week, the president called Democrats “phony hypocrites” for criticizing his decision to fire Comey. Last week he praised Australia’s socialized health-care system and congratulated a morning talk show friendly to his agenda for “its unbelievable ratings hike.”

Trumps tweets, as always, transfixed Washington.

But nearly 1,000 miles south, in the bar of American Legion Post 221 in the Florida panhandle, no one seems to notice his Twitter habits.

Instead, the regulars talk about their grandkids, home-improvement projects, politics and the way things used to be in conversations peppered with curse words and crude jokes. The jukebox blares country, with some classic rock mixed in, as the bartender pours $1 draft beers and $2 mixed drinks.

No one has a Twitter account — frankly, many aren’t even sure how Twitter works — although they do know it keeps getting the president into trouble.

“I wish he’d quit tweeting,” Becky Corcoran, 62, a Trump-supporting retired school custodian, said last week. “Keep your mouth shut, quit tweeting. . . You’re not just a businessman any more. Now you’re president of the United States.”

Although the president pledged to let go of his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account if elected, he has continued to tweet, insisting that it’s the only way he can bypass the media and directly connect with his supporters.

A Quinnipiac University poll last month found that 68 percent of registered voters said the president should stop tweeting from his personal account. Among Republicans, opinions were split, with 47 percent saying he should continue, 47 percent saying he should stop and 6 percent not caring. A Fox News poll of Trump voters in March found that 35 percent approved of his tweets — while 51 percent wished he would be more cautious and 12 percent disapproved.

And for those who are active on Twitter, interest in Trump’s tweeting is fading. The president’s tweets earn far fewer likes than they did during the election — or even when he first took office, according to a Bloomberg News analysis. Those who engage with Trump are more likely to be left-leaners leveling criticism than right-leaners lavishing love, according to an analysis by the Associated Press and Cortico, a media analytics nonprofit group.

Many of those at the American Legion bar one night last week said they can’t keep straight which of the president’s comments were delivered in a tweet and which came in an interview, speech or formal statement. Everything melds together as they watch the news, listen to their favorite talk-radio shows or read articles posted on Facebook.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the president’s supporters don’t have to read his tweets on Twitter for them to be powerful modes of communication.

“When he tweets . . . it gets picked up by everybody, it gets read live on the news, you guys will cover it in the paper,” Spicer said. “We put out a press release and it gets covered much less than when he sends a single tweet.”

Here in Niceville — which replaced the town name Boggy in 1910 — questions about the president’s tweets were often met with shrugs. Many said they care more about some congressional Republicans not supporting the president’s full agenda, about liberals not giving Trump a fair chance and about the media seeming to ignore the victories that they see.

“I’d rather hear honest and crude than unhonest and sanitized,” said Scottie Gontarek, 60, who retired after 20 years in the Air Force and is one of a handful of widows who often hang out together at the Legion post. “You might not like what he says, but he’s honest.”

Trump won overwhelmingly in the Panhandle, which culturally has much more in common with the southern states it borders — Alabama and Georgia — than with Miami.

...

No one could name a tweet that the president had sent recently.

Among those shopping at a local Walmart was a 56-year-old Republican who refused to vote for Trump and called his tweets “childish,” along with a 29-year-old whose husband is based in South Korea and who wishes the president would be more careful with his comments, especially those about North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. At a water park, a 69-year-old grandfather who voted for Trump said he had to cut back on cable news late last year for fear that the stress was hurting his health — so he’s unsure what the president has been tweeting.

...

As the night wore on at the American Legion, a light rain began to fall. Rob Orr, a 48-year-old electrician, ordered a round of Tequila Rose shots for several of the women in the bar, most of whom were old enough to be his mother.

“Tastes like a strawberry milkshake,” said Lenora Ellison, 77, a retired Air Force mechanic who loves telling stories about being one of few women in the service.

Ellison thinks a lot of the nation’s problems could be solved with more birth control — “and that’s a position I even made on Facebook,” she said — and she voted for Trump.

“He says what he thinks and doesn’t flower things up,” she said.

...

Like many in the bar, he was glad to see Trump finally take action against the Syrian regime, although he thinks the president went a little light. And it was “awesome” that the military used the “mother of all bombs” against the Islamic State in Afghanistan.

“But, if I was in charge of him. . . I would be like: Kill your Twitter. Turn it off, shut it down, block, whatever,” he said.

“But that’s just Trump,” Ellison said.

“I mean, it’s a good tool to be able to mass communicate quickly,” he said. “But I think knowing Trump — and this is just the way he is — he gets all ‘grrrr.’ He gets all hot under the collar. . . I think they’re hurting him more than helping him. But it’s him. I mean, at the end of the day, no one’s going to tell him: ‘You can’t do it.’ ”

No, Scottie Gontarek, he's not honest.

[47of74]

10 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

@JMO -- thank you! I needed that chuckle. He certainly is a toddler, isn't he?

 

"‘I wish he’d quit tweeting’: Many Trump backers say it’s time for him to put down his phone"

No, Scottie Gontarek, he's not honest.

Branch Trumpvidians are a lost cause as far as I'm concerned, and anything bad that happens to them is well deserved.

The ability of Branch Trumpvidians to deny reality is breathtaking.  They're like the rich man's family in Luke 16.  They wouldn't listen to how bad Donald McFucknugget is even if someone came back from the dead and told them.  Even if it was Jesus Christ.  Of course Donnie has pretty much taken the place of Jesus in the minds of the BTs.

 

[sawasdee]

I'm old enough to remember Watergate vividly  - but from the UK. In those pre internet days, we had no access to US media,relying instead on quotes in the British press.

But I cannot remember anything as condemnatory as the stories being published by MSM today - CNN,WaPo,NYT - they are almost vitriolic - and justifiably so.

tRump's behaviour is becoming more and more outrageous, and outside the norm. His tweeting is not how a head of state behaves - with the decorum of a three year old.

Not only his demeanour with the Russian visitors just after Comey's sacking - much warmer than with any other foreign visitor to date - but the inexplicable decision to exclude US media but allow Russian - calls into question not only his political judgment, but his judgment in general.

The media is calling it like it is. I hope those in the Congress old enough to remember Watergate, and the eventual public outrage, find their cojones and listen - and act.

Otherwise, Democracy Dies in Darkness.

ETA This is much worse than Watergate : it could subvert and destroy the whole basis of the entire US constitution.

[GreyhoundFan]

Hmm: "Trump lawyers outline president’s Russian income but provide no documents"

Quote

The White House on Friday released a letter from two tax attorneys for President Trump claiming that Trump’s only income from Russian sources in the last 10 years came from fees for hosting the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013, his sale of a Palm Beach mansion to a Russian businessman in 2008 and his company’s routine sales of condo units and golf games to Russians.

The attorneys said their analysis came from a review of Trump’s tax returns for the last 10 years. However, they did not release the returns or provide any documents to support their claims.

The letter, from lawyers Sheri A. Dillon and William F. Nelson, also asserted that Trump holds no debt from Russian lenders and holds no equity in Russian entities. They explained that because of the way that Trump operates his businesses, his corporate income and debt would be disclosed on his personal tax returns.

Trump has come under increasing scrutiny over his possible ties to Russia — which he has denied — and is now facing a firestorm over his decision to fire then-FBI Director James B. Comey. Comey had been leading an investigation of Russian influence in the 2016 election and exploring whether any Trump associates had participated.

Daniel Shaviro, a tax law expert at New York University, said that without additional information on Trump’s tax returns and income, the letter from the lawyers is “meaningless garbage.”

“There are too many ways that it could be misleading and incomplete, Shaviro said. “For example, suppose that Russian people controlled U.S. entities that were intermediaries. Or suppose that things were run through Russian allies, including former Soviet countries.”

He said the fact that the White House would release such a letter with no verification “makes me more suspicious, not less, of the president’s financial ties.”

According to the letter, income from the Miss Universe pageant made up a “substantial portion” of the $12.2 million in foreign income that Trump reported in 2013. His lawyers also noted that he sold a home in Palm Beach to a Russian buyer in 2008 for $95 million — $54 million more than he had purchased the home for in 2005. They also said Trump had earned an “immaterial” amount in sales of real estate and other products to Russians, transactions that would not be reflected on his tax returns.

With those exceptions, they said, Trump’s returns do not reflect “any income of any type from Russian sources.”

Critics have raised questions about whether Russians have funneled money through Trump or his projects into the United States. The letter is less clear about whether Trump has borrowed or received any money from Russian sources. It says his tax returns do not reflect any “debt” to Russian lenders, but, depending on the type of debt, it would not necessarily be listed on someone’s tax returns.

The letter also says that no Russian sources have “any equity investments” in organizations that Trump controls. That means that Russian sources weren’t legal investment partners on any project the Trump Organization pursued. But borrowing money from Russian sources could mean a number of things and would not necessarily represent an “equity investment.”

In 2008, Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. said at a real estate conference that Trump businesses “see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Trump Jr. said then.

If the tax lawyers reviewed Trump’s past 10 tax returns, it is likely they did not review the years that Trump’s son, a top company executive. was referring to.

Steven Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center who practiced tax law in Washington for 25 years, described the letter as “very narrowly crafted by clever lawyers.”

He noted that the letter did not address the possibility of indirect transactions. Rosenthal said it would be very unusual for Trump to borrow money directly from a Russian entity or for him to invest directly in a Russian entity. Those sorts of transactions are traditionally done through third parties in other countries, such as Cyprus or the Cayman Islands, Rosenthal said.

“In cross-border investments, a Russian typically would advance funds to some foreign corporation like a Cyprus corporation, which would then loan to Trump or Trump’s business,” Rosenthal said, speaking hypothetically. “Likewise, when American businesses invest in Russia, they don’t invest directly in Russian entities, they invest in a Cyprus corporations or a Cayman corporation.”

The letter from the lawyers, he said, “is silent on indirect investment, which is the conventional way to make these sorts of investments.”

...

Trump and his aides have been promising for several days that they would send a certified letter from Trump’s attorneys to Graham showing that the president has no business ties with Russia. “Certified” refers to the class of mail used to send the document, but does not offer any outside assurance that the contents of the document are accurate.

...

The letter released Friday is dated March 8 and addressed to Trump. A White House spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a question about why the letter was written in early March and why it was not released publicly for more than two months.

Typical smoke and mirrors and distraction. Release your tax returns, Donnie.

[sawasdee]

To add to my previous post: Congress needs to remember that one of its major functions is to be a third of the triumvirate of 'checks and balances'.

With a President - another third of that triumvirate - publicly disrespecting and trying to override the other two thirds - they are failing in their constitutional duty. When one adds that he is also behaving in an ill judged, often incoherent manner, that endangers the security of the country - then I would think their duty clear.

The whole lot of the GOP should be impeached for their failure to fulfil their oath to uphold the constitution.

Incoherent rage.

 

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, onekidanddone said:

@fraurosena thanks for the screen shot. HA! Fox Spews interviews somebody at the Tasty Diner.  I find that too funny.  I've think sat at that very booth.  The TD (Tasty Diner) was one of my hangouts ages ago in another life.  Open 24 hours it is a Bethesda landmark, and about the only place left from the old B-Town (Bethesda, Maryland) of my teen years.

@onekidanddone, what a coincidence that you know the place! In case you didn't know, it's not just a screenshot, it's a (short little) video of the interview.

BTW, I see you've got a new avatar. I've been staring at it for some time now, and I can't quite make it out and it's driving me crazy. So I've just got to ask. What is it? 

[fraurosena]

37 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The White House on Friday released a letter from two tax attorneys for President Trump claiming that Trump’s only income from Russian sources in the last 10 years came from fees for hosting the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013, his sale of a Palm Beach mansion to a Russian businessman in 2008 and his company’s routine sales of condo units and golf games to Russians.

Bwhaa-hahahaaaaaaa! Heeeee-hee-hee-hahahaaaa. Snort.

Sorry. Couldn't help myself there. This is the exact, literal information that Rachel Maddow has already exposed in the last couple of months. This is public knowledge, nothing everybody following the news didn't know already.

It's like they thought, hmmm, what do they know? Right, we'll admit to that then. Keep it low key and very vague. That'll keep them off your back, mr. presidunce!

[fraurosena]

This is not surprising. Clapper says Comey was uneasy about dinner with the presidunce.

This links to a video of Andrea Mitchell's interview with Clapper.

http://www.msnbc.com/andrea-mitchell-reports/watch/clapper-comey-uneasy-about-january-dinner-with-trump-942504515993

 

[47of74]

2 hours ago, PreciousPantsofDoom said:

And then I'd like to see the equivalent of that moment in a Few Good Men where Jack Nicholsons character, who is so arrogant that he doesn't even realize he has just fucked himself,  tries to walk away from the stand and is humiliatingly stopped by the MPs and taken away.  

"MP's guard the ex-President!"

I think they'd have an easier time holding him than a pissed off Jack Nicholson.

 

[Mercer]

Quote

Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump

James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

8:26 AM - 12 May 2017

Wait... if that were true, wouldn't it look just as bad on Trump as on Comey?

Trump took an oath to uphold the Constitution and this country's laws. If he had evidence that the director of the FBI was acting counter to the interests of the citizens of the United States, Trump had a duty to act upon that in an immediate and transparent way, not just sit on it until it became politically advantageous to blackmail him with. If Trump really has this type of material implicating Comey, it's failing to uphold his sworn duty at best and obstruction of justice at worst to hide it for use as future political fodder.

That said, I high doubt that Trump actually has any "tapes" (or the modern equivalent) that would be damaging to Comey. I don't have a particularly high opinion of Comey's integrity, but I do think he has some small amount of it, and more importantly I don't think he's a complete idiot. I think Comey is smart enough to avoid admitting anything potentially damning in front of Trump, even in a private conversation. Comey worked for the FBI, after all - he knows what evidence is and how to avoid leaving it, and that you can't count on loyalty from someone who is as erratic and retaliatory as Trump has long proven to be.

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

@onekidanddone, what a coincidence that you know the place! In case you didn't know, it's not just a screenshot, it's a (short little) video of the interview.

BTW, I see you've got a new avatar. I've been staring at it for some time now, and I can't quite make it out and it's driving me crazy. So I've just got to ask. What is it? 

It is a close up of a piece of machinery at a tiny train museum in Hagerstown, Maryland

[fraurosena]

16 minutes ago, Mercer said:

Wait... if that were true, wouldn't it look just as bad on Trump as on Comey?

Trump took an oath to uphold the Constitution and this country's laws. If he had evidence that the director of the FBI was acting counter to the interests of the citizens of the United States, Trump had a duty to act upon that in an immediate and transparent way, not just sit on it until it became politically advantageous to blackmail him with. If Trump really has this type of material implicating Comey, it's failing to uphold his sworn duty at best and obstruction of justice at worst to hide it for use as future political fodder.

That said, I high doubt that Trump actually has any "tapes" (or the modern equivalent) that would be damaging to Comey. I don't have a particularly high opinion of Comey's integrity, but I do think he has some small amount of it, and more importantly I don't think he's a complete idiot. I think Comey is smart enough to avoid admitting anything potentially damning in front of Trump, even in a private conversation. Comey worked for the FBI, after all - he knows what evidence is and how to avoid leaving it, and that you can't count on loyalty from someone who is as erratic and retaliatory as Trump has long proven to be.

Oh, I very much believe the presidunce tapes every single conversation he has in the WH. I think this is what keeps many repubs in line. He's potentially blackmailing the whole lot of them. I'm especially suspicious of those who did a rather sudden about turn, or unexpectedly began to defend him.

 

Just now, onekidanddone said:

It is a close up of a piece of machinery at a tiny train museum in Hagerstown

Aha. I was partly right in my guess. I thought it could possibly be a bolt. Then again, I also thought it could be an eye.... 

[fraurosena]

Now this is an example of 'telling them like it is'. 

Ex-CIA official: POTUS needs a 'pacifier & a rattle'

Quote

Former CIA official Philip Mudd says he's "breathing a sigh of relief" after President Donald Trump's Twitter storm Friday because it can't be taken seriously.

"You feel like you have to give the President of the United States a pacifier and a rattle and put him in the crib," he told CNN's Kate Bolduan. It's "a joke," he said of the tweets. "You can't take this seriously."

Mudd was reacting to a barrage of tweets the President sent early Friday morning threatening former FBI Director James Comey and floating the idea of canceling press briefings due to unfavorable coverage.

"You're threatening the FBI, who's in the midst of an investigation of presidential aides? The FBI's been around since 1908. The President of the United States has been around for three and a half months," said the former director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center.

"If you think you're going to intimidate the former FBI director and the dozens of people in the workforce who are conducting this investigation with the Department of Justice, you've got another think coming."

Mudd also had a message for any Americans concerned by the President's recent behavior.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "Nobody in the investigation would take this seriously."

 

[47of74]

5 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Oh, I very much believe the presidunce tapes every single conversation he has in the WH. I think this is what keeps many repubs in line. He's potentially blackmailing the whole lot of them. I'm especially suspicious of those who did a rather sudden about turn, or unexpectedly began to defend him.

I remember in the days leading up to the election just about every GOP politician was running away from fornicate head, not wanting to be associated with him when he would lose.  But then fornicate head did the unexpected and "won" and all of a sudden these same GOP politicians figured they better kiss up to him.   Probably because he did have the goodies on them.   And knowing all the weird stuff the family values type Republicans are in to these days it'd probably bring them down hard.

3 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Now this is an example of 'telling them like it is'. 

Ex-CIA official: POTUS needs a 'pacifier & a rattle'

 

Along with encasing his cell phone in a steel cage covered with a cement block and then putting it into a the middle of a nuclear reactor.

[GreyhoundFan]

I agree that Agent Orange probably records everything. He doesn't care about legality. I have always held that he has dirt on people in his orbit, to keep them in line. Recordings would be part of that.

"A new report says Trump demanded Comey’s loyalty. That could be devastating."

Quote

The New York Times is now reporting that according to “associates” of former FBI director James B. Comey, President Trump asked Comey at a private dinner in January to pledge his loyalty. Comey told Trump that he could not do that, the sources say, and now blames this in part for Trump’s decision to fire him.

The White House denies this account, but sources close to Comey who spoke to NBC News say this is what happened.

Whatever the truth, this immediately demands that two things happen:

1. Congressional investigators looking into possible Trump campaign collusion with Russian meddling in the election must ask Comey about this episode under oath. After all, the account to the Times was likely authorized by Comey in some way.
2. If this does not happen, Comey has an obligation to go public with his account of this dinner, and also about other matters, which I’ll get to in a moment.

As the Times story puts it: “Mr. Trump may not have understood that by tradition, F.B.I. directors are not supposed to be political loyalists, which is why Congress in the 1970s passed a law giving them 10-year terms to make them independent of the president.”

This report must be looked at in its larger context. In an interview with NBC News that aired last night, Trump explicitly confirmed that he fired Comey because the FBI is probing potential Trump campaign collusion with Russia.

He said:

“When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.”

And so, if this demand for loyalty happened, it took place in the context of Trump’s knowledge that Comey was overseeing an investigation into his own campaign — the handling of which Trump himself now says was his reason for firing Comey.

In an interview with me this morning, Harvard professor Laurence Tribe, a persistent Trump critic, argued that this demand for loyalty, if it happened, could constitute an effort to obstruct justice, particularly when viewed in the light of the subsequent firing of Comey.

“The demand for loyalty from the head of the organization investigating those around you, when you have the power to fire that person — if you wrote a novel about obstruction of justice, this would almost be too good to be true,” Tribe told me.

Tribe added that congressional investigators now have an obligation to ask Comey to clarify all of these matters — and if they don’t, Comey has an obligation to go public himself about them.

Remember, there are still more questions about all of this outstanding: In the NBC interview, Trump also claimed that he privately asked Comey if he, Trump, is under investigation and that Comey told him he isn’t. That would also have been improper on Trump’s part, according to some legal experts, so we need to hear from Comey on this episode, too.

Comey must speak out about all of this, Tribe argued. “Congress has an obligation to ask these questions, and if Congress doesn’t grow a pair and make the inquiry totally serious and bipartisan, then I think Comey has an obligation to speak directly to the public,” Tribe told me. “Of all the things that people have said about Comey, nobody has ever questioned his honesty.”

This morning, Trump responded to the Times story alleging a request for loyalty this way:

...<the recordings tweet from the twit in chief>

Trump’s response is being widely reported as a threat leveled at Comey. If anything, this dramatically increases the stakes for Congress — in particular, for congressional Republicans. They need to be asked not just whether this Trump threat is appropriate, but whether they think the congressional investigations into the Russia affair — which are controlled by Republicans — should seek a full accounting of all of this from Comey himself.

All of this once again underscores why a full and independent probe of this whole mess is necessary. Whether conducted by a special prosecutor or a select committee, such an investigation would look not just at Russian meddling and possible collusion, but also at whether Trump asked for Comey’s loyalty; at whether Trump privately asked Comey if he was under investigation; and at the full circumstances and motives leading Trump to fire Comey.

“The agenda of such a probe,” Tribe said, should include “the question of what the decision-making process was that went into the firing of Comey, and why he was fired when he was fired.”

The Comey-Trump dinner, Tribe added, is “America’s version of The Last Supper. It’s a Kryptonite event. It’s very hard to see how the president can squeak out of it.”

...

 

 

 

Aaaannnd, I look at the WaPo's site, guess what is on the front page? "Why it’s likely that Trump does have recordings of his Oval Office conversations"

Quote

...

For a guy who has spent the past week being compared to Richard Nixon for firing a man who was investigating his campaign, it was an odd threat to level. Nixon, of course, was undone in part by the things that he recorded himself saying in the Oval Office. Which raises an interesting question: Do presidents still record those conversations? Does Trump?

At Friday’s daily press briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer said that the president “had nothing further to add” beyond the tweet — hardly a denial. But there are other reasons to believe that the answer to those questions is “yes.”

... (history of taping in the Oval Office)

Trump’s history of alleged surveillance

It’s important to note that, if it does, there’s good reason to think that Trump would embrace its use.

BuzzFeed has reported several times on alleged use of recording devices by Trump at his homes and properties. In October last year, reporter Aram Roston wrote that two Trump golf clubs had pervasive monitoring systems that were tracked constantly, citing sources who worked at the facilities. Previously, Roston had reported that Trump had the ability to listen to any conversation taking place on the phone lines at Mar-a-Lago, again according to employees at the resort.

The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman tweeted Friday that her reporting indicated that Trump Tower employees were concerned that their offices were bugged.

...

Trump staffers have made threats to expose recordings similar to Trump’s. Social media director Dan Scavino tweeted this week that he had Huma Abedin’s election night concession call recorded and that he would soon share it.

More to the point, communications staffer Omarosa Manigault upended a dispute with reporter April Ryan in February by claiming to have a recording of an altercation between the two “steps from the Oval Office.”

Where did the recording come from? “The encounter was recorded by an unidentified White House media employee, according to Manigault, who said the tape backs up her claim that Ryan’s account is false,” our Paul Farhi reported. He added:

Manigault, who earned a villainous reputation while a contestant on Trump’s reality shows “The Apprentice” and “Celebrity Apprentice,” asserted that White House media staff regularly records interviews between reporters and officials. “We do it all the time,” she said. “When you come into, you’re on the record.”

An automated recording system would certainly do the trick in that regard.

So we know that the Oval Office — and other parts of the White House — have had recording devices in the past. We know it’s likely that those existed at least into Obama’s administration. We know that a Trump adviser claimed to have a recording of a conversation that took place near the Oval Office. We know that Trump has, in the past, allegedly embraced the use of surveillance tools. Put together? It seems likely he has Comey on tape.

For his part, the former FBI director doesn’t seem to be too worried about their being released.

...

 

[47of74]

8 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I agree that Agent Orange probably records everything. He doesn't care about legality. I have always held that he has dirt on people in his orbit, to keep them in line. Recordings would be part of that.

"A new report says Trump demanded Comey’s loyalty. That could be devastating."

 

That made me think of the part of John 21 where Jesus asked Peter if he loved him and kept saying to feed his sheep when Peter responded.  Of course with Agent Orange it was more like kiss my ass and call it ice cream and then stop all these people from being mean to me and Comey was at least wise enough to say no.

[fraurosena]

A very insightful op-ed in NYT on why Repubs keep on supporting the tangerine toddler.

If Liberals Hate Him, Then Trump Must Be Doing Something Right

Quote

If there was one principle that used to unite conservatives, it was respect for the rule of law. Not long ago, conservatives would have been horrified at wholesale violations of the norms and traditions of our political system, and would have been appalled by a president who showed overt contempt for the separation of powers.

But this week, as if on cue, most of the conservative media fell into line, celebrating President Trump’s abrupt dismissal of the F.B.I. director, James Comey, and dismissing the fact that Mr. Comey was leading an investigation into the Trump campaign and its ties to Russia. “Dems in Meltdown Over Comey Firing,” declared a headline on Fox News, as Tucker Carlson gleefully replayed clips of Democrats denouncing the move. “It’s just insane actually,” he said, referring to their reactions. On Fox and talk radio, the message was the same, with only a few conservatives willing to sound a discordant or even cautious note.

The talk-show host Rush Limbaugh was positively giddy, opening his monologue on Wednesday by praising Mr. Trump for what he called his “epic trolling” of liberals. “This is great,” Mr. Limbaugh declared. “Can we agree that Donald Trump is probably enjoying this more than anybody wants to admit or that anybody knows? So he fires Comey yesterday. Who’s he meet with today? He’s meeting with the Soviet, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov! I mean, what an epic troll this is.”

Given the enthusiasm of the president’s apologists, it is likely that much of Mr. Trump’s base will similarly rally to him as it has in the past.

But perhaps most important, we saw once again how conservatism, with its belief in ordered liberty, is being eclipsed by something different: Loathing those who loathe the president. Rabid anti-anti-Trumpism.

In a lamentably overlooked monologue this month, Mr. Limbaugh embraced the new reality in which conservative ideas and principles had been displaced by anti-liberalism. For years, Mr. Limbaugh ran what he called the “Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.” But in the Trump era, he told his audience, he has changed that to the “Institute for Advanced Anti-Leftist Studies.”

With Mr. Trump in the White House, conservative principles were no longer the point. “How many times during the campaign did I warn everybody Trump is not a conservative? Multiple times a day,” Mr. Limbaugh said. “How many times have I told you: ‘Do not expect Trump to be a conservative? He isn’t one.’ ”

He went on to emphasize that the campaign was not about conservatism, because that’s not what Mr. Trump is about.

That was a remarkable admission, but it is also a key to understanding what is happening on the right. While there are those like Sean Hannity who are reliable cheerleaders for all things President Trump, much of the conservative news media is now less pro-Trump than it is anti-anti-Trump. The distinction is important, because anti-anti-Trumpism has become the new safe space for the right.

Here is how it works: Rather than defend President Trump’s specific actions, his conservative champions change the subject to (1) the biased “fake news” media, (2) over-the-top liberals, (3) hypocrites on the left, (4) anyone else victimizing Mr. Trump or his supporters and (5) whataboutism, as in “What about Obama?” “What about Clinton?”

For the anti-anti-Trump pundit, whatever the allegation against Mr. Trump, whatever his blunders or foibles, the other side is always worse.

But the real heart of anti-anti-Trumpism is the delight in the frustration and anger of his opponents. Mr. Trump’s base is unlikely to hold him either to promises or tangible achievements, because conservative politics is now less about ideas or accomplishments than it is about making the right enemies cry out in anguish.

Mr. Trump’s most vocal supporters don’t have to defend his specific actions as long as they make liberal heads explode, or as Sarah Palin put it so memorably, “It’s really funny to me to see the splodey heads keep sploding.” If liberals hate something, the argument goes, then it must be wonderful and worthy of aggressive defense. Each controversy reinforces the divisions and the distrust, and Mr. Trump counts on that.

For many in the conservative movement, this sort of anti-anti-Trumpism is the solution to the painful conundrum posed by the Trump presidency. With a vast majority of conservative voters and listeners solidly behind Mr. Trump, conservative critics of the president find themselves isolated and under siege. But, as Damon Linker noted, anti-anti-Trumpism “allows the right to indulge its hatred of liberals and liberalism while sidestepping the need for a reckoning with the disaster of the Trump administration itself.”

This is also a much sounder business model than airing doubts about the president. Conservative media is, of course, a business that relies on ratings, and few things generate ratings more quickly than bashing liberals. In this case, it is more profitable for talk show hosts to play down Mr. Trump’s failures while piling on his enemies.

The ad hominem argument is rightly regarded as a logical fallacy because it substitutes personal attacks for a discussion of the argument someone is making. But on many talk shows, including Mr. Limbaugh’s, nearly every argument is ad hominem. Instead of offering statistics and building a case, it is easier to simply make fun of a Trump critic like Representative Maxine Waters, or shrug off a negative report because it came from the “lamestream media.”

Not surprisingly, the vast majority of airtime on conservative media is not taken up by issues or explanations of conservative approaches to markets or need to balance liberty with order. Why bother with such stuff, when there were personalities to be mocked and left-wing moonbats to be ridiculed?

What may have begun as a policy or a tactic in opposition has long since become a reflex. But there is an obvious price to be paid for essentially becoming a party devoted to trolling. In the long run, it’s hard to see how a party dedicated to liberal tears can remain a movement based on ideas or centered on principles.

Conservatives will care less about governing and more about scoring “wins” — and inflicting losses on the left — no matter how hollow the victories or flawed the policies. Ultimately, though, this will end badly because it is a moral and intellectual dead end, and very likely a political one as well.

The right’s reaction to the firing of Mr. Comey hardly bodes well. Even conservatives who are still smarting from his handling of Hillary Clinton’s emails should recognize that the timing of Mr. Comey’s abrupt dismissal in the midst of a growing investigation into Russian meddling raises fundamental questions about the rule of the law and the possibility that justice is being obstructed.

As the right doubles down on anti-anti-Trumpism, it will find itself goaded into defending and rationalizing ever more outrageous conduct just as long as it annoys CNN and the left.

In many ways anti-anti-Trumpism mirrors Donald Trump himself, because at its core there are no fixed values, no respect for constitutional government or ideas of personal character, only a free-floating nihilism cloaked in insult, mockery and bombast.

Needless to say, this is not a form of conservatism that Edmund Burke, or even Barry Goldwater, would have recognized.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

@fraurosena : great article! I especially like this:

Quote

Conservatives will care less about governing and more about scoring “wins” — and inflicting losses on the left — no matter how hollow the victories or flawed the policies. Ultimately, though, this will end badly because it is a moral and intellectual dead end, and very likely a political one as well.

Moral and intellectual dead end: yeah, that pretty much sums up the DOH.

 

This is an extremely lengthy, but excellent article on a number of Donnie Dumbfuck's actions this week. I especially love the tweets from NYT's Adam Goldman and Boston Globe's Annie Linskey (buried deep in the article).

[fraurosena]

When I first read this, I thought it was a hoax. But nope.

Donald Trump firing Comey has Republicans calling for official investigation – into Clinton's emails

Quote

Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey has left many conservatives hoping the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server can be reopened.

Many Republicans, and others on the right, were furious when Mr Comey announced last summer that after probing her actions, he had decided against bringing criminal charges. The decision infuriated Donald Trump and his supporters, who started to to chant “lock her up” at his election rallies.

During one of the three presidential debates, Mr Trump even vowed to investigate her behaviour if he was elected. “If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception,” he said.

Now, in the aftermath of the firing of Mr Comey, with Democrats and opponents of Mr Trump infuriated over what they consider a blatant attempt to shut down the investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged links to Russia’s effort to influence the election, conservatives see an opening to restart the Clinton probe.

Tom Fitton, president of the conservative legal activist group Judicial Watch, said there remained many unanswered questions about both Ms Clinton’s behaviour and the way Mr Comey led the investigation.

“I think it needs to be reevaluated it’s not just because theres a new FBI Director, but under new leadership at the Justice Department,” he told Fox News.  “Comey misled the investigation by suggesting they needed to find intent, when common sense tells you they mishandled it, and they should have known that what they were doing was wrong, which was enough for a prosecution. It’s gross negligence under the law.”

He added: “They need to reevaluate what’s happening with the mishandling of classified material, and her taking records illicitly, destroying them, all sorts of things like that. We can’t trust that last investigation to have got to the bottom of that.”

In the aftermath of the decision not to prosecute Ms Clinton, there were widespread reports that a number of FBI agents were angry with Ms Comey. There were accusations that he had taken the decision not to prosecute her, because he, like many other elements of the Washington establishment, had expected her to in the election.

This week, the new acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe acknowledged for the first time in public testimony that some agents were indeed angry with that decision.

“I think morale’s always been good, but there were folks within our agency that were frustrated with the outcome of the Hillary Clinton case and some of those folks were very vocal about those concerns,” Mr McCabe said.

William Jacobosn, a conservative blogger and a professor at Cornell Law School, wrote: “James Comey now is fired. Loretta Lynch no longer is Attorney General. This seems to open up the possibility of a renewed investigation and potential prosecution.”

When he announced last summer he was not going to proceed with a prosecution of Ms Clinton, Mr Comey said: “Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

He added: “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.

“I know there will be intense public debate in the wake of this recommendation, as there was throughout this investigation.” 

A spokesman for Ms Clinton did not immediately respond to inquiries.

I believe there's a scratch on these repub's LP, and they have "but her emails" on continuous repeat... 

[47of74]

15 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

When I first read this, I thought it was a hoax. But nope.

Donald Trump firing Comey has Republicans calling for official investigation – into Clinton's emails

I believe there's a scratch on these repub's LP, and they have "but her emails" on continuous repeat... 

The first thing it seems that most Republicans do when confronted with their wrong doing is to go "but but but Democrats..."  At all levels.  A Republican can have a scorching case of VD and will say that Mrs. Clinton's emails somehow caused him to develop the STD spontaneously instead of the prostitutes he was seeing on the side.  

[sawasdee]

If tRump really does have tapes of Comey, they fall under the Presidential Records Act of 1978 - and must be preserved, unless the US archivist agrees to deletion. It applies to all presidential records, whether written, taped, electronic or digital.

This was a protection put in after the notorious Nixon '18 minutes' deletion, and renewed by Obama. It has been ignored in the past: GW deleted over 22 million emails as he left office (makes Hillary's 30,000 look like an amateur).  But someone should be asking about this now - even though there is a five year block on release. The preservation of these records is in the remit of the archivist - a civil servant - and ONLY THEY may legally delete them. If it is done by anyone else, it is a crime.

ETA Don't you think, after 8 Congressional and 1 FBI investigations have found nothing illegal, that most Americans are bored rigid by 'But Hillary's emails'....

[47of74]

Some members of the House now want any recordings the Putinfluffer may have made;

occupydemocrats.com/2017/05/12/congress-just-responded-trumps-comey-threat-urgent-ultimatum/

[fraurosena]

Darn it! I was so looking forward to this...

Warner: Comey won't testify to intel panel next week

Quote

Former FBI Director James Comey will not testify before the Senate intelligence committee next week, according to the panel's vice chairman, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia.

"We just heard from the director that he's not able to make Tuesday," Warner told CNN's Manu Raju. "It's my hope that that we will be able to find a time. I think it's really important that the Congress, and more broadly the American people, hear Director Comey's side of the story."

Comey, who was fired by President Donald Trump on Tuesday, was invited to speak before the committee in a closed session. The former official was in charge of the bureau's investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The Virginia Democrat told MSNBC earlier Friday that Comey would not appear next week.

The intelligence committee issued a subpoena this week to former national security adviser Michael Flynn for documents regarding his interactions with Russian officials.

Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe testified in front of the committee on Thursday.

uring his testimony, McCabe contradicted the White House's assertion that the President "and the rest of the FBI" had lost confidence in Comey.

"The majority, the vast majority of FBI employees enjoyed a deep, positive connection to director Comey," he said, adding that the former director had "broad support within the FBI and still does to this day."

Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates -- who was fired by Trump after she refused to defend his travel ban -- and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also testified in front of a Senate subcommittee on crime and terrorism on Monday.

"Boy it's been quite a week," Warner said.

It's been quite a week, indeed!