Trump 29: Divider In Chief or Liar In Chief? WHY NOT BOTH?

[GreyhoundFan]

"President Trump is losing control"

Spoiler

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, and the Russia scandal in general, are driving this president around the bend, to the point where he is setting himself against not just the government he leads but also the interests of the United States of America. And everything we’ve seen up to now suggests that it will only get worse.

Multiple reports today from journalists covering the White House paint a picture of a president who spent the weekend seething with rage — at Mueller, at the media, at members of his administration, at the fact that he couldn’t play golf because it would have been unseemly in the wake of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting — and lashing out at everyone in sight, up to and including Oprah Winfrey. This is not a man with a firm command of his impulses.

Josh Dawsey and Philip Rucker described President Trump’s weekend:

In a string of 10 Twitter messages — which began after 11 p.m. Saturday and ended around noon Sunday, and which included profanity and misspellings — Trump opened a window into his state of mind, even as Trump’s representatives at a global security conference in Germany advised jittery allies to generally ignore the president’s tweets.

Trump’s latest attacks built on remarks last week in which he misrepresented the evidence revealed by Mueller. He tweeted falsely, “I never said Russia did not meddle in the election.” He blamed President Barack Obama’s administration for doing “nothing” to stop the intrusion. Trump rebuked national security adviser H.R. McMaster for publicly saying the evidence of Russian interference was “incontrovertible.”

And he held the FBI responsible for last week’s devastating shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school that left 17 dead. Trump tweeted that the bureau was committing so many resources to the Russia probe that it missed “all of the many signals” about the shooter.

Many people are justifiably upset that the FBI received tips about the Parkland shooting suspect and didn’t follow up. But unless the Miami field office has been secretly running the Russia probe, I’m pretty sure that the agents involved in investigating Russia’s attack on American democracy are not the same ones responsible for fielding tips on troubled teenagers in Florida, as much of a threat as the latter might pose.

But Trump brings everything back to himself. If the FBI made a mistake anywhere, it can only be because it’s out to get Trump. There’s no issue — not even the murder of 17 people, most of them teenagers — that he won’t make about him. That’s why he’s so obsessed with the media, much more than the substance of any issue at hand: It’s the one place where he’s always the story and always the star.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Russia affair is that it would be so easy for Trump to act like something resembling a responsible president of the United States. He could simply say that whatever effect Russian meddling had on the 2016 election, it was unacceptable and the integrity of American elections must not be compromised. Then he could direct someone like Vice President Pence to lead a task force to make recommendations on how to secure elections in the future from both hacking and foreign propaganda efforts. Everyone would say that he’s doing the right thing, and he wouldn’t look so paranoid, dishonest and defensive.

But he can’t bring himself to do that. He obviously believes that if he even admits that Russia attempted to intervene on his behalf, then the legitimacy of his entire presidency will be called into question.

So at a moment when his own appointees atop the nation’s intelligence agencies are urgently warning that Russia is preparing to meddle in the 2018 and 2020 elections, their boss is all but telling them to stand down. No matter what Russia does, Trump won’t ever be willing to deal with the problem, because he’ll always feel that doing so will only validate his critics. Do you think Russian President Vladimir Putin knows that? I suspect he does.

It’s possible that various agencies of the government will, in spite of the president, manage to take reasonably effective steps to minimize the effects of Russian efforts to subvert our elections. But Putin must realize that he needn’t worry about anything that might require presidential approval, such as retaliatory actions aimed at punishing Russia for its assault on American democracy. That, we can be sure, isn’t going to happen as long as Trump is president. You don’t have to believe he’s being blackmailed or that he’s Putin’s puppet; all you need to know is that any admission of the truth of what happened in 2016 is intolerable for him.

We also should understand that whatever effort Russia makes at interfering in the 2018 elections will be happening at the same time as the Mueller investigation is reaching its critical point, which will make Trump even more resistant to doing anything about Russian meddling. As Mueller issues more indictments, Trump is certain to become angrier, more self-absorbed and more insistent that his great victory was pure and unsullied. This is a man who as of yesterday was still tweeting that “the Democrats, lead by their fearless leader, Crooked Hillary Clinton, lost the 2016 election. But wasn’t I a great candidate?”

With each new step Mueller takes, Trump will react by saying that none of it’s true and it’s all a conspiracy against him. When his aides tell him about some new Russian intrusion, he’ll ask not what’s necessary to defend the country, but how the whole thing is going to make him look. As he also tweeted yesterday, “They are laughing their asses off in Moscow.” At least he got that right.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

John Oliver's show came back from hiatus last night. Of course, Dumpy was the main topic.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Whoops: "Gun found in bag of Trump motorcade driver, Secret Service says"

Spoiler

A driver in the presidential motorcade was removed from his duties Monday after the Secret Service found a gun in his bag outside the gates of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla.

The driver, who could not be immediately identified, was briefly detained and questioned by the Secret Service a little after 8 a.m., just before Trump headed to the golf course for much of the day. He was driving one of three vans for members of the news media and had been in the presidential motorcade all weekend.

Before the vans enter the Mar-a-Lago estate to follow Trump, Secret Service agents search bags, check guests with a handheld metal detector and scour vans with explosive-sniffing dogs.

The gun was found during that process, and the driver told reporters he had accidentally left his “personal firearm” in his bag. The Secret Service later said the driver held a permit for the gun.

Agents dumped all the contents from the man’s bag and moved him away from the group to a nearby tent.

“The Secret Service can confirm that an individual serving as a staff contracted driver was briefly detained by U.S. Secret Service personnel and other law enforcement officials today. The individual was found to be in lawful possession of a prohibited item (firearm) outside the secure area at a Secret Service security screening checkpoint,” the agency wrote in a statement.

Drivers in the motorcade are often volunteer supporters of the president or local activists. Sometimes, the government pays drivers for extended trips like this weekend’s. On other trips, drivers have said they were contacted by local Republican officials to drive in the motorcade with little notice.

The detained driver was replaced by the White House makeup artist, who also serves as a press assistant on trips. Two other drivers were also replaced after the gun was found.

A few minutes later, one of the other press vans grazed a parked car outside Mar-a-Lago.

 

[Rosalie]

International Olympic biathletes critical of Donald Trump, U.S. gun policies

Spoiler

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — President Donald Trump hasn’t tweeted about the 2018 Winter Games, much less visited the Olympics venues here. But he was on minds and lips Saturday night during the biathlon, a sport that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting.

In fact, Trump was referenced several times when a well-known coach and international competitors were asked about gun violence in the United States and the shooting at a Florida high school on Wednesday in which 17 people were killed. 

“If you have this crazy president like you have, Trump, then you will change nothing,’’ said Wolfgang Pichler, a German coach who has worked with several top athletes.

Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff, who won the bronze medal in the women’s 12.5-kilometer mass start Saturday, grinned as she said, “I don’t think Trump would like me now…’’

With that, Eckhoff voiced support for stronger gun control.

“In Norway, it’s really strict to buy weapons,’’ she said. “I think that’s the main thing in America. Everyone can buy a gun, and that’s totally wrong, I think.

 The world is not safer with guns. It’s maybe weird when I say it because I do sports with gun. But I think when you don’t have good training like you have in military or like you do in our sport … when people think you can do like in 'Call of Duty,' when mentally not-healthy people can go out and buy a gun, it’s not good for the planet, or the U.S.’’

Switzerland’s Elisa Gasparin also said she’d push for tighter gun control.

“It’s surely important to regulate who gets weapons, because I think it’s easier in America to get to a weapon than in Switzerland,’’ she said. “In Switzerland, you need to confirm that you’re not (mentally ill), and also you need to prove that you don’t have any (criminal) history. Sadly, something like this can happen.’’

While no American biathletes competed Saturday, Susan Dunklee spoke to The Washington Post before the Florida tragedy and described her struggles after a mass shooting. 

“... Every time I hear of some mass shooting like that, it’s really painful," Dunklee told The Post. "That’s so different than my experience with rifles and firearms. It’s tough. I struggle with that.”

Italy’s Lisa Vittozzi said she was troubled by the gun violence, and in particular by news reports about African-Americans being shot by police officers.

“It’s very dangerous in U.S. and not in Italy,’’ she said. “If I was in America, I would not feel safe, I think.’’

(Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/winter-olympics-2018/2018/02/17/winter-olympics-international-biathletes-critical-donald-trump-u-s-gun-policies/347891002/)

[fraurosena]

It's not like we needed historians to tell us this. It's nice to see it plastered all over social media though.

President Trump Ranks Last in 'Presidential Greatness,' According to Historians

Quote

President Donald Trump is not afraid to talk himself up – but presidential historians don’t think he’s so great.

Just in time for Presidents’ Day, a survey of 170 presidential historians puts Trump in dead last place – behind even James Buchanan, whom many historians blame for failing to stop the Civil War.

Presidents & Executive Politics Presidential Greatness survey, conducted by University of Houston professor Brandon Rottinghaus and Boise State University professor Justin S. Vaughn, polled current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association and asked them to grade each president.

Trump’s first time on the list knocked Buchanan out of last place. President Barack Obama jumped up ten places in rank since the last survey was conducted in 2014.

President Abraham Lincoln topped the list once again with George Washington, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson rounding out the top five, similar to the 2014 survey. The findings were relatively consistent across political party affiliation and ideology, as well.

The survey also found that Trump was considered the “most polarizing” president. He also he ranked in the bottom five among all categories of respondents including Republican, Democrats, independents, liberals, conservatives and moderates.

A sampling of the results below:

Greatest presidents

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. George Washington
3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
4. Theodore Roosevelt
5. Thomas Jefferson

Least great presidents

1. Donald Trump
2. James Buchanan
3. William Henry Harrison
4. Franklin Pierce
5. Andrew Johnson

Ranking recent presidents

• Donald Trump – 44th
• Barack Obama – 8th
• George W. Bush – 30th
• Bill Clinton – 13th
• George H.W. Bush – 17th
• Ronald Reagan – 9th

Cue the tweet-storm...

[fraurosena]

.... and he's off!

 

 

[fraurosena]

Deer Rufus! He really doesn't have a clue, does he?

First of all, it was the PA Supreme Court that ruled on the new Congressional Map.

Secondly, the Repugs have already tried and failed* to bring the case to the US Supreme Court.

*The Supreme Court stated they could not rule on anything related to redistricting (or gerrymandering, if you will) as it is a matter of State Law In Pennsylvania, not Federal Law.

[fraurosena]

The presidunce is officially living in la la land.

 

[iweartanktops]

But... Like, we have audio of you saying that you just go around kissing and grabbing women because "you can do anything..." Sick fuck! 

 

"Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything."

[NotQuiteMotY]

Yes, because a map gerrymandered to hell and back is "better." It's hard to argue that the previous map was the best they could do when there were districts with chunks linked by a single building in the old one.

Who put Reagan that high up on the list? Did they not notice the whole voodoo economics thing?

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, iweartanktops said:

But... Like, we have audio of you saying that you just go around kissing and grabbing women because "you can do anything..." Sick fuck! 

 

"Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything."

He had the temerity to follow up that tweet with this one:

Trying to turn the tables on #metoo is not going to work, presidunce. Like @iweartanktops said: We have tapes.

[GreyhoundFan]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

The presidunce is officially living in la la land.

No, he's living in dumbass land. In fact, he's the governor there.

 

1 hour ago, NotQuiteMotY said:

Who put Reagan that high up on the list? Did they not notice the whole voodoo economics thing?

You mean Saint Ronnie, the patron saint of conservatives? I'm still surprised they didn't push to rename the country after him, or at least add him to Mount Rushmore. They renamed National Airport outside of DC for him. I still insist on calling it National. I was not, and am not, a fan of Saint Ronnie. Remember that the rich got way richer under his reign, so they think he was A-ok. And because he was "grandfatherly" and could speak well, he managed to snow far too many people.

[fraurosena]

1 minute ago, GreyhoundFan said:

You mean Saint Ronnie, the patron saint of conservatives? I'm still surprised they didn't push to rename the country after him, or at least add him to Mount Rushmore. They renamed National Airport outside of DC for him. I still insist on calling it National. I was not, and am not, a fan of Saint Ronnie. Remember that the rich got way richer under his reign, so they think he was A-ok. And because he was "grandfatherly" and could speak well, he managed to snow far too many people.

I really believe that because the Repugs managed to cover up Reagan's Alzheimer's during his second term, they thought they could manage the presidunce as well. 

There really should be an age limit to running for office. 

[Destiny]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

The presidunce is officially living in la la land.

 

Citations required.

[Cartmann99]

For those who are unaware, Juan is a commentator on Fox. The Trumpers who want Shepherd Smith fired for not worshipping the golden calf, are also agitating for Juan's dismissal. I keep expecting Trump to start bleating about this, as a black person speaking out against him really sends him over the edge. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Jennifer Rubin hit the nail on the head here: "Taking after the boss, Trump’s staff is learning all the wrong lessons"

Spoiler

Over the weekend, White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley declared: “There are two groups that have created chaos more than the Russians, and that’s the Democrats and the mainstream media, who continued to push this lie on the American people for more than a year — and quite frankly Americans should be outraged by that.” A Kremlin propagandist could not have said it better. In fact, its outlet in the United States was so tickled by the remark, that it blasted it out for its own audience.

Equating political opponents and the free press with a hostile power that attacked our democracy is despicable, but entirely predictable for young aides trying to score brownie points with their boss, who says pretty much the same thing. Gidley, a well-liked operative who worked on Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign in 2012 and Mike Huckabee’s in 2016, has internalized the lessons of the Trump White House — lie, defame your opponents, treat the press as a hostile power and, by all means, defend Russia. They’ve become participants in the mad race to the bottom, the cesspool of tribal politics.

White House aides have also learned it is all about President Trump, not the country. He is the victim, not victims of storms or shootings. The Post reported:

One White House official said the [Parkland, Fla., school shooting] forced the White House to focus on critical and serious issues — like consoling the victims and trying to heal the nation — rather than getting bogged down in what they view as more trivial West Wing drama.

“For everyone, it was a distraction or a reprieve,” said the White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect internal conversations. “A lot of people here felt like it was a reprieve from seven or eight days of just getting pummeled.”

The official likened the brief political calm to the aftermath of the October shooting in Las Vegas that left 58 dead and hundreds more injured. That tragedy united White House aides and the country in their shared mourning for the victims and their families.

“But as we all know, sadly, when the coverage dies down a little bit, we’ll be back through the chaos,” the official said.

Yup, the deaths of Americans — tragedies that tear apart families — have a silver lining! The White House escapes scrutiny for a few days from the slew of bad acts, gaffes and scandals (Rob Porter’s exit, Chief of Staff John F. Kelly apparently prevaricating about the sequence of events surrounding that exit, Cabinet secretaries abusing air travel, etc.). It’s bad enough to think that way, but imagine saying it (even on background) to a reporter — without shame or sheepishness.

That mentality comes straight from Trump as well. During the campaign, Trump would claim vindication (I was right!) when tragedies occurred. As president, he constantly whines about not being given enough credit (e.g., for the response to Hurricane Harvey in Texas). And the deaths of 17 people in Florida last week were also, for him, “a reprieve” of sorts; he could blame the FBI for missing warning signs about the alleged shooter because they were too busy investigating Russia’s efforts to lift him to the presidency.

The aides have learned all too well that decency, honesty and humility have no place in the Trump White House. In adopting the White House mentality, they become apparatchiks (sorry, there’s no better word for it) in a style of politics that amounts to creepy authoritarianism. “All of the elements of Trump’s demagogic governing style are present in the production and handling of the Porter scandal,” wrote Bob Bauer on the Lawfare blog. There is the “equation of his personal wishes with the general welfare” and the obsession with serving up red meat to his shrinking but cult-like base. Bauer explained: “As Trump has so often in the past, he was looking to rile his followers with visions of an older order, one purged of the political correctness he despises: ‘Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?’ ” There can be no empathy for ordinary people — especially if his base can be whipped into a frenzy.

And then there is the incessant lying, in which Bauer said that Trump “will insist on pushing out whatever narrative he would like the press corps and public to believe, regardless of that narrative’s relationship to the facts.”

The White House staff is learning the habits of an autocratic leader, not of democratic governance. Feed the president’s ego, smear the opposition, deny the facts and don’t worry yourself over the victims. By behaving in this fashion, they sacrifice their own integrity, and worse, contribute to the decline of democratic norms and civil debate. Don’t waste your pity on them; they chose to work for Trump. Worry about the White House as an institution instead. They’re trashing the place, and it may never regain its former luster.

I haven't seen much from or about this Hogan Gidley, but he sounds like a chip off SHS' block.

[GrumpyGran]

*sigh* Has he decided he's just not going to work anymore?

He's had a very bad seven days. I feel like we don't actually have a president anymore. I think the Rethugs in Congress are trying very hard to pretend he doesn't exist.

It's like we have a crazy clown running around screaming inane shit and threatening people at random and everyone is exhausted so everyone tries to ignore him.

He's going to continue to rage because his PA rally, where I assume he was going to use campaigning for the special election as a cover for an ALL ABOUT ME rally, got canceled. The folks in FL at the hospital and the LE didn't praise him enough because they were a little distracted by a shooting at a school. Women keep coming out of the woodwork so Barblania is angry so he has to use time and energy to negotiate with her. And he only got one game of golf in while he was in Florida.

When was the last time he's actually talked about policy?

[Cartmann99]

1 hour ago, GrumpyGran said:

It's like we have a crazy clown running around screaming inane shit and threatening people at random and everyone is exhausted so everyone tries to ignore him.

I'm starting to think we're all dead, and hell is a really bad ABC Afterschool Special. 

 

 

 

 

[onekidanddone]

20 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

I'm starting to think we're all dead, and hell is a really bad ABC Afterschool Special. 

I used to rush home to watch those. 

[fraurosena]

Adam Schiff's response to TT's twit-tweet today:

[JMarie]

9 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Deer Rufus! He really doesn't have a clue, does he?

First of all, it was the PA Supreme Court that ruled on the new Congressional Map.

Secondly, the Repugs have already tried and failed* to bring the case to the US Supreme Court.

*The Supreme Court stated they could not rule on anything related to redistricting (or gerrymandering, if you will) as it is a matter of State Law In Pennsylvania, not Federal Law.

"Your original was correct."  Of course he thinks that, he "won" Pennsylvania by 1.2%.  If he had lost PA, and the redistricting was still an issue, he'd be all for changing the congressional district lines.

[Cartmann99]

2 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

I used to rush home to watch those. 

Scott Baio starred in two of them, and now he's one of the idiots telling us that daddy wouldn't get drunk and beat us if we were nicer to him. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump knows that everyone has a price"

Spoiler

On April 29, 1962, John F. Kennedy gave a White House dinner for Nobel Prize winners. The president famously observed that his guests were “the most extraordinary collection of talent . . . that has ever been gathered together at the White House — with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” Many years later, in 2007 to be exact, Donald Trump hosted an event in Los Angeles to launch his brand of vodka. At his table were his eldest son and his daughter-in-law — as well as Trump’s alleged mistress du jour and Kim Kardashian. Thomas Jefferson, likely, was not mentioned.

Of course, JFK had his own troubled relationship with virtue — he was, we now know, no slouch in the mistress department. But when it comes to a guest list, nothing in the annals of presidential biography quite compares to that L.A. event. It turns out, though, that the Kardashian phenomenon — she became famous that very year because of a leaked sex tape — has lasted longer than Trump Vodka. In retrospect, it’s a wonder she’s not president.

The account of the 2007 vodka event comes from the New Yorker, wherein the indefatigable Ronan Farrow tells the tale of Karen McDougal, Playboy’s 1998 Playmate of the Year. McDougal claims she had an affair with the future president and, like another alleged Trump mistress, porn actress Stormy Daniels (who was also at the vodka party), got a payoff to guarantee her silence. McDougal says hers was arranged through American Media Inc. — the publisher of the National Enquirer — whose chief executive is Trump friend David Pecker.

Farrow is a careful journalist who last year helped expose Harvey Weinstein as an alleged sex thug. Along with the New York Times, Farrow transformed Weinstein from movie titan to rehab patient and set off a cascade of charges that threatens to take down more men than the 1918 flu pandemic. Farrow’s latest article is solidly reported but hardly advances our deep understanding of Trump. The Wall Street Journal had earlier published the bones of this story.

Still, the most attentive and apprehensive of Farrow’s readers have got to be that clutch of evangelical Christian leaders who endorsed Trump’s presidential bid and have stuck with him ever since. Their hypocrisy is being sorely tested. After all, McDougal appears believable. She handwrote a contemporaneous account of her alleged affair, which was examined by the New Yorker and found, as the lawyers say, dispositive. One can easily challenge her sanity — she actually liked Trump — but not her honesty.

It’s impossible to read McDougal’s story and conclude that she was a one-off — or, if Daniels is included, a two-off. According to Farrow, the admirably loyal Keith Schiller, Trump’s longtime bodyguard and, for a brief and shining moment, a White House aide, facilitated Trump’s assignations with multiple women. Are there others? I shudder at the thought. And so, I bet, do certain evangelical leaders who, having jumped into bed with Trump, must wonder who else is in it.

In a recent interview with Politico, Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council and a frequent White House visitor, acknowledged the fuss around Daniels but gave Trump a “mulligan.” The past is past. In the present, Trump prays with Perkins and, most important, has proclaimed himself unequivocally antiabortion — and so, when his presidency is finished, will be the federal judiciary. This is the great trade-off: the lives of the unborn (in pro-life speak) for everything else — Daniels and McDougal and the bevy of women who alleged that Trump assaulted them and the “Access Hollywood” tape and the incessant lying and vulgarities. For all the grotesqueries past and present, a mulligan.

But evangelical support for Trump has softened. Eighty percent of white evangelicals went with Trump in the general election, but by the end of last year their support was down to around 60 percent. Additional scandals may erode it further, but regardless, the once morally certain pro-Trump evangelical leaders stand exposed of a shocking cosmopolitan relativism. The best they can do is double down by, say, likening Trump to JFK. What’s the difference?

Glad you asked. Kennedy’s astonishing antics were neither known at the time nor acknowledged by religious leaders or other politicians. He got no mulligans. Trump, however, audaciously confronts. Just as he allegedly paid off women for their silence, he has effectively paid off the conservative religious movement and, for that matter, much of the Republican Party. A lifetime in real estate has taught him an invaluable lesson: Everyone has a price.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"For an innocent man, Trump sure does act guilty"

Spoiler

It’s not true that everyone in prison claims to be innocent. Most inmates I’ve known have been approximately as honest as people on the outside. Take that as you will.

What is true, in my experience, is that a guilty person and a not-guilty person sound alike when protesting their innocence. Sorting one from the other requires expertise, a lesson I learned as a young reporter when I accompanied a legendary lie-detector operator to interview a witness in a murder case.

Warren Holmes was a former Miami police detective turned independent consultant; investigative agencies around the world sought his advice. He performed polygraphs in connection with the John F. Kennedy assassination, the Watergate investigation and multiple high-profile wrongful convictions. His frequent collaborator, Gene Miller of the Miami Herald, won two Pulitzer Prizes for work done with Holmes — and now Gene was an editor sending me to collaborate.

My job was to persuade our squirrelly witness to submit to Holmes’s polygraph machine. But while Elmer Carroll was certainly dumb, he was not — despite my wheedling efforts — dumb enough. He eagerly and vehemently repeated his claim to have seen another man commit the murder for which two half brothers were doomed to Florida’s death row. However, he could not be coaxed into taking the test.

As we left the medium-security prison where our witness was locked up for an unrelated offense, I dejectedly confessed to Holmes that I didn’t know what to believe. He answered confidently: “He’s telling the truth when he says he was there, but he’s lying when he says he wasn’t involved.” I asked how he could be so sure without the use of his machine.

“That’s just a cigar box with wires,” Holmes replied with a snort. “The value of a polygraph is the operator, not the machine.”

Well, subsequent events convinced me that Holmes was exactly right. Considerable evidence emerged to exonerate the half brothers; meanwhile, Carroll revealed himself to be a killer. He landed on death row for a subsequent murder and was executed in 2013. The story Carroll told so fervently was almost certainly half-true, half-false. Many of the most convincing lies come smothered in a sauce of verity.

Which brings me to the present day. I wish I could put Holmes, who died in 2013, to work on the case of Donald J. Trump. The president protests his innocence with intensity worthy of Capt. Dreyfus himself. He’s the victim of a “hoax,” a “fraud,” a “witch hunt.” After the Justice Department announced the indictment of 13 Russians, including an oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, for meddling in Trump’s favor during the 2016 election, he nearly melted his phone as he furiously published an epic of self-exonerating tweets.

You or I might do exactly the same thing if we found ourselves targets of an unjust investigation. Few experiences are more maddening than to be wrongfully accused, whether the alleged offense is taking money from your brother’s sock drawer, flirting with a stranger at the Christmas party, cheating on a test or cooperating with foreign agents to improve your chances of winning the White House.

In other words, Trump’s furious claims of spotless innocence could be entirely consistent with the truth. But as Queen Gertrude observed to Hamlet, “the lady doth protest too much, methinks.” Surprising as this is in a veteran of showbiz, Trump seems not to understand how a close-up magnifies every gesture. His jumpiness around the subject of Russia; his hand-wringing over ways to end the investigation; his rhetorical flop-sweat at the mention of the letters F, B and I — all these and more have his audience thinking: Gee, for an innocent man he sure does act guilty.

In the classic film “Rope,” Alfred Hitchcock has a pair of clever young men serve drinks to their professor over a trunk stuffed with their murder victim’s corpse. The tension comes from the professor’s slow discovery of their crime. A remake with Trump in the leading role would open with him tweeting: “There’s NOTHING in the TRUNK!”

Channeling Holmes, I would venture that Trump is telling some of the truth but not all of it. He’s a businessman whose serial bankruptcies made it hard to find U.S. banks willing to extend further credit. His search for capital took him to Russia, where it is very difficult to do deals without getting your shoes muddy. Trump may be sincere when he says his campaign did not knowingly collude with Moscow — yet may know, at the same time, that he has skeletons in Russian closets that the special counsel, left unchecked, may find.

But this is speculation, and the great polygraph operator is not available to offer his expert opinion. We must continue to be patient as Robert S. Mueller III carefully loosens the straps to reveal whether the trunk is empty or full.

I wish his phone WOULD melt.

[47of74]

If I never had to hear that orange fornicate stick ever again it would be too soon.

For fornicate's sake, children were being buried today but he was too busy playing golf to give a feces.