Trump 40: Donald Trump and the Chamber of Incompetence

[GreyhoundFan]

This is a good op-ed by Eugene Robinson: "Democrats must seize and define this moment. Otherwise, Trump will."

Spoiler

The constitutional case for impeaching President Trump was best made two decades ago by one of his most servile Republican enablers, Lindsey O.  Graham, now the senior senator from South Carolina:

“You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic if this body [the Senate] determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role . . . because impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”

The political case for moving deliberately but fearlessly toward impeachment is even clearer: If timorous Democrats do not seize and define this moment, Trump surely will.

What just happened is that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III delivered a searing indictment of a president who has no idea what “honor” and “integrity” even mean — a president who lies almost pathologically, who orders subordinates to lie, who has no respect for the rule of law, who welcomed Russian interference in the 2016 election, who clumsily tried to orchestrate a coverup , who tried his best to impede a lawful Justice Department investigation and failed only to the extent that aides ignored his outrageous and improper orders.

What Trump claims just happened is a “witch hunt.”

Anyone who thinks there is a chance that Trump will lick his wounds and move on has not been paying attention. Having escaped criminal charges — because he is a sitting president — Trump will go on the offensive. With the help of Attorney General William P. Barr, whose title really should be Minister of Spin, the president will push to investigate the investigators and sell the bogus counternarrative of an attempted “coup” by politically motivated elements of the “deep state.”

Here is the important thing: Trump will mount this attack no matter what Democrats do . And strictly as a matter of practical politics, the best defense against Trump has to be a powerful offense.

I fail to see the benefit for Democrats, heading into the 2020 election, of being seen as such fraidy-cats that they shirk their constitutional duty. Mueller’s portrait of this president and his administration is devastating. According to Graham’s “honor and integrity” standard — which he laid out in January 1999, when he was one of the House prosecutors for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial in the Senate — beginning the process of impeaching Trump is not a close call.

It is also important for Democrats to keep their eyes on the prize. The election is the one guaranteed opportunity to throw Trump and his band of grifters out of the White House, and the big anti-Trump majority that was on display in last year’s midterm elections must be maintained and, one hopes, expanded.

But that task will largely fall to the eventual Democratic nominee, whoever that turns out to be. Presidential contenders should be free to position themselves however they see fit on the impeachment question. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has chosen to single herself out by leading the charge. Others may choose to demur and focus instead on the kitchen-table issues, such as health care, that polls show voters care about.

But most Democratic members of Congress (believe it or not) are not running for president. Their focus has to be on their constitutional duty — and nowhere in the Constitution does it say “never mind about presidential obstruction of justice or abuse of power if there’s an election next year.”

I have no intention of letting congressional Republicans off the hook. They have constitutional responsibilities as well, though it’s clear they will not fulfill them. Imagine, for a moment, if the tables were turned — if a GOP majority were running the House and a Democratic president did half of what Trump did. Do you think Republicans would hesitate for a New York minute? Articles of impeachment would have been drawn up long ago and stern-faced senators, including Graham, would already be sitting in judgment.

The conventional wisdom is that Republicans made a political error by impeaching Clinton. But they did win the White House in 2000 and go on to dominate Congress for most of President George W. Bush’s tenure. If impeachment was a mistake, it wasn’t a very costly one.

Does it “play into Trump’s hands” to speak of impeachment? I think it plays into the president’s hands to disappoint the Democratic base and come across as weak and frightened. Voters who saw the need to hold Trump accountable decided to give Democrats some power — and now expect them to use it.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

FFS: "Trump says kid at Easter egg roll told him to 'keep building that wall'"

Spoiler

In between games of "Be Best" hopscotch and the namesake event at the White House's Easter egg roll, a child apparently couldn't pass up the chance to press President Donald Trump on one of his signature campaign promises.

As he colored cards for service members on the White House's South Lawn, Trump responded to a question from one of the children alongside him.

“I will. Oh, It’s happening. It’s being built now," Trump told the child, before speaking up to share the conversation with reporters. "Here’s a young guy who said, ‘Keep building that wall.’ Can you believe that?”

“He’s going to be a conservative someday!” Trump continued.

Building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border has been among the most divisive of the president's policy goals since the day he announced his run for the White House in 2015. Lawmakers have thus far stymied his request by providing minimal funding for the kind of barrier Trump originally envisioned.

The standoff over his wall came to a head at the end of last year when Trump plunged parts of the government into the longest shutdown in history, refusing to fund the government unless lawmakers relented on his funding requests for a border wall.

During the shutdown, Trump said he’d heard from government workers urging him to stand his ground in the border wall fight even if that meant they went without paychecks.

“Many of those people that won't be receiving a paycheck, many of those people agree 100 percent with what I'm doing,” Trump told reporters then. In a news conference during the shutdown, he insisted that “[a] lot of people that you think are upset — and certainly they're not thrilled — but they say, ‘Sir, do the right thing. We need border security.’ And these are people that won't be getting paid.”

Trump in February declared a national emergency in order to circumvent Congress and unlock military funds for his wall; that effort has been tied up in the courts.

But the president has traveled to the border several times recently, heading to California several weeks ago to commemorate the first section of completed barrier of his administration, though it was a replacement fencing project that had been in the works since the Obama administration.

Trump has also repeatedly asserted that large portions of the wall across the border were already well underway, though no new sections of wall have been built.

Here's one of the pictures that accompanied the article. What struck me is the stiff, unnatural facial expression on Dumpy. What a contrast with Obama, who always appeared to be engaged and enthusiastic at these events:

[HerNameIsBuffy]

11 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

FFS: "Trump says kid at Easter egg roll told him to 'keep building that wall'"

  Reveal hidden contents

In between games of "Be Best" hopscotch and the namesake event at the White House's Easter egg roll, a child apparently couldn't pass up the chance to press President Donald Trump on one of his signature campaign promises.

As he colored cards for service members on the White House's South Lawn, Trump responded to a question from one of the children alongside him.

“I will. Oh, It’s happening. It’s being built now," Trump told the child, before speaking up to share the conversation with reporters. "Here’s a young guy who said, ‘Keep building that wall.’ Can you believe that?”

“He’s going to be a conservative someday!” Trump continued.

Building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border has been among the most divisive of the president's policy goals since the day he announced his run for the White House in 2015. Lawmakers have thus far stymied his request by providing minimal funding for the kind of barrier Trump originally envisioned.

The standoff over his wall came to a head at the end of last year when Trump plunged parts of the government into the longest shutdown in history, refusing to fund the government unless lawmakers relented on his funding requests for a border wall.

During the shutdown, Trump said he’d heard from government workers urging him to stand his ground in the border wall fight even if that meant they went without paychecks.

“Many of those people that won't be receiving a paycheck, many of those people agree 100 percent with what I'm doing,” Trump told reporters then. In a news conference during the shutdown, he insisted that “[a] lot of people that you think are upset — and certainly they're not thrilled — but they say, ‘Sir, do the right thing. We need border security.’ And these are people that won't be getting paid.”

Trump in February declared a national emergency in order to circumvent Congress and unlock military funds for his wall; that effort has been tied up in the courts.

But the president has traveled to the border several times recently, heading to California several weeks ago to commemorate the first section of completed barrier of his administration, though it was a replacement fencing project that had been in the works since the Obama administration.

Trump has also repeatedly asserted that large portions of the wall across the border were already well underway, though no new sections of wall have been built.

Here's one of the pictures that accompanied the article. What struck me is the stiff, unnatural facial expression on Dumpy. What a contrast with Obama, who always appeared to be engaged and enthusiastic at these events:

This is one thing I’ll give him a pass on.  I look stiff and awkward in almost every candid shot of me (or non candidate to, tbh.)

Not being photogenic is a thing.  I’m not and neither is he.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

1 hour ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

This is one thing I’ll give him a pass on.  I look stiff and awkward in almost every candid shot of me (or non candidate to, tbh.)

Not being photogenic is a thing.  I’m not and neither is he.

I can see and appreciate your point. But it's hard to look at that face and not to think it's saying "my smug ass just shat on your democracy and proud of it".

Btw you look adorable in pictures and you never put babies in cages.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

3 minutes ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

I can see and appreciate your point. But it's hard to look at that face and not to think it's saying "my smug ass just shat on your democracy and proud of it".

Btw you look adorable in pictures and you never put babies in cages.

Yeah - I was defending the unphotogenic on principle but his dickishness radiates off of him.

and you are so sweet and yes, I will agree I’ve never once put a baby in a cage.

speaking of which it’s been bothering me so much lately ... going to work, looking for a new house, buying groceries, etc while these horrific things are happening here.

i can’t help but draw historical parallels and hate myself for not leaping into action but I have to work to support my family, we need a place to live, etc.

i just cannot believe this is happening ...and that it continues to happen.  

[Cartmann99]

20 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Looks like all is not martial bliss at Malware-A-Tugjob

I don't care if he offered me a diamond as big as my head and a car made of platinum, there's no way in hell I'd marry that creep. Melania sold herself in exchange for the perceived advantages of being a rich man's wife. 

[47of74]

I don't care if he offered me a diamond as big as my head and a car made of platinum, there's no way in hell I'd marry that creep. Melania sold herself in exchange for the perceived advantages of being a rich man's wife. 

There ain’t enough money on Earth for me to want to have anything to do with that creepy fuck stick. Maybe Malware-A-Tugjob is where he (apologies for the mental images) has to come pay for tug jobs since his wife won’t touch him anymore.

[Alisamer]

1 hour ago, Cartmann99 said:

I don't care if he offered me a diamond as big as my head and a car made of platinum, there's no way in hell I'd marry that creep. Melania sold herself in exchange for the perceived advantages of being a rich man's wife. 

I am absolutely positive she was sure he'd have keeled over by now. And I think if his tax returns come out and show that he's really not that wealthy at all, she'll be weighing whether the possible income from a tell-all book and the talk show circuit is worth more than her (and possibly Barron's) cut of the estate. If they didn't have a kid together I bet she'd have run before the inauguration. 

[GreyhoundFan]

I guess he's going to hold his breath until everyone does what he wants: "Furious Trump orders officials to boycott correspondents' dinner"

Spoiler

President Donald Trump escalated his feud with the media by another degree on Tuesday, ordering officials in his administration to boycott Saturday’s annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

While most Americans may care little about a gala dinner in the nation’s capital, Trump’s move, which two White House officials confirmed to POLITICO, is an acid gesture to a Washington media establishment that spends months planning for the dinner and carefully planning and allocating coveted invites to the event. It may also please his political base, much of which Trump has convinced that the media is “the enemy of the people.”

The move came after Trump spent the morning insulting the news media on Twitter, calling MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough a “Psycho” and musing about New York Times reporters getting “down on their knees” to apologize to him after his 2020 re-election victory.

Around the same time the president was tapping out those tweets, White House Cabinet Secretary Bill McGinley, who oversees the various cabinet agencies, assembled the chiefs of staff of those agencies and issued a directive from the president aimed at disrupting a weekend typically used to foster camaraderie between the White House and the news media.

But the president is having none of it. Though Trump himself has spurned the annual White House Correspondents’ dinner for the past two years, he’s taking it a step further, ordering administration officials to boycott the dinner, according to two White House officials. Dozens of administration officials have attended the dinner in previous years, but many will be sending rented tuxes and gowns back without wear this year.

The president’s demand that administration officials boycott the dinner was first reported by CNN.

The president’s Tuesday order reversed previous White House guidance indicating that Trump aides were free to attend this year’s event, scheduled for Saturday.

White House officials did not attend the 2017 dinner as a gesture of support for the president, who did not attend. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House deputy press secretary at the time, told ABC that it was "kind of naïve" to ignore the tension between the White House and the press corps, even for an evening.

The annual black-tie gala, mocked by many onlookers as a navel-gazing exercise put on by out-of-touch elites, is technically a fundraising dinner at which scholarships are awarded to young journalists. News organizations purchase tables at which reporters are seated alongside administration officials.

Many Trump aides are still angry over last year’s dinner, which featured a speech by comedienne Michelle Wolf filled with scornful ridicule for administration officials, including Sanders.

"We’re looking forward to an enjoyable evening of celebrating the First Amendment and great journalists past, present, and future,” said Olivier Knox, President of the White House Correspondents' Association. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump is the first president to order administration officials to boycott the dinner. He is also the first president not to attend the dinner himself since Ronald Reagan missed the event in 1981, when he was recovering from an assassination attempt.

The president, who has derided the event as “so boring and negative,” has for the past two years used the evening instead to hold a political rally, where he has railed against the news media. He is set to do so again this year in Green Bay, Wisc.

“I will be going to Green Bay, Wisconsin, for a really big Rally on Saturday Evening,” he wrote on Twitter Tuesday morning. “Big crowd expected, much to talk about. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump is mad about the size of his crowd on Twitter"

Spoiler

One of the obvious perks about being the president of the United States is that you can essentially snap your fingers and have something appear in your office in short order. Maybe a Diet Coke. Or maybe the head of Twitter.

President Trump snapped his fingers and summoned at least the latter of those options to the Oval Office on Tuesday. He’d begun the day with a series of tweets complaining about a series of things including Twitter which, he said, “[didn’t] treat me well as a Republican.” The service was “very discriminatory” and it was “hard for people to sign on,” with Twitter “[c]onstantly taking people off list,” which is a little hazy as a critique.

But — snap — there was Twitter chief Jack Dorsey in the White House. And in short order we learned about Trump’s primary complaint.

“A significant portion of the meeting focused on Trump’s concerns that Twitter quietly, and deliberately, had removed some of his followers, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversation who requested anonymity because it was private,” reports The Washington Post’s Tony Romm. “Trump said he had heard from fellow conservatives who had lost followers as well.”

As Romm notes, Twitter regularly removes accounts from its system because spammers and trolls regularly create accounts to spam and to troll. A purge of fake accounts last year saw Trump lose 300,000 followers which sounds like a lot until you consider that former president Barack Obama lost 2.3 million. (Trump’s complaint about losing followers came hours after another Twitter purge removed 5,000 accounts that were spreading anti-Russia-investigation messages.)

If you’ve been hanging around in the United States for the past few years, the Trump-is-mad-about-his-audience-size story line will seem familiar. Just as was the case with inauguration crowds, Obama has more Twitter followers than Trump — nearly twice as many, in fact. This isn’t really a function of politics so much as timing: Obama was president as Twitter was growing and was included among early recommendation systems the company used to provide initial followers for new users.

But it’s the sort of thing that would gall Trump. When he talks about social-media metrics, he tends to focus not on Twitter (the platform on which he is most famous) but on his follower count across platforms. In an interview with Piers Morgan last year, Trump made that case.

“I have so many followers,” he said. “You know, I have five different platforms; you add it all up and it’s like over 150 million people. That’s a tremendous amount of people. You get the word out. You can really protect yourself from the lies and all of the things that are being said.”

Trump — also perhaps unsurprisingly — tends to inflate that statistic. Back in 2017 when he was bragging about having 110 million total followers, we tallied his accounts and found that the figure was really more like 93 million.

Trump’s long shown an affection for numbers that seem to hint at his popularity. Trump’s television show “The Apprentice” topped the weekly ratings precisely once, but he still talks about it being a top-rated show and, at one point, had fake Time magazine covers touting the show’s ratings success hanging in Trump Organization properties. Trump will generally inflate the size of his crowds at political rallies, including making claims about thousands of nonexistent people waiting outside to get in. Back in the primary, he denied speaking to a half-empty room in South Carolina despite existing photographs of the half-empty room where he was speaking.

Numbers like these are to Trump’s self-assessed value as stock prices are to Trump’s assessment of the economy.

But there’s another reason that the Twitter numbers are particularly important to Trump. Regardless of whether he believes his son Donald Trump Jr.'s unfounded claims about social-media companies like Twitter cracking down unfairly on Republicans, it’s clear that he finds the idea of losing followers worrisome.

Why? He explained why in that interview with Morgan: He thinks it's his way to speak directly to people without the filter of the media.

Trump believes — and is justified in believing — that Twitter lets him say what he wants to his supporters without the hated media weighing in on its accuracy. Twitter is a universe where what he says goes unchallenged and in which he can see in real time how many people appreciate and agree with what he says. It’s like “The Apprentice,” but with no network editors and with rating numbers that only go up.

He also sees Twitter as a platform at which he’s uniquely talented. His complaints about it on Tuesday morning began by quoting Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo saying that Trump was the “best thing ever to happen to Twitter.” In the past, Trump has called himself the Ernest Hemingway of the platform.

Hence the concern. Losing followers on the platform that spawned his success, on which he routinely gets tens of thousands of approving comments and where he can make any claim he wants, no matter how true?

Snap.

 

[Cartmann99]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I guess he's going to hold his breath until everyone does what he wants: "Furious Trump orders officials to boycott correspondents' dinner"

How did I end up back in junior high!?

[fraurosena]

7 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I guess he's going to hold his breath until everyone does what he wants: "Furious Trump orders officials to boycott correspondents' dinner"

  Hide contents

President Donald Trump escalated his feud with the media by another degree on Tuesday, ordering officials in his administration to boycott Saturday’s annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

While most Americans may care little about a gala dinner in the nation’s capital, Trump’s move, which two White House officials confirmed to POLITICO, is an acid gesture to a Washington media establishment that spends months planning for the dinner and carefully planning and allocating coveted invites to the event. It may also please his political base, much of which Trump has convinced that the media is “the enemy of the people.”

The move came after Trump spent the morning insulting the news media on Twitter, calling MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough a “Psycho” and musing about New York Times reporters getting “down on their knees” to apologize to him after his 2020 re-election victory.

Around the same time the president was tapping out those tweets, White House Cabinet Secretary Bill McGinley, who oversees the various cabinet agencies, assembled the chiefs of staff of those agencies and issued a directive from the president aimed at disrupting a weekend typically used to foster camaraderie between the White House and the news media.

But the president is having none of it. Though Trump himself has spurned the annual White House Correspondents’ dinner for the past two years, he’s taking it a step further, ordering administration officials to boycott the dinner, according to two White House officials. Dozens of administration officials have attended the dinner in previous years, but many will be sending rented tuxes and gowns back without wear this year.

The president’s demand that administration officials boycott the dinner was first reported by CNN.

The president’s Tuesday order reversed previous White House guidance indicating that Trump aides were free to attend this year’s event, scheduled for Saturday.

White House officials did not attend the 2017 dinner as a gesture of support for the president, who did not attend. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House deputy press secretary at the time, told ABC that it was "kind of naïve" to ignore the tension between the White House and the press corps, even for an evening.

The annual black-tie gala, mocked by many onlookers as a navel-gazing exercise put on by out-of-touch elites, is technically a fundraising dinner at which scholarships are awarded to young journalists. News organizations purchase tables at which reporters are seated alongside administration officials.

Many Trump aides are still angry over last year’s dinner, which featured a speech by comedienne Michelle Wolf filled with scornful ridicule for administration officials, including Sanders.

"We’re looking forward to an enjoyable evening of celebrating the First Amendment and great journalists past, present, and future,” said Olivier Knox, President of the White House Correspondents' Association. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump is the first president to order administration officials to boycott the dinner. He is also the first president not to attend the dinner himself since Ronald Reagan missed the event in 1981, when he was recovering from an assassination attempt.

The president, who has derided the event as “so boring and negative,” has for the past two years used the evening instead to hold a political rally, where he has railed against the news media. He is set to do so again this year in Green Bay, Wisc.

“I will be going to Green Bay, Wisconsin, for a really big Rally on Saturday Evening,” he wrote on Twitter Tuesday morning. “Big crowd expected, much to talk about. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

 

I understand he's petty and doesn't want anybody to go, but can he actually forbid them to? I mean, he can put his wishes out there, but do they have to obey? 

[GreyhoundFan]

4 hours ago, fraurosena said:

I understand he's petty and doesn't want anybody to go, but can he actually forbid them to? I mean, he can put his wishes out there, but do they have to obey? 

If they don't do as he wants, they'll end up fired via twitter the next day.

[fraurosena]

2 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

If they don't do as he wants, they'll end up fired via twitter the next day.

I figured as much. But is it legal? 

[GreyhoundFan]

2 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

I figured as much. But is it legal? 

No, I don't know of any law that would allow him to bar someone from attending an event, especially if they were invited by the organizers.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump finally gets his British state visit — but tensions that led to delay remain"

Spoiler

The formal state visit to Britain promised to President Trump more than two years ago will finally happen in early June, although the main reasons for the delay — turmoil over Brexit and overwhelming opposition to Trump among Londoners — remain unchanged.

Buckingham Palace and the White House announced Tuesday that Trump and first lady Melania Trump will visit Britain for three days in early June. State visits typically include a banquet with the queen and a formal procession in London, complete with horse-drawn carriage.

“This state visit will reaffirm the steadfast and special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom,” a statement from the White House said.

Striking a similar note, British Prime Minister Theresa May said in a statement that the visit would be “an opportunity to strengthen our already close relationship in areas such as trade, investment, security and defense, and to discuss how we can build on these ties in the years ahead.”

The invitation is an all-the-trappings diplomatic plum. Queen Elizabeth II, on the throne since 1952, has hosted only two other U.S. presidents for these ceremonial visits — George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

This trip follows what was billed as a “working visit” to Britain last July that featured a giant balloon depicting Trump as a screaming baby in a diaper hovering above tens of thousands of protesters in London.

The planned visit comes amid strained relations between Trump and May. On the eve of last year’s visit, Trump was quoted in a British tabloid criticizing her approach to Brexit and threatening to upend the U.S.-British trade relationship. Trump and his associates continued to root for Brexit this year while suggesting that May had botched it. May’s own political position is perilous, and while the White House statement said Trump would meet with her during his visit, it is not clear whether she will still be prime minister then.

May first pledged the invitation shortly after Trump’s inauguration in January 2017. Her offer was criticized at home, as was a photo appearing to show her and Trump holding hands when she visited him as the first foreign leader to pay respects to the new president.

The state visit has been repeatedly put on hold because of the prolonged British divorce from the European Union that has preoccupied May, and by concern among advisers to both leaders about the chilly reception Trump would receive.

Disapproval of Trump among Britons has remained above 70 percent in most polling since he emerged as a leading Republican candidate in 2016, although some of the fiercest Brexit proponents see him as an ally.

“I think there will be protests,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan told the BBC on Tuesday. “I mean, it doesn’t take a crystal ball for people to predict there will be protests. Many of the things that this president has said, people find objectionable,” he said, pointing, in particular, to Trump’s “amplification” of racist views and his singling out of Muslims.

Trump was criticized across Britain, and by May in a rare public rebuke of the leader of Britain’s closest ally, when he shared inflammatory anti-Muslim videos on Twitter posted by a far-right British activist in November 2017.

Khan, a Muslim and a frequent Trump critic, called for all protests to be peaceful and lawful.

A Facebook group called “Together Against Trump” has already announced a protest in London on June 4.

Emily Thornberry, foreign affairs spokeswoman for Britain’s main opposition Labour Party, criticized the planned visit.

“This is a president who has systematically assaulted all the shared values that unite our two countries, and unless Theresa May is finally going to stand up to him and object to that behavior, she has no business wasting taxpayers’ money on all the pomp, ceremony and policing costs that will come with this visit,” Thornberry said.

Dave Webb, chairman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, a British-based group, called the invitation shocking.

“Why is Theresa May attempting to normalize the behavior of a man who casually threatens nuclear war, who tears up nuclear treaties, who has broken every convention of appropriate behavior with his misogynistic language, his ban on Muslim immigrants, his climate change denial and retweeting material from far-right organizations here in Britain?” Webb said in a statement to The Washington Post.

With help from May and the queen, Trump was able to avoid direct interaction with most of the London protests last year. He held an official meeting with May at the prime minister’s country retreat, Chequers, and visited the queen at Windsor Castle, some 100 miles from central London. He also visited his golf club in Scotland.

During discussions about the upcoming trip, British officials informed administration officials that Trump would not be able to stay at Buckingham Palace — as is often the custom for state visits — because it is still undergoing renovations and only a few rooms were available. The administration replied that this was no problem; they could make just a few rooms work. But the British ultimately explained that they did not feel that they could give the president the proper treatment with the palace being renovated.

The British government is working on new lodging arrangements for Trump and his team, though the most likely option is the Winfield House.

A senior British source said that Trump’s not staying in Buckingham Palace is not a snub but simply an issue of logistics.

If Trump keeps to the traditions of a state visit, he will not be able to avoid encountering London demonstrators. The Trumps also plan to attend a June 5 ceremony in Portsmouth, far from London, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

Portsmouth was one of the primary embarkation sites for the Allied operation that helped defeat Nazi Germany and liberate Europe during World War II.

According to May’s office, countries that fought alongside Britain in the military operation, as well as Germany, have been invited to attend. The gathering will include live performances, military displays and tributes to the Allied troops who fought in Normandy in World War II.

Portsmouth City Council leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson told the BBC that Trump’s attendance will “take away” from the event and that presidential-level security could make it harder for veterans to attend.

“Inevitably, if Donald Trump is in town, there will be controversy, there will be protests,” Vernon-Jackson said. “It would have been an open-access event on the common. Now it will all be behind steel barriers.”

Trump will be in France the following day, where he will meet with President Emmanuel Macron and travel to Normandy to observe the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings at the Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer.

I'm sure there will be snotty tweets because he's not going to get to stay in Buckingham Palace.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

40 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

I figured as much. But is it legal? 

Well, considering that it would be the very least of the not-exactly-legal things he has done... He has done so much worse that this too won't count.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump says he would ask Supreme Court to intervene if Democrats move to impeach him"

Spoiler

President Trump suggested Wednesday that he would ask the Supreme Court to intervene if Democrats move to impeach him.

It was not clear how Trump would legally justify such a move, which he mentioned only briefly in morning tweets in which he lashed out at Democrats who are continuing to investigate him following the release of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report.

“I DID NOTHING WRONG,” Trump wrote. “If the partisan Dems ever tried to Impeach, I would first head to the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only are there no ‘High Crimes and Misdemeanors,’ there are no Crimes by me at all.”

A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request to elaborate on what the president would seek from the court.

The tweets come amid growing calls from Democrats to launch impeachment proceedings even as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other party leaders say that the move is premature.

Asked about impeachment during a Tuesday interview for the Time 100 Summit in New York, Pelosi said that “if the . . . fact-finding takes us there, we have no choice. But we’re not there yet.”

After a nearly two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Mueller said he did not find sufficient evidence to bring charges of criminal conspiracy with Russia against Trump or anyone associated with his campaign. Mueller did not offer a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice.

Though Attorney General William P. Barr determined there was not sufficient evidence for obstruction of justice, Democrats are using episodes outlined in Mueller’s report to continue exploring that issue.

Trump more broadly is resisting efforts by House Democrats to scrutinize his actions in the wake of the Mueller report.

He told The Washington Post on Tuesday that he is opposed to current and former White House aides providing testimony to congressional panels.

[Trump says he is opposed to White House aides testifying to Congress, deepening power struggle with Hill]

“There is no reason to go any further, and especially in Congress where it’s very partisan — obviously very partisan,” Trump said.

Earlier this week, lawyers for Trump filed a lawsuit in a bid to block a congressional subpoena of some of his financial records from an accounting firm.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

Reading comprehension 101: 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘This is risky’: Trump’s thirst for Mueller revenge could land him in trouble"

Spoiler

Special counsel Robert Mueller may be done, but President Donald Trump and his team are still adding to an already hefty record of evidence that could fuel impeachment proceedings or future criminal indictments.

Team Trump’s bellicose tweets and public statements in the last few days are potentially exposing Trump to fresh charges of witness intimidation, obstruction of justice and impeding a congressional investigation — not to mention giving lawmakers more fodder for their presidential probes — according to Democrats and legal experts.

Already, a fusillade of verbal assaults aimed at former White House counsel Don McGahn, a star witness in the Mueller report, have sparked questions about obstruction and witness intimidation as Democrats fight the Trump White House to get McGahn’s documents and testimony.

“This is risky,” said William Jeffress, a prominent Washington defense attorney who represented President Richard Nixon after he left the White House. “I find it surprising because he’s taking these shots at witnesses who gave information to Mueller, and I think he’s got to be careful because there’s an explicit federal statute punishing retaliation against witnesses.”

It’s a lesson some thought Trump would have learned during the Mueller investigation.

Examples litter the special counsel’s 448-page report describing how the president ignored the advice of his lawyers and senior staff by tweeting about the Russia probe and discussing sensitive material with other White House aides and even the FBI director. Mueller made clear that those statements and tweets can be used as evidence to support a criminal charge.

But Trump and his lawyers haven’t hit the mute button.

The president has tweeted about the Russia probe more than 50 times since last Thursday’s release of a redacted version of the Mueller report. And attacks in recent days have turned forcefully against McGahn, who is mentioned more than 500 times in the Mueller report and who delivered damaging testimony about Trump’s attempts to shut down the Russia investigation. The White House signaled Thursday they’d invoke executive privilege to block the Democrats’ subpoena for McGahn, and Chairman Jerry Nadler swung back that the move “represent one more act of obstruction by an Administration desperate to prevent the public from talking about the President’s behavior.”

The months ahead are also littered with a bevy of opportunities that could entice Trump to offer more barbed opinions — and more material for his investigators. His longtime associate Roger Stone goes on trial this November, tempting Trump to weigh in like he did during Paul Manafort’s trial, when the president posted tweets that were later cited in the Mueller report as evidence of obstruction.

And allies of Manafort and Michael Flynn, Trump’s brief national security adviser who faces prison time for lying to the FBI, are likely to amp up the calls for Trump to issue pardons or commute the sentences for the president’s former aides, each of which Democrats would interpret as additional obstruction evidence.

“A bank robbery is just as much a robbery if everyone sees it, as if nobody sees it,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, told POLITICO.

“The president and his team may think that the Mueller report represents the sum total of what’s in play with Congress,” Raskin added. “But from our perspective, the Mueller report just sets the table for an analysis of what’s been taking place.”

On Capitol Hill, Democrats have more leeway than in the courtroom to introduce evidence if they pursue impeachment. For now, the party’s leaders are urging a go-slow approach, fretful that an unsuccessful attempt to remove the president would only help him win re-election in 2020.

But the president’s taunts and missives directed at their investigations — and the potential witnesses they may call — could end up serving a double purpose: goading Democrats into taking the plunge on impeachment and also delivering them evidence to support the case.

“It is unrealistic to expect that the president is going to suddenly change his behavior or suddenly manifest respect for the rule of law,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), another Judiciary Committee member. “The president ought to be accountable for any additional conduct that may constitute an attempt to impede or interfere.”

“We ought to consider not only the full contents of the Mueller report but any subsequent conduct,” Cicilline added.

Trump’s allies say the president feels emboldened by the Mueller probe’s conclusions and doesn’t fear potential legal implications going forward.

“I don’t think he’s afraid of anything,” said Michael Caputo, a longtime Trump associate and former 2016 campaign aide who thinks Trump is indeed engaged in a “briar patch strategy trying to tempt the Democrats into a suicidal venture of impeachment.”

“After enduring the beating he’s endured for two years and watching it crumble into rubble, he sees this as a risky opportunity to do exactly what he’s doing,” Caputo said.

Joe diGenova, an informal Trump legal adviser, also shrugged off the potential legal exposure that comes with the president swinging away at the events depicted in the Mueller report and any of the witnesses whom Democrats are interested in calling.

“The president is doing exactly the right thing,” he told POLITICO, before amplifying Trump’s recent calls for a sweeping investigation into the origins of the Mueller probe. “This narrative is going to be overtaken by the largest scandal in the history of this country, and it ain’t about Trump.”

Legal experts disagree, and many see the president’s continuous chatter as ripe material for federal prosecutors if they decided to take the monumental step of pursuing Trump after he’s out of office.

While Mueller nodded to longstanding Justice Department legal opinions that a sitting president can’t be indicted as he explained his decision not to conclude whether Trump obstructed justice, he also included a footnote near the end of his report highlighting the risks that Trump nonetheless faces in both Congress and the courts.

“A possible remedy through impeachment for abuses of power would not substitute for potential criminal liability after a President leaves office,” Mueller wrote. “Impeachment would remove a President from office, but would not address the underlying culpability of the conduct or serve the usual purposes of the criminal law.”

Essentially, legal experts say, Mueller is signaling that Trump could face criminal charges even if he was impeached.

Any prosecutors who indict Trump after he’s out of office would be working with a five-year statute of limitations on obstruction of justice cases. That means the president could only be exposed for any behavior during his first term if he doesn’t win re-election next November. But anything Trump does from here on out would keep restarting that five-year clock, meaning a second term wouldn’t make him bullet proof.

“I don’t think Trump ought to be relying on the statutes of limitations at the moment,” Jeffress said.

To bring an obstruction case against Trump after leaving office, the Justice Department would need to prove both his intent and knowledge of an existing criminal probe.

Trump is certainly aware of the various tendrils of Mueller’s criminal investigations, which have spawned numerous probes in federal offices in Washington, D.C., New York and Virginia. And as for intent, Mueller’s report lays out granular detail about much of the president’s mindset over the past two years.

“Yeah, you’d be monitoring what he’s saying and doing and what his interactions are with potential witnesses,” said a former prosecutor from the Southern District of New York, the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan that continues to examine Trump’s campaign, business and inauguration.

Mueller’s team has also already made the legal argument for using Trump’s tweets as potential evidence for obstruction of justice and witness tampering. He specifically pointed to Trump’s effort to intimidate his former attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, in a way that would prevent him from testifying on Capitol Hill earlier this year.

“No principle of law excludes public acts from the scope of obstruction statutes,” Mueller wrote.

Mueller’s prosecutors also laid out a template for the pursuit of witness tampering charges. For example, one of the charges against Stone alleges that the longtime GOP operative pressured a witness, radio host Randy Credico, to mislead lawmakers.

A House Intelligence Committee Democratic source argued that the panel is “uniquely positioned” to investigate obstruction of its own probes should the commentary continue.

“It’s clear that the White House plans to obstruct all legitimate congressional oversight, just like Trump obstructed in Mueller’s probe at every turn and witnesses previously obstructed our committee,” the source said.

Despite the risks, Trump has continued to use his preferred social media platform to blow off steam and blast his political opponents and journalists. He has tweeted dozens of times to his nearly 60 million followers his thoughts — or retweeted others’ — since the redacted Mueller report’s public release last week. The posts range from benign criticisms of the news media to encouragements to investigate members of the Obama administration.

But it’s Trump’s veiled references to McGahn — he complained on Twitter about “people that take so-called ‘notes,’” which McGahn memorably told Mueller he had done extensively — that have caught lawyers’ attention.

Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, also leveled his own direct charges at McGahn this week, telling the New York Times that he questioned the former White House counsel’s motives and memory.

“This is a cross examination a law student could perform — by the time he’s finished, you would come to the conclusion he’s hopelessly confused,” Giuliani said. “We have no choice to attack because the Democrats say there is impeachable material here.”

In a text message to POLITICO on Tuesday, Giuliani called it “ridiculous” to consider the president’s comments about the Mueller report as new evidence that could harm Trump.

“President’s tweets merely repeat and emphasize points made in report,” he wrote.

McGahn “has two or three versions of the conversation regarding Mueller,” Giuliani added. But Trump and his former personal counsel, John Dowd, “have a different but singular recollection” that runs counter to what McGahn told Mueller, he said.

Caputo, the former Trump campaign aide, brushed off the notion that Trump could face legal liability in his post-White House years.

“To the people who want to take on the president after he’s served out his term, my advice to them is pack a lunch because they’re in for the fight of their lives,” he said. “This kind of analysis is designed to intimidate lesser men and the president is unintimidatable.”

But the president’s critics welcome the Trump team’s double-down approach.

“I’m pleading with Rudy Giuliani. Please stay on television,” said Lanny Davis, the former Bill Clinton White House scandal manager who now represents Trump’s ex-lawyer, Michael Cohen.

Added Julian Epstein, a chief counsel for House Judiciary Committee Democrats during the Clinton impeachment fight, “They’re acting like a scene out of ‘America’s Dumbest Criminals.’ They just keep fueling a fire that has been the bane of their two years in the White House.”

 

[Cartmann99]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Trump says he would ask Supreme Court to intervene if Democrats move to impeach him"

  Hide contents

President Trump suggested Wednesday that he would ask the Supreme Court to intervene if Democrats move to impeach him.

It was not clear how Trump would legally justify such a move, which he mentioned only briefly in morning tweets in which he lashed out at Democrats who are continuing to investigate him following the release of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report.

“I DID NOTHING WRONG,” Trump wrote. “If the partisan Dems ever tried to Impeach, I would first head to the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only are there no ‘High Crimes and Misdemeanors,’ there are no Crimes by me at all.”

A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request to elaborate on what the president would seek from the court.

The tweets come amid growing calls from Democrats to launch impeachment proceedings even as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other party leaders say that the move is premature.

Asked about impeachment during a Tuesday interview for the Time 100 Summit in New York, Pelosi said that “if the . . . fact-finding takes us there, we have no choice. But we’re not there yet.”

After a nearly two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Mueller said he did not find sufficient evidence to bring charges of criminal conspiracy with Russia against Trump or anyone associated with his campaign. Mueller did not offer a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice.

Though Attorney General William P. Barr determined there was not sufficient evidence for obstruction of justice, Democrats are using episodes outlined in Mueller’s report to continue exploring that issue.

Trump more broadly is resisting efforts by House Democrats to scrutinize his actions in the wake of the Mueller report.

He told The Washington Post on Tuesday that he is opposed to current and former White House aides providing testimony to congressional panels.

[Trump says he is opposed to White House aides testifying to Congress, deepening power struggle with Hill]

“There is no reason to go any further, and especially in Congress where it’s very partisan — obviously very partisan,” Trump said.

Earlier this week, lawyers for Trump filed a lawsuit in a bid to block a congressional subpoena of some of his financial records from an accounting firm.

 

Dammit! My head is still battered and bruised from yesterday's bout of headdesking, and here we are again.

[Dandruff]

I'm sure his overriding goal is to be re-elected, and that he'll use any delaying or diversionary tactic he can to stay in the running.  While many find his behavior appalling, I suspect that many also cheer him on for being able to resist his "enemies", which they would see as demonstrating leadership and power.  I imagine he'll try to get permission to play some sort of fight or conquering hero song at rallies.  What's going on currently seems to just be more of the same, even if it isn't, and the more of it there is the less voters will be able to focus on the essential problem of fitness.  While the US may not literally be at war, I think that we effectively are in that mindset, with corresponding waxing and waning of public response and a lot of muting due to the volume of affronting behavior.  I believe he knows exactly what he's doing.  I believe the effective response will probably involve state charges, impeachment, a Democratic candidate with wide appeal to swing voters, and true resistance vs. actual or tacit enabling of his behavior.

[The limit does not exist]

4 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Trump says he would ask Supreme Court to intervene if Democrats move to impeach him"

  Reveal hidden contents

President Trump suggested Wednesday that he would ask the Supreme Court to intervene if Democrats move to impeach him.

It was not clear how Trump would legally justify such a move, which he mentioned only briefly in morning tweets in which he lashed out at Democrats who are continuing to investigate him following the release of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report.

“I DID NOTHING WRONG,” Trump wrote. “If the partisan Dems ever tried to Impeach, I would first head to the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only are there no ‘High Crimes and Misdemeanors,’ there are no Crimes by me at all.”

A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request to elaborate on what the president would seek from the court.

The tweets come amid growing calls from Democrats to launch impeachment proceedings even as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other party leaders say that the move is premature.

Asked about impeachment during a Tuesday interview for the Time 100 Summit in New York, Pelosi said that “if the . . . fact-finding takes us there, we have no choice. But we’re not there yet.”

After a nearly two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Mueller said he did not find sufficient evidence to bring charges of criminal conspiracy with Russia against Trump or anyone associated with his campaign. Mueller did not offer a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice.

Though Attorney General William P. Barr determined there was not sufficient evidence for obstruction of justice, Democrats are using episodes outlined in Mueller’s report to continue exploring that issue.

Trump more broadly is resisting efforts by House Democrats to scrutinize his actions in the wake of the Mueller report.

He told The Washington Post on Tuesday that he is opposed to current and former White House aides providing testimony to congressional panels.

[Trump says he is opposed to White House aides testifying to Congress, deepening power struggle with Hill]

“There is no reason to go any further, and especially in Congress where it’s very partisan — obviously very partisan,” Trump said.

Earlier this week, lawyers for Trump filed a lawsuit in a bid to block a congressional subpoena of some of his financial records from an accounting firm.

 

That’s not how this works! That’s not how any of this works!

How I feel about everything he says - wind power, impeachment, trade deficits, etc.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

5 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

No, I don't know of any law that would allow him to bar someone from attending an event, especially if they were invited by the organizers.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but isn’t DC at will employment?

[GreyhoundFan]

2 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but isn’t DC at will employment?

Yes, it is. But government employees often have different rules. And I'm sure that if one of his staff members really wanted to attend, some attorney would be happy to make a name for bringing a lawsuit saying the employee was discriminated against.