A bizarre and novel theory

Aug 1st, 2018 | By
Category: Notes and Comment Blog

Giuliani is telling reporters Don was just thinking aloud, obviously.

President Trump called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday to end the special counsel investigation, an extraordinary appeal to the nation’s top law enforcement official to halt an inquiry directly into the president.

We can never admire that tweet enough.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers quickly moved to contain the fallout, saying it was not an order to a member of his cabinet, but merely an opinion. An hour and a half after the tweet was posted, Mr. Trump’s lawyers contacted a reporter for The New York Times. In a subsequent telephone conversation, one of his lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani, dismissed the obstruction of justice concerns, calling it a “bizarre and novel theory of obstruction by tweet,” adding that it was “idiotic.”

Oh really. On what grounds? When Trump has done all kinds of things by tweet, including announce hirings and firings? When Trump’s tweets are by law part of the official archive of his presidency? When everyone knows Trump is a reckless lunatic and is perfectly capable of ordering Sessions to fire Mueller in a tweet? Of course it’s novel, since Twitter is relatively new and normal sane presidents who have presidented since the invention of Twitter don’t fire people in tweets, but Trump is not one of those normal sane presidents, so that’s beside the point.

Presidents typically do not weigh in on active Justice Department investigations, but Mr. Trump has been outspoken about his anger and frustration with the Russia inquiry.

Let’s nudge that sentence a little in the direction of truth.

Presidents typically do not weigh in on active Justice Department investigations, but Mr. Trump is a reckless moron who has never hesitated to barf out his rage at the inquiry into his criminal dealings with Russia.

Back to the actual Times.

The president’s lawyers, Jay A. Sekulow and Mr. Giuliani, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Trump was not ordering the inquiry closed but simply expressing his opinion.

“It’s not a call to action,” Mr. Giuliani said, adding that it was a sentiment that Mr. Trump and his lawyers had previously expressed publicly and that it was a statement protected by the president’s constitutional right to free speech.

“He doesn’t feel that he has to intervene in the process, nor is he intervening,” Mr. Sekulow said.

The president wanted the legal process to play out, his lawyers said. “He’s expressing his opinion, but he’s not talking of his special powers he has” as president, Mr. Giuliani said.

He wants the legal process to play out, yet he said Sessions should stop it. Does not compute.

Alfonse Capone? What is wrong with this guy? He refers to Lincoln as “Honest Abe Lincoln” like an idiot but Al Capone is Alfonse?

Also, what?

I guess Trump has been holding up that lamp in the boat too long, the fumes have gotten to him.

Urging Mr. Sessions to end the inquiry was unprecedented and amounted to Mr. Trump asking Mr. Sessions to “subvert the law,” said Matthew S. Axelrod, a longtime prosecutor who served in top roles in the Obama Justice Department.

“What he’s saying here is that there’s no one who ought to be able to investigate his actions and, if necessary, hold him accountable for those actions,” Mr. Axelrod said.

Mr. Axelrod said this request of Mr. Sessions was part of a larger pattern — one in which Mr. Trump attacked the integrity of the special counsel, attacked the press and attacked the courts, “all institutions designed to provide checks on executive authority and executive overreach,” he said.

Nah, it’s fine, he was just saying what he thought.

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