Posts Tagged ‘ Trump ’

Even as his staff tried to discourage him

Jun 16th, 2017 11:04 am | By

From a few days ago, the Times on Donald’s desperate thrashings.

Last month’s appointment of Robert S. Mueller III as a special counsel to investigate possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia enraged President Trump. Yet, at least initially, he holstered his Twitter finger and publicly said nothing.

But behind the scenes, the president soon began entertaining the idea of firing Mr. Mueller even as his staff tried to discourage him from something they believed would turn a bad situation into a catastrophe…

It’s a little bit like a psychological horror movie, those unhappy people cooped up with the lethal out-of-control manchild.

[P]eople close to Mr. Trump say he is so volatile they cannot be sure that he

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Trolling the troll

Jun 16th, 2017 9:24 am | By

This Post headline says it all:

Trump said foreign leaders wouldn’t laugh at the U.S. Now they’re laughing at him.

Literally. They’re literally holding him up for mockery.

In Mexico, former president Vicente Fox posted a profane video on YouTube, mocking Trump’s taste for taco bowls (“they’re not even Mexican!”) and border walls (“Mexico will not pay”) that has been viewed nearly half a million times.

In France, new President Emmanuel Macron unveiled a website titled “Make Our Planet Great Again” and invited U.S. scientists to move there, a week after Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate accord.

And in Australia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who sparred with Trump in a testy phone call in February,

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But Rosenstein told him to!

Jun 16th, 2017 8:58 am | By

Don’s matutinal eruptions:

Ah yes his Very Powerful Social Media – with which he is putting himself in legal jeopardy day after day. Clever fellow.

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The legal jeopardy increases by the day

Jun 15th, 2017 5:23 pm | By

A rough day in Donnylvania.

A heightened sense of unease gripped the White House on Thursday, as President Trump lashed out at reports that he’s under scrutiny for obstructing justice, aides repeatedly deflected questions about the probe, and Vice President Pence acknowledged hiring a private lawyer to handle fallout from investigations into Russian election meddling.

A defiant Trump at multiple points Thursday expressed his frustration with reports about that development, tweeting that he is the subject of “the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history,” and one that he said is being led by “some very bad and conflicted people.”

Defiant like a three-year-old who wants that god damn package of candy in the grocery store right … Read the rest



“The deep state spear”

Jun 15th, 2017 11:30 am | By

Newt Gingrich is getting in on the act too, NPR points out.

There has been an effort on the right to try to undermine Mueller to de-legitimize his potential findings…:

I find that shocking. I keep being shocked by these people. I suppose it’s naïve, but I can’t help it.

… even though some of the same people just a month

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Conflicted

Jun 15th, 2017 10:42 am | By

Of course Don has tweeted.

Sadly for him, it’s obstruction of justice even if the investigation turns up nothing in the end. The point of an investigation is to find out, so obstruction of that investigation is obstruction no matter what the findings are.

How ironic it would be if he turns out to be spotlessly … Read the rest



A widening probe

Jun 14th, 2017 4:29 pm | By

There it is.

The special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice, officials said.

The move by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to investigate Trump’s conduct marks a major turning point in the nearly year-old FBI investigation, which until recently focused on Russian meddling during the presidential campaign and on whether there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Investigators have also been looking for any evidence of possible financial crimes among Trump associates, officials said.

But Trump tried to put the arm on Comey so now … Read the rest



Amazing, miraculous, resplendent, stupefying

Jun 13th, 2017 11:13 am | By

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No need to hire a lawyer yet

Jun 13th, 2017 10:25 am | By

It’s tricky, having a private lawyer working out of the White House.

Marc E. Kasowitz, a New York civil litigator who represented President Trump for 15 years in business and boasts of being called the toughest lawyer on Wall Street, has suddenly become the field marshal for a White House under siege. He is a personal lawyer for the president, not a government employee, but he has been talking about establishing an office in the White House complex where he can run his legal defense.

His visits to the White House have raised questions about the blurry line between public and private interests for a president facing legal issues. In recent days, Mr. Kasowitz has advised White House aides

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The poison fruit

Jun 13th, 2017 9:05 am | By

Trump is thinking about firing the special counsel. Well of course he is, he’s Trump. But everyone around him is advising him not to. That means he will.

Newt Gingrich agrees with Trump though.

“I think Congress should now intervene and they should abolish the independent counsel,” the former House speaker said. “Because Comey makes so clear that it’s the poison fruit of a deliberate manipulation by the FBI director leaking to The New York Times, deliberately set up this particular situation. It’s very sick.”

Yeah, boy, that crazy Commie weirdo flake FBI director, that’s scary stuff man.

Adam Schiff urges time-thrift.

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Kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss

Jun 12th, 2017 4:29 pm | By

Now people are laughing at Trump for holding a Kiss the Ring or Perhaps the Ass ceremony at his first “Cabinet Meeting” today.

Donald Trump opened a cabinet meeting Monday by bragging about the “record-setting pace” of his legislation, which is his fantasy as opposed to fact. Then things got weird, as Trump invited members to introduce themselves. They knew what to do.

Watch the full 11-minute video

Tell him he’s awesome. Did I guess right?

The cabinet responded with appalling enthusiasm, viz: “we thank you for the opportunity and the blessing that you’ve given us to serve your agenda”; “great honor to serve you”; “my hat’s off to you”; “privilege of my life”; “thank you, great honor”.

Oh god … Read the rest



Entanglements

Jun 12th, 2017 12:17 pm | By

Then there’s that lawsuit filed today by the AGs of Maryland and DC:

The attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia have announced they’ve filed suit against President Donald Trump, alleging he violated the Constitution by retaining ties to a sprawling global business empire.

District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh made the announcement at a jointly held news conference in Washington, confirming the suit has been filed in federal court in Maryland. Frosh and Racine cited Trump’s leases, properties and other business “entanglements” around the world as the reason for the suit, saying those posed a conflict of interest under a clause of the Constitution.

“The president’s conflicts of interest

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9th Circuit to President Liar: Nope

Jun 12th, 2017 11:55 am | By

Oh dear, poor Lying Don, another harsh blow. 9th Circuit says a big no to Don’s Excellent Travel Ban.

Another federal court has ruled against President Donald Trump’s revised executive order limiting travel from six predominately Muslim countries — and like other courts, used his tweets against him.

The ruling from a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is yet another stinging loss from a court that similarly refused to reinstate Trump’s original executive order on travel in February.

“We conclude that the President, in issuing the Executive Order, exceeded the scope of the authority delegated to him by Congress,” the three judges, all appointed by President Bill Clinton, wrote. “(I)mmigration, even for the President, is not

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When backed into a corner, lie like a rug

Jun 12th, 2017 11:41 am | By

Amber Phillips notes there’s this pattern President Liar has of throwing out criminal accusations whenever the heat gets too close to his bum.

We know that James B. Comey is a leaker. It’s doubtful that he’s a criminal; legal experts have said that even though the former FBI director shared his memos of conversations with President Trump with the media, if the information wasn’t classified, that probably wasn’t a crime.

Do we know that Comey is a leaker? I don’t feel as if I know that. He shared his own notes with a friend with a request to read portions to the Times. The notes were typed on a fed machine on fed time, true, but is that by itself … Read the rest



Act One scene 7

Jun 12th, 2017 10:57 am | By

So what might happen next? Don could fall a few more flights.

but how much worse could this get? The chatter on the Sunday shows hinted at where we may be headed. Here are a few things to watch for:

The tapes Trump hinted at turn out not to exist. On ABC’s “This Week,” Jay Sekulow, a member of Trump’s legal team, said Trump will make a decision very soon on whether to release the tapes he may have made of his conversations with then-FBI Director James B. Comey.  After the news broke that Trump may have demanded a “loyalty” pledge from Comey, the president tweeted that Comey had better hope he doesn’t have tapes of their conversations. Trump

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Viciousness is it?

Jun 12th, 2017 10:29 am | By

Aaron Blake collects some of Don’s viciousness in response to his children’s complaints about the viciousness of people who dislike Don:

For the second time in a week, one of President Trump’s children took to the Fox News airwaves to complain about just how rough-and-tumble our political system is.

A few days after Eric Trump decried the political left as “not even people” over its “hatred” and treatment of his father, Ivanka Trump went on “Fox and Friends” on Monday morning and decried the “viciousness” of Washington.

“There’s a level of viciousness that I was not expecting,” she said. “I was not expecting the intensity of this experience.”

I guess she must think that her loathsome bullying … Read the rest



Sweating, are ya, Don?

Jun 12th, 2017 10:06 am | By

Poor Donnie. Sad!

He’s not at all worried about any of it. Not at all. He’s chill and happy and focused and at peak performance. Definitely.… Read the rest



The guy won’t pay and he won’t listen

Jun 11th, 2017 4:39 pm | By

Unsurprisingly, Lyin’ Donnie is having a hard time finding top lawyers willing to take him on. Gee I wonder why.

Top lawyers with at least four major law firms rebuffed White House overtures to represent President Trump in the Russia investigations, in part over concerns that the president would be unwilling to listen to their advice, according to five sources familiar with discussions about the matter.

The president’s chief lawyer now in charge of the case is Marc E. Kasowitz, a tough New York civil litigator who for years has aggressively represented Trump in multiple business and public relations disputes — often with threats of countersuits and menacing public statements — but who has little experience dealing with complex

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Just to shoot the breeze

Jun 11th, 2017 3:15 pm | By

Good god.

CNN:

“When I’ve been reading the stories of how the President has been contacting (former FBI Director) Jim Comey over time, felt a little bit like deja vu,” [Preet] Bharara said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Trump invited Bharara to Trump Tower in New York a few weeks after the election, and Bharara said Trump asked him to stay on at the time.

Bharara said Trump called him twice during the transition “ostensibly just to shoot the breeze.”

“It was a little bit uncomfortable,” Bharara said. “But he was not the President. He was only the President-elect.”

The former US attorney said Trump called him one more time — in March, after Trump had taken office.

“I refused

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When he tells you to do something, guess what?

Jun 11th, 2017 11:57 am | By

Don Junior carelessly confirmed the truth of what Comey testified, in his eagerness to sneer at and defame him.

Donald Trump Jr. — the president’s eldest son — seemed to confirm Comey’s version of events in a Saturday interview on Fox News as he tried to emphasize the fact that his father did not directly order Comey to stop investigating Flynn.

“When he tells you to do something, guess what? There’s no ambiguity in it, there’s no, ‘Hey, I’m hoping,'” Trump Jr. said.

He says dogmatically, but of course he wouldn’t know what Trump does when it’s a matter of being president and wanting to bully the head of the FBI into closing an investigation while also wanting not to … Read the rest