5/2/18: Another day in Trumpistan. In
what is almost surely a record for any cabinet member in history, E.P.A.
Administrator Pruitt faces eleven investigations.
Pruitt testified recently in front of Congress. He maintained
he didn’t know about any of the ridiculous spending, or pretty much anything
else illegal that was happening at his agency. At times you had to wonder if
Pruitt realized he ran the E.P.A. or if he thought he was a male stripper or a
bronco buster.
Former E.P.A. deputy chief of staff Kevin Chmielewski was
blunt. He called his boss a “bald-faced liar.” Chmielewski, a Trump appointee,
assured a reporter, “100 percent,” he was forced out after questioning
Pruitt’s lavish spending. He was threatened by the head of Pruitt’s
abnormally large security detail, Pasquale “Nino”
Perrotta. With investigative storm clouds gathering, Perrotta suddenly
decided to resign his post.
Also leaving on the spur of the moment was Albert Kelly,
Pruitt’s choice to head the E.P.A. Superfund cleanup program.
Kelly had zero experience working on environmental issues and
had never dealt with matters related
to toxic waste. He did have banking experience in Oklahoma, from whence
he and Pruitt came. Kelly had even earned a lifetime ban from the financial industry as a result of
shady dealings and once helped Pruitt get a sweet deal on the purchase of a
home. The seller was a former lobbyist, who took $100,000 less for the property
than he had previously paid. The “buyer” was a shell company. This obscured the
fact Pruitt was going to be the person who lived in the house and the person
who got a special deal from a lobbyist.
Meanwhile, a Moroccan news agency revealed that a second
lobbyist helped arrange an expensive trip to Morocco, by Pruitt and a few of
his buds – including that second lobbyist, Richard Smotkin. Why exactly did the
head of the E.P.A. need to fly – first class – to Morocco? No one knows.
According to news reports out of Morocco, Pruitt stayed at
the luxurious Hotel Sofitel Marrakech while he was visiting.
 |
Taxpayers footed the bill for Pruitt's trips. |
*
Trump
wrote his own medical report.
A SECOND TRUMP DOCTOR is in the news. Harold Bornstein,
Trump’s personal physician for 36 years, recently told NBC that in February 2017, after he revealed
that Trump was taking a prescription medicine for hair growth, his office was
raided by Trump goons. Leading the raid was Keith Schiller, longtime Trump
bodyguard, and at that time Director of Oval Office Operations. That made him a
paid employee of the federal government.
Schiller was joined by a top lawyer from the Trump
Organization and another “large man” Bornstein didn’t recognize.
Not only did Schiller demand Bornstein hand over medical
records, without providing documents required before such a transfer could take
place, he seized the originals. By New York State law those would be property
of the doctor. Bornstein says he felt, “raped, frightened and sad
[emphasis added].” Schiller also demanded that a framed photo of Bornstein and
Trump be removed from the wall.
According to NBC News: “Bornstein said the original and only
copy of Trump’s charts, including lab reports under Trump’s name as well as
under the pseudonyms his office used for Trump, were taken.”
Well, be honest now. Are you the least surprised Trump used
pseudonyms at his doctor’s office?
Bornstein told a reporter that a letter he supposedly wrote
in December 2015, certifying Trump’s health and fitness to be president, was in
fact written by…Donald J. Trump. “He wrote it himself,” Dr. Bornstein said.
At the time, news reports quoted Bornstein as saying, “If elected, Mr. Trump, I
can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to
the presidency.” Not just healthy! He’d
be the healthiest ever!
Trump had been mocking “low energy” Jeb Bush, and warning
that Crooked Hillary lacked the “stamina” to do the job.
So “Bornstein” gushed:
Over the past 39 years, I am
pleased to report that Mr Trump has had no significant medical problems. Mr
Trump has had a recent complete medical examination that showed only positive
results. Actually, his blood pressure, 110/65, and laboratory test results were
astonishingly excellent.
Trump didn’t drink. Trump didn’t smoke. He’d never had cancer
or required a knee or hip replacement. He had lost “at least fifteen pounds” in
the last year. In other words, Trump was a stud. “His physical strength and
stamina are extraordinary,” the letter writer added for emphasis.
*
YOU MAY remember that Dr. Ronny Jackson also discussed Trump’s health in a televised meeting in
January. Like Bornstein, Jackson laid it on with a trowel. Trump was in
“excellent” health, both mentally and physically. “It is called genetics...”
Jackson smiled broadly for reporters. “Some people have just great genes. I
told the president that if he had a healthier diet over the last 20 years, he
might live to be 200 years old.” Trump wasn’t just a stud currently. Jackson
insisted he’d be a stud for a second term.
Or a second century.
Even the fact the president was sleeping only four or five
hours a night didn’t trouble Dr. Jackson. Trump had “a very unique ability to
just get up in the morning and reset” or “push the reset button,” which “has
helped him with his stress level.”
(I wondered at the time if Jackson had ever read any of the
president’s early-morning rage-tweets.)
Jackson noted that the president was 6' 3", which meant
he was still growing at age 71. As Politico
noted, Trump’s New York driver’s license lists his
height at 6' 2," and at that height, and what Jackson said was Trump’s
weight (239 pounds), the president would be officially obese.
*
“The
Department of Justice is not going to be extorted.”
RUMOR HAS LEAKED that the House Freedom Caucus, a group of hard-right
Republicans, is working on impeachment articles to get rid of Deputy Attorney
General Rod Rosenstein.
Then Robert Mueller can be fired.
Rosenstein was not dainty in response. “I can tell you there have been
people who have been making threats privately and publicly against me for quite
some time,” he told reporters. “And I think they should understand by now the
Department of Justice is not going to be extorted.”
Let that sink in.
Trump’s bootlickers in the House of Representatives would
love to shut an investigation down – not because it’s taking too long – but before
it’s too late to protect all the assorted crooks.
