11/25/18:
Trump can sit back and relax after the holidays, knowing he and his lawyers
have turned in his answers to questions posed by Special Counsel Mueller and
his team.
Also, he can relax because he now has Matt Whitaker, a
lackey, in charge at the Department of Justice.
BLOGGER’S NOTE (12/29/19): When the Mueller report is finally released – and not read by Trump fans, or
even Republican members of Congress – Trump’s “answers” to almost every
question will sound the same. Just a taste: “I have no recollection of learning
at the time that Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, or Jared Kushner was
considering participating in a meeting in June 2016...” “I do not remember...” “I have no recollection of learning...” “I do not recall being aware...” “I do not remember
the specifics of what I knew at the time…” “I do not recall being told during
the campaign of efforts by Russian officials to meet with me or with senior
members of my campaign...” “I have no current recollection...” “I have no recollection of the details...” “I do not remember being asked...”
3/29/19: If you fill the Swamp with
enough alligators, technically they displace all the water, and the place is
drained. Stephen Moore, President Trump’s pick to fill a seat on the Federal
Reserve Board, is found to owe $75,328.80 to the Internal Revenue Service,
based on his tax returns from 2014.
That bit of bad news is topped by a report that in 2012 the Virginia courts
ruled that Moore would have to sell his home to satisfy a judgment against him
by his ex-wife. At the time, Moore, Trump’s choice to help steer the U.S.
economy, owed more than $300,000 in alimony and child support.
Moore, of course, helped design the 2017 Trump tax cuts and
has written a book called Trumponomics.
(See: 5/2/19.)
*
WE LEARN that the full Mueller report,
excluding tables and appendixes, is almost 400 pages long. So AG Barr’s
almost-four-page-long “summary” probably left a little detail out.
Manafort
didn’t break: A pardon awaits.
As for this hard-working blogger, I must admit I was wrong in
my assessment of the possibilities the Russia probe represented.
I said, for example, I’d be willing to bet Don Jr. got
indicted; but in fact, it looks like he may only end up being a liar.
I did say I thought evidence for impeachment was insufficient
– unless Manafort broke.
Manafort didn’t break.
A pardon awaits!
BLOGGER’S NOTE (7/12/19): Insider
takes the full Mueller report, rewrites it in clearer, less-legalistic language
and illustrates it brilliantly, so people might actually read it.
BLOGGER’S NOTE #2 (12/23/20): Mr. Blogger called it
right! The president pardons Manafort, and Roger Stone, with
less than a month remaining in his time in office.(See: 6/22/19, for evidence that Sean Hannity was
relaying word to Manafort not to cooperate with investigators – because he had “a
friend” in the White House.)
In one key moment, Don Jr. and Hope Hicks plan a lie.
3/31/19: While President Trump has been
bragging about how the Mueller report offers “total exoneration” in the Russia
probe, a new poll shows that only 29% of Americans believe he’s in the clear.
Four of ten say he’s not; and three of ten aren’t sure.
Trump’s overall numbers on the topic are boosted in large
part by the 64% of Republicans who think Mueller cleared his name – most of whom
wouldn’t have believed Trump colluded with the Russians even if Mueller had
turned up evidence of multiple Trump campaign aides having secret meetings with
agents of the Russian Federation offering dirt on Hillary Clinton. And evidence that other
campaign advisers suggested sealing a Trump Tower Moscow deal by offering a free penthouse worth $50 million to Vladimir
Putin. And evidence that Trump Sr. and Trump Jr. lied about the purpose of a
meeting in Trump Tower with Russians.
Oh, wait, Mueller and the free press already did turn up
evidence of all that. (See: 4/19/19.)
4/19/19: There is nothing President
Trump hates more than “Fake News,” and no source of “Fake News” he hates so
profoundly as The New York Times.
Trump keeps insisting that the Mueller report totally exonerates him. “NO
COLLUSION. NO OBSTRUCTION,” he loves to tweet.
____________________
The president’s efforts to influence the investigation were
mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the
president declined to carry out orders
or accede to his requests.
Mueller Report
____________________
Meanwhile, the Times
keeps putting out “Fake News” stories. On Friday, the “enemies of the people”
strike again, after reporters read the report and publish actual quotes. Here are a few gems.
From Page 9, Volume I of the Mueller Report:
The investigation established
that several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to the office,
and to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals
and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation [emphasis
added, unless otherwise noted] of Russian election interference.
Page 78, Volume II:
“When Sessions told the president that a special counsel had
been appointed, the president slumped back in his chair and said, ‘Oh, my God.
This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m fucked.’”
Did the Mueller Report clear the president of obstruction?
Page 182, Volume II:
“If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the
facts that the president clearly did not
commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and
the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.”
Did Trump try to obstruct?
Page 158, Volume II:
The president’s efforts to
influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely
because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.
…The incidents were often carried
out through one-on-one meetings in which the president sought to use his
official power outside of usual channels. These actions ranged from efforts to
remove the special counsel and to reverse the effect of the attorney general’s
recusal; to the attempted use of official power to limit the scope of the
investigation; to direct and indirect
contacts with witnesses with the potential to influence their testimony.
Viewing the acts collectively can help to illuminate their significance.
Allow me to “illuminate” the significance of Trump’s “direct
and indirect contacts with witnesses.”
Here’s what he told reporters last November, regarding Paul
Manafort, a witness who had potentially devastating testimony to offer:
Finally, did Trump cooperate fully with the investigation, as
Attorney General Barr has suggested?
Appendix C, Page 1:
We received the President’s
written responses [to questions prosecutors had asked] in late November 2018.
In December 2018, we informed counsel of the insufficiency of those
responsesin several
respects. We noted, among other things, that the President stated on more than
30 occasions that he “does not recall” or “remember” or have an “independent
recollection” of information called for by the questions. Other answers were
“incomplete or imprecise.”
Did Team Trump have questionable contacts with Russians? (At
this point, you might think no sane individual would question that fact.) (Sadly,
see: 4/21/19.)
Page 173, Volume I:
The investigation established
multiple links between Trump Campaign officials and individuals tied to the
Russian government. Those links included Russian offers of assistance to the campaign…Ultimately, the
investigation did not establish that the campaign coordinated or conspired with
the Russian government in its election-interference activities.
So, multiple links.
Bumbling attempts to obstruct justice.
Lies that materially impaired the investigation.
Trump’s incomplete written answers, written because he
refused to be deposed and answer under oath.
That might not be enough to determine legally that Trump and
the Russians conspired; but it’s certainly not total exoneration.
Finally, Mueller is clear on the role Congress might still
play.
Page 8, Volume II:
____________________
“The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws
to the president’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our
constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person
is above the law.”
____________________
BLOGGER’S NOTE: For additional evidence, see Sean
Hannity’s text messages to Paul Manafort, and efforts to assure him, if he kept
his mouth clamped, that he had “a friend in the White House, 6/22/19.
4/21/19: A few short weeks ago, Donald R. Trump (the “R” is honorary, and
for “Russia”) was telling reporters Robert Mueller acted honorably during the Russia investigation
and insisting his final report offered “total exoneration.” Since then, aides
have apparently sat down and read parts of the report to President Dimwit.
That means he’s going to be mad as hell and he’s
going to tweet, four times today alone, on the topic. Let’s summarize: “Trump
Haters and Angry Democrats,” a “total ‘hit job,’” “Radical Left Democrats,”
“this is costing our Country greatly,” “Witch Hunt,” “Disgraceful!”
If you’re a fan of Donald R. Trump, you should
read the report yourself. Try to keep track of all
the Russian contacts Trump and his band of buccaneers had and all the lies they
told to conceal them.
Keep a calculator handy. Finger and toes won’t
get you through the first chapter of the report.
4/25/19: According to President Trump, the Mueller Report has cleared him
of any and all wrongdoing.
____________________
“The obstructer need not succeed in order to be
charged with obstruction.”
Judge
Andrew Napolitano
____________________
Not everyone is buying that construct. One who
disagrees is Judge Andrew Napolitano, longtime legal expert on Fox News. We are
guessing he won’t be seen much longer on that channel.
Napolitano is clear and concise in his explanation and it’s worth reading:
The Constitution prescribes treason, bribery or other high crimes
and misdemeanors as the sole bases for impeachment. We know that obstruction of
justice constitutes an impeachable offense under the “high crimes and
misdemeanors” rubric because both presidents in the modern era who were subject
to impeachment proceedings – Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton – were charged with
obstructing justice.
Obstruction is a rare crime that is rarely completed. Stated
differently, the obstructer need not succeed in order to be charged with
obstruction. That’s because the statute itself prohibits attempting to impede
or interfere with any government proceeding for a corrupt or self-serving
purpose.
Thus, if my neighbor tackles me on my way into a courthouse in
order to impede a jury from hearing my testimony, and, though delayed, I still
make it to the courthouse and testify, then the neighbor is guilty of
obstruction because he attempted to impede the work of the jury that was
waiting to hear me.
Mueller laid out at least a half-dozen crimes of obstruction
committed by Trump – from asking former Deputy National Security Adviser K.T.
McFarland to write an untruthful letter about the reason for Flynn’s chat with
Kislyak, to asking Corey Lewandowski and then-former White House Counsel Don
McGahn to fire Mueller and McGahn to lie about it, to firing Comey to impede
the FBI’s investigations, to dangling a pardon in front of Michael Cohen to
stay silent, to ordering his aides to hide and delete records.
The essence of obstruction is deception or diversion – to
prevent the government from finding the truth [emphasis added]. To Mueller,
the issue was not if Trump committed crimes of obstruction. Rather, it was if
Trump could be charged successfully with those crimes.
Mueller knew that Barr would block an indictment of Trump
because Barr has a personal view of obstruction at odds with the statute
itself. Barr’s view requires that the obstructer has done his obstructing in
order to impede the investigation or prosecution of a crime that the obstructer
himself has committed. Thus, in this narrow view, because Trump did not commit
the crime of conspiracy with the Russians, it was legally impossible for Trump
to have obstructed the FBI investigation of that crime.
The nearly universal view of law enforcement, however, is that the obstruction statute prohibits all
attempted self-serving interference with government investigations or
proceedings. Thus, as Georgetown Professor Neal Katyal recently pointed
out, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted of obstruction for
interfering with an investigation of his extramarital affair, even though the
affair was lawful.
Read the Mueller Report yourself. If you’re not blinded
by right-wing propaganda, you’ll quickly discover that the President of the
United States made repeated efforts to thwart a legal investigation.
*
As anyone would expect, Trump reacts badly to the judge’s comments – and decides to add a fresh layer of lies and insults to his story. Judge Napolitano points out that he and the president “have been friends for thirty years.”
6/12/19: President Trump sits down for an interview with ABC’s George
Stephanopoulos. The first segment airs today.
Another “Fake News” story results when ABC
releases tape of Trump’s lips moving and all the absurdity spilling out.
____________________
“Putin has won!”
Kirill Dmitriev, Russian wealth fund manager
____________________
Having spent the last three years denying that he
or anyone on his campaign ever met with Russians, Trump makes clear. Would he
like to meet with Russians (again) to swing the 2020 election?
He would.
Here’s the transcript of his remarks, related to
hypothetical foreign interference in the next U.S. election. We have once again
added an “interpreter” to help you grasp every orange-hued nuance. Below,
Stephanopoulos is quizzing the president:
ABC NEWS CHIEF GEORGESTEPHANOPOULOS: You’re
a fighter. You, you, it feels like you’re in a constant kind of churn.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, uh, my life has always been a
fight. And I enjoy that I guess, I don’t know if I enjoy it or not, I guess –
sometimes I have false fights, like the Russian witch hunt. That’s a false
fight. That’s a made-up hoax. And I had a fight that –
INTERPRETER: The following Trump aides and
buddies from 2016 have admitted meeting with Russians during the campaign:
Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Roger
Stone, Rick Gates, Felix Sater, Paul Manafort, George Nader, and Michael Cohen.
Not quite a baker’s dozen, but a start.
STEPHANOPOULOS: – the first line of his report says they
had a systematic attempt at interfere [sic] in our elections.
President Trump: They did, but not me. And they also
said, okay, that we rebuffed them. Okay?
INTERPRETER: The Mueller Report does not say his campaign
“rebuffed” the Russians. (See list above.) The report does say Manafort was
working on a “backdoor deal” to benefit the Russians while serving as Trump’s
campaign chair.
TRUMP: – that the Trump campaign. Excuse me. The
campaign, the Trump campaign rebuffed them. We had nothing to do with Russia.
Hillary Clinton had much more to do with Russia than anything having to do with
our campaign. It said very specifically that, not only we didn’t have to do,
but we rebuffed them [emphasis added throughout]. Now, anything having to
do with Russia had nothing to do with our campaign.
INTERPRETER: The president is lying. What the Mueller
Report says is this: “The investigation also
identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump
Campaign. The social media campaign and the GRU hacking operations
[Russian military hacking] coincided with a series of contacts between Trump
Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government.”
And: “Russian outreach to the Trump campaign continued into
the summer of 2016…”
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, Paul Manafort.
TRUMP: Paul Manafort, they have Paul Manafort on taxes
and many other things. Nothing to do with our campaign.
INTERPRETER: Trump is lying again. He must have been practicing
to get ready for this show. He’s in rare form. They have Manafort on witness
tampering in 2018, involving his key Russian contact, Konstantin Kilimnik.
Kilimnik was also indicted but fled to Russia. Does Trump really not know this?
Manafort cheated the U.S. government out of millions. Investigators have him
working on that “backdoor deal” in 2016.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Giving polling information to the
Russians.
TRUMP: I don’t know anything about that. What difference
does polling information make? It doesn’t matter. He was maybe trying to do
something for an account or something. Who knows? But they said specifically
that there was nothing to do, and we, in fact, rebuffed them –
INTERPRETER: “Who knows?” This was his campaign. Was he saying
he didn’t know what was going on during his campaign?
STEPHANOPOULOS: – they said there were hundreds –
TRUMP: It’s a phony –
STEPHANOPOULOS: – what they said is that –
TRUMP: They also said that there were bloggers in Moscow
and they said specifically, about the bloggers in Moscow, had nothing to do
with Trump, had nothing to do with the – and there were like 32 or 36 bloggers.
We have nothing to do with bloggers in Moscow. I’ll tell you, you talk about
collusion, take a look at the collusion with the Democrat party and Facebook
and Google and Twitter. That’s called collusion, that’s called real collusion.
Not where somebody buys some ads and the other thing, having to do with Russia,
they were also helping the Clinton campaign, you know that? It wasn’t just
Trump. And Putin, I will say this: if he had it, it was up to him. He would
much rather have Hillary Clinton be president right now. And all of these
countries would rather have Biden or anybody else but Trump.
STEPHANOPOULOS: He said the Russian government was
trying to help elect you. He said that explicitly.
TRUMP: Well he might’ve said that after I won because
it’s a smart thing to say, okay? Because frankly –
INTERPRETER: Nope. In the hours after Trump’s victory
became clear, Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian wealth fund manager with close ties to
the Russian president, emailed Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the
Russian Federation.
“Putin has won!” his email read.
“Give me
a break, life doesn’t work that way.”
TRUMP: Mueller said that we rebuffed Russia, that we
pushed them away, that we weren’t interested. Read the report.
INTERPRETER: Clearly, the president has not read the
report.The Mueller Report notes on page nine that “…the investigation
established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to
the [Special Counsel’s] Office, and to Congress, about their interactions with
Russian-affiliated individuals and related matters. Those lies materially
impaired the investigation of Russian election interference.”
STEPHANOPOULOS: I have read the report. On that though,
your son Don Jr. is up before the Senate Intelligence Committee today, and
again, he was not charged with anything. In retrospect though, do you think –
TRUMP: – I mean not only wasn’t he charged, if you read it,
with all of the horrible fake news, I mean, I was reading that my son was going
to go to jail. This is a good young man. That he was going to go to jail and
all of these horrible stories. And then the report comes out and they didn’t
even say – they hardly even talked about him.
INTERPRETER: Don Jr. lied about the purpose of the meeting
he took with the Russians. He said it was about adoption. Dad helped write a
letter, supporting that lie. Sarah Sanders told reporters the president had
nothing to do with the letter. The president’s lawyers eventually admitted he
did. That’s some serious, sequential lying.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But should he have gone to the F.B.I.
when he got that email?
TRUMP: Okay,
let’s put yourself in a position: you’re a congressman, somebody comes up and
says, “Hey I have information on your opponent.” Do you call the F.B.I.?
STEPHANOPOULOS: If it’s coming from Russia you do.
TRUMP: You don’t – I’ll tell you what. I’ve seen a lot
of things over my life. I don’t think in my whole life I’ve ever called the
F.B.I. In my whole life. I don’t – you don’t call the F.B.I. You throw somebody
out of your office, you do whatever you do –
STEPHANOPOULOS: Al Gore got a stolen briefing book. He
called the F.B.I.
TRUMP: Well, that’s different. A stolen briefing book.
This isn’t – this is somebody who said, “We have information on your opponent.”
Oh, let me call the F.B.I. Give me a break, life doesn’t work that way.
INTERPRETER: Ellen Weintraub, chair of the Federal
Election Commission is clear in response to the president, issuing the
following statement, first noting, “I would not have thought
that I needed to say this.”
Let me make something 100
percent clear to the American public and anyone running for public office: It
is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from
a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election. This is not a novel
concept. Electoral intervention from foreign governments has been considered
unacceptable since the beginnings of our nation. Our Founding Fathers sounded
the alarm about “foreign Interference, Intrigue, and Influence.” They knew that
when foreign governments seek to influence American politics, it is always to
advance their own interests, not America’s. Anyone who solicits or accepts
foreign assistance risks being on the wrong end of a federal investigation. Any
political campaign that receives an offer of a prohibited donations [sic] from
a foreign source should report that offer to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The FBI Director says that’s what should
happen.
TRUMP: The FBI Director is wrong. Because, frankly, it
doesn’t happen like that in life. Now, maybe it will start happening. Maybe
today you think differently. But two or three years ago, if somebody comes into
your office with oppo research – they call it oppo research – with information
that might be good or bad or something, but good for you, bad for your
opponent, you don’t call the FBI. I would guarantee you that 90 percent, could
be 100 percent, of the congressmen or the senators over there, have had
meetings – if they didn’t they probably wouldn’t be elected – on negative
information about their opponent. They don’t –
INTERPRETER: Trump, a man with no moral compass, is
projecting. Let’s look at a few reactions from Republicans.
Sen. Mitt Romney disagrees. Accepting help, as Trump suggests, “would be totally
inappropriate and it would strike at the heart of our democracy.”
Sen. Susan Collins concurs. The “proper action” if offered
foreign help would be to “call the F.B.I.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham takes issue with the president. “I think
that’s wrong. I’ve been consistent on this. If a public official is approached
by a foreign government offering anything of value ... the right answer is
‘no.’”
STEPHANOPOULOS: From foreign countries?
TRUMP: Possibly. Possibly. But they don’t call the
F.B.I. You don’t call the F.B.I. every time you hear something that maybe –
now, you see the people. The meeting, it also sounds to me – I don’t know
anything about that meeting – but it sounds to me like it was a big nothing.
That meeting was a big nothing. But I heard about my son, who is a great young
man, going to jail over a meeting where somebody said, “I have information on
Hillary Clinton.” She’s the one that should be in jail. She deleted 33 –
STEPHANOPOULOS: She should be in jail?
TRUMP: She deleted 33,000 emails from – sent by the
United States Congress. They gave a subpoena to Hillary Clinton for 33,000
emails. After the subpoena was gotten, she deleted them. That’s called
obstruction. And her lawyer should also be looked at because her lawyer – she’s
got to have the greatest lawyer on earth because she does that, he did the
deleting, supposedly. Not only did they delete, but they acid washed them.
INTERPRETER: The President of the United States has just
said he’d accept help from a foreign government to win an election.
This is exactly the kind of suspected behavior
that led to the investigation of his 2016 campaign. Trump might as well be a
rapist claiming, “I didn’t rape that woman; but if I had the chance again, I
would.”
“Generally speaking, it’s a part of, in the case
of like Russia, it’s an effort to disrupt our elections,” said Sen. Thom
Tillis. “My first call would be to the F.B.I., my second call would be somebody
to corroborate the information.”
“I was just surprised he wouldn’t say he would
immediately turn it over to F.B.I. or DOJ,” added Sen. James Lankford.
Sen. Cory Gardner said foreign opposition “should
be turned over to the FBI, plain and simple.”
Sen. Joni Ernst agreed. “I’d definitely alert the
authorities.”
“You don’t ever want to take foreign money,
that’s illegal. And the next route to money is information,” said Sen. Johnny
Isakson. “So if you take information from somebody that’s foreign and it’s
involved in your campaign, you’re inviting the risk of inviting foreign money
into your campaign.”
STEPHANOPOULOS: Your campaign this time around, if
foreigners, if Russia, if China, if someone else offers you information on
opponents, should they accept it or should they call the FBI?
TRUMP: I think maybe you do both. I think
you might want to listen, there’s nothing wrong with listening. If somebody
called from a country, Norway, “we have information on your opponent.” Oh, I
think I’d want to hear it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You want that kind of interference
in our elections?
TRUMP: It’s not an interference,
they have information. I think I’d take it. If I thought there was something
wrong, I’d go maybe to the FBI. If I thought there was something wrong. But
when somebody comes up with oppo research, right, they come up with oppo
research. Oh, let’s call the FBI. The FBI doesn’t have enough agents to take
care of it, but you go and talk honestly to congressmen, they all do it,
they always have. And that’s the way it is. It’s called oppo research.
INTERPRETER: Trump’s son and half a dozen aides listened
to Russian offers of help in 2016. They never notified anyone. And we’re
talking about Russia, a hostile foreign power, not Norway (Trump’s favorite
country for immigrants).
Stephanie Douglas, a
former executive assistant director of the F.B.I. national security branch, disagrees. “If President Trump is willing to entertain a conversation, foreign
intel services love that,” she tells reporters. “It just makes him more
vulnerable, and it makes the job of the F.B.I. much harder.”
6/14/19: A second segment of Trump’s interview with George Stephanopoulos
airs – on the president’s birthday. The orange prevaricator claims former White House Chief Counsel Don
McGahn was untruthful when he gave testimony under oath to Robert Mueller’s
investigators.
(Keep in mind: Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said his client would
testify under oath over his dead body.)
Don McGahn, White House Chief Counsel.
____________________
McGahn testifies under oath; Trump won’t, but
says McGahn is lying.
____________________
McGahn told Mueller that Trump ordered him to
fire Mueller and end the Russia investigation. He says Trump asked more
than once. When the “Fake News” folks got wind of this story, McGahn testified
further, the president’s personal lawyer at the time, and two aides separately,
asked him to sign a false document, saying Trump had never asked him to
take such steps.
The Mueller Report is clear. “Each time he was approached, McGahn responded
that he would not refute the press accounts because they were accurate in
reporting on the President’s efforts to have the Special Counsel removed.”
Later,
Trump met with McGahn, with Chief of Staff John Kelly present, and asked him to
deny reports he wanted Mueller fired.
“McGahn
refused and insisted his memory of the President’s direction to remove the
Special Counsel was accurate.”
“Why
would McGahn lie under oath?”
So,
what does Trump say now? “The story on that very simply, No. 1, I was
never going to fire Mueller,” he tells George Stephanopoulos. “I never suggested
firing Mueller. I don’t care what he [McGahn] says, it doesn’t matter. That was
to show everyone what a good counsel he was.”
“Why would McGahn lie under oath?” Stephanopoulos inquired.
“Because he wanted to make himself look like a good lawyer,”
Trump replied. “Or he believed it was because I would constantly tell anybody
that would listen — including you, including the media — that Robert Mueller
was conflicted. Robert Mueller had a total conflict of interest.”
“And has to go?” Stephanopoulos responded.
“I didn’t say that,” Trump glared.
Here, by way of the Washington Post, is what the
Mueller Report says in this regard. McGahn stated under oath, that
Trump had twice called him from Camp David and directed him to remove Mueller.
The report says phone records
show a 23-minute call between the two men on the afternoon of June 17, but not
a second call. McGahn is certain he got two calls from Trump on this issue, so
the first one may have been on June 14.
“On the first call, McGahn
recalled that the President said something like, ‘You gotta do this. You gotta
call Rod [Rosenstein; then in charge at the
Department of Justice],’” the report said, citing testimony under oath.
“McGahn said he told the President that he would see what he could do. McGahn
was perturbed by the call and did not intend to act on the request.”
The report added: “McGahn considered
the President’s request to be an inflection point [emphasis added] and he
wanted to hit the brakes.”
On the second
call, Trump was more direct, “saying something like, ‘Call Rod, tell Rod that
Mueller has conflicts and can’t be the Special Counsel.’ McGahn recalled the
President telling him ‘Mueller has to go’ and ‘Call me back when you do it.’”
The report said that “McGahn understood the President to be saying that the
Special Counsel had to be removed by Rosenstein.”
In other words, we must decide, once again. Is Trump lying?
Or McGahn?
(The White House is vehemently opposed to a subpoena for
McGahn and his top aide, Annie Donaldson, to testify before Congress.)
*
SCIENTISTS report that Greenland lost
two gigatons of ice in a single day. That’s two billion tons of ice.
How much ice are we talking about melting in one
24-hour period? That’s enough to cover the National Mall in Washington D.C. to
a height eight times greater than the Washington Monument.
In a day. (See also: 6/29/19)
Imagine water eight times as deep.
POSTSCRIPT:
We know the president doesn’t believe in climate change; and we know the people
he has appointed to head up agencies that exist to protect the environment
don’t really bother.
Newly released emails reveal that Team Trump decided last year
that it would be great if the EPA could send four top officials to speak to a
meeting of the Cooler Heads Coalition, a group formed to push
climate change denial and funded by the American Petroleum Institute, among
others.
This visit was not disclosed before – no surprise, really –
because it would have been embarrassing in the extreme. Trump’s first EPA head,
Scott Pruitt, was a bigtime climate change denier. After he got booted amid
numerous investigations into shady practices, he was replaced by Andrew Wheeler, whose previous
environmental-protection efforts involved working as a lobbyist for Big Coal,
which would be the same as placing the head of a drug cartel in charge of the
DEA.
So far, Wheeler has “protected” the environment by rolling
back regulations meant to curb mercury emissions from coal-fired plants and
pushing to increase the use of ethanol in gasoline during summer months. The
gasoline-ethanol mix increases smog in warmer months.
We’ll let government scientists explain the dangers of mercury poisoning:
It affects the immune system, alters
genetic and enzyme systems, and damages the nervous system, including
coordination and the senses of touch, taste, and sight. Methylmercury is
particularly damaging to developing embryos, which are five to ten times more
sensitive than adults.
So, if you like to fish, in the future you might want to
think twice about eating what you catch. Mercury buildup in the tissue of fish
has long been a problem. Over the years at least forty states have had to issue
advisories for select bodies of water, warning anglers not to consume certain
types of fish. Thirteen states had statewide advisories “for some or all
sportfish from rivers or lakes.” Wide swaths of the coast were under mercury
warnings, as well.
But, hey, it’s only your central nervous system at
risk. So, as they like to say on Team Trump, “Let’s pollute!”
