The Porn Star and the President - Part VIII

 

The Porn Star and the President – Part VIII

(A Story of Lying)

Trump and Stephanie Clifford (her real name).

IN PART VII, MICHAEL COHEN TESTIFIES BEFORE CONGRESS – AGAIN. THE FIRST TIME, HE LIED FOR TRUMP. 

THIS TIME, HE CORRECTS THOSE LIES. REPUBLICANS WHO QUESTION THE WITNESS ARE LIVID.

WE PICK UP THE TRAIL AGAIN:

3/4/19: In perhaps the least surprising story of the day, The New Yorker reveals collusion between President Trump and…Fox News! 

We have seen some of the evidence before: the incessant praise for Trump from the hosts of Fox & Friends, the daily dish of Trump lovin’ fed to viewers by the perpetually outraged-at-liberals Lou Dobbs. 

We watched Heather Nauert, former Fox News Bunny, serve as spokesperson for the Department of State. 

We saw Bill Shine, disgraced former Fox executive, hired to lead the White House communications department. 

There was Sean Hannity, popping up onstage at campaign rallies besides his chunky, orange pal. 

Then it was Hannity landing seven interviews with the president and Fox landing 37 more, each chock-full of softball questions…just to be sure the president looked good. 

Sample question from any Fox interview: “Are you the best president in history, Mr. Trump?” 

Trump: “Yes, and thanks for asking.” 

Interview ends. 

 

Fox News performed its own version of “capture and kill.” 

Now it turns out, a Fox reporter had the story of Stormy Daniels and her one-night stand with Donald before the 2016 election. The network performed its own version of “capture and kill,” despite proof Daniels was telling the truth – that Trump had cheated on his third wife, now First Lady. 

“Good reporting, kiddo,” a top executive told Diana Falzone, the reporter on the case. “But Rupert [Murdoch] wants Donald Trump to win. So just let it go.” 

As a writer for The New Yorker explains:

 

Falzone discovered that the National Enquirer, in partnership with Trump, had made a “catch and kill” deal with Daniels – buying the exclusive rights to her story in order to bury it. Falzone pitched this story to Fox, too, but it went nowhere.

 

Falzone was demoted the following January “without explanation.” She sued Fox and reached a settlement. Falzone signed a non-disclosure agreement.

 

So, there you go. 

Fox News: “Fair and balanced.”  We don’t let you hear the bad news about Trump. You decide. 

Also: Non-disclosure agreements are the best kind of news.

___ 

 

3/6/19: Michael Cohen spends another day on Capitol Hill, testifying in closed session before the House Intelligence Committee. This time, he brings several suitcases filled with documents. 

The New York Times reports that Cohen will provide a series of fat checks made out to his name, all signed by the president, or Don Jr., his dear, dumb son. These checks are part of a scheme to cover up the story of Stormy Daniels, for which scheme (in part) Cohen will soon be plunked into jail. The Southern District of New York in its filings on the case named “Individual 1,” the president himself, as an “unindicted co-conspirator,” which (based on the latest revelations) is kind of fun. 

The first check to Mr. Cohen was signed on February 14, 2017, by the newly sworn President of the United States. The day before, Trump had to fire his National Security Adviser, General Michael T. Flynn, for lying to Vice President Pence about contacts with Russians. 

 

Now Trump was signing that fat check – and afterwards, he would celebrate Valentine’s Day by calling in F.B.I. Director James Comey and asking him to go easy on good old General Flynn. 

Keep all of this in mind when you hear the president insist that Comey lies and not him. 

Or Cohen lies and not him. 

Or anyone lies and not him. 

There was another check to his personal lawyer for $35,000 in March, one in April (not yet found), then one in May, drawn on the president’s personal bank account. The June and July checks are still missing. Then we have another for $35,000, signed on August 1, 2017. 

 

On that very day, White House Press Secretary Pinocchio, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, confirmed that the president had “weighed in” on a letter Don Jr. wrote about a secret meeting held in June 2016 with a group of Russian agents. 

In retrospect, you can see how ridiculous the lies told by Trump and his sycophants have been. Sanders insisted then:

 

Look, the statement that Don Jr. issued is true. There’s no inaccuracy in the statement.

The president weighed in as any father would, based on the limited information that he had.

This is all discussion, frankly, of no consequence. There was no follow up. It was disclosed to the proper parties, which is how The New York Times found out about it to begin with.

That statement itself was shot through with untruths. The meeting itself was never “disclosed.” The New York Times dug up the story thirteen months after the conclave concluded. Don Jr. initially lied about the purpose of the gathering. Then dad lied too. Finally, a whole slew of aides, including Sanders, lied to cover up the president’s role in the debacle. If you had the feeling that Team Trump might be rife with liars, you wouldn’t be dreaming. 

In parallel, the checks to Cohen kept on coming – September 12, October 18, and November 21. The last of a dozen came on December 5, 2017, meaning that the president had been part of a scheme to cover up felony campaign law violations for almost a year.  

The evidence builds. Yet, in Trumpistan it makes no dent. As the Times reports:

 

“I think it’s news we knew about,” Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Reform Committee and one of the president’s staunchest allies, told reporters during a break in last week’s hearing.

 

The payments, he said, could have been for services based on a retainer, although Mr. Cohen said there was no such retainer.

 

 

Trump claims to know nothing about the payments. 

Nor should anyone, not even a clueless Rep. Jordan, forget. In April 2018, Trump could still insist to reporters aboard Air Force One that he knew nothing at all about payments to Stormy.

 

Q: Mr. President, did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?

THE PRESIDENT: No. No. What else?

 

Q: Do you know where he [Cohen] got the money to make that payment?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I don’t know. No.

 

One thing President Trump does know, is he knows how to lie.

Oddly enough, the president isn’t done tweet-ranting for the day. At 6:56 p.m. on March 6, 2019, he sums up his legal predicament this way. He didn’t do anything wrong. No, the Democrats are out to get him on anything, even “a punctuation mistake in a document.”

Cohen doesn’t have the periods or commas. 

He has the checks. 

 

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). 

In a rare display of integrity, Judge Andrew Napolitano, perhaps Fox News’s top legal commentator, explains the dangers to Trump in Cohen’s testimony in an editorial in the Washington Examiner:

 

Hidden in the Cohen testimony was an oblique reference to alleged bank and tax fraud that Cohen claimed he helped Mr. Trump commit, contributed to Mr. Trump’s wealth and has the present interest of federal prosecutors in Manhattan. Many of these events took place more than five years ago and thus are not subject to federal prosecution, so why would prosecutors be interested in them?

 

Here is where RICO comes in. RICO is the acronym for a Nixon-era federal statute, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, originally enacted to target the mob. It permits federal prosecutors to reach back 10 years to find any two criminal acts, which need not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt; prosecutors need only demonstrate that they were more likely than not to have occurred. Then the feds can seize three times the wealth that the perpetrators of these schemes amassed. That could bankrupt Mr. Trump.

 

The president has serious and powerful tormentors whom he cannot overcome by mockery alone. He needs to do more than demean them with acerbic tweets, because many of those tormentors can legally cause him real harm. He needs to address these issues soberly, directly and maturely. Can President Trump survive all this? Yes — but not if he has another week like the last one.

 

First, it’s never going to be a good week for anyone who opens a newspaper and sees his or her name attached to a sentence about the RICO Act. 

Second, Napolitano is warning that Trump can only address his problems in a sober, direct, mature fashion. 

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahaha! 

Not gonna’ happen!

___ 

 

3/8/19: Recent polls have Trump in a bit of a hole, with only 43.4% of Americans approving of the job he’s doing. Part of his problem is that most Americans believe he’s a liar. 

Mainly because he is. 

 

Only 35% said Trump. 

His former lawyer, Michael Cohen, is now a convicted felon, headed for jail. But when asked in a Quinnipiac poll, who they believed more after Cohen’s recent testimony before Congress, 50% of Americans said Cohen 

Only 35% said Trump. 

In fact, 65% of Americans said they believed Trump is not honest, and 64% think he committed crimes before taking office. Almost half, 45%, believe he has committed crimes since being elected. 

July 24, 2019: The Day Robert Mueller Made It Clear Trump Was a Liar

 

7/24/19: Robert Mueller testifies for nearly six hours in front of two congressional panels. He refuses to go beyond what the report he has submitted says. For example, he refuses to say if the president “took the Fifth” in answering written questions. Mueller is precise, measured in response, even dull. 

Almost as soon as he completes his time on the stand, the partying at the White House begins. There are no “bombshells” in the televised testimony. The president will later call Mueller’s performance the worst in all the storied history of congressional hearings. 

Total exoneration, baby!

Mueller testifies under oath - something you never saw Trump do.

 

*

____________________ 

“I gather you think knowingly accepting foreign help in an election is an unethical thing to do?” 

Rep. Adam Schiff

____________________

 

 

IF YOU WATCHED all six hours of testimony – and took notes – you know the president was not exonerated. 

Dull or not, the facts Mueller laid out were damning. 

It will require a special blog post to address this topic; but a few highlights should suffice till then. First, Mueller slapped away the idea that he had hired a team of “angry Democrats” to frame Trump. In twenty-five years with the Justice Department he had never inquired about the political leanings of any of his hires. “It just isn’t done,” he told a Republican lawmaker who questioned him. He hired lawyers he felt could do the best work, men and women he knew for “integrity,” above all. 

In six hours of questioning, not one Republican member of either committee used the word “integrity” to describe Donald R. Trump. 

Meanwhile, Democrats focused on massive evidence of obstruction of justice. We learned, for example, that Trump called Attorney General Jeff Sessions at home and tried to get him to un-recuse himself and fire Mueller. Trump ordered White House Counsel Don McGahn to get rid of Mueller, too. 

“Did the president ask McGahn to lie?” one questioner asked Mueller. The Special Counsel often answered with one word. 

“Yes,” he said. 

Dull? Okay. But the Special Counsel had just said the president lied – and lied in a failed attempt to obstruct justice.

 

When Louis Gohmert (R-Texas) had his turn to speak and rambled on for five minutes and tried to make Mueller sound like he was on trial, Mueller’s response was, “I take your question.” Nothing more. 

Mueller had his dignity to consider. 

Gohmert was a clown. 

Jim Jordan (R-OH) spent his five minutes asking why Mueller never charged Josef Mifsud, a secondary figure in the investigation, as if something nefarious must have been afoot. 

The real problem: Mifsud has disappeared. 

Neither Jordan nor any other Republican wanted to know why the following members of Team Trump were now convicted felons: Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, General Michael T. Flynn, Michael Cohen, George Papadopoulos – and probably Roger Stone – currently under indictment for witness tampering and scheduled for trial this fall. 

 

“I hope this is not the new normal, but I fear it is.” 

Mueller was also asked, “Isn’t it true that an unsuccessful attempt to obstruct justice is still a crime?” 

“Correct,” he said. He did not elaborate because the statement stands as made. 

Rep. Mike Johnson had the closing five minutes for the Republican side during the first hearing and tried to insist that President Trump had never mislead anyone and cooperated fully.

 

In the second session, Val Demings, a Florida Democrat and former police chief of Orlando, asked Mueller why his team never asked Trump to sit down, face to face, and testify under oath. 

Mueller explained that the president and his lawyers had stalled the investigation for over a year. It was important to turn the report over to Attorney General William Barr, so he might make the decision about what to do next. 

Mueller admitted that Trump left several questions, submitted in writing by investigators, blank. 

“Did he plead the Fifth?” Demings wanted to know. 

Mueller refused to answer. “I’m not going to get into that,” he replied. He was sticking to what was in the report.

 

The rest of her questioning went pretty much like this: 

“Trump did not answer follow up questions?” Demings asked, trying a different tack. 

“No.” 

“Many questions he didn’t answer at all?” 

“True.” 

“His answers were often contradictory and incomplete?” 

“True.” 

Did he give answers that “contradicted other evidence?” 

“Yes.” 

Could the Special Counsel say that “the President was credible?” 

Mueller: “I can’t answer that question.” 

Is it fair to say, she asked, that Trump’s answers “showed that he wasn’t always being truthful?” 

“I would say, generally.” 

Those are the exact answers Mueller gave – what pundits were saying made for “boring” TV. 

Mueller wasn’t a TV prosecutor. He was a real prosecutor, with decades of enforcement experience. He was laying out facts. He did not need to showboat, like GOP lawmakers trying to make absurd points. All the evidence anyone might need to begin impeachment was there in the Mueller Report.

 

The best exchange of the day may have come when, during afternoon hearings, Adam Schiff, the Democratic chair of the House Intelligence Committee, asked Mueller a series of simple questions. 

“I gather you think knowingly accepting foreign help in an election is an unethical thing to do?” Schiff inquired. 

“And a crime,” Mueller interjected, his stoic manner momentarily animated. 

“And unpatriotic?” Schiff added. 

“True.” 

“And wrong?” 

“True,” Mueller said again, displaying a trace of disgust, no doubt with the current occupant of the Oval Office.

 

Republicans, and Trump’s avid fans, who purport to love this country far more than his opponents, should try to remember a time when their Orange God ever said we need to protect elections from Russian interference. Mueller might not have stirred the masses with his answers; but he was perfectly clear when he said Russian interference in our elections was “among the most serious” challenges he had seen in all his years in law enforcement. 

Russia, he said in answer to a question from Rep. Will Hurd, the only member of his party to ask about Russians all day, did interfere in the 2016 election. 

They would interfere again. They were, he warned, still interfering “as we speak.” 

A Democrat asked the Special Counsel if he thought this was the “new normal,” that politicians would accept help from foreign powers to win future elections. “I hope this is not the new normal,” Mr. Mueller replied, “but I fear it is.”

BLOGGER’S NOTE (5/11/22): Team Trump blocked testimony by Don McGahn for nearly two more years, until the courts beat down the last challenge, and he went before Congress in June 2021. McGahn told lawmakers that Trump kept pressing him to have Mueller removed as Special Counsel, that he felt “trapped” by the president’s orders, and that he was prepared to resign if pressed to break the law. 

That should tell you something.