Lovely News for the Health of the Republic

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The White House announced Friday that it would cut off public access to visitor logs revealing who is entering the White House complex and which officials they are meeting....

Because secrecy is the hallmark of a free society, yes?

Because shielding your activities from scrutiny is an essential part of "draining the swamp," no?

Why would the public even want to know what donors and lobbyists and foreign agents are gaining access to the president and his top advisors, huh?

But this newest decision is totally in keeping with that other decision not to release Trump's tax returns, so a foolish consistency is now the hobgoblin nesting in Trump's orange thatch.

And what justification is Trump's mouthpiece offering for the secrecy? Why, the last dodge of an authoritarian mind-set ... "national security." You can't know who's going in and out of the White House on a daily basis because of "national security."

This decision for official cover-up follows closely on the White House's refusal to release the visitor log for Congressman Devin Nunes' midnight stroll on White House grounds to pick up classified information that might have helped Trump prop up his lie that President Obama had wiretapped him. It's a piece of the same cloth.

Devious Devin

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)

The Beav has left the building!

Republican Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, has temporarily stepped aside from the probe of Russian interference into our election, mainly, he said, because mean liberals have caused the House Ethics Committee to investigate allegations that “Nunes may have made unauthorized disclosures of classified information, in violation of House Rules, law, regulations, or other standards of conduct.”

The ethics probe is all about that Nunes midnight visit to the White House "grounds" to look at secret stuff that could then be divulged to the press in order to distract everyone from the Russian investigation.

Maybe the House Intelligence Committee can get something done now ... but not holding our breath. Trey Gowdy is one of the Republicans on the Intelligence Committee who'll be taking over for Nunes. Trey Gowdy also sits on the Ethics Committee. How convenient is that?

Trump Presidency: Wrapping Itself Around Its Own Axle

There's no keeping up any more. Trump and his guys are stonewalling the investigation into Russian collusion, and every day chunks of that stone wall crack, crumble, and silt down into a pile of useless dust. It'll be that slow process of dissolution that ultimately destroys this administration. Trump already seems well past his sell-by date. That Gallup tracking poll smells of soured and curdled milk.

Trump now seems desperate to distract people from the other truth: He's a loser. A loser with the magic touch: He turns others into losers too.

Sean Spicer.

Devin Nunes.

General Michael Flynn.

“If you’re not guilty of a crime, what do you need immunity for, right?”

--Donald Trump last September, at a campaign rally in Orlando 

...... 

“Mike Flynn should ask for immunity...."

 --Donald Trump, yesterday morning

Devin Nunes is the perfect deer in the headlights. Leave it to Beaver to get called up to the White House to look at some secret papers that kind of, maybe, might suggest that Trump was spied on before the election and then trot back up to the White House to brief the White House on what the White House just showed him. Devin Nunes has ruined himself. When will he join Sean Spicer as a caricature on Saturday Night Live?

Seen on Facebook recently: "Dammit, Trump should not be allowed to appoint a justice his last year in office."

To the Bottom of Things

Jeff Darcy, Cleveland.com

Last night on "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes actually said this:

“I’m sure that the Democrats do want me to quit because they know that I’m effective at getting to the bottom of things.”

Just gets hilarious-er and hilarious-er.

The cartoon makes perfect (if bizarre) sense. Trump is notorious for masquerading as his own press agent to plant stories about himself. Jeez!

Devin Nunes, Tattle-Tell

Devin Nunes (R-Calif.),
Chair of the House
Intelligence Committee

FBI Director James Comey threw a clod in Trump's churn on Monday, confirming that there is an investigation into collusion between Trump's campaign and the Russians, and he threw a second clod in there when he refused to validate Trump's lie that President Obama had wiretapped him during the transition.

But here comes little Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) yesterday to change the subject and sow confusion by immolating himself in front of the press. Nunes is the chair of the House Intelligence Committee and is supposed to be leading the House's investigation into the Russian subversion of our election. But he was also a member in good standing of Trump's transition team, so yuge conflict of interest.

But yesterday was the capper:

1. Nunes suddenly called a press conference and charged American spy agencies of gathering and sharing information unrelated to the Russian charges that was inadvertently picked up in "communication intercepts" of conversations involving foreign nationals who are presumably targets for investigation. (According to the NYTimes, "American intelligence agencies typically monitor foreign officials of allied and hostile countries, and they routinely sweep up communications linked to Americans who may be taking part in the conversation or are being spoken about.")

2. Nunes also admitted that he had no evidence that Trump or his associates had been directly eavesdropped on.

3. The real horror, Mr. Nunes told reporters, was that "he could figure out the identities of Trump associates from reading reports about intercepted communications that were shared among Obama administration officials with top security clearances. He said some Trump associates were also identified by name in the reports." Which is why he went running to the White House with the leaked information to tattle to the man he's supposed to be investigating.

4. In a second impromptu press conference on the driveway outside the White House, following his moment with Trump, Nunes was clearly trying to steer everyone away from the Comey bombshell on Monday by dangling the newest shiny object: dastardly leaks of classified information and inappropriate behavior by the intelligence agencies.

 5. Nunes said he received the information from an anonymous source ... after criticizing the media for publishing leaks.

6. He shared it with the press before his Intelligence Committee colleagues, including ranking Democrat Adam B. Schiff of California.

7. He went to the White House to brief Trump about the material despite leading an investigation involving the Trump administration.

For his part, Trump was clearly refreshed that Nunes had set himself on fire on the White House driveway: “I very much appreciated the fact that they found what they found.”

What would be happening today in America if this spectacle of improper tattling had happened between a Democratic House investigative committee chair and, say, President Hillary Clinton? Hmmm? Any idea?

The noose is tightening around this White House. Yesterday actually started with an AP investigative report that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had "agreed to advance Vladimir Putin’s political interests beginning in 2006 under a multimillion-dollar contract with one of the Russian president’s key allies."

It's always the cover-up that gets 'em.

In the meantime, Nunes must go. Go quickly. Go far away from any semblance of public trust.