Forward My Mail To Brazil

Kevin Siers, Charlotte Observer

News broke late last night that Trump's "own Roy Cohn," Attorney General William P. Barr, has opened a criminal inquiry into the possibility that members of his own Justice Department, including the FBI, ginned up "the Russia hoax" out of personal, "deep state" animus toward his boss.

Trump needs fall-guys to blame, enemies to destroy (that's why he's all over Ukraine too), and he would most especially like proof of disloyalty about a select handful of government employees, starting with former CIA chief John Brennan and including Andrew McCabe at the FBI and Peter Strzok. Don't forget Comey. And throw in Mueller while you're at it. That's what he wants, that's what he demands. And by Gawd, and with the Good Lord's help, William P. Barr will finger 'em!

Never mind the rock cold fact that Robert S. Mueller III secured indictments of more than two dozen Russian military operatives for interfering in the 2016 election. He knows their names. He knows what they did. He knows the actual keystrokes they made on their computers in St. Petersburg to promote Trump and tar Clinton.

But never mind that. Twitterman has made it perfectly clear that he expects the Justice Department to be his battle axe against his political enemies. After all, they're guilty of "treason" -- how many times now has he used that exact word? A most threatening word, because you remember how we treat traitors.

From "Brazil," 1985

Mueller also said in that report you didn't read that he had “insufficient evidence” to determine whether Trump or his aides engaged in a criminal conspiracy with the Russians but that the campaign welcomed the sabotage and expected to benefit from it.

So when I heard Rachel unspool that Barr news at 9 last night, and then I sat down this morning to read the NYTimes story for myself, I kinda went to "Brazil" in my head. Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" in the 1985 movie of the same name. That "Brazil" is a head trip, a fantasy landscape of escape for our hero from an authoritarian and cruel government. The movie ends with the chief of the Department of Information Retrieval saying to the man doing the torture on our hero, "He's got away from us." And the torturer, holding a scalpel ready to slice, replies ruefully,  " 'Fraid you're right. He's gone." 

Escaped mentally. It's the only escape, the movie proposes.

Hence the 1985 movie poster:

Doesn't Trump and his big pug Barr make you want to take a head trip and never return?

Gotta fight that. Gotta keep my head in the game. Gotta keep up my resistance.

With a Rally at ECU, Twitterman Will Attempt To Distract Us from Mueller

Williams Arena

Twitterman has scheduled himself a campaign rally on the same day -- July 17 -- that former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is scheduled to deliver "highly anticipated public testimony to Congress." Trump's campaign has chosen the Williams basketball arena at East Carolina State University, seating capacity 8,000.

Built in 1968, renovated in 1994, with 25 years on top of that of constant use (scoreboards especially, we hear, need an update), and, wait! You got the Reality TV star Who Is President coming to stomp the joint!? There'll be 8,000 people there on July 17, you can bet on it, and they'll be full of energy and full of themselves. They think they know Donald Trump from watching The Apprentice, and they think they know him for a successful, decisive chief executive who happens to share their opinion about those people trying to sneak into our country, and who doesn't put up with pussy-footing. Strong man. (With the scruples of a fencer fencing stolen goods. They don't care.) Those thousands will be there to scream their support and chant their chants and jump to their cheerleader.

It'll be a scene at the Williams arena.

But a rally like that has limited power. It doesn't so much sway the general electorate but pumps up followers to volunteer for the campaign, to put skin in the game and get out there and knock doors, make telephone calls, and go in front of the public to carry the banner. Are Trump's fans those types of potential volunteers? Dunno, but maybe they're not.

If Twitterman is aiming to distract everyone else from the Mueller testimony, it ain't gonna work. Unless he's going to hold his rally in the morning ... 'cause Mueller's a morning person, and that's when he'll be testifying. Trump will speak at twilight, I bet, and by then everyone will either have seen the Mueller testimony or will have heard about it. Trump's rally may blunt, or dilute, the news of Mueller finally talking, but as "counterprogramming" (Trump thinks strategy like a creature of TV), it's weak because it's a "re-run."

When the fans have seen an act so often that the act is beginning to seem like an act, what do you do for new material? Or rather, what does Trump do? He says something more outrageous than the last thing he said, and all the liberals jump medium high and talk yak-yak-yak about the outrageousness of it on cable news, and Trump's not-expanding base meanwhile hardens even while it also contracts.

It'll work for some of those who'll be crammed into Williams arena, a welcome distraction from the fucking fake news.

UPDATE
When news broke about this coming event, ECU students and faculty began raising objections, and ECU officials felt obliged to deny that they invited Trump. “ECU is not hosting this event, serving as a sponsor or endorsing this specific candidate in any way,” ECU said in a statement Wednesday. “We are simply renting the facilities to the Donald J. Trump Campaign in accordance with the ECU Use of University Property Regulation.”

Better get that money up-front, chumps. Twitterman has a long history of failing to pay.

Invitation to an Impeachment

Did you see Bob Mueller? He spoke about as clearly as a human being (who doesn't intend to be personally politicized) can speak: "Congress, it's your responsibility to deal with a lawless president."

"...if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so."

So much for Twitterman's claim that the Mueller Report completely exonerated him. But you knew he was lying about that from the git-go, didn't you?

"And I will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments, that there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election. And that allegation deserves the attention of every American."

Vladimir Putin wanted Trump. Putin worked to get Trump. Putin got Trump. Trump was thrilled with the effort and the outcome, but he began to cover it all up as soon as the facts began to leak.

The House of Representatives has its mandate, underscored by Mueller yesterday: "It's your responsibility to do something." They're doing it. Multiple investigations. Multiple subpoenas. The truth will out. You can count on it. Whether it produces a formal impeachment before November 2020, or piles up a mountain of evidence of Trump's criminal contempt for our Constitution, there should be no voter in the dark about the character of the man in the White House.

Richard Burr Says He Can't Remember

Some guys can't keep a secret.

On March 9, 2017, FBI Director James Comey briefed the "Gang of 8" on the progress of investigations into Russia's involvement in our elections. The Gang of 8 includes the heads of Senate and House intelligence committees, of which Sen. Richard Burr is one, in his official role as chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Burr and the others learned from Comey that four, maybe five individuals were under active investigation, including Paul Manafort, Gen. Mike Flynn, “the Greek Guy” Papadopoulos, and Carter Page.

That was highly secret information. But turns out Senator Richard Burr is a gossipy little bitch.

According to meticulous notes taken by White House Counsel Don McGahn (or by his assistant), Burr talked to McGahn via phone on March 16 and spilled those names to McGahn, who presumably passed them on to Twitterman.

The Mueller Report documents all of that transaction in footnoted detail.

What does Burr have to say about that inappropriate leaking? "I can't recall." Followed by "if specific individuals were discussed" -- opening a crack in his denial as wide as a church door -- "it was just people that everybody already knew were being investigated." Really. Here's Burr's statement in part:

"Chairman Burr does not recall this specific conversation with Mr. McGahn in March of 2017; however, any conversations between the two would have been in reference to the need for White House personnel to voluntarily comply with the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation," Caitlin Carroll, a spokeswoman for Burr, told NBC News in a statement. "If specific individuals were discussed, they would have been those known to the Committee, the White House, and the media. The Chairman’s stewardship over the Committee’s bipartisan and fact-based investigation over the last two years speaks for itself."

Burr's March 2017 spilling of beans to the White House was not the first time he carried water for Trump. In February 2017, Burr told The Washington Post that he had conversations with the White House about Russia-related news reports and had contacted news organizations to dispute articles by The New York Times and CNN. “I felt I had something to share that didn’t breach my responsibilities to the committee in an ongoing investigation,” Burr told the Post.

A lack of integrity and personal responsibility in protecting Twitterman from justice is going to be the death of the Republican Party.

Breitbart Goes After Thom Tillis

The most aggressive GOP champion of amnesty and outsourcing is North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis .... Tillis describes his “SUCCEED” bill as a way for illegals [to attain] citizenship, even though the bill awards that huge prize in 15 years to illegals who can enroll in education course after high-school and also avoid jail sentences that exceed one year. [Breitbart, 2 Oct. 2017]

The Breitbart writer, a hardliner on any immigration of brown people, doesn't like the "conservative version of the DREAM Act," which Tillis coauthored with Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma. The Breitbart writer holds a grudge against Tillis for using his senatorial power back in July to block put a hold on Trump's nominee for director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Sen. Tillis blocked the nomination to extort an additional 15,000 guest worker visas out of Homeland Security for certain North Carolina industries: "Summertime resort, seafood and landscaping industries are struggling to find American workers and need the foreign labor to survive" (Washington Times). That alone made Tillis a MAGA enemy. And then came the Succeed Act.

Not the first move Tillis has made that puts him cross-ways with Trump's America. He also  introduced the Special Prosecutor Integrity Act in the Senate, legislation designed specifically to protect Robert Mueller from the whims of Donald Trump.

Surprises happen all the time these days.

What won't be a surprise: a primary challenger for Thom Tillis in 2022. He must figger that's a loooong way off, but time flies when you're plotting revenge.

Mueller Means Business

Happened a couple of weeks ago, but news is just now emerging:

FBI agents raided the Alexandria home of President Trump’s former campaign chairman late last month, using a search warrant to seize documents and other materials, according to people familiar with the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Federal agents appeared at Paul Manafort’s home without advance warning in the predawn hours of July 26, the day after he met voluntarily with the staff for the Senate Intelligence Committee....

...The search warrant indicates investigators may have argued to a federal judge they had reason to believe Manafort could not be trusted to turn over all records in response to a grand jury subpoena.

Mob Action

Last night at his triumphalist rally in West Virginia, Trump opened up a new counter-strike against the Mueller investigation;

"They [Democrats] can't beat us at the voting booths so they are trying to cheat you out of the ... future that you want. They are trying to cheat you out of the leadership you want with a fake story that is demeaning to all of us and most importantly demeaning to our country and demeaning to our Constitution."

We well know that some 60 percent of West Virginia is part of the 36 percent of the American voters who still support Trump, so that rallying cry -- "they're trying to cheat you out of the leadership you want" -- is calculated to get the cheers that Trump craves in a state where the majority still support him. He needs constant flattery to feel validated, and he doesn't travel anywhere that validation isn't guaranteed.

But that line also suggests that he's perfectly willing to stir up the mob to defend him. How far is he willing to go? God only knows, but we'll find out.

Because the Mueller noose is tightening. He's empaneled his own grand jury in the District of Columbia, and he's apparently deep into Trump's tangled finances. Furthermore, the Republicans in the Senate at least -- who all have to run state-wide and not in gerrymandered safe havens -- are clearly done with his shenanigans. They are not adjourning the Senate during August so that Trump can't do any "recess appointments." Ouch. That's a direct slap at the leader of their party.

Thom Tillis

Two different bipartisan pairs of senators have drafted two separate pieces of legislation to prevent Trump from premptorily firing Robert Mueller. One of those bipartisan pairs includes an unlikely senator -- Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who hasn't heretofore shown much of a pulse. Both versions of a Stop Trump From Firing Mueller Act of 2017 would end the executive branch’s ability to fire a special counsel, by putting the question to a three-judge panel from the federal courts. Ouch again. That Tillis is willing to raise his hand in this manner against Trump suggests that he no longer fears retaliation.

Trump's mob actions notwithstanding, it appears that Republican senators intend to see the Mueller investigation through to its end, whatever that may entail. I think they'd probably prefer to have Mike Pence in the Oval Office. Maybe all of us would. Or maybe it isn't even a matter of preference but a matter of the life or death of our republic.

A High-Quality Person With Tons of Transparency

“My son is a high-quality person and I applaud his transparency,” Trump wrote yesterday and induced his deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to read it aloud to the White House press, some of whom were risking serious medical consequences by suppressing their huge guffaws.

Reminds me of the sorts of recommendations we were once expected to produce for distinctly unpromising job applicants: "When you know Don Junior the way I have come to know him, I'm sure you'll think of him as I do."

But ... "transparency"? Really, Donald? Junior rushed to publish those emails about his meeting with a Russian government lawyer because the New York Times was minutes away from pressing the publish button itself. That's "transparency" the same way this is: "Okay, coppers, I'm coming out with my hands up!" Plus we remember all that "transparency" from the past year -- total and complete denial about any contact with Russians, some of it coming straight out of the mouth of Junior.

Apparently, inside that snow globe of a brain, Trump believes that if he says it, we'll just accept it.

The Trump opposition has gotten awfully excited over the Junior revelations this week, but I find myself looking past this noise for the substance to come. The Russian spy operation "dangle" directed at Junior seems like a fairly minor sideshow to me, though it was a clear indication that the Trump campaign was more than willing to collude with some of the worst people in the universe. And without any doubt they did collude. They did plot. They did benefit from the colluding and plotting.

Robert Mueller will have to sort it all out, very patiently and thoroughly.

In the meantime, we get the almost daily leak from rival factions in the Trump White House. They're entertaining but not the full story.

Congratulations, Mr. President! You're Now Under Investigation. It'll Be the Greatest Investigation Ever Undertaken By Mankind

At 6:22 p.m. yesterday, the Washington Post flashed the news -- confirmed by several anonymous sources -- that special counsel Robert Mueller is now investigating Trump for obstruction of justice. This information comes hard on the heels of that other leaked information that Trump wanted to fire Mueller.

At 6:55 a.m. this morning, Trump tweeted:

They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2017

The following response quickly appeared on Twitter:

If the collusion story was phony, why bother obstructing the investigation? 🤔🤔🤔 https://t.co/yjr06Oh1iX

— scotus marshall (@LoganJames) June 15, 2017

Good question! If everything to do with the special counsel is mere fake news, why indeed appear constantly to cover it all up, deflect attention away from it, and fire a troublesome FBI director who refused to kiss the ring and pledge his loyalty?

The WashPost scoop linked above also reports that investigators have been looking "for any evidence of possible financial crimes among Trump associates." Hasn't it always been about money with the guy at the top, and presumably his associates too? Many dots would appear to connect Trump to Russian oligarch money, which would be the main reason IMO to "collude" with Russians. Piles of cash!

I believe Robert Mueller is following the money as well as the obstruction. When a president reacts to any mention of Russia's interference like a man who's just felt a hot branding iron next to his thigh -- that's suspicious.

"You're the greatest thing that's ever happened,
and everything you do is intentional!"

Trump and the "Possibility of Being Fired"

White House leakers have been talking again, and what we learn (via Glenn Thrush, Maggie Haberman, and Julie Hirschfeld Davis) is that Trump really did want to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, but White House chief of staff Reince Preibus and White House counsel Donald McGahn talked him out of it.

Doug Mills, New York Times

Jared Kushner, who had taken the lead in getting FBI director James Comey fired, was noticeably quiet about the firing of Mueller, since his bright idea about firing Comey had backfired and ballooned into the appointment of Mueller.

Trump is in a rage about Mueller. The gold drapes in the Oval Office have turned turd-brown, and everything the president puts in his mouth tastes like used dental floss.

Trump's BFF Christopher Ruddy made the president's intention of firing Mueller public Monday night in a television interview. Ruddy is now saying that he did that in order to prevent Mr. Trump from "making a rash decision." For which Ruddy is now on the outs with Dear Leader:

“Ruddy is nothing more than a journalist who doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” said Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, echoing the president’s sentiments, according to West Wing aides.

Ruddy is CEO of Newsmax Media.

Yesterday, during a noon-time meeting at the White House with Republican members of Congress, Trump was asked by reporters if he supported Mueller, and he refused to answer. Then this:

The president was pleased by the ambiguity of his position on Mr. Mueller, and thinks the possibility of being fired will focus the veteran prosecutor on delivering what the president desires most: a blanket public exoneration.

Trump apparently thinks that he's successfully intimidating Mueller. He also apparently thinks that toadies who praise him to his face on cue are being sincere. Any man this stupid should not have access to the nuclear codes.

Whatever Trump's Hiding Must Be Really Hideous

This news broke late yesterday in the WashPost:

Trump made separate appeals to the director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, and to Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, urging them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election.

Coats and Rogers refused to comply with the requests, which they both deemed to be inappropriate, according to two current and two former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private communications with the president.

“The problem wasn’t so much [Trump's] asking them to issue statements -- it was asking them to issue false statements about an ongoing investigation,” a former senior intelligence official said of the request to Coats.

Eventually, we'll know everything about Trump and the Russians and probably a good deal more about the idiot in the White House. Robert Mueller will tell us.

Getty/TMZ