Trump, June 2017: From [Covfefe] with Love

Saw investigation leak described as "asshole insurance" to dissuade Trump from firing Mueller. Or who knows, maybe to goad him into doing it!

A source sent me RNC/Trump talking points for Repubs seeking to discredit tonight’s WaPo scoop on Mueller investigating Trump obstruction —> pic.twitter.com/ctwy2si9A7

— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) June 15, 2017

haha I love that this was leaked too. It's amazing.

Comey, when he offered tepid reassurance to Trump, would have known this was the logical end point.

yeah his testimony pretty much made this clear, sounds to me like he didn't want to go public because he knew this would likely not going to be the case down the road

so weird that the FBI cannot investigate two things at once!

Just wondering, if the shooting this morning had been deadlier or even just more effective... does the constitution state a minimum number of congress members required to do business, in case of emergency? Like, what if a party suddenly lost 5 senators? Or 10? What then?

50%+1

Even if one party loses several people and the other doesn't?

Yeah quorum rules

I feel like the end of Godfather 3 is how Trump's life is going to end and that makes me happy

obstruction investigation should be the easiest ever.

the party balance of power is not a constitutional mandate

From Rucker's thingy - I love "When is this fishing expedition going to end so that we can get back to the issues that matter to Americans?"

Issues like Whitewater, Monica, Benghazi, Lynch's tarmac meeting, AND OF COURSE HER EMAILS.

this is my shocked face

If passed, the measure could hamper ongoing talks between Trump administration officials and their Kremlin counterparts to remove the "irritants" in their relationship, beginning with the return of Russia's diplomatic compounds that were seized by Obama last year.

Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, one of the bill's cosponsor, told reporters on Wednesday that the White House was already beginning to lobby against the measure.

"I know that some people in the White House are pushing back," Brown said. "People in the White House, we hear, are making calls in the House to try to stop it, slow it, weaken it, dilute it."

http://www.businessinsider.com/senate-russia-sanctions-trump-2017-6

Good catch from my buddy:

https://www.justsecurity.org/42152/person-room-comey-sessions/

Another court loss for turmp

http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2017/in-victory-for-standing-rock-sioux-tribe-court-finds-that-approval-of-dakota-access-pipeline-violated-the-law#.WUHErnhtoko.twitter

Republican pols rely so much on talking points--is the system by which they're written and distributed known, or is it semi-secret? My impression is that, although Democrats might also use talking points, they are far less dependent on them, and this is a big part of why Republicans are more capable of operating in lockstep. Is that correct?

Even at the state level, a friend of mine is a (democratic) state rep, and she's remarked about how her republican counterparts seem uninterested in governing in an active and engaged manner. They're content to vote, navigate procedure, and parrot the message dictated to them by some very small circle of state party elites.

that government governs best, etc.

I thought Mueller was going to take his time working up to 45. That he was building up evidence working through the subordinates so he could hit him with the full whack of what he'd discovered.
Does going after him now permanently bypass Mueller being able to build a case that way?
I mean, it would have taken longer so delayed having impact on the ongoing incompetence and corruption of the orange one. But hope it doesn't impede him being able to discover everything that happened with Russia.
Would be great to hear Sessions decline was immediately imminent too.

An interesting read

https://www.wired.com/story/robert-mueller-special-counsel-investigation-team/

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 14 June 2017 23:47 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

To say the least!

republican counterparts seem uninterested in governing in an active and engaged manner

it helps if you think of them as daleks and substitute "TAX CUTS!!!! for "EXTERMINATE!!!!"

no need to substitute imo, 'exterminate' is after all the other 50% of the republican platform

true

also, it doesn't hurt that 'dalek' rhymes with ALEC

true

he got ahold of his phone and said the people who actually oughta be investigated are obama, clinton & rice

loooooooool u mad doggie

the people who actually oughta be investigated are obama, clinton & rice

But simultaneously the talking point is "let's end these endless investigations and focus on what really matters to Americans."

Nice.

this is essentially the same as being caught in a elevator pulling up your trousers next to a fresh, steaming pile of human shit, then loudly insisting you had nothing to do with it while refusing any requests for access to the elevator surveillance tapes

it looks real bad

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

Sounding pretty defeated this morning. No all caps, no exclamation marks...

'nice' not nearly as punchy as 'sad!'

mr. trump, where are your tax returns? why did you make one change and one change only to the RNC plank at the RNC convention?

I wonder if he has begun realizing that if he'd just kept his mouth shut and not fired anyone, that this whole thing would have gone away on it's own...

Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull imitated Trump in a speech that I guess is something like the White House Correspondents' Dinner, except it's not supposed to go public? Anyway, there's video.

Yam is essentailly a scab picker when it comes to crisis management

back in This Will End Well

Regime change back on formal agenda.
US supports "elements inside #Iran that would lead to peaceful transition of that gov," Tillerson says.

— Sadegh Ghorbani (@GhorbaniSadegh) June 14, 2017

Does going after him now permanently bypass Mueller being able to build a case that way?

Reading Josh Marshall try to piece together the timeline, assuming certain aspects of the Post story are true it's possible the obstruction investigation began before Mueller came on board, and that it was Rosenstein that set it in motion. Meaning there was maybe a month or so of material in progress that passed on the Mueller.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-wapo-obstruction-blockbuster-and-the-world-of-hurt-to-come

One key point is that Mueller did not start this obstruction investigation. According to the Post, that probe began “days after Comey was fired on May 9…” Mueller was appointed on May 17th. Reading the Post piece closely, I do not think it explicitly says that the probe began prior to the 17th. But the wording and logic of the piece strongly suggests that is the case.

Of course, none of us know all the facts, but given how cagey everyone from Comey to Rosenstein to Rogers and others have been about this story, anything is possible.

I hope Trump spends all week pushing back against Mueller and picking more fights with Australia.

http://www.npr.org/2017/06/15/533014228/senators-grill-trump-judicial-nominees-on-provocative-blog-posts

So here's a legal question from some of you real and fake lawyers. If Trump flat out said in his Lester Holt interview that he fired Comey due to Russia, how is that not an admission of intent? Likewise, if he told the Russians in person on the day after firing Comey that the firing "relieved great pressure," how is that not an admission as well? You can't make the claim that Trump didn't know what he was doing if the day or days after he flat out says why he did it in the most incriminating way.

On that second point, the White House never denied how he was quoted in the Russia meeting, right? Why not? Was there a recording/transcript? Usually they push back with "that is privileged, private information" or "the report is fake" or something like that, but they never did that, did they?

OK, Trump's had his morning shot of meth:

You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history - led by some very bad and conflicted people! #MAGA

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2017

He's totally going to fire Mueller, isn't he?

well, yeah

I still think the perfect ironic twist to all this would be the discovery that actual witches conspired in his downfall. Like he made a deal with a devil and it's time to collect. Or hey, maybe a twofer, with the ghost of Rasputin dragging him down.

Anyway, I still think Salem was the single greatest witch hunt in American history, followed by McCarthyism, but reasonable people can disagree.

i think you could make a pretty good case that trump's enthusiastic embrace of birtherism was a milestone in a more recent witch hunt

Trump's going to started tweeting about voodoo dolls soon

When I was a kid you just assumed that our witch hunts were just going to be greater than the ones our parents had. But sadly they mostly suck now.

This is the first American generation whose witch hunts will not be better than their parents' witch hunts.

This isn't your grandmother's witch hunt

It's Witch Hunt XTREME

The greatest witch hunts are actually some groundbreaking stuff being done in Brooklyn. You probably haven't heard of it.