He’s a spy, so he’s sneaky.
Poor Sergey
You’d think Kislyak would be memorable:
“A script has to make sense, and life doesn’t.” - Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Democracy is helpless against this kind of contempt, especially if its primary institutions surrender to it without a fight, the way they did on Tuesday. To be plain, because of his continual assertion of an “appropriateness” privilege—which does not exist in the Constitution or the laws of this country—in order to avoid answering questions under oath, JeffBo should be residing in a holding cell right now until he changes his mind. (It’s very possible that Dan Coats and Mike Rogers should temporarily be his bunkmates, too. And the consistency of the testimony of all three men suggests a certain amount of, ah, coordination at other levels.)
You just don’t get to refuse to answer questions before a Senate committee because you don’t want to, or because you think you might get the president* in Dutch, or because you don’t like the people asking the questions. The Bartleby defense—“I would prefer not to…”—has no basis in constitutional or criminal law. There is no, as Senator Martin Heinrich put it to JeffBo, “appropriateness bucket” in which the attorney general can hide himself. Yet, there he was at the end of things, being flattered by the committee’s chairman, Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, for the immense sacrifice JeffBo had made in coming in and being transparently ridiculous on camera for a couple of hours.
Bonus: “Honest to god, is there a shallower person in public life than Republican Tom Cotton, the bobble-throated slapdick from Arkansas?”
I read that bottom line and thought to myself that that has got to be Pierce.
Weird I just missed a telephone “round table” conference with Mike Conaway, like an hour. That crazy land line of mine again pulling in the politicos. Damn, wish I had gotten home early…never signed up for this, was a cold call.
Who’s buying the President? Since Trump won the nomination, the percentage of buyers for his company’s real estate that are shadowy shell companies has increased - a lot. From 4% to 70%.
USA TODAY journalists have spent six months cataloging every condo, penthouse or other property that Trump and his companies own – and tracking the buyers behind every transaction. The investigation found Trump’s companies owned more than 430 individual properties worth well over $250 million.
Since Election Day, Trump’s businesses have sold 28 of those U.S. properties for $33 million. The sales include luxury condos and penthouses in Las Vegas and New York and oceanfront lots near Los Angeles. The value of his companies’ inventory of available real estate remains above a quarter-billion dollars.
Profits from sales of those properties flow through a trust run by Trump’s sons. The president is the sole beneficiary of the trust and can withdraw cash any time…
The clear post-nomination shift since last year to more shell-company purchases is unique to sales by Trump’s companies, even in his own towers and neighborhoods. Condos owned by others in the same buildings, and sold during the same time period, were bought by LLCs in no more than 20% of the transactions. In some areas, the share was far less.
Well, I sure wasn’t aware of the hacking of actual voter registration records and that sort of thing. I thought it was limited to DNC people’s email accounts and such. And of course all the obvious sudden plethora of Trumpista sock puppet accounts springing up on forums and social media about a year ago, if you want to call that hacking–it was definitely trying to sway the electorate.
Remember when White Water was a thing?
Any adjectives left?
When asked by the pool of reporters covering a midday meeting with Republican lawmakers at the White House whether he supported Mr. Mueller, Mr. Trump gave no answer, even though he often uses such interactions to make headlines or shoot down stories he believes to be fake.
That may have been by design, according to a person who spoke to Mr. Trump on Tuesday. 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.
It’s funny that Trump thinks he can psyche out a retired Marine officer.
NPR’s interview of a law professor on the non-privilege
SHAPIRO: OK, so professor Vladeck, explain what exactly is going on here.
VLADECK: So I mean I think the attorney general is basically trying to invent a new doctrine called the non-privileged privilege…
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
VLADECK: …Where he basically gets to say, I’m claiming executive privilege by not claiming executive privilege. Ari, that’s not how this is supposed to work.
Yep, basically what all the lawyers I follow said. But since Congress is useless it probably doesn’t matter.
This is good. It will also likely piss Trump off.
Which is also good.
Mike Lee and Rand Paul voted against.
If the Trump Years end up with a more assertive Congress putting limits on the Imperial Presidency, it might all be worth it.
Well, OK, no, but at least something positive will have come from it.