Greg Sargent has a nice concise write-up: Last night, Rachel Maddow reported on leaked audio of Rep. Devin Nunes, who is perhaps President Trump’s staunchest bodyguard against accountability on Capitol Hill, in which he candidly revealed that Republicans hope to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein after the elections. Nunes is already leading such an impeachment drive — which … Read More
The Veterans Administration Is Run By Three Guys At Mar-A-Lago. Seriously.
This is amazing Last February, shortly after Peter O’Rourke became chief of staff for the Department of Veterans Affairs, he received an email from Bruce Moskowitz with his input on a new mental health initiative for the VA. “Received,” O’Rourke replied. “I will begin a project plan and develop a timeline for action.” O’Rourke treated the email as an order, … Read More
Swamp Drained A Little
Congressman Chris Collins (R – NY) was arrested this morning by the FBI shortly after he was indicted for securities related fraud related to insider trading allegations. From NBC: Chris Collins, a Republican congressman from upstate New York, surrendered to the FBI on Wednesday morning on securities fraud-related charges, prosecutors said. Collins, 68, faces insider trading charges along with his son, … Read More
Trump And Rosenstein Are Best Buds
From the Wall Street Journal: Before President Trump headed to meet Vladimir Putin last month, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein requested a meeting in the Oval Office. He was ready to indict Russian officials for election hacking and wanted to know if the president wanted the Justice Department to announce the charges before or after the trip. Mr. Trump told Mr. Rosenstein … Read More
Trump Tweets Over 30 Times From Friday To Monday, But One Tweet Gets Him Into Big Legal Trouble
No, that’s not the one. I mean, yes it is clearly racist, but that won’t plunge Trump into legal trouble. Besides, Keith Boykin had the perfect response: In Trump's World:Obama: KenyanLeBron James: dumbDon Lemon: dumbMaxine Waters: low IQblack countries: shitholesblack athletes: SOBsBlack tenants: unwelcomeBlack workers: lazyCentral Park 5: guiltyMexicans: rapistsMuslims: terroristsIndians: fakeNazis: very fine people — Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) August … Read More
The Drunk Spy
Alleged Russian spy Mariia Butina talked openly about her contacts with Russian intelligence officials when she got drunk, CNN reported yesterday. According to people who knew her at American University where she attended graduate school, on at least two occasions Butina bragged about her Russian government connections after she had imbibed and even said the Russian government was connected to her … Read More
Document Dump: The Rich Family Loses Its Lawsuit Against Fox News
The basic issue here is that the most natural claims against Fox et al would be defamation claims on Seth’s behalf; however, only a living person can bring a defamation suit. An estate can’t. So they tried to shoehorn Intentional Inflection of Emotional Distress claims by relatives and the judge wouldn’t go for it, mainly because Fox ceased and desisted … Read More
Breaking: Trump Bigwigs Make Show Of Combating Russian Election Meddling (But The Press Is The Enemy Of The People)
About time too. After 18 months of getting kicked in the balls, the WH rolls out its national security team to discuss what they are doing to defend elections and protect against attacks by hostile actors (including information operations that target American public) About time, guys. — Molly McKew (@MollyMcKew) August 2, 2018 Yup. DNI Dan Coats, at WH briefing, … Read More
Seven Theories Of L’Affaire Russe Whittled Down To Five
Ben Wittes has updated his seminal post from last summer…. I repost it here in its entirety: More than a year ago, writing with Jane Chong in May 2017, we laid out what we called, “Seven Theories of the Case: What Do We Really Know about L’Affaire Russe and What Could it All Mean?” The lengthy post was an attempt, … Read More
That Time My Cousin Brad Was On Maddow Talking About How He Was Hacked By Russians
Even though this was a couple weeks ago, I learned about it last night Sadly, I also learned last night about the death of another cousin.
Another Trump Tweetstorm This Morning
There was a time when Trump wouldn’t refer to Mueller by name, tweeting only about the “Special Council” from time to time. Maybe it is because he got continually mocked for misspelling “counsel”, but Trump now refers to Mueller by name in his tweets, as he did in a large tweetstorm (7 tweets) this morning. An unhinged Trump tweet isn’t … Read More
Mueller May Have What He Needs To Show Obstruction
An under-reported Murray Waas bombshell from this morning: Previously undisclosed evidence in the possession of Special Counsel Robert Mueller—including highly confidential White House records and testimony by some of President Trump’s own top aides—provides some of the strongest evidence to date implicating the president of the United States in an obstruction of justice. Several people who have reviewed a portion … Read More
Manafort Trial Starts Today
By all accounts, it is moving fast. The jury had already been selected and opening statements have started… and it is only 2 pm on Day One. I don’t know how closely this trial will be followed (I won’t follow it), but apparently, prosecutors are going to avoid “the T word” (“Trump”), since this is taking place in Northern Virginia, … Read More
Facebook: We Found Campaign Influence Operations For Upcoming Elections
Facebook has detected an ongoing influence operation targeting Americans with content related to the politically contentious issues of immigration enforcement and white supremacism, according to a report from the New York Times: Like the Russian interference campaign in 2016, the recently detected campaign dealt with divisive social issues. Facebook discovered coordinated activity around issues like a sequel to last year’s deadly “Unite … Read More
Ten Days Away
Yup. No blogging for quite ten days. I was taking some R&R in Costa Rica. I TRIED to stay off the grid — in fact, I thought I wouldn’t be able to get on the grid even if I wanted to. But alas, they have Internet there too. What did I miss? CNN reported last Thursday that Michael Cohen was prepared to … Read More