The Pentagon Papers was a leak from Daniel Ellsberg. It helped de-legitimize the Vietnam War. Deep Throat was Mark Felt, a top FBI official. He gave Woodward and Bernstein the deep background on the Watergate scandal. Edward Snowden leaked information about US government surveillance programs. Chelsea Manning leaked documents and video relating to Iraqi air strikes, diplomatic cables, and Gitmo, … Read More
Flynn Exit
So… less than a month into the Administration, Trumps’ National Security Adviser, General Michael Flynn, resigns. WHY he resigned is important — he said (in a letter) that he regrets giving incomplete information to the Vice President. Ummm…. interesting way to put it. Another way to put it is… Flynn LIED to the Vice President. And yet an even better … Read More
Inside The White House
Apparently, Trump is learning you can’t run the government like you run a family business. You know why? Checks and balances. Civics 101. (I could have told him that years ago, but he didn’t ask me) Being president is harder than Donald Trump thought, according to aides and allies who say that he’s growing increasingly frustrated with the challenges of … Read More
It’s Hard To Keep Up With All That’s Going Down
Just yesterday — on ONE day… Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway broke ethics rules promoting Ivanka Trump clothes, which wouldn’t have happened if Trump hadn’t tweeted about how unfairly Nordstrom’s was treating Ivanka Trump by dropping her line of clothing. Then we learned that Trump, when talking to Putin last week, had to put Putin on hold in order to ask … Read More
Emoluments Lawsuit Against Trump To Be Filed Today
New York Times: WASHINGTON — A team of prominent constitutional scholars, Supreme Court litigators and former White House ethics lawyers intends to file a lawsuit Monday morning alleging that President Trump is violating the Constitution by allowing his hotels and other business operations to accept payments from foreign governments. The lawsuit is among a barrage of legal actions against the … Read More
The Bombshell Report That Russia Can Blackmail Trump, Explained
There’s an enormous amount we don’t yet know about CNN’s bombshell report that US intelligence agencies believe Russia has “compromising personal and financial information” on President-elect Donald Trump and that his campaign was in direct contact with with Russian intermediaries before the election. We don’t know who CNN’s sources are or if those people’s information is accurate. We don’t know … Read More
The OGE Is Trolling Trump
The Office of Government Ethics, which is responsible for ensuring executive branch personnel don’t run afoul of conflict of interest laws, has been pressuring Trump to place his fortune in a blind trust, like virtually every president before him. But Trump has thus far refused — and in his Wednesday tweetstorm, he purposefully did not say he plans on actually divesting from … Read More
The Very Uneventful 2016 Election
Yeah. I was in Europe for a couple of weeks. They weren’t following the election as much as I thought they might have been. And so I took a break from it too. I can’t remember what was going on when I left, but it sure was big and sure isn’t a headline now. I think it was about how … Read More
“The Story Has Vastly Exceeded The Boundaries Of The Facts”
Kudos to the Washington Post editorial board for adopting some perspective on the Clinton email scandal(s). To (finally) get to this point, WaPo relied on three piece of recent evidence. The first is a memo from FBI Director James Comey to his staff saying that anyone who is second-guessing their decision to not recommend charging Clinton doesn’t know what they’re … Read More
Two Little Bits of Non-Election Good News
What with Gene Wilder’s death bumming everybody out, and the constant harangue of a senseless election, here’s a couple of political things to brighten your day: (1) Governor LePage of Maine is considering resigning Gov. Paul LePage raised the possibility Tuesday that he may not finish his second term, amid mounting pressure from Democrats and members of his own party … Read More
Clinton Foundation Emails Show Praiseworthy Consideration Of Ethics
Twenty years ago, James Fallows wrote an essay for The Atlantic called “Why Americans Hate the Media.” Fallows’ thesis was illustrated today by the political media’s coverage of the release of emails associated with Hillary Clinton while secretary of state. His thesis was this: Instead of reporting the policy positions of candidates, and assessing their merits,…
The Clinton Foundation vs The Associated Press
Based on the frothy headlines, you might think the Clinton Foundation is some kind of illicit front company or sketchy offshore bank. Donald Trump wants to shut it down. The FBI has reportedly considered investigating it. A never-ending stream of once-private Hillary Clinton emails reveals donors to the foundation seeking special government favors when she was secretary of state. In … Read More
Ugh! More Damn Emails!
I don’t care, but everyone else will: The FBI uncovered nearly 15,000 more emails and materials sent to or from Hillary Clinton as part of the agency’s investigation into her use of private email at the State Department. The documents were not among the 30,000 work-related emails turned over to the State Department by her attorneys in December 2014. The … Read More
Breaking: It’s A Perjury Trap
FBI Director James Comey is on the Hill right now testifying before the House. He stated that he did not believe that Hillary Clinton lied to the FBI about her email server nor broke the law. It’s what he was expected to say. However, at one point, he was asked if Clinton lied to Congress when she testified (before the … Read More
Why I Don’t Have Much To Say About The Hillary Email Scandal
FBI Director James Comey gave a press conference yesterday morning that sent shock waves through the political establishment. The bottom line: Shock waves indeed, but when I looked around at the political landscape when it was over, I noticed that the pieces hadn’t moved. Hillary wasn’t indicted. That wasn’t news. She acted stupidly, carelessly. That wasn’t news either. That the … Read More