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Month: October 2018

The secret Watergate Grand Jury Indictments

The secret Watergate Grand Jury Indictments

by digby

Some long-sought documents on Watergate have just been released. How very interesting they are:

U.S. archivists on Wednesday revealed one of the last great secrets of the Watergate investigation — the backbone of a long-sealed report used by prosecutor Leon Jaworski to send Congress the evidence in the legal case against President Richard M. Nixon.

The release of the referral — delivered in 1974 as impeachment proceedings were being weighed — came after a former member of Nixon’s defense team and three prominent legal analysts filed separate lawsuits seeking its unsealing after more than four decades under grand jury secrecy rules. The legal analysts argued the report could offer a precedent and guide for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as his office addresses its present-day challenge on whether, and if so, how to make public findings from its investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, including any that directly involve President Trump.

The legal specialists said they and Watergate veterans sought to have the Jaworski report made public because of the historical parallels they see to the current probe and the report’s potential to serve as a counterexample to the independent counsel Ken Starr’s report before President Bill Clinton’s impeachment.

The 453-page Starr report, written in 1998, deepened partisan divisions when its graphic detail and legal conclusions about Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky were immediately made public by House Republicans, who suffered an electoral backlash.

By contrast, the reputation of Jaworski’s report has fared far better, even as its bare-bones form remained a mystery. The Jaworski report is known colloquially known as the “Sirica road map,” for then-Chief U.S. District Judge John J. Sirica, who approved its creation and transmission to lawmakers.

“There were no comments, no interpretations and not a word or phrase of accusatory nature. The ‘Road Map’ was simply that — a series of guideposts if the House Judiciary Committee wished to follow them,” the late Jaworski wrote in his 1976 memoir, “The Right and the Power: The Prosecution of Watergate.”
[…]
The road map consists of a two-page summary, followed by 53 numbered statements, supported by 97 documents including interviews and tapes, according to information that the National Archives turned over to Howell.

While much of the report’s substance — including evidence of the Nixon campaign’s funding of the break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters and the president’s role in the subsequent coverup — has long been public, its structure and potential to serve as a template for others remained under seal…

“It is one of the only precedents of a report that has had to go through that kind of process [under grand jury secrecy rules] to get to the House for consideration as grounds for impeachment,” Bates said in an interview. “If Mueller could say, ‘We have structured this report the way Leon Jaworski did in 1974, and Judge Sirica approved it,’ that might be persuasive in this case.”
[…]
Other veterans of past White House investigations differed on the road map’s lessons.

Paul Rosenzweig, who served on Starr’s team, said the document is important for historians, but that Justice Department regulations issued since then provide for Mueller to report to his supervisor, currently Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.

Nick Akerman, who served as an assistant prosecutor on Jaworski’s team, said however it could provide a model for Mueller, particularly should his team decide the president engaged in wrongdoing but that department regulations do not allow them to seek an indictment or make a case for impeachment.

“It’s absolutely an approach he could take — simply giving them the facts, without coming to a conclusion,” Akerman said.

This piece at Lawfare goes into detail about what’s in the documents and it’s fascinating. It draws very clear differences between Jaworski’s report and that bodice-ripping romance novel they called the Starr Report. They are different as night and day … They conclude:

Are there lessons in the Road Map for the Mueller investigation? Without knowing precisely what sort of report Mueller is working on and what his plans are, it’s hard to know for sure. But to the extent that Mueller is working, or comes to be working, on a communication to Congress, a few lessons stand out.

First, less really is more. The document is powerful because it is so spare; because it is trying to inform, not to persuade; because it utterly lacks rhetorical excess. Starr took a different path. The merits of his decision are complicated. The results are less so. His approach worked less well, partly because it sought to do more.

That also made him vulnerable to the charge of being a rogue or overzealous prosecutor after President Clinton for political purposes. Doing less, rather than more, has helped insulate Mueller against similar charges. The insulation has not been total, but it has helped a lot. The Road Map is a fine example of how not to fan flames, in a politicized environment, that are apt to blow back on a prosecutor.

Second and relatedly, the Road Map is extremely careful not to do—or seem to do—Congress’s job for it. The power to impeach is a congressional function in which no executive-branch official plays a role—except as the object of the impeachment. More ambitious reporting styles, one way or another, have the effect of instructing Congress what it should do, what does and does not constitute an impeachable offense, how it should read complex patterns of evidence. By contrast, the Road Map simply gave Congress information to use as members saw fit and assiduously avoided instruction or didactic messaging as to how to put that information to use. This discipline as to the report’s role must have required steely restraint. It has aged extremely well. It is the work of an officer, or group of officers, who asked important questions: What is my role, and what does my role not include? How does my role interact with that of other actors? What duty do I have to facilitate the role of other constitutional actors—and how can I fulfill that duty without interfering in their roles? Mueller may not be writing an impeachment referral, but for someone in his position, these questions are always worth asking.

Finally, the Road Map teaches an important lesson about restraint. There is a tendency in the age of Donald Trump to assume that excess is needed to combat excess, that the proper response to gross norm violations involve the scrapping of other norms. Yet faced with Richard Nixon, Leon Jaworski wrote a meticulous 55-page document that contains not a word of excess. He transmitted it to Congress, where it did not leak. It is powerful partly because it is so by-the-book.

Kind of like Bob Mueller.

Ken Starr’s operation was a full-blown partisan hit team. And it showed. Mueller won’t make that mistake.

They’ll say he was anyway but maybe it won’t matter if his case is this buttoned up.

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Next Tuesday is only the beginning

Next Tuesday is only the beginning

by digby



Paul Waldman points out
the daunting fact that all this chaotic ugliness is a preview of what the next two years are going to be like:

While it isn’t uncommon for presidents to roll out appealing initiatives in their fourth year to build a case for their reelection, with Trump it will likely be driven by alarm that increases as the election approaches. There’s a good chance he’ll be trailing in the polls — after all, even with the economy in excellent shape right now his approval ratings barely top 40 percent, so if there’s a slowdown he’s likely to dip even lower. Even so, with partisan attachments so rigid, it’s a near-certainty that the race will be close. As we get into October 2020, Trump could be ready to panic.

What will he do? It’s hard to tell this far in advance, but we’ve seen over and over again that Trump believes playing to his base — and making it as angry and fearful as possible — is the only way for him to win. That means heightening divisions, playing up xenophobia and appealing to white racial resentments.

It will have to be big and dramatic, in a way that’s impossible for voters to ignore. It will probably be profoundly anti-democratic, in a way guaranteed to generate outrage not just from Democrats but also from the news media and anyone else Trump can characterize as the “elite.” That way Trump will be able to pose as the rebel taking on powerful forces in the service of his regular-guy supporters.

Right now, Trump is afraid, as he should be, of losing one or both houses of Congress. But when his own job is on the line, that fear will be multiplied tenfold as he confronts the possibility that he’ll be forever remembered as the thing he hates most: a loser. We don’t know what he’ll do, but we know it will be ugly.

And, by the way, the presidential campaign starts next Wednesday morning.

Oh God.

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Everyone knows that “birthright citizenship” is what the “anchor baby” slogan is all about, right?

Everyone knows that “birthright citizenship” is what the “anchor baby” slogan is all about, right?

by digby

It’s been around a long time. This is from 2015 when this all came up in the early days of the GOP primary:

“They’re called babies”

by digby

Via CNN

Seeking to tie Jeb Bush to Donald Trump, the Clinton campaign published a bilingual video on immigration Thursday morning that tied the two Republican candidates together.




The campaign hits Trump, the Republican front-runner, and Bush, the Clinton campaign’s most common GOP target, on comments both made about “anchor babies,” a term some used for children of undocumented immigrants who gain U.S. citizenship by being born in the country.


Maybe they could start using the term “wetback” again too. “Spic” is good too. You know, in order to show their solidarity with the bigots. It’s a good thing they don’t need any Latino votes.


Update: 

Jeb Bush on Thursday said he doesn’t think the term “anchor babies” is offensive, wading further into the controversial debate over birthright citizenship that was sparked by Donald Trump.

“Give me another word” than “anchor babies,” he challenged while speaking at a press conference in Keene, New Hampshire Thursday.


That’s exactly what Trump said yesterday:

“You know what? Give me a different term.”

Let’s not kid ourselves. Racism and bigotry are his central organizing principles

Let’s not kid ourselves. Racism and bigotry are his central organizing principles

by digby

Greg Sargent is on a roll and this piece today is no exception. He points out that Trump’s “birthright citizenship” move is just another aspect of his white nationalism:

Trump, by moving to reverse what was originally intended as a bedrock guarantee of citizenship to those born here regardless of their race or the heritage of their parents, is again confirming fealty to a racialized vision of American citizenship, as Adam Serwer argues. When Trump recently said, “I’m a nationalist,” he prefaced this by suggesting this was a taboo thing to say, which is a way of dog-whistling, “I’m a racial nationalist, and I’m not afraid to say so,” while actually speaking aloud only the uncontroversial half of that notion.

By reviving ending birthright citizenship, Trump has again confirmed — as he did with his “s—hole countries” remark — that his animating impulse is to stall or roll back the country’s evolving racial and ethnic mix. As Garrett Epps has noted, stripping away citizenship is also the stuff of autocrats and tyrants. But it’s worth recalling that this position is hardly confined to Trump. When he floated it during the campaign, multiple other GOP contenders joined him.

Also, the Muslim ban, the Wall, the vote suppression and more.

This is his central organizing principle. He believes in it. It brought him to political prominence with the birther smear and it fueled his rise in 2016. He’s anything but a genius but he has a feral instinct for bigotry and racism. It’s who he is too, always has been.

His nationalism is white nationalism, and his lame dog whistle shows that on a primitive level he understands that.

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QOTD: Huckleberry

QOTD: Huckleberry


by digby

Lindsey Graham explains why he’s become Trump’s most sycophantic lieutenants:

“I don’t think there’s any room in the party for wanting him to fail. If they see your criticism is designed to want him to fail or not support him, then you’re in trouble.”

Remember when he was called a maverick? An iconoclast? His own man?

It was always a stretch. But now he’s been liberated from even pretending to have a conscience and he’s just a full-blown Trump fluffer. I think he likes it.

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Will the GOP benefit from Trump’s border stunt?

Will the GOP benefit from Trump’s border stunt?


by digby





My Salon column this morning:

President Trump refused to postpone his visit to Pittsburgh on Tuesday. Local officials and leaders of the community begged him not to come until after their funerals and time of mourning were over, but Trump has a busy rally schedule and said it was the only time he could fit in the PR stunt that nobody wanted him to do. So he went anyway, diverting security from the gatherings of mourners who were concerned that there could be another violent incident. The president, the first lady, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were on their own, lighting candles at the Tree of Life synagogue accompanied only by the rabbi and the Israeli ambassador as a sad, slow protest took place just blocks away:

The New York Times reported that Trump’s Jewish daughter and son-in-law had talked him into going, and that he didn’t really want to do it. He was angry that his superfan, alleged MAGAbomber Cesar Sayoc Jr., along with the Pittsburgh killer inspired by his rhetoric about the caravan, Robert Bowers, had disrupted his “strategy.” He was anxious to get right back to it.

That strategy is to gin up hatred and paranoia about a ragged band of Central American refugees, most of them women and children, who are walking through Mexico to seek asylum in America. They are several hundred miles from the U.S. border, but Trump is sending more than 5,000 troops down there to protect us from these dangerous invaders to the border. According to the Pentagon they will be armed, although Homeland Security head Kirstjen Neilsen says there are no plans to shoot anyone. So that’s a relief.

What they will be doing is still obscure but we know that Trump is very impressed by the pictures of the DMZ between North and South Korea. He said, “Look at Korea. We have a border in Korea. We have a wall of soldiers…You look at that, nobody comes through. But our own border, we don’t take care of it.32,000 soldiers, their finest equipment, barbed wire all over the place,” referring to the DMZ. We protect that whole thing. Nobody comes through.”  They don’t come through because his beautiful pen pal Kim Jong Un orders them to be shot if they try.

Trump told Fox News, “we’re going to build tent cities. We’re going to put tents up all over the place. We’re not going to build structures and spend all of this, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars — we’re going to have tents.”  Apparently, he’s unaware that this costs money as well, much more than it would cost to simply process people the normal way. According to CBS News, the Department of Health and Human Services expects to “spend $367 million on the government’s tent city at the Tornillo Port of Entry in Texas in just the final three months of the year.” That facility holds 1500 unaccompanied minors.

As for the cost of the troop deployment, let’s just say it’s going to be very high. Jennifer Griffin of Fox News reported that this will come out of the Pentagon budget and the numbers have not been finalized. But she notes that when President Bush sent 6000 National Guard it cost $1.2 billion.

In other words, this stunt is going to waste billions of taxpayer dollars for no reason. This is not a crisis. These refugees coming to the border are not dangerous. There is no threat to national security. Border crossings are way down from where they were a decade ago. The unemployment rate is very low. Migrants have been flowing back and forth over that border for centuries. There is no “invasion.”

Donald Trump wagging the dog. Instead of waging a phony war on foreign soil, he’s putting on a pricey pageant at America’s southern border in a blatant attempt to get his base out to vote next week. It would have been much cheaper to let him have his big parade.

It’s not that the country hasn’t faced a number of real crises requiring the mustering of federal resources and manpower since he’s been in office. There have been five major hurricanes and massive wildfires in the past two years resulting in horrible loss of life and property. And he has not shown even a tiny fraction of the same level of concern for those as he is showing for this phony border crisis.

In fact, he commonly complains about how much money they are costing “him” and suggests that the ones that take place in areas that didn’t vote for him had it coming. We all remember his  ghastly performance after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, even complaining  in the first few days that it was busting his budget. The federal recovery effort was incompetent from the beginning and the island is still in dire straits (made even worse by the GOP tax cuts.) And this is what the president had to say about that just last week:

To this day, Trump still does not understand that Puerto Rico is not a foreign country. But then he treats California as if it’s a foreign country too:

What’s happening should never happen. I go all over the country and I meet with governors. The first thing they say is there’s no reason for forest fires like that in California. So I say to the governor or whoever is going to be the governor of California you’d better get your act together because California, we’re just not going to continue to pay the kind of money that we’re paying because of fire fires that should never be to the extent that they were telling me in a couple of states I wouldn’t even mention their name…it’s costing the country hundreds of billions of dollars because of incompetence in California…it’s hurting our budget, our country. And they just better get their act together.

Evidently, he’s under the impression that the people of California don’t pay federal taxes. Or perhaps he sees all such payments as a donation to the United States of Trump and anything the people get back is a gift from him.

There are real crises happening all the time right here in the United States. But unless it can be blamed on a person of color, a foreigner, Democrats or the media, Trump’s interest is very limited. Just as he does with foreign countries, he likes to threaten to withhold money if people fail to kowtow properly before his throne. But he’s happy to spend billions on ridiculous stunts like sending troops to repel a nonexistent “caravan invasion,” in a ploy so obviously designed to rile up his followers to vote in the midterms that a five-year-old could see through it. What Trump hasn’t yet absorbed is that this kind of stuff also riles up his opponents. Perhaps that lesson will sink in next Tuesday night.
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Cynically Clueless? Cluelessly Cynical? Views Differ by tristero

Cynically Clueless? Cluelessly Cynical? Views Differ 

by tristero

You don’t have to be Jewish (as the old commercial goes) to know that this was a spectacularly bad idea:

At a campaign stop in Michigan on Monday, Vice President Mike Pence condemned anti-Semitism and the deadly massacre at Pittsburgh synagogue, and asked “a leader in the Jewish community” to offer a prayer for the victims and the country. 

As he began his prayer, it became immediately clear that the rabbi, Loren Jacobs of Congregation Shema Yisrael in suburban Detroit, would not be considered a Jew by any of the four major denominations of Judaism. In his prayer, he mentioned the “saving power” of the Lord and concluded, “In the name of Jesus, amen.” 

Rabbi Jacobs believes that Jesus is the Messiah, a conviction that is theologically incompatible with Judaism. Some Jews believe that the movement the rabbi represents, Messianic Judaism, is not only antithetical to Judaism but also hostile to their religion because its goal is to persuade Jews to accept Jesus as the Messiah, and by doing so convert Jewish people to Christianity. 

Rabbi Jacobs, a leading figure in the denomination colloquially known as Jews for Jesus, quickly came under criticism on Monday for appearing to represent Jews at the rally and for leading the only prayer by a religious figure at the event for the 11 people and six others injured in the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday.

After the rally, Mr. Pence’s office said that the vice president did not invite the rabbi to the event and asked him to offer a prayer on stage as a message of unity.
One religious leader upset about Rabbi Jacobs’s prayer on Monday was Rabbi Jason Miller, who lives in Detroit. He said on Twitter that there are more than 60 Jewish rabbis in Michigan that campaign rally organizers could have asked to offer a prayer. 

“For the record, Messianic ‘Judaism’ is a branch of Christianity & offensive to the Jewish community,” Rabbi Miller wrote in a separate tweet. “It was an insulting political stunt.”

One can’t begin to count the ways this was clueless and cynical. Clueless because mainstream Jews can’t accept Jesus as the Messiah. Cynical because Pence and Company are merely pretending to be ecumenical while actually asserting the dominance of American christianism.

Of course, Loren Jacobs and his Jews for Jesus followers are entitled to worship however they want. This is not about religious tolerance. But if Pence and his party sincerely wanted to demonstrate their “unity” at this awful time with the traumatized American Jewish community, this was a terrible way to show it.

Let them eat junk insurance by @BloggersRUs

Let them eat junk insurance
by Tom Sullivan

John Tester timed his last campaign ad to help him close the deal with Montana voters who sent the Democrat to the U.S. Senate twice already. Tester’s ad speaks to voters’ health care concerns and reinforces his authenticity against an opponent hailing from Maryland.

Republican Matt Rosendale has already lost points after disclosure he is a “rancher” with no cattle. He has dropped that affectation and now runs as a “Trump conservative” instead. Republicans hope nationalizing the race will help them defeat red-state Democrats like Tester.

Leaning on a ranch-sized meat grinder, Tester says:

I was nine years old when I lost my fingers in this meat grinder. My parents paid for the hospital because our healthcare didn’t cover anything. It was junk insurance. Thank god Montana got rid of junk healthcare plans a long time ago — until our insurance commissioner, Matt Rosendale, let them back in. My opponent is also pushing to allow insurance companies to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Tester’s ad also reaches voters as the six-week enrollment period for 2019 coverage under the Affordable Care Act opens November 1 — another reminder that health care is on the ballot days from now. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has already declared he would try again to repeal the Affordable Care Act if has has the votes to do it after the election.

Preserving protection for pre-existing conditions is voters’ most important concern in this election. So, Republican candidates are speaking like born-again believers in the Affordable Care Act even as they await a decision in a Texas lawsuit (joined by multiple conservative states) to have it declared unconstitutional.

Plus, having scrapped the individual mandate designed to keep costs down, the Trump administration is launching new efforts at undermining the act as it stands, including scheduling server downtime during the enrollment period and allowing sale of the kind of “junk insurance” Tester opposes, Politico reports:

The Trump administration is trying to take credit for the improving insurance marketplaces at the very same time that it’s chipping away at the law’s underpinnings. Those measures are expected to disproportionately hurt poor and vulnerable patients who have benefited most from the Affordable Care Act. Many of the changes, such as the wider availability of skimpier non-Obamacare plans, will take time to unfold. The impact won’t be apparent this week when sign-ups start just days before midterm elections defined in part by backlash to the GOP’s unpopular Obamacare repeal efforts.

[…]

Still, the law remains under attack from Republicans who still vow to repeal it and the Trump administration, which is asking federal courts to overturn protections for pre-existing conditions and issuing regulations promoting coverage alternatives. The Trump administration says it wants to create more affordable insurance options outside of Obamacare for millions of middle-class Americans who’ve been priced out of the law’s marketplaces. Those steps will likely appeal to healthier patients attracted to cheaper, less robust health plans, which could cause sicker patients left behind in the Obamacare marketplaces to face spiraling costs.

Like other red-state Democrats, Tester is campaigning against GOP efforts to weaken protections for pre-existing conditions. In Montana, he has the states acceptance of Medicaid expansion backing him up.

With his missing fingers, flat-top haircut and collection of ugly ties, Tester is in a tightening race that will test whether “a state-specific, parochial campaign still works against a national GOP message,” writes Politico’s Burgess Everett. Tester, who voted against the last Supreme Court nominee, has the sitting president, the Club for Growth, the Chamber of Commerce, Senate leaders, and the NRA gunning for him. Still, he welcomes the late money spent against him as “economic development. Bring it in.”

* * * * * * * * *

For The Win 2018 is ready for download. Request a copy of my county-level election mechanics primer at tom.bluecentury at gmail.

Speaking of stone cold thieves …

Speaking of stone cold thieves …

by digby

Trump had the monumental gall to call Andrew Gillum, Florida’s Democratic candidate for Governor “a stone cold thief.” He also called him corrupt.

You can’t make this stuff up:

President Donald Trump, his eldest three children and his business have each been named in a new class action lawsuit that claims they Trump brand to prey on vulnerable investors to take part in fraudulent schemes, allegedly defrauding them of millions in the process.

Four anonymous individuals filed the 164-page lawsuit in Manhattan federal court on Mondayaccusing the Trumps of “promoting what they described as promising business opportunities with three companies in exchange for ‘secret’ payments: ACN Opportunity, a telecommunications marketing company; the Trump Network, a vitamin and health product marketing company; and the Trump Institute, a seminar program that ‘purported to sell Trump’s ‘secrets to success,'” according to CNN.

The suit says the Trumps “deliberately misled” consumers about the success of their investments and lied about the fraudulent opportunities and why they supported them. Other charges claim that the Trumps engaged in “a pattern of racketeering activity” and “were aware that the vast majority of consumers would lose whatever money they invested in the business opportunities and training programs” offered by the aforementioned companies. However, the companies are not listed as co-defendants.

According to the Washington Post, the alleged schemes stemmed from “promotional spots and speeches that Trump made on behalf of marketing company ACN, also known as American Communications Network, which charged $499 for the chance to sell video phones licensed by the company and sometimes extracted thousands of dollars later to have a chance of recouping the money.”

The Post’s report continued: “Trump earned $450,000 each for three speeches he gave for ACN, according to his government disclosure form, but in marketing videos he told potential investors that the opportunity came ‘without any of the risks most entrepreneurs have to take’ and that his endorsement was ‘not for any money.'”

Aside from the Trump family allegedly knowing that the investments were fraudulent, the lawsuit also accused the family of promoting the schemes, including on the president’s former reality TV show “Celebrity Apprentice” — twice. The plaintiffs are seeking financial relief and a decision that blocks the Trumps from promoting similar schemes moving forward.

Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, seized on the timing of the lawsuit, as well as its funding from the Tesseract Research Center, a nonprofit with ties to Democratic candidates. “This is clearly just another effort by opponents of the president to use the court system to advance a political agenda,” Garten said in a statement. “The motivations here are as plain as day,” he added, given the timing ahead of the upcoming midterm elections on Nov. 6.

A spokesman for the plaintiff’s countered the Trump Organization’s assertion, telling CNN that the complaint was filed on Monday “because it is ready now.” “We did a thorough investigation and a lot of legal research, and the plaintiffs are eager to file,” he added. “No matter when this was filed, the Trump Org. would say it was politically motivated.”

But the Trump Organization also said that “not only are the allegations completely meritless, but they all relate to events which took place nearly a decade ago and are well past the statute of limitations.”

Trump stepped away from his business once entering the White House, and his sons, Donald Jr. and Eric Trump, now run the company. However, Trump still owns it, and Ivanka is a former executive at the company.

This new lawsuit recalls similar allegations of fraud leveled at the president. Trump settled three lawsuits relating to the now-defunct Trump University for $25 million a few days after the 2016 presidential election. Thousands of students of the real estate seminar were allegedly swindled out of millions of dollars, according to one of the suits.

He is, even today, stealing the country blind with both foreign and domestic emoluments. His kids are all over the world selling access to foreign developers.

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Hell hath no fury like Fox News scorned

Hell hath no fury like Fox News scorned

by digby

I don’t feel sorry for Megyn Kelly. She’s a right-wing hack and she made her bed. Still, this is pretty astonishing:

For 18 turbulent months at NBC, when Megyn Kelly stumbled, her former employer was lurking in the shadows—eagerly waiting to kick her while she was down.

Soon after Kelly departed her highly rated prime-time perch at Fox News in early 2017, Fox News’ notoriously ruthless public-relations and communications arm began encouraging outside reporters to cover negative stories about Kelly—a practice that continued right up to the “blackface” comment that proved to be her downfall.

Multiple sources tell The Daily Beast that top Fox flack Irena Briganti’s team suggested other media outlets write not just about Kelly’s “blackface” remarks, but about several other missteps throughout her NBC career.

According to two sources familiar with the situation, when Megyn Kelly Today showed initial signs of terrible ratings at NBC, the Fox News comms apparatus flagged those numbers for media reporters.

Late last year, when Kelly endured an online backlash for asking a Will & Grace fan if he was influenced to become gay because of the show and its lead character—and when Will & Grace star Debra Messing subsequently criticized Kelly—Fox PR quietly pushed the news to entertainment and media scribes.

Another instance: Hollywood Reporter journalist Jeremy Barr tweeted last week that Fox PR gave him “a tip” to try to deter him from reporting on a different story about a current Fox News host, telling him he should instead cover the “NBC/Megyn stuff” that was just starting to explode.

According to three people with direct knowledge, Briganti deeply resented Kelly, in large part because she privately blamed Kelly for leaks that painted the top Fox flack as an enabler for former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes amid the sexual-harassment scandal that ended his career.

Fox News said in the statement that the allegations were “wildly inaccurate and patently absurd.”

It denied urging reporters to jump on Kelly’s Will & Grace gaffe, saying the blunder created an “instant firestorm” that required no contribution from Fox News. It said that any conversations about Kelly’s ratings were in the context of Fox News beating her show.

As for Barr’s tweet, Fox said he “mischaracterized” the exchange and that a PR rep was just pointing out “that there was bigger news on the media beat to cover” than the story he was pursuing.

“The Daily Beast is relying on outdated information from former employees,” the statement said. “The PR department here defends and protects the Fox News brand and all of its talent on a 24/7 basis. There is no war whatsoever and no resentment against anyone who formerly worked at the network, including Megyn.”

“Irena has been wrongfully tagged with this narrative—no one is resentful here and everyone moved on two years ago. If anything, Irena (and the entire PR team) actually feel sorry for Megyn.”

Fox said its current PR team was being blamed for tactics employed by Briganti’s predecessor, who left in 2013.

Yet just last year, Kelly publicly accused Fox News of attacking her. During a segment about former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly’s history of alleged sexual harassment, Kelly noted on NBC that Briganti was “known for her vindictiveness,” and had shopped stories about alleged victims of Ailes.

“To this day, she pushes negative articles on certain Ailes accusers, [including me],” Kelly said.

A former senior Fox employee said Kelly had a point.

“Megyn Kelly was one of the single biggest beneficiaries of Fox News comms when she worked there. It was turned on her the very moment she packed up for… the competition,” the ex-staffer told The Daily Beast.

Trump TV allows Shep Smith to be a bit of an apostate. But Kelly betrayed not only Trump, she betrayed Roger Ailes. There’s no going back for her.

If the GOP ever completely turns on Trump I’d guess she runs for office.

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