Month: September 2019

More wingnuts join the circus

by digby

You knew they’d fight back, right?

As President Donald Trump’s presidency is threatened by an impeachment inquiry, the Republican chairmen of two Senate committees, Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley, are asking Attorney General William Barr to investigate any ties between Ukraine and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

In a letter to Barr released on Monday, Johnson (R-Wis.) and Grassley (R-Iowa) pressed the Justice Department to probe any connection between Clinton and Ukrainian operatives. They said they have “concerns about foreign assistance in the 2016 election that have not been thoroughly addressed.”

Their letter comes as Trump faces an impeachment inquiry from the House amid revelations that he sought help from Ukraine’s president to probe former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading contender for the Democratic nomination. But these two Republicans say there’s another story about government corruption allegations the Justice Department should be pursuing.

“The Justice Department has yet to inform Congress and the public whether it has begun an investigation into links and coordination between the Ukrainian government and individuals associated with the campaign of Hillary Clinton or the Democratic National Committee. Ukrainian efforts, abetted by a U.S. political party, to interfere in the 2016 election should not be ignored,” the two senators wrote in a letter dated Sept. 27. “Are you investigating links and coordination between the Ukrainian government and individuals associated with the campaign of Hillary Clinton or the Democratic National Committee? If not, why not?”

Because it’s bullshit, of course. But that won’t stop them. The counter-narrative is about to become official.

BY the way, I’m fairly sure that Barrs “Oranges of the Investigation” Special Prosecutor Durham is also reportedly in Europe looking for Ukraine dirt along this line. And Barr has been in Italy this week, obviously looking for help from a right wing ally.

Fasten your seatbelts.This is going to get even loonier.

To think these people would go to the mat for that brain-damaged imbecile.

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Bill Barr, top henchman, in this up to his neck

by digby

This is outrageous:

President Trump pushed the Australian prime minister during a recent telephone call to help Attorney General William P. Barr gather information for a Justice Department inquiry that Mr. Trump hopes will discredit the Mueller investigation, according to two American officials with knowledge of the call.

The White House restricted access to the call’s transcript to a small group of the president’s aides, one of the officials said, an unusual decision that is similar to the handling of a July call with the Ukrainian president that is at the heart of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump. Like that call, the discussion with Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia shows the extent to which Mr. Trump sees the attorney general as a critical partner in his goal to show that the Mueller investigation had corrupt and partisan origins, and the extent that Mr. Trump sees the Justice Department inquiry as a potential way to gain leverage over America’s closest allies.

And like the call with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, the discussion with Mr. Morrison shows the president using high-level diplomacy to advance his personal political interests.

President Trump initiated the discussion in recent weeks with Mr. Morrison explicitly for the purpose of requesting Australia’s help in the Justice Department review of the Russia investigation, according to the two people with knowledge of the discussion. Mr. Barr requested that Mr. Trump speak to Mr. Morrison, one of the people said. It came only weeks after Mr. Trump seemed to make military aid to Ukraine contingent on Mr. Zelensky doing him the “favor” of helping Mr. Barr with his work.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment. A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did a spokesperson for the Australian prime minister.

In making the request, Mr. Trump was in effect asking the Australian government to investigate itself. The F.B.I.’s counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election began after Australian officials told the bureau that the Russian government had made overtures to the Trump campaign about releasing political damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

Australian officials shared that information after its top official in Britain met in London in May 2016 with George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser who told the Australian about the Russian dirt on Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Papadopoulos also said that he had heard that the Russians had “thousands” of Mrs. Clinton’s emails from Joseph Mifsud, an academic. Mr. Mifsud, who was last seen working as a visiting professor in Rome, has disappeared. Trump allies, like the president’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, have put forth an unsubstantiated claim that Western intelligence agencies planted Mr. Mifsud to trap Mr. Papadopoulos.

Mr. Barr flew to Italy last week and met with Italian government officials on Friday. The Justice Department spokeswoman would not say whether he discussed the election inquiry in those meetings, but former Justice Department officials said that Mr. Barr would need to ask foreign countries for cooperation in turning over documents pertaining to the 2016 election.

Barr said in he thought that the government had “spied” on Trump’s campaign. He’s all in on the absurd belief that there was some “deep state” conspiracy to destroy the Trump campaign despite the fact that they forgot to say anything about it BEFORE THE FUCKING ELECTION and instead did everything they could to destroy Hillary Clinton. Fergawdsake.

Why in the hell didn’t anyone know that Barr was a rightwing nutball before he was allowed to step into this mess? It’s ridiculous.

And, by the way, it’s time for people in the Justice Department to speak up if they are patriots. Or believe in the rule of law. Or even just want to desert the sinking ship.

More here:

Attorney General William P. Barr has held private meetings overseas with foreign intelligence officials seeking their help in a Justice Department inquiry that President Trump hopes will discredit U.S. intelligence agencies’ examination of Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the matter.

Barr’s personal involvement is likely to stoke further criticism from Democrats pursuing impeachment that he is helping the Trump administration use executive branch powers to augment investigations aimed primarily at the president’s adversaries.

But the high level Justice Department focus on intelligence operatives’ conduct will likely cheer Trump and other conservatives for whom “investigate the investigators” has become a rallying cry.

The direct involvement of the nation’s top law enforcement official shows the priority Barr places on the investigation being conducted by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, who has been assigned the sensitive task of reviewing U.S. intelligence work surrounding the 2016 election and its aftermath.

The attorney general’s active role also underscores the degree to which a nearly three-year old election still consumes significant resources and attention inside the federal government. Current and former intelligence and law enforcement officials expressed frustration and alarm Monday that the head of the Justice Department was taking such a direct role in re-examining what they view as conspiracy theories and baseless allegations of misconduct.

Barr has already made overtures to British intelligence officials, and last week the attorney general traveled to Italy, where he and Durham met senior Italian government officials and Barr asked the Italians to assist Durham, according to one person familiar with the matter. It was not Barr’s first trip to Italy to meet intelligence officials, the person said. The Trump administration has made similar requests of Australia, these people said.

So there’s a special prosecutor on this and Barr is taking the lead? Is that kosher?

I guess anything goes with these guys.

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He knows where the bodies are buried

by digby

Bolton steps out:

Former national security adviser John Bolton made clear on Monday in his first public remarks since his contentious departure from the White House that he opposed President Donald Trump’s approach to North Korea and Iran as multiple current and former administration officials say he also was at odds with his former boss over a July phone call with the president of Ukraine.

Three officials said Bolton argued against Trump calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on July 24 because he was concerned the president wasn’t coordinating with advisers on what to say and might air personal grievances. The officials declined to say whether that included concerns that Trump might raise questions about his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Ukraine.

Bolton was among the senior members of the president’s national security team, including Vice President Mike Pence, who did not listen in on the Zelenskiy call, officials said.

Now there are growing fears among people close to Trump that Bolton and his allies are poised to inflict the most damage on the president given his unceremonious exit from the White House and how much he knows from his 17 months there.

“They know where a lot of the bodies are buried,” one person close to the White House said.

He’s an OG wingnut. But I don’t know if he will lie for the president.

They should subpoena him and find out.

Oh, and we know that Kim Jong Un has no intention of giving up his weapons. Why in the world would he? Indeed, Trump has made him more stubborn on that count than ever with his Ukraine games. They gave up their nuclear weapons over a decade ago with the understanding that the US and NATO would protect them.

How’s that going?

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Now that Rudy’s melting down, will they bring in the B Team?


by digby

My Salon column this morning:

The President of the United States isn’t taking this whole impeachment thing very well, is he? From his red-faced tarmac tirades last week to his hysterical tweeting this past week-end, it’s clear that he is losing whatever tenuous hold he had on his emotions. Here’s just a sample of the most powerful man in the world’s state of mind right now:

“State Department has stepped up Hillary Clinton Email probe.” @foxandfriends You mean the 33,000 Emails that she has deleted and acid washed so they can never be found, even though she said that all 33,000 pertained only to her daughter’s wedding, and her Yoga!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2019

His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber. He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the President of the United States. I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 29, 2019

Yes, he’s demanding that House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., be investigated by “the highest authority” (whoever that might be) for treason and fraud. And he’s retweeting supporters who are threatening civil war if the House impeaches him. To say he is upset is an understatement.

The other big Republican with his name in the crosshairs is Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani — who, it must be remembered, was leading the GOP presidential primary field eight years ago at this point, proving that the Republican Party has been heading over the cliff for a long while. Giuliani seemed barely coherent on television this weekend; one imagines that if he had become president we would probably have landed in pretty much the same place we are now.

Giuliani showed up on ABC’s “This Week” with his hands full of papers he claimed would prove that Donald Trump had been framed by the Democrats. He lied in claiming he had never pushed the conspiracy theory that Ukraine had hacked the Democratic National Committee to frame to Russians, but did insist that the Ukrainians had created “false information” and colluded with Hillary Clinton to interfere in the 2016 election. His client has certainly signed on to the Ukrainian hacking theory. That’s what Trump was referring to in his conversation with Volodymyr Zelensky when he mentioned CrowdStrike, a computer security firm in California whose founder, Dmitri Alperovitch, is — well, no, not Ukrainian. (He’s Russian by birth.)

Giuliani waved his papers around for the cameras and claimed that if Trump hadn’t demanded that the Ukrainian president investigate Joe Biden he would have violated Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, whatever that means. (That largely concerns the president’s authority to convene or adjourn Congress, and his duty to deliver the State of the Union.) Giuliani also said he would not appear before the House Intelligence Committee, or that perhaps he would if they put in a chairman he approved of (i.e., not Adam Schiff).

He had a lot to say and little of it made any sense.

Giuliani is falling apart. He’s in the middle of a contentious divorce. His former colleagues in the Justice Department have said that the prosecutor he once was would have arrested the lawyer he is now. His legacy as “America’s Mayor” after 9/11 has been shattered. It’s only a matter of time before Donald Trump has to pull the plug on this relationship in order to save himself. Whether Giuliani sticks with the boss or follows in the footsteps of his previous fixer, Michael Cohen, his future doesn’t look bright.

The question then will be whether Trump calls in the B-team, longtime Republican lawyers Joe diGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing. They are all up to speed on this Ukraine situation, since they’ve been working with Giuliani since at least last spring. The New York Times reported in May that while Trump had decided not to bring the conservative power couple into the White House to work on the Russia probe, they would “assist him with other legal matters.” This explains that.

Toensing and diGenova had been pushing the Ukraine conspiracy theory on Fox and on Twitter for months:

The real collusion began in @Ukraine. US Ambassador Marie #yovanovitch at @USEmbassyKyiv pro #HillaryClinton and a #NeverTrumper. https://t.co/BbxWwl7yTL

— Victoria Toensing (@VicToensing) March 21, 2019

Toensing was even scheduled to accompany Giuliani on his controversial and ultimately canceled trip to Ukraine, and has personally met with the Ukrainian prosecutor at the center of the conspiracy theory.

Recall that Toensing was also involved in the bogus Uranium One scandal as well as “Spygate.” She defended former Trump underlings Mark Corallo and Sam Clovis, both witnesses in the Mueller investigation. In other words, this dynamic duo has been operating “off the books” in Trump World, as Chris Wallace put it on Fox News this weekend, for some time. As Josh Marshall has reported, Toensing and diGenova have recently signed another client by the name of Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch who happens to be the former business partner of Paul Manafort, Trump’s now-incarcerated former campaign chairman. It’s a small world after all.

But Trump might have another reason for turning to diGenova and Toensing. They know their way around impeachment. During the Monica Lewinsky scandal in the late ’90s, the Washington Post called them “The Power Couple at Scandal’s Vortex.” The reporter on that piece was Howard Kurtz, now of Fox News, who wrote:

DiGenova has become a white-hot media presence, politically connected lawyer and all-around agent provocateur. He and Toensing, also a battle-tested former prosecutor, keep popping up wherever there is trouble — as commentators, as investigators, as unnamed sources for reporters. A classic Washington power couple, diGenova, 53, and Toensing, 56, occupy a strange, symbiotic nexus between the media and the law that boosts their stock in both worlds. They are clearly players, which gives them access to juicy information, which gets them on television, which generates legal business.

These people were made for the Trump era. In fact, in some ways they invented it. Here’s Toensing, after the revelation that she was approached by a go-between for Linda Tripp, the woman who was working with GOP operative Lucianne Goldberg to trap Lewinsky into talking about her affair with Bill Clinton on tape:

On NBC’s “Today” the next morning, Toensing assailed what she called “the anatomy of a lie. … That’s how it works here, folks. It ain’t pretty. … They put out just enough of a kernel of truth and then spin it, because what they want to do is make it look like all Republicans got together to go after the president.”

Sound familiar? I wrote about the two of them back in February of 2018, when it was announced they would represent Corallo. DiGenova had been giving interviews pushing a theory that Barack Obama and James Comey had engaged in “a brazen plot to exonerate Hillary Clinton and frame an incoming president with a false Russian conspiracy.” In fact, diGenova had been working that beat even before the 2016 election, complaining on Fox News about Comey’s handing of the Clinton email case:

Comey’s a dirty cop. And if there’s one thing a prosecutor hates worse than a criminal, it’s a dirty cop. … He threw this case. He did it for political reasons. He lied publicly about the quality of the case. He lied publicly about the law. He lied publicly about the ability to get documents when he could have used the grand jury and he didn’t.

Recall that Rudy Giuliani had been saying much the same thing at the time, and was rumored to be working with the New York FBI office to ensure that Comey would blow up the Clinton campaign in the last days.

There’s no word that diGenova and Toensing were working with Giuliani back then. They really didn’t have to. They’re professional Republican operatives who do character assassination for a living. They don’t have to be told

So of course they are involved in this Ukraine business. They have been at the center of every bogus right-wing conspiracy hustle of the last 20 years. Where else would they be?

Remember Helsinki when he spoke privately for 2 hours Putin? It’s pretty clear they talked about this.

by digby

I always thought the following shocking bit of gibberish was weird even for him. It just flowed out of him — as if he’d just been talking about it:

REPORTER (Jonathan Lemire from AP): Thank you. A question for each president. President Trump, you first. Just now President Putin denied having anything to do with the election interference in 2016. Every US intelligence agency has concluded that Russia did.

My first question for you, sir, is who do you believe? My second question is would you now with the whole world watching tell President Putin — would you denounce what happened in 2016 and would you warn him to never do it again?

TRUMP: So let me just say that we have two thoughts.

You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server. Why haven’t they taken the server? 

Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the democratic national committee? I’ve been wondering that. I’ve been asking that for months and months and I’ve been tweeting it out and calling it out on social media. 

Where is the server? I want to know, where is the server and what is the server saying? With that being said, all I can do is ask the question. 

My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others and said they think it’s Russia.

I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. 

I will say this. I don’t see any reason why it would be, but I really do want to see the server. 

But I have confidence in both parties. 

I really believe that this will probably go on for a while, but I don’t think it can go on without finding out what happened to the server. 

What happened to the servers of the Pakistani gentleman that worked on the DNC?  Where are those servers? They’re missing. Where are they? 

What happened to Hillary Clinton’s emails? 33,000 emails gone — just gone. 

I think in Russia they wouldn’t be gone so easily. I think it’s a disgrace that we can’t get Hillary Clinton’s 33,000 emails. 

So I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that president Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. 

And what he did is an incredible offer. He offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators, with respect to the 12 people. I think that’s an incredible offer.

They’d discussed it privately, obviously. And Putin had obviously had renewed his fatuous offer to the fool to have his “investigators” come over to the US to work with the FBI and Mueller.

He had to have been barely repressing laughter at the idiocy.

Trump clearly shared this inane conspiracy theory with Putin. The question is how much of it Putin shared with Trump.

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#AskPreet How will the WH mob avoid prosecution for witness tampering?   

By Spocko

On former US Attorney Preet Bharara’s podcast, Stay Tuned with Preet, he and Anne Milgram, former New Jersey Attorney General, discussed quid pro cases and referred to politicians they successfully prosecuted. It was very interesting. Now I want to hear about cases where they busted politicians and how they did it. 

Of course the “experts” on Fox & Friends say there was no quid pro quo with Trump and Ukraine. Maybe it was something else…

— JEN KIRKMAN (@JenKirkman) September 26, 2019

But seriously, Preet, for your next podcast I want to hear about witness tampering cases.  What evidence is needed to successfully prosecute them?

I ask because right now I see the White House is ramping up the attacks on witnesses.

“Top White House aides plan to present President Trump with a wide ranging response strategy to the growing threat of impeachment in the coming days”. NBC News

Trump attack quote.

….In addition, I want to meet not only my accuser, who presented SECOND & THIRD HAND INFORMATION, but also the person who illegally gave this information, which was largely incorrect, to the “Whistleblower.” Was this person SPYING on the U.S. President? Big Consequences!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 29, 2019

The lawyers for the whistleblower are concerned about his safety.

(PDF link to letter to House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence)

Trump will use the same methods to intimidate witnesses as before. How have these tactics been successfully busted before by prosecutors?

Barbara McQuade has talked about how hard it is to prosecute witness tampering because the state needs to prove intent.

Are there ways that prosecution lawyers were able prove intent? How did defense lawyers avoid criminal prosecution?  If we know the tricks they will use, can we prepare to catch them in the act?

For example, did defendants use “cut outs” or third parties to do the dirty work for them, so the act of intimidation couldn’t be traced back to the defendant?

Good news on the Stormy front! She just won $450,000 from the city of Columbus Ohio. (Police arrested Daniels on July 11, 2018, at the Sirens Gentlemen’s Club on misdemeanor charges of inappropriately touching customers.)

We know how Trump fights. He learned from Roy Cohen. Author Selwyn Raab, who wrote about the Mafia and John Gotti, said in an interview in Slate, by Rebecca Onion.

“It’s important to remember that Trump learned his ABCs for success from Roy Cohn, who was mixed up in the Mafia, defended them, and mentored Trump exactly how to succeed in life. “Always be aggressive, take no prisoners …

”Roy Cohn defended major mob bosses two ways: He tried to bribe the judges, and he would undercut any witness against them. They demolished the witnesses. And Gotti’s lawyers did that until his final trial. You didn’t accept the word of any opponent, you demolish them.”

I think the public could learn from Selwyn Raab, a former investigative reporter for the New York Times who covered organized crime,wrote Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires.

But what I want from you Preet and Anne are stories from our CURRENT justice system. What have our US Attorneys learned about how witness tampering works in our current system? What have the mob lawyers learned? What does it mean when the judge that might try a case, owes his appointment to the person on trial? How do the rules change when a mob boss can use millions of followers on Twitter to undercut or threaten a witness? What is the punishment for an entire media operation that will demolish a witnesses?

Bottom line.  The WH will use mob tactics against the whistleblower and anyone who helped him. It’s what they do. A lot of people I’ve talked to (okay, at least 5 ) think Democrats won’t be able to pin a witness tampering charge on Trump. So I’m asking you to give us recent examples of cases where law enforcement WAS ready for threats, caught the people making them & successfully prosecuted them.

I want to give people both hope and a model to follow.

LLAP,

Spocko

Propagandists gonna propagandize
by Tom Sullivan

The acting president’s defensive line may not be imposing, but its members are consistent. When it is convenient. The GOP’s propaganda offensive against the White House’s own admissions in the Ukraine affair centers on the fact the whistleblower complaint is built on secondhand information. Hearsay, they charge. But corroborated by the Ukraine call summary the White House itself released of Donald Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump wanted Zelensky to concoct hearsay he could use against an American political rival.

Whistleblower complaint: Trump pressured President Zelensky to “initiate or continue an investigation into the activities of former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.”

White House call summary [Trump]: “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.”

Whistleblower complaint: Trump pressured President Zelensky to “assist in purportedly uncovering that allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election originated in Ukraine, with a specific request that the Ukrainian leader locate and turn over servers used by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and examined by the U.S. cyber security firm Crowdstrike …”

White House call summary [Trump]: “I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it … I would like to have the Attorney General call you or one of your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it.”

Whistleblower complaint: Trump pressured President Zelensky to “meet or speak with two people the president named explicitly as his personal envoys on these matters, Mr. Giuliani and Attorney General Barr to whom the President referred multiple times in tandem.”

White House call summary [Trump]: “Giuliani is a highly respected man…and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General.”

“I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it.”

“I will tell Rudy and Attorney General Barr to call.”

Whistleblower complaint: “…the transcript was loaded into a separate electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature. One White House official described this as an abuse of this electronic system because the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.”

CNN: The White House acknowledged Friday that administration officials directed a now-infamous Ukraine call transcript be filed in a highly classified system, confirming allegations contained in a whistleblower complaint that have roiled Washington.

Those are the core allegations, plus this exchange from the White House’s call summary. Trump had twice reminded Zelensky that the U.S. had been “very very good to Ukraine.” But the relationship had not been reciprocal, Trump noted (emphasis added):

Zelensky: I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.

Trump: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine…

Nice country you got there. Be a shame if you couldn’t defend it. Trump suspended $400 million in approved aid to Ukraine at least a week before the call.

These are the documents in evidence. Trump describes the whistleblower’s complaint “completely different and at odds from my actual conversation” and “totally inaccurate and fraudulent.” Reading comprehension is not his strong suit. Or perhaps he simply has lost all grip on reality. The second appears even more likely than before.

This information Trump surrogates claim is “hearsay.”

Perhaps, but corroborated hearsay, yes?

Now comes the flood of reality-bending propaganda from Team Trump, led by the man-child himself.

The problem is the media’s reflex to put the propagandists on the air or in print. The media becomes a vector for spreading lies the Trumpers want spread.

Born and raised in the former Soviet Union, Gary Kasparov knows something about being propagandized. He warns that even refuting the bullshit reinforces it. (See George Lakoff’s “Don’t Think of an Elephant.”)

As you watch Trump’s defenders lie, deflect, and distract today and in the coming weeks, remember that they don’t care about being caught in obvious lies. Calling bullshit still means you’re talking about the bullshit, not the facts.— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) September 29, 2019

Greg Sargent echoes that warning at the Washington Post:

Once again, a major news organization's social media feed injects unadulterated lies into the dialog.

This *rewards* those who employ *deliberate* disinformation. It helps them spread confusion.

My book has a chapter on this epic institutional failure: https://t.co/kf10oCq4SW https://t.co/dfHA2OUgmF— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) September 30, 2019

Disinformation is like chaff military aircraft deploy to thwart an enemy missile’s targeting system. Throw enough into the air and the homing missile may lose its target lock. Trump’s defenders will spew a lot of it in the coming weeks and months.

Update: I stated $400 billion in aid in the first pass of this post. It is $400 million. (h/t JJ)

Huckleberry makes a bad bet

by digby

He went golfing with Trump yesterday and they clearly talked about this strategy.  He is obviously utterly convinced that in order to get re-elected he has to turn himself into a groveling sycophant on a level that’s actually hard to watch. And he believes that feral Kavanaugh act is going to keep the president in his corner.

I think he’s made the calculation that John McCain got away with saying “build the dang wall” and then retrieved his maverick reputation after his seat was safe so he will too. But Graham has made a serious miscalculation. He will probably keep his seat after which he will try to distance himself from this grotesque display of slavish devotion to the president but it it won’t work. He is not seen as a macho guy like the war hero McCain was. He will never lose the reputation of being a suck-up and a brown-noser and even his constituents will turn on him eventually. He’ll be a symbol of their own misguided love for Trump once all the smoke has cleared. They won’t want to be reminded of it.

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Political assaults throughout the government

by digby

Regarding that weird new State Department effort to harass former Obama officials over their supposed  misuse of classified documents — which were deemed classified after the fact — I agree with Tom that people should not get bogged down in that story and should concentrate on Trump’s direct crimes. There is no criminal liability involved and it’s clearly just harassment designed to give Fox News the ability to talk about “her emails” again and let Trump lead some “lock her up chants” at his rallies.

However, for the record, it is clear that this is politically motivated:

Several of those who have been questioned said that the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security investigators made it clear that they were pursuing the matter reluctantly, and under external pressure.

Trump’s accomplices are all over the government executing politically motivated assaults on government employees, particularly those who are in the scientific fields.  Take for instance, this story about the Trump administration abruptly moving the USDA from Washington in what they have admitted is a desire to break up the agency and its regulatory capacity:

Next month, Johnson, a 28-year-veteran of the U.S. Agriculture Department who most recently led its program on climate change, will quit her job and move away from the home she can no longer afford. She packs one box a night, more on weekends, in preparation for an upheaval she neither wanted nor expected. 

The USDA will partially relocate to Kansas City at the end of September, an abrupt decision announced in June that shocked the federal workforce and meant immediate disruption for hundreds.

The relocation to Missouri, which the USDA estimates will save $300 million over 15 years, affects about 550 people at the Economic Research Service, an influential federal statistical agency, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which oversees a $1.7 billion portfolio of scientific grants.

In the months since the announcement, two-thirds of USDA employees decided to leave their jobs rather than move, according to data released by the department in July. Academics have lamented the cost to science, saying the talent loss will devastate the agencies. 

Beyond the statistics, the move also is devastating families and forcing employees at all stages of life into wrenching decisions. Among those leaving the agency is Rachel Melnick, a married mother of two who just had a second child — and purchased a “forever home” in Virginia — when she learned her job was moving to Kansas City. And Jonathan McFadden, a researcher in his early 30s who was falling for his work, the District and a new girlfriend. 

Johnson did not want to quit her job. In addition to spearheading a climate change research program, she spent her days helping forest scientists find funding. 

A tree lover since childhood, when she saw how much her father enjoyed the forest, Johnson has a PhD in forest genetics and a master’s degree in forest soils. She came to the federal government after several years performing field research in Brazil and New Zealand. Though she sometimes missed being among the trees, she found supporting others’ research rewarding. 

“I believed in their work,” she said. “And in the tree breeding world, we all know each other. It’s so small that it’s always friends, not colleagues.”

Chief of staff Mick Mulvaney admitted what they were doing:

Mulvaney said last week that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s plan to relocate several hundred of jobs from Washington to the Kansas City area is “a wonderful way to streamline government.” Speaking to a group of fellow Republicans in his home state of South Carolina, he said it’s “nearly impossible” to fire federal workers but added that many will not move to “the real part of the country.”

Within days of taking office, President Donald Trump declared a hiring freeze, and within months, Mulvaney, as director of the Office of Management and Budget, outlined a plan for reducing the civilian workforce. But he said in his South Carolina remarks that he’s tried to fire workers and “you can’t do it.”

The USDA said in June it would move most of the employees of the Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture partly to bring the two agencies closer to farmers and agribusinesses. The Interior Department has offered a similar rationale for breaking up the Bureau of Land Management’s headquarters and putting employees in 11 western states.

Mulvaney said “the quiet parts out loud,” said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, a Denver-based nonprofit critical of the Trump administration’s Interior Department. Weiss sees an “intentional brain drain” to “get rid of expertise across the government.”

“This is part of their grand strategy,” said Dave Verardo, president of the American Federation of Government Employees local that represents the USDA workers. “Reduce government so that people can come into power and do whatever they want without any checks and balances.”

Their donors are very happy as well. No more pesky science to interfere with their profits.

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One more time: Cui Bono?

by digby

This Daily Beast piece by Julia Davis, who closely monitors Russian media discusses why the Russian government is the main beneficiary of Trump’s Ukrainian gambit:

The unconscionable demand for Ukraine to make “a deal” with an invader— which has annexed and occupied its territory and continues to fuel an armed conflict that has claimed more than 13,000 lives—would mean a surrender of Ukraine’s national interests for the benefit of the Kremlin. It would also lead to the lifting of sanctions against Russia for its aggression in Ukraine. Casting doubt on Russia’s involvement in the hack of the DNC server would potentially lead to the lifting sanctions against Russia for its election-meddling and other malign activities.

Attacking the credibility of Biden, frequently described by Kremlin-controlled state television as “Trump’s most dangerous rival,” would also benefit Putin, who openly admitted that he wanted President Trump to be elected in 2016. That preference remains intact, in spite—or perhaps because—of multiple missteps by America’s bumbling commander in chief. Dmitry Kiselyov, the host of Russia’s most popular Sunday news program, Vesti Nedeli, urged Trump to keep digging in Ukraine for “the sweetest” kompromat of all: “Proving that Ukraine—not Russia—interfered in the U.S. elections.”

#Russia‘s state TV names Joe Biden as “Trump’s most dangerous rival,” host Dmitry Kiselyov says Trump should keep digging in Ukraine for “the sweetest” kompromat of all: “proving that Ukraine—not Russia—interfered in the U.S. elections.” pic.twitter.com/EJiXiwZiZZ
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) September 15, 2019

The pressure on Ukraine to investigate Biden has been not only from Trump, but also from the Kremlin. One of the expectations, voiced on Russian state-television channel Rossiya 24 by analyst Alexander Kareevsky, was that taking down Biden would inevitably lead to the “revelation”—in fact, an outrageous fantasy—that the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was ordered by the Obama administration and carried out by Ukraine, not Russia.

In another fantasy, pundits on Russian state television continually assert that Trump’s impeachment is all but “impossible.” In the meantime, the impeachment fallout is beneficial for the Kremlin, creating a spectacle of unprecedented political turmoil in the United States while placing Ukraine in the untenable position of alienating both parties, as well as the country’s European allies, and distracting from Russian election interference and the imposition of any additional sanctions.

#Russia is not ready to dump Trump:
Kremlin-controlled state TV hosts throw buckets of mud on #Ukraine, insist it should investigate Biden and conclude that “Republican majority in the Senate won’t allow President Donald Trump—whom we elected— to be impeached. It’s impossible.”
Participants on 60 Minutes, Russia’s flagship info-talk show—hosted by pugnacious married couple Olga Skabeeva and Evgeny Popov and featuring Russian ambassadors, government officials, and military experts—frequently boast that Trump is “owned” by Russia and demand Ukraine release kompromat on Biden or “give back the money,” referring to U.S. aid provided to Ukraine.

#Russia‘s state TV host Olga Skabeeva says that since #Ukraine took the money from the U.S., it is now obligated to deliver the kompromat on Biden.
Panelist asks her: “Are you on Trump’s or Russia’s side, Olga?”
Skabeeva responds: “We elected him!”

Last Sunday, Sergei Markov, an analyst close to the Kremlin, appeared on 60 Minutes and publicly directed Trump to pressure a specific official within the U.S. State Department—Deputy Assistant Secretary in the European and Eurasian Bureau George Kent—to extract the elusive Biden kompromat.

Pro-government experts on the nightly television show The Evening with Vladimir Soloviev have been openly rooting for the supposed scandal in Ukraine to “kill Biden” politically, and allow Trump “to disprove” Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, and destroy the heart of the Democratic Party in the process.
There’s more at the link.

I don’t know if Trump is taking orders from his pal Vlad. But I’m pretty sure that Vlad knows Trump is a patsy and he can easily see how gullible Trump is and how desperate he is to “prove” that he won legitimately. In fct,  it’s really the only thing he cares about. It’s not too tough to manipulate that situation to his advantage.

Trump is he dumbest president in history. In fact,  he’s as dumb as any inbred monarch of the past. It’s a real comment on America’s definition of “democracy” that such a person could come to lead it.

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