Ain’t she sweet? Remember, she bought Kevin McCarthy’s soul and keeps in her pocket.
"what digby sez..."
Month: March 2023
IN EARLY FEBRUARY, Republicans brought an FBI veteran to Capitol Hill whom they hoped would expose a “deep state conspiracy” among Democrats and their accomplices in the intelligence community. The GOP witness was part of a network of “whistleblowers” — funneled to congressional Republicans’ new Weaponization of Government panel by allies of Donald Trump — to reveal covert attacks on the former president and broad, anti-conservative discrimination.
But before the interview was over, it was the GOP witness who was failing to answer difficult questions — and Democratic committee staff doing the asking.
In the interview, the witness, former FBI supervisory intelligence analyst George Hill, had admitted he had little or no firsthand knowledge of alleged “deep state” scandals. Instead, he brought baggage of his own: a history of inflammatory commentary on social media. Democratic staff had found a tweet in which Hill claimed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had “blood on her hands.” In a since-deleted tweet found by Rolling Stone, Hill wrote “Cancer! GO FASTER!” in response to a tweet from Rep. Lauren Boebert claiming that President Biden had been diagnosed with cancer.
According to portions of transcripts reviewed by Rolling Stone and sources familiar with the exchange, Hill repeatedly declined to respond to the questions and cited his First Amendment rights. (He’d later go on a conservative talk show to accuse Democrats of trying to paint him as a “right-wing nut job” because they couldn’t handle his message.) As the exchange went on, Hill’s attorney, Jason Foster, begged the Democratic counsel to stop asking about his client’s tweets.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chair of the new House Judiciary’s “weaponization” subcommittee, opened its first hearing vowing that he’d heard from “dozens and dozens” of whistleblowers about “the political nature at the Justice Department.” Indeed, powerful players from Trump’s orbit have invested in recruiting intelligence community veterans, hoping to produce bombshell revelations and must-see TV to rival the results of the Jan. 6 committee.
But so far, Republicans have brought only three of those whistleblowers to Capitol Hill for questioning, and have not scheduled any additional interviews after completing the most recent in mid-February. In the interviews conducted to date, witnesses have offered contradictory responses, maintained fringe and violent online presences that undermine their credibility, and failed to demonstrate first-hand knowledge of alleged FBI wrongdoing.
The results have left Democrats gleeful and even some Republicans deeply unimpressed. A “dumpster fire,” is how one Democrat with knowledge of the at-times combative interactions terms the proceedings. “Clearly there is room to grow and improve before [more] public hearings,” a Republican familiar with the process tells Rolling Stone. But the work so far, the Republican says, has been “very much amateur hour,” adding that airing this “stuff on live television would make us look like morons.” (Sources spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the sensitive matters.)
It’s so typical. Too bad it doesn’t matter. The brainwashed MAGA’d will only hear what they want to hear and the rest of us will mock and/or wring out hands and it won’t mean a thing, It’s all about the spectacle and that they will provide.
It’s time for CPAC again, the annual gathering of the most committed members of the right wing in America to catch up with their fellow travelers and own them some libs. Lately they’ve been holding their little convention several times a year in different places like Hungary and Texas but this weekend they’re back on their favorite stomping grounds in DC.
There’s a bit of controversy over the fact that certain probable presidential candidates aren’t bothering to show up this year, something that would have been unheard of in years past. Instead of attending the traditional hate-fest they’ve decided to go to a big donor confab hosted by the Club for Growth. Why? Because CPAC has become a wholly owned subsidiary of the MAGA movement with Donald Trump topping the bill as keynote speaker. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis decided to attend the donor meeting rather than go mano a mano with the former president, taking refuge with the group that has said it’s dedicated to depriving Trump of another term.
DeSantis isn’t the only one. Former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu are expected at the Club for Growth’s event and are not expected to appear at CPAC. With only Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley coming to CPAC, it looks like the MAGA lane is wide open for Trump — at least for this weekend.
There are reports that the reason these luminaries aren’t showing up at CPAC as they had always done in the past is because the man who runs it, Trump acolyte Matt Schlapp, has been credibly accused of groping a man who was working on the Herschel Walker Senate campaign and now he is supposedly persona non grata among establishment Republicans:
“It’s a scandal,” one Republican operative who has worked on several presidential campaigns told CNN. “If you are thinking about running for president and you’re not Donald Trump, you can’t afford a misstep. You can’t afford to be linked to a scandal.”
I find it hard to believe that, frankly. It’s far more likely they are avoiding CPAC because it’s a hotbed of Trump mania as well as the fact that they are all desperately hustling for money from those big donors at the Club for Growth meeting. DeSantis surely figures he’s feeding the MAGA monster all the red meat it can eat already and the rest of them (except, perhaps, for Noem) are trying to run to some small extent as anti-Trumps. None of them need CPAC more than they need money right now.
Trump, on the other hand, is going to be dependent on that small donor network he’s put together since 2016. He’s always relied more on the MAGA faithful to repeatedly give him, a supposed billionaire, their hard earned money and they’ve always been happy to do it. With big donors hedging (for now) his first order of business is to keep his flock happy and excited. And anyway, Club for Growth didn’t invite him.
One of the mainstays of CPAC over the years has been its gross merchandising and outrageous speakers (aside from the outrageous politicians.) Back in the day you could buy bumper stickers that said “Happiness is Hillary’s face on a milk carton” or some racist “Obama waffles” in the hall along with “liberal hunting permits.” This year they are offering a new reprehensible joke only fit for a 12 year old bully :
Featured speakers in the past included the bomb-throwing Ann Coulter who used to mesmerize the crowd with clever bon mots like, “I think our motto should be post-9-11, ‘raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.'” This year they invited the execrable Chaya Raichik the operator of the hate-filled Libs of TikTok Twitter account that stalks LGBTQ teachers and medical providers for transgender patients. As Vice news reported she is on the grift, big time:
Her social media following has skyrocketed, she is raking in tens of thousands of dollars from her Substack subscribers, she has published a children’s book that depicts teachers as predators, she’s dined one-on-one with former President Donald Trump, and she’s appeared numerous times on Fox News and Newsmax.
Oh, and Ron DeSantis invited her to come stay at the Florida Governor’s mansion.
They loved her at CPAC:
But the real stars of the show are the mainstream GOP officials who are even more sophomoric and crude than the professional bomb throwers. You have Sen John Kennedy from Louisiana with a litany of stale oldies about liberal wierdos:
Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Oh., talking about Democratic “thugs”
The always unctuous Ted Cruz calling for Dr. Fauci to be jailed:
Sen. Ric Scott of Florida with an enemies list:
Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania on an extended rant about leftists using government against individuals after which he promised to use the government against them:
Who needs rude pundits and insult comics to thrill the crowd when you have elected officials like this lot?
The bigger names are coming up today and over the weekend. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia is speaking and has been teasing a big announcement. (An endorsement perhaps?) Unlike last year’s CPAC in Orlando, there isn’t a white supremacist gathering across town that she’ll feel compelled to attend.
And Trump himself will be there on Saturday which should fire up the crowd. They love Trump and really don’t care about any of the others. As one attendee told Business Insider:
Whoever wants to run, that’s fine. But President Trump is the one that we need. There’s others out there but they don’t have what it takes to make America great.
Maybe it was just a slow first day or the crowd is burned out after so many CPACs last year that they didn’t get the normal numbers. Maybe some people are weirded out about about Schlapp’s groping scandal. Whatever it is, the first day didn’t have the kind of crowd it usually has. The big rooms were half empty, there weren’t as many exhibits and the sense of wingnut fun that had people doing things like this was completely missing:
Wearing track suits and colonial-style wigs, Steve Crowder, a Fox News contributor and comedian, and Chris Loesch, the husband of conservative commentator Dana Loesch, warmed the crowd up with a rap about “Mr. America.” Behind them was their own music video of the song, in which they wore more colonial-style clothing and stood in front of a building that appeared to be some sort of fortress.
From the looks of it, the crowd this year could barely get themselves to clap. Is it possible that the air really has gone out of the MAGA balloon? Or are people just bored with CPAC? We’ll have to see if the event picks up over the next couple of days and if Trump can draw a big crowd on Saturday. But it’s not looking good for CPAC, which has been around for decades. As the Never Trumper Rick Wilson said in his book of the same name: “Everything Trump touches, dies.” It could very well be that CPAC is his latest victim.
This is not a joke, unfortunately:
Donald Trump and a group of individuals incarcerated for their alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 riot have collaborated on a song called “Justice for All.” It will debut Thursday at midnight on streaming services, including Apple Music and Spotify, according to a person with knowledge of the project.
The track interpolates Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance into “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which is performed by a group of about 20 inmates, called the J6 Prison Choir, housed at the Washington, D.C. jail. The song ends with the inmates chanting, “USA!”
Profits are slated to benefit the families of people imprisoned for their alleged roles in the Capitol riots that left five people dead.
A music video featuring footage of Trump performing patriotic acts during his presidency and shots of the riots, including police firing tear gas, will debut later Friday morning on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast.
Trump recorded the Pledge of Allegiance at Mar-a-Lago a couple of weeks ago, specifically for this track. The inmates, who sing the national anthem nightly, were recorded over a jailhouse phone about a month ago. The song, which runs 2 minutes and 20 seconds, was reportedly produced by a major recording artist who was not identified.
A different recording project involving the inmates had been discussed, according to a person with knowledge of the project granted anonymity so they could speak candidly about the track before it was released. But when Trump heard about the original plan, the former president asked to be directly involved. Kash Patel, who worked in the Pentagon during the Trump administration, and conservative commentator Ed Henry reportedly joined Trump in spearheading the project. Funds are slated to go to an LLC run by Henry, who will then disperse the profits. Recipients will be vetted to make sure proceeds do not benefit families of people who assaulted a police officer.
My dear God …
Is it just me or is he getting crazier?
And is it too early to start drinking?
You might want to put off watching this Jon Stewart clip until after noon.
Firearm death stats for kids here.
This tweet featuring lies and lying liars is easier to take somehow.
After my post below, I’m a bit wrung out. We have a lot to worry about.
OTOH, rewatching this clip helps: We have won victory after victory after victory to get here.
Gov. Wokety-woke DeWoke: Selling America by the pound
Death by a thousand cuts is too euphemistic a phrase to describe what Gov. Wokety-woke DeWoke and his Florida GOP accomplices are doing there:
Florida Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary) wants bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, and other members of the Florida executive cabinet or legislature to register with the state or face fines.
Brodeur’s proposal, Senate Bill 1316: Information Dissemination, would require any blogger writing about government officials to register with the Florida Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics.Florida bill targets union due collections for public school teachers
In the bill, Brodeur wrote that those who write “an article, a story, or a series of stories,” about “the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature,” and receives or will receive payment for doing so, must register with state offices within five days after the publication of an article that mentions an elected state official.
If another blog post is added to a blog, the blogger would then be required to submit monthly reports on the 10th of each month with the appropriate state office. They would not have to submit a report on months when no content is published.
Thus, the GOP declares the First Amendment violable in Florida. But no way will Florida ask people to register guns, mind you, because of the Second Amendment.
Brodeur (whose bill has no co-sponsors) knows this bill is blatantly unconstitutional. He’s not that stupid. But as with the Florida governor’s actions, Brodeur is yanking on the Overton Window to the right while yanking our chains. Each new outrage will be followed by something slightly less outrageous, therefore seen as not as bad and drawing less outrage.
The same day, another of Brodeur’s Florida state senate colleagues filed a bill to outlaw the Democratic Party in the state. Not in so many words, mind you:
“The Ultimate Cancel Act,” filed Tuesday by state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, would require the state’s Division of Elections to “immediately cancel” the filings of any political party whose platform had “previously advocated for, or been in support of, slavery or involuntary servitude.”
The bill, called SB 1248, would require Florida officials to notify all registered voters who belong to any canceled parties that their parties no longer exist. It would also change their voter registrations to “no party affiliation” and “provide procedures” for those voters to update their affiliations to “an active political party.”
The bill would allow any canceled political parties to re-register with the Florida State Department — but only under the condition that the party change its name to something “substantially different from the name of any other party previously registered” with the agency.
There’s no way dropping these two bills the same day was not coordinated.
But wait! There’s more:
Acting on a proposal from Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida lawmakers filed legislation Wednesday to allow the death penalty for adults who sexually batter children younger than 12.
Never mind that such an act would violate “prior U.S. Supreme Court precedent saying that capital punishment can only be applied in the case of murder.” Florida is pushing the envelope on the acceptable.
The bills would put Florida at odds with “prior U.S. Supreme Court precedent saying that capital punishment can only be applied in the case of murder,” a 1977 precedent reinforced in 2008.
The proposed legislation also matches another bill that proposes lowering the threshold for the death penalty from a unanimous jury recommendation to an 8-4 vote. Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, and Rep. Berny Jacques, R-Seminole, filed legislation to change the jury requirement.
Lowering the jury threshold is another move backed by DeSantis,who has expressed outrage about a jury’s vote in favor of a life sentence instead of a death sentence for the Parkland school shooter. Three of 12 jurors voted for a life sentence instead of death.
Going to an 8-4 threshold would give Florida the lowest death penalty threshold in the nation. Only Alabama currently has a nonunanimous jury requirement, requiring at least a 10-2 vote for the death penalty.
Listen. Key features of creeping whatever-ism are the creeps and the creeping:
1. Find the line.
2. Step over it.
3. Dare someone to push you back.
4. No pushback? New line.
5. Repeat.
This is the conservative M.O. to which I’ve drawn repeated attention:
Do it on enough fronts at once, and opponents won’t have the resources to push back on all of them. It’s how you erode freedom in freedom’s name. While waving a flag. Clutching your pocket Constitution. Brandishing a gun. And singing Lee Greenwood.
It’s frog boiling without the frogs.
Dante Atkins tweets in response, “It’s funny to me how deeply anti-communist Florida keeps on doing things that are the hallmarks of state socialist regimes, like trying to ban all competing political parties and force media to register with the state.”
Don’t snicker. What’s happening in Florida may appear facially ridiculous. But Gov. Wokety-woke DeWoke and his fascist-leaning friends are assaulting normalcy on so many fronts at once to see what they can get away with. Flood the zone with shit, as Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon famously suggested:
That’s the Bannon business model: Flood the zone. Stink up the joint. As Jonathan Rauch once said, citing Bannon’s infamous quote, “This is not about persuasion: This is about disorientation.”
Will the townspeople notice? Or will they keep their heads down and say nothing like German villagers?
“[E]very day … these people, in their neat Germanic way, would get out their feather dusters and go outside. And, never thinking about what it meant, they would sweep off the layer of ash that would settle on their windowsills overnight. Then they would return to their neat, clean lives and pretend not to notice what was happening next door.”
So why bother?
Kellyanne Conway as a truthful witness? Don’t make me laugh:
Kellyanne Conway, who managed the final months of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 campaign, met with prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office on Wednesday, the latest sign that the office is ramping up its criminal investigation into the former president.
The prosecutors are scrutinizing Mr. Trump’s role in a hush money payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who has said she had an affair with him. The $130,000 payment was made by Mr. Trump’s longtime fixer, Michael D. Cohen, in the closing days of the 2016 campaign, and Mr. Trump ultimately reimbursed him.
Mr. Cohen has said that Ms. Conway played a small yet notable role in the payment: she was the person Mr. Cohen alerted after making the payment, he wrote in his 2020 memoir.
“I called Trump to confirm that the transaction was completed, and the documentation all in place, but he didn’t take my call — obviously a very bad sign, in hindsight,” he wrote. Instead, he wrote, Ms. Conway “called and said she’d pass along the good news.”
Ms. Conway, who was seen walking into the district attorney’s office shortly before 2 p.m. on Wednesday, is the latest in a string of witnesses to meet with prosecutors in the last month or so. Since the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, impaneled a grand jury in January to hear evidence about Mr. Trump’s role in paying the hush money, at least five witnesses have testified: Jeffrey McConney and Deborah Tarasoff, employees of Mr. Trump’s company; David Pecker and Dylan Howard, two former leaders of The National Enquirer, which helped arrange the hush money deal; and Keith Davidson, a former lawyer for Ms. Daniels.
The decision to question those central players in the hush money saga before the grand jury suggests that Mr. Bragg is nearing a decision on whether to seek an indictment of the former president.
A spokeswoman for the office and a lawyer for Ms. Conway declined to comment. It is unclear whether Ms. Conway appeared before the grand jury or was only interviewed by prosecutors.
Still, the investigation is not complete. Mr. Cohen has met with the prosecutors for several hours of questioning, though he has yet to testify in front of the grand jury. Ms. Daniels herself has yet to be interviewed, and Ms. Conway might not be the last 2016 campaign official to face questioning.
But what about the Bowling Green Massacre? Shouldn’t someone ask her about that?
“Sheriff” DeSantis has wingnuts doing Disney oversight:
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis solidified who will oversee Walt Disney World (DIS) after the politician signed a bill into law that allows him to take control of the company’s long-standing special tax district.
“The corporate kingdom finally comes to an end,” DeSantis said at a press conference following the bill’s signing on Monday. “There’s a new sheriff in town, and accountability will be the order of the day.”
DeSantis, who rebranded the district previously known as Reedy Creek to the “Central Florida Tourism Oversight District,” hand-selected the five board members who will now oversee Disney’s municipal services. Previous board members were selected by Reedy Creek, which was fully controlled by Disney.
“The good question now is what will be the impact of the new board that he appointed,” Richard Foglesong, Disney historian and author of the book “Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando,” told Yahoo Finance Live in an interview on Tuesday.
“We have a five-member board of supervisors that consists principally of cultural warrior types, Christian nationalist types. …I think there is an issue here,” he warned.
DeSantis’ board includes Bridget Ziegler, a conservative member of the Sarasota County School Board and co-founder of Moms for Liberty; Martin Garcia, an attorney who runs investment firm Pinehill Capital Partners, which donated $50,000 to a DeSantis-aligned political committee; and Ron Perri, chairman and CEO of The Gathering USA, a ministry “of evangelism, discipleship and mission opportunities for men.”
“The Disney company is the major manufacturer of culture in the United States,” Foglesong said. “When you have people appointed to a board who can appropriately, fairly by their own description, be called cultural warriors and Christian nationalists. …I think that’s a combustible mix.”
Foglesong noted there should not be much change to Disney’s day-to-day operations given a full dissolution did not occur: “[Disney] had special powers, and it still has those powers.”
DeSantis previously suggested he would fully strip Disney of its special tax privileges, throwing the district’s $997 million worth of bond debt and some $163 million in annual tax payments into question — a sizable fear among local taxpayers.
However, DeSantis stressed Disney is still responsible for its municipal debts and that local governments would not raise taxes.
Disney did not respond to Yahoo Finance’s request for comment, although the company told other outlets last month it would not fight the governor’s takeover.
Why it matters and how we got here
The 40-square mile area, known for years as the Reedy Creek Improvement District, allowed Disney to operate as a self-governing entity since its inception.
Disney, in addition to paying property taxes to Orange and Osceola counties, paid taxes directly to Reedy Creek. In turn, the district used that money to fund Disney’s various theme park projects and operations, including infrastructure upkeep.
That means Disney controlled all of its utilities and infrastructure, set building codes, operated its own emergency services and fire departments, and could expand and grow whenever it wished — all without local or state government interference, until now.
In addition to the newly named board, the bill will end some of Disney’s other privileges, such as its exemption from adhering to Florida building codes, along with its exclusion from state regulatory reviews and approvals.
The battle over Disney’s special privileges began in April of last year — largely seen as a politically-targeted response over the company’s reaction to the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
The bill states: “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”
At the time, then-CEO Bob Chapek, who initially decided not to speak publicly on the matter, opted to work behind the scenes in a failed attempt to soften the legislation.
The executive eventually reversed course following intense backlash, publicly denouncing the act during the company’s annual shareholder meeting on March 9, 2022, in addition to directly apologizing to employees in a company memo.
Chapek’s mishandling of the situation has been categorized as one of the many catalysts for his ousting, as Bob Iger returned to the CEO chair in November.
He must be staying up at night thinking up new ways to own the libs. This seems like overkill to me, but maybe it’s just something he does for fun now.
The way conservatives tell it, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is a hive of anti-Trump villainy, filled with agents looking for any excuse to hound the former president with investigative witch hunts. But the thing to understand about Donald Trump’s legal troubles is that they exist not because federal agents are out to get him, but despite the fact that the FBI is full of Trump supporters who would really like to leave him alone.
This morning, The Washington Post reported that FBI investigators clashed with federal prosecutors over the decision to search the former president’s residence, where highly classified documents were found despite Trump’s insistence that he had none.
“Some of those field agents wanted to shutter the criminal investigation altogether in early June,” the Post reported, adding that FBI agents were “simply afraid” and “worried taking aggressive steps investigating Trump could blemish or even end their careers.” The FBI did not exhibit this worry in 2016, when it publicly announced that it was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified documents, an announcement that, even with all the other mistakes her campaign made, likely cost Clinton the election. That decision was made in part because then-Director James Comey feared that pro-Trump FBI agents would leak the details if he did not announce them publicly. The federal investigation into the Trump campaign, by contrast, was properly kept confidential until after the election. As one agent told the reporter Spencer Ackerman in 2016, “The FBI is Trumpland.”
President Joe Biden is also under investigation for his mishandling of classified documents, but for now the two situations are distinguished by Biden’s attorneys discovering and voluntarily handing those documents over, as opposed to lying about having them and then insisting that they were his to keep. Neither man, however, should be above prosecution if the circumstances call for it.
A simple but obvious fact has been lost over the past few years, amid Trump’s direct attacks on the FBI, and liberal defenses of the FBI against those attacks: FBI agents are cops. Law-enforcement officers, including the FBI, have long been disproportionately conservative, but in the past few decades, like the rest of the nation, they have also become far more polarized by party, a reality reflected in the rhetoric and positioning of advocacy groups such as the Fraternal Order of Police. There are liberal and moderate cops, but they are not close to comprising a majority. Simply put, the FBI is full of people who would prefer not to investigate Donald Trump. He remains under federal investigation only because of his own inability to stop criming.
Michael Fanone, a former Metropolitan Police officer who was injured by the mob that attempted to overthrow the government on Trump’s behalf on January 6, became disillusioned by the lack of support he received from fellow officers. “What it is is Trumpism,” Fanone told Politico in 2022. “And it’s a loyalty to Donald Trump because he says things like, ‘We love our law enforcement officers.’ And, you know, there’s a lot of police officers at the Metropolitan Police Department and other law enforcement agencies that participated in the defense of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, that still do not accept the reality of what January 6th was.”
Steven D’Antuono, one of the former top FBI officials described in the Post story as reluctant to carry out the search, also said a few days after January 6 that there had been “no indication” of potential violence that day. A moderately active news consumer would have understood that the risk of violence was real; perhaps the only people unaware of that potential worked at the FBI or as regular columnists for elite publications.
I am not alleging any malignant intent here. But the partisan lean of law-enforcement officers has consequences, producing ideological blind spots and an institutional bias in favor of conservative individuals. They are also more sensitive to criticism from the right, not only because it comes from powerful people, but because it is always more painful to be attacked by people you perceive as being on your side. The stakes here are not simply political; as the debacle of January 6 showed, such blind spots affect the bureau’s ability to fulfill its duties.
In theory, proper, vigorous oversight by Congress might check this kind of bias, among other benefits. But having recently lost one presidential election to FBI intervention, the Democratic Party appears reluctant to engage in such oversight, and the Republican Party is only interested in confirming the conspiratorial explanations of its base for why the benevolent Mr. Trump continues to come under investigative scrutiny. This has merely reinforced to both the bureau’s leadership and its rank and file that the only political danger they need to heed comes from the right, further exacerbating the underlying ideological dynamic.
The irony of all Trump’s legal problems, however, is that the FBI desperately wants to leave him alone—if only he would let them.
This is right on. The idea that the poor FBI agents are terrified of Trump — who is just a private citizen living in Florida at the moment — is absurd. These agents are Trumpers and they want to protect him. Of course they do.
It’s won’t be Lachlan
CNN reports (via newsletter):
The Fox Corporation chairman is facing an ever-deepening scandal that threatens to cause considerable financial and reputational damage to the crown jewel of his media empire, Fox News, as well as the parent company he leads. The scandal, exposed by Dominion Voting Systems’ blockbuster $1.6 billion lawsuit, has unearthed damning information, revealing the right-wing talk channel, driven by financial interests, was willing to lie to its viewers.
The stunning levels of misconduct exposed in recent weeks raise questions about the future of Suzanne Scott, the embattled chief executive of Fox News. Will she be Murdoch’s sacrificial lamb? No moves are currently on the immediate horizon, I’m told. But it’s certainly possible — perhaps even likely — that Murdoch might cancel her in an attempt to save himself and his legacy.
The Murdochs “are certainly setting Suzanne Scott up to take the fall for this,” Ben Smith, the Semafor editor-in-chief who writes a Sunday night media column, told me on Wednesday.
“They’re leading a trail of crumbs that lead back to her office,” added David Folkenflik, the NPR media correspondent and Murdoch biographer.
There is no shortage of evidence to support the notion Scott is on the chopping block. Most notably, during his deposition, Murdoch sought to distance himself from decision making at Fox News. Instead, he pointed to Scott: “I appointed Ms. Scott to the job … and I delegate everything to her,” he said. In doing so, Murdoch made the case that Scott is in charge of the network — and if there was wrongdoing, it rests on her shoulders. Of course, astute media observers know that Murdoch is the person actually calling the shots. But it’s not hard to see how the company could advance this narrative.
This is not the first time that Murdoch has been faced with a serious and embarrassing matter in his media empire. In 2011, his now-defunct News of the World newspaper was ensnared in a phone hacking scandal. In 2016, Fox News founder Roger Ailes was accused in an explosive lawsuit of sexual harassment. And in 2017, star host Bill O’Reilly was caught in his own sexual misconduct scandal.
In each case, Murdoch made the decision to sever ties with top personnel. As one source who once worked in Murdoch-world told me Wednesday, “His pattern has been to throw some money overboard and offer a head or two in the process to make it go away.” And cutting ties with Scott would appear to be one of the easier ousters for Murdoch to execute over the course of his decades at the helm of one of the world’s biggest media empires.
“Looking back to previous scandals, Murdoch and the companies have tended to try to pay early and quietly to make things go away, or they ignore them thinking they’re so big they can ride things out,” Folkenflik told me. “And then when things really come to a head, they try to cauterize the wound at the lowest level possible.”
“If he threw [Scott] over, he would only do it because he thought he needed to cauterize the wound before it goes higher,” Folkenflik added. “That’s his record. That’s what he does. It can be editors. It can be executives. It can be stars. He’s not throwing himself over the side.”
Jim Rutenberg, the former media columnist at The New York Times who has an extensive history covering Murdoch, echoed that sentiment.
“Murdoch has a history of sacrificing loyal lieutenants, but he does it only in the most extreme circumstances,” Rutenberg told me. “We know that he hates doing it. We know that he tends to try to fight for his loyalists, even for Ailes, certainly for O’Reilly. But when it’s a necessity to overcome a real threat to his business, he’ll do it.”
Whether the circumstances have reached a boiling point yet are unclear. The Dominion lawsuit, which has already caused massive reputational damage to the Fox News brand, is still in the pre-trial phase of the case. There’s no telling what could emerge from a weeks-long trial in which prominent executives and hosts such as Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity are called to the stand. And it remains to be seen whether outside forces, such as potential shareholder lawsuits, come into play and exert added pressure on Murdoch to take action.
Regardless, it’s worth noting that Murdoch himself has signaled that firings could be coming. When asked in his deposition whether Fox News executives who knowingly allowed “lies to be broadcast” should face consequences, Murdoch responded in the affirmative: “They should be reprimanded,” he said. “They should be reprimanded, maybe got rid of.”
As Folkenflik noted to me, “If you’re Rupert, you can’t fire Rupert. And you’re not going to fire [Fox CEO] Lachlan [Murdoch] either. So who are you going to chop?”
“Everyone who takes a senior executive position under Rupert Murdoch knows that is the case, that is the ultimate fall position,” Folkenflik explained. “They understand that’s part of the job. You’re very well paid. It can be a somewhat glamorous life. If you fall out of favor with the sun king, or it is to his benefit, that’s part of the equation.”
We’ll see what Scott’s fate ultimately looks like. For now, Fox is not offering any public statement of support for her. When I reached out to spokespeople for the company on Wednesday asking whether Murdoch has faith in her, silence ensued.
They are in real trouble. Will it end them? Unlikely. Will it change them? Not a chance.