kpete
kpete's JournalWhat's On George Papadapolous's Mind This A.M.?
Pretty deep for a coffee boy?
@GeorgePapa19
"So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannise will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men." - Voltaire
https://twitter.com/GeorgePapa19/status/1003319040667017216
Sean Hannity re: Manafort...
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1003268646070874113
https://twitter.com/ReynoldsVaughan/status/1003315783408148480
https://twitter.com/justinhendrix/status/999838465356333058
LAWFARE: The Trump Legal Team's Remarkable Letter to Mueller
...................the 2018 letter makes a number of remarkable, and sometimes very questionable, assertions.
First, it argues that the president has already allowed the Special Counsel to have many documents and interview White House staff, and that “Iin light of these voluntary offerings, your office clearly lacks the requisite need to personally interview the President.” It acknowledges Comey’s accusation that Trump ordered him to drop the investigation of Michael Flynn—“He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go”—but contends that Mueller can’t ask Trump about the conversation because “[t]he White House denied and refuted that the President said these words to Mr. Comey.” There is a heightened standard for interviewing a president. But an interview can’t be avoided merely because other evidence is available and defense lawyers (or “the White House”) have said that they disagree with the accuser’s testimony implicating their client.
Second, even if Trump did order Comey to drop the investigation, the letter says, his defense lawyers have identified a criminal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1505, that couldn’t have been violated because (they say, as have some courts) it doesn’t apply to FBI investigations. In connection with this legal argument, the letter seems to argue several fallback positions, although they are presented in ways I found a bit hard to follow. Among them are claims that there was no FBI investigation; that if there was an investigation it was closed (or at least was thought to be closed by certain members of the White House staff) by the time the president spoke to Comey about Flynn; that Flynn didn’t lie to the FBI; that Flynn did lie to the White House about various matters (and was fired for it); and that in any event he ultimately pleaded guilty so there could not have been any obstruction. I am not sure how the special counsel will react to all of this, except that he and his team will likely get at least as far as Charlie Savage of the New York Times did in noting that there are several statutes that may have been violated, see, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 1512, and that obstruction need not succeed to be a crime.
Third, the letter tries to deal with some of the president’s more problematic prior statements on the topic. It begins with Trump’s on-camera statement to Lester Holt that “when I decided to just do it” and fire Comey, “I said to myself ... you know this Russia thing with Trump is a made-up story.” This, the letter argues, was not an admission that Trump fired Comey because of the Russia investigation—“in fact,” the letter asserts, “the President did not ever say such a thing.” Similarly, when Trump reportedly told the Russian ambassador that firing Comey had “taken off” the “great pressure because of Russia,” it doesn’t show he did so “because of the Russia investigation.” The idea, I guess, is that it might just have been a coincidence. Finally, the letter says, although Trump may have helped Donald Trump, Jr. lie about the meeting at Trump Tower in which a purported Russian government official was supposed to provide dirt on Hillary Clinton, that was just “a private matter with the New York Times,” not an interview with the FBI, and therefore not a crime about which he can be questioned. As arguments for Trump’s innocence despite his prior statements, these arguments are strained. As arguments against even asking him about the statements, they strike me as pretty silly.
The final sentences of the letter are perhaps the most meaningful, albeit unintentionally. They say that Trump’s lawyers are prepared to “provide . . . the answers” to the Special Counsel’s questions, apparently instead of having Trump do so himself, in order to help “preserve the dignity of the Office of the President of the United States.” I spent a moment wondering, but in the end I think they didn’t mean this the way it sounds.
the rest:
https://lawfareblog.com/trump-legal-teams-remarkable-letter-mueller
The Trump era in two Reuters alerts
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1002625964625494016
Who, looking at this graph, can conclude that key events driving unemployment all came after 1/2/17?
https://twitter.com/adamdavidson/status/1002557283715506176
This is the man President Trump pardoned yesterday.
Dinesh D'Souza 11/26/13
https://twitter.com/CapehartJ/status/1002572730066132992
"I said all that and he didn't say anything," Santa Fe Victim's Mom says. "He was just like, 'Uhhhh'
Santa Fe Victim's Mom Challenged President Trump in Private Meeting for Calling Shooter 'Wacky'...................
He kept calling him [the shooter] this wacky kid who was wearing a wacky trench coat,” says Hart, whose 14-year-old daughter, Kimberly Vaughan, was fatally shot along with nine others in the May 18 attack in Galveston County.
At that point, Hart recalls, “I raised my hand and said, ‘I have something to say here. Let’s just get to the mental health part.”
She then explained that her daughter had anxiety, Asperger’s syndrome and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and “took medicine daily.”
“I said, ‘[The shooter] might have been depressed, but he wasn’t wacky.’ But if that kid needed help, he needed to have proper access to it,” Hart says, “meaning you shouldn’t repeal the Affordable Care Act [one of Trump’s cardinal promises] and get them the help they need and take away the stigma of mental illness.”
She says she told Trump, “Mental illness needs to be addressed.”
“I said all that and he didn’t say anything,” she says. “He was just like, ‘Uhhhh'
MORE:
https://people.com/crime/donald-trump-meets-santa-fe-shooting-families-mom-confrontation/
Charles Blow NYT Op: Trump is a walking, talking permission slip for the white supremacist.
On Race: The Moral High GroundBy Charles M. Blow
.................
Did he apologize to the Central Park Five for calling for their executions?
Did he apologize to Barack Obama for leading the charge on the racist birther lie?
Did he apologize for calling Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers?
Did he apologize to the Muslim community for saying that Islam hates us?
Did he apologize to African countries or Haiti and El Salvador for describing them with an expletive?
Did he apologize to Colin Kaepernick and other protesting N.F.L. players for calling them sons of bitches?
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Donald Trump, White House racist, Nazi sympathizer, alt-right hero, receiver of laurels from the former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, is the absolute last person who should be demanding an apology in this Roseanne controversy
.......................
The Rest:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/opinion/roseanne-valerie-jarrett-race-trump.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region
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