8647 or S647: Take Your Pick

This guy is an idiot; well, sort of

Make no mistake…. THIS is what he meant.

Arrest James Comey. pic.twitter.com/TCqp46m0QZ

— Derrick Evans (@DerrickEvans4WV) May 16, 2025

This right-wing fellow knows that he has carte blanche to post recklessly because under Trump puppet Pam Bondi, the gloves are off. Any Democrat or left-leaning Independent is fair game for prosecution and, down the line, deportation. Moreover, the tweeter in his bio identifies himself as a "Christian," so he is entitled to say whatever he wishes to say or do in the name of "faith."

And anyway, this fellow is significantly brighter than James Comey, which is to say, smarter than the tree growing in your backyard. Or dying in your backyard. As TIME notes

The Obama appointee who was fired by Donald Trump in 2017 is being investigated by federal law enforcement after posting a photo of seashells on a beach that appeared to form the shape of “86 47,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday, claiming that the since-deleted post was a call for the assassination of the President….

“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” Comey wrote in the caption accompanying the Thursday Instagram post. Comey later clarified in a follow-up post, “I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

Oh, dear Lord. The proper response is "I didn't know it was political" (or better, "It is not political.") Conceding that he thought it was "political" begs the question of "what political message was it sending?'

TIME explains

Eighty-six is slang broadly meaning “to throw out,” “to get rid of,” or “to refuse service to,” according to Merriam-Webster, although the dictionary notes that it has recently, albeit sparsely, also been used to mean “to kill.” Forty-seven, meanwhile, is an apparent reference to Trump, who is the 47th President of the U.S.

To a male growing up in the mid- to late- twentieth century, "86" meant "to eliminate," anything from avoiding to kill, depending on the circumstance. However, Matt Gaetz would have accepted the TIME definition:

Oops!!! Hey did you see this @FBIDirectorKash and @KristiNoem? pic.twitter.com/Fzq7qTjH4K

— Fred Guttenberg (@fred_guttenberg) May 16, 2025

James Comey is a 64-year-old former FBI director who should have known better. Instagram is not a social network service  for 74-years-olds and Comey has gotten himself into a bucket of (mostly undeserved) hot water because he thought that he was one of the cool kids. It is especially not a service or platform for lawyers, engineers, and other individuals whose imagination run the gamut from A to B- who sees things as they are rather than as they are widely misinterpreted as.

When such individuals see four letters strung together with an emphasis on one letter, they should read the number in that manner. In this case,  the numbers 8647 ran together with one number- the 8- standing out.

 

That 8- which looks a little like an S- stands  apart from the 647. It is most logically seen as an 8 followed by the three-digit 647. That would be logical but, of course, Instagram.

Jim Comey posted this probably because he is not the brightest bulb in the pack. In 2016, he reported an investigation into Hillary Clinton, which was ongoing, but not an investigation into the Trump campaign, which was ongoing. With fewer than two weeks before the 11;16 election, he was informed of a cache of emails between Clinton and  aide Huma Abedin had been found on a computer belonging to Representative Anthony Weiner (her husband). In order to determine whether any was classified, he needed to ask a Court for a search warrant, which would have been leaked to Republicans. They in turn would have leaked the news to the public.

Comey could have waited until after the election to obtain a warrant. However, convinced that Hillary Clinton would win, he was afraid that he'd be accused of playing politics to have ensured the defeat of Donald Trump. He notified congressional leaders because he had earlier promised Congress to notify it of any developments.

Then-Republican National Committee chairperson Reince Priebus claimed "The F.B.I.'s decision to reopen their criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton's secret email server just 11 day before the lection shows how serious this discovery must be." 

It is unknown whether, just as presciently, Priebus earlier this year declared "extensive Super Bowl success ensures that the Kansas City Chiefs will wallop the Philadelphia Eagles in the upcoming Big Game." Following a dip in Clinton's numbers following Comey's announcement in late October, voters had largely forgotten about the announcement. But when the FBI director on November 6, two days before the election, stated that the emails were only ones which previously had been reviewed, the public was reminded about this exaggerated scandal. HRC then lost an election she was expected, but not certain, to win.

The FBI director declined to vote in the election because he believed in that position he needed to project objectivity and neutrality. However, he really, really wanted Donald Trump to be defeated, while his actions probably were the deciding factor getting Trump elected.

As we first learned in the Ashcroft-Comey-NSA episode during the Bush 43 Administration, Comey is not someone lacking integrity. At the same time, he is not someone excessively imbued with intelligence or sound judgement. He should have left the seashell photo alone, and it is a mystery why he would say he thought it had political significance when it was unclear what it was about or that it wasn't even S647. It is a tempest in a teapot, though excellent fodder for a media which would rather not focus on Donald Trump, who has recommended that Mark Milley and Elizabeth Cheney be executed, that Judges be prosecuted, and his political opponents be imprisoned.

Share |

Not Too Late

As Fox News White House correspondent, Peter Doocy is often an annoyance to President Biden or his press secretary, past or present. He was no different on Thursday night when, following up on the President's  response to a question of his, Doocy asked "how bad is your memory and can you continue as President?"

The President sarcastically responded "my memory is so bad I let you speak."

What in the name of the Almighty was he talking about? No one laughed because, obviously, it was neither funny nor clever. And it made no sense.

Biden was responding to yesterday's release of the Special Counsel, who has investigated the classified documents found in the President's Delaware home (garage, offices, and basement den) and his office at Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. in December of 2022 and the following month. Robert (not Ben) Hur, appointed to the position by Attorney General Merrick Garland, had served as US Attorney in Maryland during the Trump administration. Recommending that Biden not be prosecuted

"It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him-by then a former president well into his eighties-of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness," Hur wrote. In the report, he said that during interviews Biden couldn't remember when he was vice president, and had to ask when his first term ended and began. The report added that Biden did not remember, "even within several years," when his son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015.

Still, Democratic Party operatives were anxious to spin furiously:

Let's be clear--the special counsel isn't a dummy and we should be very careful not to take the bait after Comey pulled this in 2016. Hur, a lifelong Republican and creature of DC, didn't have a case against Biden, but he knew exactly how his swipes could hurt Biden politically.

— Jim Messina (@Messina2012) February 8, 2024

 

This matter is substantively, significantly different than Comey/Clinton. Hur is not the Attorney General, but a special counsel who was given the task of investigating the retention of documents and making a recommendation to the Attorney General. He

"uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified information after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen," the report said.

"These materials included (1) marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and (2) notebooks containing Mr. Biden's handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods," said the report.

The FBI reviewed 33,000 Clinton emails individually and found only three emails- later corrected to one- which contained a lower-case "c" in the middle of a paragraph. Not even classification experts would recognize that as "classified" without a header which would immediately expose the report as classified.

Nonetheless, Comey announced to the nation on July 5, 2016 that "Hillary Clinton and her colleagues" were "extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information." As of that date, every Democratic primary (or caucus) had been held and Mrs. Clinton already had, safely, declared herself winner of the nomination. She was the presumptive- and certain- Democratic nominee. Whether or not there was interest, there no longer was the opportunity for any primary voter to change his or her vote.

 

By contrast, this is only January and only one party-sanctioned primary (South Carolina) has been held. There is still plenty of time to prevent the Hur report from having a significant effect on the general election- if the candidate is not Joe Biden.

He has mistaken Mexico for Egypt and the deceased Helmut Kohl for Angela Merkel, failed to recall when he became Vice-President or vacated the office, confused the war in Ukraine and Iraq, forgotten the year of death of the beloved son he often refers to with great pride... and more. It doesn't suffice that he will be running against Agent of the Devil Donald Trump, with his own, severe, cognitive problems.

Opinions of Donald Trump are largely baked-in. Therefore, if the President's condition gets progressively worse- as is likely- and Trump's condition also declines, voters will be alarmed only by Biden's deterioration. Moreover, in the unlikely event Biden is re-elected, it he probably would not be able to finish out his second term, either through death or incapacitation. And given the 25th Amendment, that would be a tragedy.

 

Share |

G.O.P. Weapon

This may be a dangerous instance of  transforming "projection from a psychological phenomenon into a political strategy."

Luna: The FBI has moles within the FBI that are actively leaking information to the Biden family. It was brought to our attention that there was a mole within the FBI by the name of one eye pic.twitter.com/M8JZAnJPoh

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 6, 2023

  

Much of the Republican Party wants voters to believe that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is a wing of the Democratic Party. It's easy to forget a report from November 6, 2016 that

On October 28, 2016, (James) Comey wrote to members of Congress, telling them that although he had previously announced the conclusion of an FBI probe into the Democratic nominee’s emails, “In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.” It later became clear that the “unrelated investigation” was a inquiry into whether Anthony Weiner, estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, had sexted a teenager.

The FBI said on Sunday it stood by its earlier finding that no criminal charges were warranted against Democrat Hillary Clinton for using a private email server for government work, lifting a cloud over her presidential campaign two days before the U.S. election.

A legal cloud, yes; a political cloud, not by a longshot.  “We’re glad this issue is resolved but for the record, this could easily have been learned before 1st letter was sent,” Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon wrote on Twitter. It could have been, but wasn't, and thereby turned the election.

Nate Silver, then a data analyst at 538, concluded that the letter of October 28 probably cost Clinton the election because

At a maximum, it might have shifted the race by 3 or 4 percentage points toward Donald Trump, swinging Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida to him, perhaps along with North Carolina and Arizona. At a minimum, its impact might have been only a percentage point or so. Still, because Clinton lost Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by less than 1 point, the letter was probably enough to change the outcome of the Electoral College.

Comey inadvertently swayed voters further by restoring the issue to the public consciousness when on November 6, he said in effect "oops, the emails were unrelated."  Silver noted

the controversy was an unwelcome one for Clinton, since it involved voters seeing words like “Clinton,” “email,” “FBI” and “investigation” together in headlines. Within a day of the Comey letter, Google searches for “Clinton FBI” had increased 50-fold and searches for “Clinton email” almost tenfold.

Moreover

Exit polls showed that undecided and late-deciding voters broke toward Trump, especially in the Midwest. A panel survey conducted by FiveThirtyEight contributor Dan Hopkins and other researchers also found shifts between mid-October and the end of the campaign — an effect that would amount to a swing of about 4 percentage points against Clinton.5 And we know that previous email-related stories had caused trouble for Clinton in the polls. In July, when Comey said he wouldn’t recommend charges against Clinton but rebuked her handling of classified information, she lost about 2 percentage points in the polls. Periods of intense coverage of her email server had also been associated with polling declines during the Democratic primary.

Yet two days before Comey startled the country with his claim that the FBI had uncovered emails "pertinent to the investigation, "the New York Times published an article with the headline "Investigating Donald Trump, FBI Sees No Clear Link to Russia." It reported that the director "would not even confirm the existence of any investigation of Mr. Trump’s aides when asked during an appearance in September before Congress."

This may be the greatest irony in American history, now that we know that Clinton, at most, acted irresponsibly while that same Donald J. Trump has been indicted for taking and harboring dozens of documents involving military, nuclear, and intelligence secrets, as well as obstructing investigation into it.

So now there allegedly is a pro-Biden mole in the FBI? The agency's director in 2016 actively- albeit unintentionally- assisted the Trump campaign in a material, probably determinative, way. He notified voters of an investigation into Hillary Clinton but not of the one into connections- proven too late- between the Trump campaign and the Russians. The Bureau, as one agent described it, was "Trumplandia" and Comey was worried about a leak about Clinton.

Yet, we are presently to believe, and be horrified by, the possibility of a pro-Biden mole in the FBI and that the agency is a veritable arm of the Democratic Party. The demonization of the Bureau, and of federal law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies generally, is intrinsic to what Steve M recognizes as the GOP's big "idea: We must stop the weaponization of government." He explains

This is a much bigger idea than I, Donald Trump, the world's most innocent man, am the victim of a witch hunt. This idea encompasses the zombie lie that the Biden Justice Department targeted right-wing parents as "domestic terrorists" if they spoke up at school board meetings (DoJ was concerned only about threats of violence), as well as the notion that January 6 prisoners are suffering politcal persecution (while alleged FBI provocateurs who were at the Capitol remain free), and the belief that DOJ has gone easy on Hillary Clinton and "the Biden crime family."

The "weaponization of government" idea hasn't spread beyond the right, but it has the potential to drive base turnout even if Trump is convicted or drops out of the race, which is why so many Trump rivals, including Ron DeSantis, are invoking the weaponization narrative. DeSantis on Twitter:

"We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation.

Why so zealous in pursuing Trump yet so passive about Hillary or Hunter?"

Republicans want "weaponization" to be what the Dobbs decision has been to Democrats -- an outrage that drives turnout. One difference, of course, is that the Dobbs decision actually was an outrage. The "weaponization" idea is nonsense, but it can be useful to the GOP even if Trump is forced out of the race. The next Republican president can use it to genuinely politicize the Justice Department, as Ron DeSantis has promised to do. There isn't much limit to what a GOP president could do under those circumstances, especially with a rubber-stamp Congress and Supreme Court.

Republicans have invented a crisis of weaponization. Trump is using the idea to win the 2024 primaries, and he and his rivals are using it to try to win the general election. We have to turn out to ensure they don't succeed.

Not only is a Republican president likely "to genuinely politicize the Justice Department," he probably would deeply politicize the FBI.  We saw what happened in 2016, and a GOP president would find fertile ground trying to weaponize government in the same manner Republicans now irresponsibly imply Democrats have done.

 

Share |

Our F.B.I. And Donald Trump

Something is rotten in Washington, D.C., something including, but extending beyond, the stench Donald J. Trump and his henchmen left behind.

In June, 2018 The New York Times' Jim Dwyer recalled "two weeks before the 2016 election, Mr. Comey disclosed that the F.B.I. discovered a laptop that had not been examined in the original investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s emails."

After most of the damage was done, FBI director Jim Comey announced that those were among the emails already reviewed. Amid speculation that Comey announced discovery of the emails because he feared that anti-Clinton agents in the NY office would have leaked them otherwise. Dwyer noted

On Oct. 25, 2016, three days before Mr. Comey’s stunning announcement, Mr. Giuliani appeared on a Fox morning television show.

“We got a couple of surprises left,” Mr. Giuliani said.

He chortled, and when asked to expand on the subject, replied, “And I think it’ll be enormously effective.”

On Thursday, Oct. 27, Mr. Giuliani appeared on another Fox show and said he was talking about “pretty big surprises.” He added, “We’ve got a couple of things up our sleeve that should turn this thing around.”

The news of the reactivated email inspection arrived the following day and may have helped propel Mr. Trump closer to the presidency.

It probably was the determining factor in the election. Nate Silver, then of FiveThirtyEight, would explain

Hillary Clinton would probably be president if FBI Director James Comey had not sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 28. The letter, which said the FBI had “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation” into the private email server that Clinton used as secretary of state, upended the news cycle and soon halved Clinton’s lead in the polls, imperiling her position in the Electoral College.

The letter isn’t the only reason that Clinton lost. It does not excuse every decision the Clinton campaign made. Other factors may have played a larger role in her defeat, and it’s up to Democrats to examine those as they choose their strategy for 2018 and 2020.

But the effect of those factors — say, Clinton’s decision to give paid speeches to investment banks, or her messaging on pocket-book issues, or the role that her gender played in the campaign — is hard to measure. The impact of Comey’s letter is comparatively easy to quantify, by contrast. At a maximum, it might have shifted the race by 3 or 4 percentage points toward Donald Trump, swinging Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida to him, perhaps along with North Carolina and Arizona. At a minimum, its impact might have been only a percentage point or so. Still, because Clinton lost Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by less than 1 point, the letter was probably enough to change the outcome of the Electoral College.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has long been curious about the "investigation," first suggested by then-GOP Senator Jeff Flake, into the allegations against President Trump's nominee for the US Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh. The New York Times has found

In a letter dated June 30 to two Democratic senators, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Chris Coons of Delaware, an F.B.I. assistant director, Jill C. Tyson, said that the most “relevant” of the 4,500 tips the agency received during an investigation into Mr. Kavanaugh’s past were referred to White House lawyers in the Trump administration, whose handling of them remains unclear.

The letter left uncertain whether the F.B.I. itself followed up on the most compelling leads. The agency was conducting a background check rather than a criminal investigation, meaning that “the authorities, policies, and procedures used to investigate criminal matters did not apply,” the letter said.

Ms. Tyson’s letter was a response to a 2019 letter from Mr. Whitehouse and Mr. Coons to the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, posing questions about how the F.B.I.’s review of Mr. Kavanaugh was handled.

So the Federal Bureau of (non-) Investigation received tips in their (non-) investigation and instead of looking into them, turned them over to the White House, which the FBI knew wanted to whitewash the case. Tyson's letter can only be generously labeled a response to the Whitehouse-Coons letter, given that the agency ignored it during the Trump Administration.  The Justice Department and the White House no longer are under corrupt leadership.

Trump followers have for years bleated about the "deep state."  Maybe the Administration was the party overwhelmingly responsible for the Kavanaugh sham. However, the FBI certainly was a willing partner, running interference for a guy who probably wouldn't have gotten to the White House without its help.

 

 

Share |

Lie Of The Day

And so begins a regular series, "Trump Lie of the Day," understanding "lie" to be a falsehood the individual probably suspects or knows is not accurate. We begin with....

Not that it matters but I never fired James Comey because of Russia! The Corrupt Mainstream Media loves to keep pushing that narrative, but they know it is not true!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2018

NBC's Lester Holt (5/11/17)- but also The New York Times (5/19/17):

President Trump told Russian officials in the Oval Office this month that firing the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, had relieved “great pressure” on him, according to a document summarizing the meeting.

“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

Days without a lie: 0


Share |

Donald Trump's FBI Strategy

The unsurprisingly underplayed "Code Name Crossfire Hurricane: The Seret Origins of the Trump Investigation" by the New York Times' Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, and Nichoas Fandos reveals

Within hours of opening an investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia in the summer of 2016, the F.B.I. dispatched a pair of agents to London on a mission so secretive that all but a handful of officials were kept in the dark.

Their assignment, which has not been previously reported, was to meet the Australian ambassador, who had evidence that one of Donald J. Trump’s advisers knew in advance about Russian election meddling. After tense deliberations between Washington and Canberra, top Australian officials broke with diplomatic protocol and allowed the ambassador, Alexander Downer, to sit for an F.B.I. interview to describe his meeting with the campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos.

The agents summarized their highly unusual interview and sent word to Washington on Aug. 2, 2016, two days after the investigation was opened. Their report helped provide the foundation for a case that, a year ago Thursday, became the special counsel investigation. But at the time, a small group of F.B.I. officials knew it by its code name: Crossfire Hurricane.

Not only did agents in that case fall back to their typical policy of silence, but interviews with a dozen current and former government officials and a review of documents show that the F.B.I. was even more circumspect in that case than has been previously known. Many of the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.

Agents considered, then rejected, interviewing key Trump associates, which might have sped up the investigation but risked revealing the existence of the case. Top officials quickly became convinced that they would not solve the case before Election Day, which made them only more hesitant to act. When agents did take bold investigative steps, like interviewing the ambassador, they were shrouded in secrecy.

Fearful of leaks, they kept details from political appointees across the street at the Justice Department. Peter Strzok, a senior F.B.I. agent, explained in a text that Justice Department officials would find it too “tasty” to resist sharing. “I’m not worried about our side,” he wrote.

Yes, yes. That is the same "Peter S." whom President Trump pressed Attorney General Sessions to fire because he was considered disloyal to the Administration.   The efforts of the agency Donald Trump considers his mortal enemy appeared to pay off as

Only about five Justice Department officials knew the full scope of the case, officials said, not the dozen or more who might normally be briefed on a major national security case.

The facts, had they surfaced, might have devastated the Trump campaign: Mr. Trump’s future national security adviser was under investigation, as was his campaign chairman. One adviser appeared to have Russian intelligence contacts. Another was suspected of being a Russian agent himself.

In the Clinton case, Mr. Comey has said he erred on the side of transparency. But in the face of questions from Congress about the Trump campaign, the F.B.I. declined to tip its hand. And when The New York Times tried to assess the state of the investigation in October 2016, law enforcement officials cautioned against drawing any conclusions, resulting in a story that significantly played down the case.

That "transparency" thing doesn't fly, Mr. Comey.  Transparency is (as Comey stated)

In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here. 

Transparency is not (also as he stated)

Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.





Even more clearly, "transparency" is not announcing nine days before the election that the bureau is
reopening investigation into the Clinton emails, only to announce a few days later that there is no there there, once the political damage was done.

That damage probably included turning the election.  Comey's decision to be "transparent" about investigating Hillary Clinton while being opaque about investigation Trump was unjustified with probable horrific consequences yet unseen. Nonetheless, it was understandable because

underpinning both cases was one political calculation: that Mrs. Clinton would win and Mr. Trump would lose. Agents feared being seen as withholding information or going too easy on her. And they worried that any overt actions against Mr. Trump’s campaign would only reinforce his claims that the election was being rigged against him.

It was widely accepted during the campaign that Trump's obsession with claiming the election was "rigged" against him was an effort to deligitimize the expected victory of his opponent. However, we have since learned there was an additional reason: to intimidate law enforcement. If  Comey had indicated there was an active investigation into the Trump campaign- or even that there was insufficient evidence evidence to charge Hillary Clinton with a crime, full stop- Trump would have claimed that as proof the election was rigged.

Trump's protestations also reinforced the assumption that he would lose, thereby reassuring Comey, Strzok and others at the FBI that their tilt toward the Republican and against Clinton would not come back to haunt them.

And so ironically, an investigation which yielded no charges was trumped up by the FBI and the media.  And one which- probably far from over- has now led to five guilty pleas and indictments of seventeen other individuals was shoved into the background, stomped upon, and lit on fire.

Donald Trump might be ignorant, uninformed, or as his tweets indicate, barely literate (actually, no maybe about it).  But he isn't stupid, and he played Jim Comey's FBI to the hilt.



Share |

The Apparent Prescience of Rudolph L. Giuliani

Rudy Giuliani has little compunction about lying, and he has demonstrated over the last couple of weeks that he is ignorant about campaign finance law. As a lawyer, he has lost a great deal off his fastball.

But there is something about Rudy. He seems to know.

Early Tuesday, CNN reported

"The agreement with Michael Cohen, as far as I know, is a longstanding agreement that Michael Cohen takes care of situations like this then gets paid for them sometimes," Giuliani said.

"So did Michael Cohen make payments to other women for the President?" Stephanopoulos asked.

"I have no knowledge of that, but I would think if it was necessary, yes," Giuliani replied. "He made payments for the President or he's conducted business for the President, which means he had legal fees, monies laid out and expenditures."

Late Tuesday, Stormy Daniels attorney Michael Avenatti  maintained that $500,000 from eight transactions had been paid to Michael Cohen from 1/17 through 8/17 by a Russian company controlled by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. It is likely that $130,000 of this money became hush money paid to Daniels, and the remainder may have been used to pay off other women.

Few details are certain as of now, but Giuliani's remarks on Sunday appear to be connected to the revelation from Avenatti.

Similarly, on May 3 Giuliani contended “The president of the United States is getting ready to negotiate probably one of our most historic agreements…and we got Kim Jong-un impressed enough to be releasing three prisoners today."  Presidential Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated that the ex-mayor does not speak for the Administration and the State Department spokesperson remarked "He (Giuliani) speaks for himself and not on behalf of the administration on foreign policy."





This morning, six days later, President Trump tweeted "I am pleased to inform you that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in the air and on his way back from North Korea with the 3 wonderful gentlemen that everyone is looking so forward to meeting."

More mysteriously, in an event given insufficient emphasis, Giuliani appeared on Fox and Friends two weeks before the presidential election. According to The New York Times 

“Does Donald Trump plan anything except a series of inspiring rallies?” Mr. Kilmeade asked.

“Yes,” Mr. Giuliani replied.

Another host, Ainsley Earhardt, jumped in.

“What?” she asked.

“Ha-ha-ha,” Mr. Giuliani laughed. “You’ll see.”

Appearing to enjoy his own coy reply, Mr. Giuliani resumed chuckling: “Ha-ha-ha.”

“When will this happen?” Ms. Earhardt asked.

“We got a couple of surprises left,” Mr. Giuliani said, smiling.

This enigmatic reply roused the show’s third host, Steve Doocy.

“October surprises?” he asked.

Mr. Giuliani expanded a bit.

“Well,” he said, “I call them early surprises in the way we’re going to campaign to get our message out, maybe in a little bit of a different way. You’ll see. And I think it’ll be enormously effective. And I do think that all of these revelations about Hillary Clinton finally are beginning to have an impact.”

The Times noted

Three days later, James B. Comey, the director of the F.B.I., said agents were reviewing emails “that appear to be pertinent” to a closed investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s use of a personal email server while secretary of state.

Two days later, Giuliani added

I got it all from former FBI agents. Tremendous anger within the FBI about the way, number one, Jim Comey's conclusion (to not recommend criminal charges in July) and, number two, the way they believed they were being obstructed by what they regard as a pretty corrupt Obama Justice Department. Cutting off a grand jury investigation, cutting off subpoenas.





We still do not know whether, and to what extent, the then-FBI director was intimidated by anti-Clinton agents in its New York office.   However, it's likely that had Comey not announced that many more emails belonging to H. Clinton aide Huma Abedin had been found on the laptop of her then-husband, Anthony Weiner, Donald J. Trump would not have been elected. And it is extremely likely that Rudolph Giuliani knew what was coming.

So we can laugh all we want at Rudolph Giuliani as he flails about defending Donald Trump and attacking the President's critics.  Nonetheless, he's a guy who, though a failure in all matters surrounding the 9/11 terroristic attacks, masterfully exploited the tragedy for all it was worth.  For that, and knowledge of events yet to occur, he is a character worth taking seriously.







Share |

Transparent Intentions

Politico reports

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he may change his position to not be involved with the Justice Department’s sprawling probe into whether his campaign colluded with Russia to meddle in the 2016 presidential election.

“Because of the fact that they have this witch hunt going on with people in the Justice Department that shouldn't be there, they have a witch hunt against the president of the United States going on, I‘ve taken the position, and I don't have to take this position, and maybe I'll change, that I will not be involved with the Justice Department,” Trump said in a wide-ranging interview with "Fox & Friends" on Thursday morning.

“I will wait until this is over. It is a total, it is all lies and it is a horrible thing that is going on, a horrible thing,” the president continued.

Well, yes, his presidency is a horrible thing- but it can get much worse.

The President's rhetorical shift, the threat to become directly involved in the Special Counsel's probe, is a precursor to a (unlikely) second term. It is one of the ways in which he has chosen to warn us of what is coming, if  he is allowed to have his way.

Generally defending former FBI director James Comey in the lawfare blog, Benjamin Wittes has written

I believed that Trump would fire Comey because it was clear who Trump is, and I knew who Comey is. I had a feeling they could not coexist. A tyranny cannot have independent law enforcement and remain an effective tyranny. A would-be tyrant thus must purge government of law enforcement that would be independent. He simply must get the law enforcement apparatus under his control—that is, protecting his friends and himself and arrayed against his enemies. I did not know who would be the Trump administration’s attorney general or deputy attorney general. But I knew that Trump would not be able to get law enforcement under his control with Comey in office—so I worried that he would remove Comey sooner or later. That this came to pass, and quickly, is not a reflection of my prescience. It is a reflection of what Comey, in his testimony to the Senate intelligence committee, called “the nature of the person.”

On Air Force One earlier this month, Trump argued he had nothing to do with the payoff to Stormy Daniels, claiming "You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael.” On the Fox and Friends segment, President Trump reversed course and admittted "He (Cohen) represents me, like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal, he represented me."

Comey maintained in his memoranda that Trump told him that he did not stay overnight in Moscow during the 2013 Miss America pageant. Evidence has mounted, however, that Trump stayed through at least one night and today Grump shifted significantly his story: "I stayed there a very short period of time but of course I stayed. Well, his memo said I left immediately. I never said that. I never said I left immediately."





Donald Trump lies and does so effortlessly, but also can turn on a dime. Today he denigrates the FBI and the "deep state" but if re-elected, may use the FBI as his private police force and ingratiate himself seemlessly into whatever the heck the "deep state" is.

He'll do that because

A tyranny cannot have independent law enforcement and remain an effective tyranny. A would-be tyrant thus must purge government of law enforcement that would be independent. He simply must get the law enforcement apparatus under his control—that is, protecting his friends and himself and arrayed against his enemies.

Share |

A Boon, Not A Bug

No doubt up early for church, the President on Sunday tweeted "Unbelievably, James Comey states that Polls, where Crooked Hillary was leading, were a factor in the handling (stupidly) of the Clinton Email probe. In other words, he was making decisions based on the fact that he thought she was going to win, and he wanted a job. Slimeball!"

Dressing furiously so as not to be late for the pastor's opening announcements, Trump paused briefly to inform everyone "I never asked Comey for Personal Loyalty. I hardly even knew this guy. Just another of his many lies. His “memos” are self serving and FAKE!" and "Slippery James Comey, a man who always ends up badly and out of whack (he is not smart!), will go down as the WORST FBI Director in history, by far!"

The President would never chance missing worship were it not to warn Americans that the former head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the worst FBI dirctor ever, a fake, and a slimeball.

There was no reason that this Lord's Day should have been any different from any other for a President who actually did chance to visit a church on Easter Sunday. This followed a series of tweets including  "Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. 'Caravans' coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!" On church grounds, he readied his heart for prayer by condemning immigrants and Democrats.





The President obviously is at his classiest on Sunday mornings, even though the Los Angeles Times later on Easter rudely suggested "The tone of the president's holiday tweets differed markedly from the sentiments of goodwill commonly expressed by previous U.S. chief executives on national or religious occasions."

The pettiness and the nastiness have affected upon the President's popularity.  On April 11, history professor Rodney Hessinger observed

The most recent Pew polls suggest that President Donald Trump hasn't just held his support amongst white evangelicals but actually has grown his support since the Stormy Daniels story took hold.

With his white evangelical support having dropped to 61 percent in December, Trump now enjoys 78 percent support, just a shade beneath the support he won from white evangelicals on Election Day.

Hessinger notes

Many commentators have puzzled about the seeming hypocrisy of those who would see adultery and womanizing as grave sins. And yet for those who know the history of evangelicalism in America, this should be no surprise at all.

In fact, there are good reasons why we should expect this result. The history and sexual politics of evangelicalism in America fit well with Donald Trump and his message.

Whatever the history and sexual politics of evangelicalism in the USA, Donald Trump can no longer be validly seen as enormously popular with the white Christian right despite his attitude, language, and behavior.

"Christian conservatives," NYT columnist Michelle Golberg notes, "may believe strongly in their own righteousness. But from the outside, it looks as if their movement was never really about morality at all."  Ironically, in the case of Trump, maybe it is about morality- except in reverse.

Donald Trump lacks regard for traditional Christian virtues as sexual morality, honesty, kindness, charity toward others, compassion, humility, personal responsibility. He openly exhibits contempt for Christian customs, such as communion, the virgin birth, and asking for forgiveness. For him, these are not barriers to popularity with his most enthusiastic constituency. They are an admission ticket.




Share |

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie.

This post isn't about sex.  It also isn't about money or about the law.

Each plays a role in the Stormy Daniels/Stephanie Clifford-Donald J. Trump story. But this isn't about the corrupt businessman and the pornographic star. It pertains to President Trump's reaction to Sarah Huckabee Sanders' remark about the affair, and how that provides insight into Trump's surprise victory in November of 2016.

James Comey and Mrs. Sanders have something in common, other than belonging to the GOP.  Mediaite (and with different words, everybody) reports

President Donald Trump is reportedly somewhat less than thrilled with his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, for her comments during Wednesday’s briefing addressing the Stormy Daniels story.

According to CNN’s Abby Phillip (citing reporting from Jim Acosta), Trump believes that Sanders essentially breathed life into the Stormy Daniels controversy with her Wednesday remarks.

“According to this source, Sarah Sanders’ comments were essentially putting the Stormy Daniels storyline on steroids yesterday,” Phillip said.

Sanders, in the Wednesday briefing, said “the president has denied the allegations against him. And again, this case has already been won in arbitration.”

Those comments from Sanders led many to point out that the White House was confirming that Trump engaged in some sort of legal agreement with the porn star.





Other than being confusing and possibly inaccurate (not unusual or counte-productive in the Trump presidency), there is nothing wrong with this statement. On the contrary, Sanders essentially repeated a great Trump theme: I'm a winner.  She contended the President a) has denied the allegations; and b) won. Case closed; let's move on.

But Trump, with magnificent political instincts, is upset with Sanders. Not, as far as we know, because of what she said but because she said anything, hence giving the public an opportunity to focus on the matter. If nothing else, it resurrected the issue from the political coffin.

And that's not good. Sometimes it matters less what the facts (in this case, contested) are than that an item is in the public consciousness.

Enter Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey. Last May, numbers-cruncher Nate Silver wrote

Hillary Clinton would probably be president if FBI Director James Comey had not sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 28. The letter, which said the FBI had “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation” into the private email server that Clinton used as secretary of state, upended the news cycle and soon halved Clinton’s lead in the polls, imperiling her position in the Electoral College.

The letter isn’t the only reason that Clinton lost. It does not excuse every decision the Clinton campaign made. Other factors may have played a larger role in her defeat, and it’s up to Democrats to examine those as they choose their strategy for 2018 and 2020.

But the effect of those factors — say, Clinton’s decision to give paid speeches to investment banks, or her messaging on pocket-book issues, or the role that her gender played in the campaign — is hard to measure. The impact of Comey’s letter is comparatively easy to quantify, by contrast. At a maximum, it might have shifted the race by 3 or 4 percentage points toward Donald Trump, swinging Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida to him, perhaps along with North Carolina and Arizona. At a minimum, its impact might have been only a percentage point or so. Still, because Clinton lost Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by less than 1 point, the letter was probably enough to change the outcome of the Electoral College.

It is highly unlikely, as Silver suggests, that Comey's letter of October 28 did not move at least one additional percent of voters into Trump's column.

Yet, it's likely also that the Director's letter of November 6, 2016- largely exonerating the Democratic nominee- also helped Trump.

The Real Clear Politics average of Pennsylvania polls from 10/29/16-11/5/16 gave Clinton a lead of 2.7%; she lost by .7%.  In Michigan, the average of polls of 11/1/16-11/06/16 had Clinton up by 3.6%. She lost the state by .3%. The RCP average of polls taken 10/26/16-11/01/16 in Wisconsin had Clinton up by 6.5%; she lost by .7% to Trump.

Either there was a whole lot of lying going on- or Clinton lost additional ground in the 2-3 days following Comey's letter of 11/6/16.   The news for her was favorable, but it brought the issue back to the fore. Similarly, Sanders gave a fairly clever defense of Trump's status- but brought the issue back from the dead.

That is what Donald Trump appears to believe. And his instinct, a sense of where people are at any particular time, has proven quite sound.




Share |

Rigged, Indeed

He's right, you know.

Donald Trump and his lackeys complained throughout the presidential campaign that the election was "rigged,"  This year, on Groundhog Day

“The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans — something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago,” Trump wrote on Twitter hours before ordering the release of the formerly classified memo. “Rank & File are great people!”

Obviously, the Devin Nunes memo indicated no such thing. Claiming an election is "rigged" brings to mind for most people the idea that it is fixed. However, the Urban Dictionary maintains "The word rigged is used to describe situations where unfair advantages are given to one side of a conflict."  By that (questionable) definition, the 2016 presidential election clearly was rigged.

The New Yorker's Jane Mayer notes a "top-secret Oval Office meeting" on January 5, 2017, in which "the nation's top intelligence agencies briefed (Obama and Biden and some national security officials for the  first time about the (Steele) dossier's allegation that Trump's campaign team may have colluded with the Russians."  One person who was there later told her

No one understands that at the White House we weren’t briefed about the F.B.I.’s investigations. We had no information on collusion. All we saw was what the Russians were doing. The F.B.I. puts anything about Americans in a lockbox.

It does so with almost any American- but not with Hillary Clinton.  Mayer found that Christopher

Steele was therefore shocked when, on October 28, 2016, Comey sent a letter to congressional leaders: the F.B.I. had come across new e-mails bearing on its previously closed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server as Secretary of State. He said that these e-mails required immediate review. The announcement plunged Clinton’s campaign into chaos. Two days before the election, Comey made a second announcement, clearing her of wrongdoing, but by that point her campaign’s momentum had stalled.

To Steele, the F.B.I., by making an incriminating statement so close to Election Day, seemed to be breaking a rule that he’d been told was inviolable. And, given what he—and very few others—knew about the F.B.I.’s Trump investigation, it also seemed that the Bureau had one standard for Clinton and another for her opponent. “Chris was concerned that something was happening at the F.B.I.,” Simpson later told the House Intelligence Committee. “We were very concerned that the information that we had about the Russians trying to interfere in the election was going to be covered up.” Simpson and Steele thought that “it would only be fair if the world knew that both candidates were under investigation.”

Shortly after the election, a mentor of Steele gave the dossier to hawkish Armed Services committee chairperson John McCain. But while the dossier was still largely a secret

On December 9th, McCain handed Comey a copy of the dossier. The meeting lasted less than ten minutes, because, to McCain’s surprise, the F.B.I. had possessed a copy since the summer. According to the former national-security official, when (McCain aide) Kramer learned about the meeting his reaction was “Shit, if they’ve had it all this time, why didn’t they do something?” Kramer then heard that the dossier was an open secret among journalists, too. He asked, “Is there anyone in Washington who doesn’t know about this?” 

As of then- a month after the election- plenty of people in Washington still didn't know about it.  That group included the President of the USA, the Vice President of the USA, and Hillary Clinton (and her campaign).

In a startling departure from Justice Department policy, FBI director Comey in July had announced that an American who would not be referred to prosecution was probably "extremely careless" in "handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

But that was unacceptable to some FBI agents.  A year ago, Vanity Fair's Bethany McClean revealed

A former D.O.J. official says that, as early as 2015, a rumor was floating around that the F.B.I. agents in New York were cracking jokes about seeing Hillary Clinton in handcuffs. “It was widely understood that there was a faction in that office that couldn’t stand her and was out to get her,” this person says.

Moreover, Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani, who as a former US Attorney for New York and mayor of the city was close to James Kallstrom once head of the FBI's field office in New York- evidently had inside information:

On October 26, Giuliani appeared on Fox News and said, “We got a couple things up our sleeve that should turn this around. Even the liberal pollsters will get to see.” When pressed about what these surprises would be, Giuliani broke into a smile and said, “You’ll see. Ha ha ha.”

Two days later, on October 28, just 11 days before the election, Comey sent his letter to Congress saying that “in connection with an unrelated case, the F.B.I. has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation” of Clinton. 





That halted Clinton's momentum, which was not in the least resurrected when two days before the election, Comey acknowledged that the allegedly "pertinent" emails actually changed nothing.

So, yes, the vote was "rigged" in the loose definition of the term. And when the full findings of Special Counselor Robert Mueller (assuming he is not dismissed) are released, Donald J. Trumplikely will wish the election never was rigged in his behalf.

Share |

Same Trump, Different Venue

During the presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump claimed on Facebook "Saudi Arabia and many of the countries that gave vast amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation want women as slaves and to kill gays."  In one of the general election debates, he argued Saudis are "people that push gays off buildings" and "kill women and treat women horribly."

Later but merely four months into his presidency, he presented a gift worth $109.7 billion when, as The Independent reported, he “signed the largest arms deal in history with Saudi Arabia despite warnings he could be accused of being complicit in war crimes and after blaming Saudi Arabia himself for producing the terrorists behind 9/11."





While Trump was campaigning, China was "ripping us off, folks" in "the greatest theft in the history of the world."   As President, he visits Chiese President Xi Jinping and suddenly it's "I don't blame China. After all, who can blame a country for being able  to take advantage of another country to the benefit of its citizens?"





There is more going on here than always blaming America first.  When the President fired FBI Director James Comey in May, he didn't do the deed himself. Instead, he boldly gave his bodyguard a letter to deliver the bad news to Comey.

It's more comfortable doing things that way rather than in-person, man to man, man to woman, or by some direct means. That's why it was disconcerting to read that CNN's usually rational and even occasionally insightful Fareed Zakaria was surprised when

On Friday at the World Economic Forum, Trump gave a good speech that was forthright, intelligent and conciliatory, embracing the world rather than condemning it. The address was extremely well received here at the World Economic Forum by both American business leaders and even non-American attendees, who are overwhelmingly skeptical of Trump overall.

By most accounts, the speech was not quite the huge hit Zakaria believed it was. Still, his point is valid: the President of the United States of America (formerly the leader of the free world) was positively civilized. He did not drool at the mouth, suggest racist motives, or slur his words. He was at his best.





But that's not surprising. Zakaria argues "if the speech represents a new approach for the president, it will be a huge step forward." Yet, it is not a new approach. It is the same old Trump, dressed up and cooled off in front of an audience which did not want to see Twitter Trump.

Twitter is the perfect stage for Donald Trump. It allows him to spout off at all his enemies, real and imagined, while not directly facing them. At Davos, he merely had to be Salesman Trump, asking the world to join him in entering the age of utopia he is ushering in as alpha president.

Back in Washington, D.C. in the land he hates, Trump will not be a different Trump. He will be the same Trump, lobbing insults and invective every which way as the mood, and his interests, suit him. It's easy to do when you're communicating at long distance, your spine is jello, and your leadership is no leadership at all.

Share |

Will He Or Won't He?

On Saturday morning, David Frum issued a series of clever tweets, each beginning with "this isn't remotely like Watergate."

One follows with "during Watergate, Congress cared whether laws had been broken;" another, "along with his flaws and demons, Nixon has many fine qualities of instinct and character." Still another reads "Watergate arose from domestic espionage."

Less controversial but arguably more intriguing, Frum tweets "This isn't remotely like Watergate. During Watergate, honorable people in government resigned rather than be associated with improper acts."

Cyrus Vance (sadly) is dead. People will not resign rather than be associated with improper acts.   The most obvious candidate was Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who wrote to Jeff Sessions a memorandum in which he argued that FBI Director James Comey had supplanted the authority of the Attorney General's office by himself determining whether to prosecute Hillary Clinton.

After President Trump fired Comey and attributed the decision to Reosenstein's letter, the Deputy Attorney General was miffed. Consequently, the President then conceded he had decided to dismiss the FBI director well before he received the recommendation.

Rosenstein reportedly was displeased he had been used by the President, as if Donald Trump hadn't spent a lifetime using people. But the guy offended at being blindsided had concluded his memo

Although the President has the power to remove an FBI director, the decision should not be taken lightly. I agree with the nearly unanimous opinions of former Department officials. The way the Director handled the conclusion of the email investigation was wrong. As a result, the FBI is unlikely to regain public and congressional trust until it has a Director who understands the gravity of the mistakes and pledges never to repeat them. Having refused to admit his errors, the Director cannot be expected to implement the necessary corrective actions.

You  don't need an IQ in the triple digits to recognize that as a recommendation to sack someone who "cannot be expected to  implement the necessary corrective actions."

Rosenstein still could resign, but the betting is he won't.  Appearing Saturday morning with Michael Smerconish, Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Del Quentin Wilber stated that- notwithstanding some speculation- he believes Rosenstein won't resign because he likes his job.

Though unlikely Rosenstein will quit, there still is a chance for James Comey. Not to resign, of course, because he already has been removed- but to come clean.

Donald Trump says "I believe" Comey requested to dine with the President, precipitating the dinner of January 27; former DNI director Clapper says the request came from the President.

President Trump maintains that on three occasions, including once at the White House dinner, he asked Comey whether he was under investigation and each time was told that he was not.  Comey's camp is saying the then-FBI director never would have answered such a question.

Comey's associates say their guy was asked by Trump at the meal to pledge his loyalty to the President. Comey, they maintain, "declined, instead offering to be 'honest.' When Trump then pressed for 'honest loyalty,' Comey told him, 'You will have that.'" Assistant Presidential Press Secretary Sanders denies that occurred.  (She also charged Comey "lost the confidence" of "rank-and-file" FBI employees.)






Trump has accused James Comey of asking for the dinner and assuring him he is not under investigation, and denies he requested a pledge of loyalty from the FBI director. And he has fired him, calling Comey a "showboat" and "grandstander," then tweeted he "better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"

Whether that's a threat, a warning, or Trump just impulsively acting out his anger, he has thrown down the gauntlet.  But Comey has declined a request to testify next Tuesday before a closed session of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The litmus test is whether the former director ends up testifying in open session, as is speculated he'd rather do. Assuming what the Comey camp says is accurate (given that Trump is claiming the reverse, it very likely is), Comey would demonstrate an utter lack of self-respect if he simply walks away keeping everything to himself.

Fortunately, he'll probably step up, as he must.  The jury is still out on James Comey, a subject of controversy in the Trump/Russia/election scandal since its inception. Not everyone gets a second chance, but he now has an opportunity to show the pride and self-respect evidently lacking in Rod Rosenstein.











Share |