;)
The Commentariat -- April 21, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Hamza Shaban of the Washington Post: "Former first lady Barbara Bush was remembered by family and friends as a symbol of authenticity and grace during a private funeral Saturday in Houston, where more than 1,000 guests were in attendance, including four former presidents and three former first ladies, as well as the current first lady."
"World's Largest Pork Processor." Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, met personally last year with J. Steven Hart, the lobbyist whose wife had rented him a $50-a-night Capitol Hill condo, a disclosure that contradicts earlier statements that E.P.A. lobbying by Mr. Hart had not occurred. The meeting was set up on behalf of an executive associated with Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork processor and hog producer. Previously, Mr. Hart and his lobbying firm, Williams & Jensen, had maintained that Mr. Hart never lobbied Mr. Pruitt in 2017, when Mr. Pruitt was living in a condo co-owned by Mr. Hart's wife, or in the time since then.... The Smithfield Foods disclosure was made the same day that Mr. Hart announced he was stepping down as chairman of Williams & Jensen -- instead of waiting until his planned November retirement -- citing the negative publicity that had been caused by the Capitol Hill condo rental to Mr. Pruitt. ...
... Pruitt Was Always Corrupt. Steve Eder & Hiroki Tabuchi of the New York Times: "An examination of Mr. Pruitt's political career in Oklahoma reveals that many of the pitfalls he has encountered in Washington have echoes in his past.... Mr. Pruitt's home in Oklahoma City when he was a state senator..., which had belonged to a lobbyist, was held by a shell company registered to Mr. Pruitt's business partner and financed by a bank an associate of his ran.... In 2005, the shell company -- Capitol House L.L.C. -- sold the property for $95,000 more than it had paid. While shell companies are legal, they often obscure the people who have an interest in them, and none of Mr. Pruitt's financial disclosure filings in Oklahoma mentioned the company or the proceeds -- a potential violation of the state's ethics rules." Both the holder of the shell company & the banker who arranged the mortgage -- who is "barred from working in the finance industry because of a banking violation" -- now have top jobs at the EPA. The partners bought the house at a $100K discount; SBC Oklahoma, the former homeowner's employer, picked up the difference. SBC had been lobbying state legislators, & Pruitt sided with the company on matters for which it had lobbied him."
*****
The Trumpster has been tweeting this morning: "The New York Times and a third rate reporter named Maggie Haberman, known as a Crooked H flunkie who I don't speak to and have nothing to do with, are going out of their way to destroy Michael Cohen and his relationship with me in the hope that he will 'flip.' They use.... ...non-existent 'sources' and a drunk/drugged up loser who hates Michael, a fine person with a wonderful family. Michael is a businessman for his own account/lawyer who I have always liked & respected. Most people will flip if the Government lets them out of trouble, even if.... ...it means lying or making up stories. Sorry, I don't see Michael doing that despite the horrible Witch Hunt and the dishonest media!" ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Based on the NYT report (linked below), I assume the "drunk/drugged up loser" is Sam Nunberg, who used to work for Cohen & Roger Stone.
... Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Trump initially misspelled Haberman's last name, using two 'b', but later retweeted the thread with the correct spelling. Trump ... has spoken with Haberman on the record for multiple stories in the past...."
Sari Horwitz, et al., of the Washington Post: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently told the White House he might have to leave his job if President Trump fired his deputy, Rod J. Rosenstein, who oversees the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the exchange. Sessions made his position known in a phone call to White House counsel Donald McGahn last weekend, as Trump's fury at Rosenstein peaked after the deputy attorney general approved the FBI's raid April 9 on the president's personal attorney Michael Cohen.... [One] person familiar with the exchange said Sessions did not intend to threaten the White House but rather wanted to convey the untenable position that Rosenstein's firing would put him in."
Thug-in-Chief. Murray Waas in Vox: "... Donald Trump sharply questioned Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray during a White House meeting on January 22 about why two senior FBI officials -- Peter Strzok and Lisa Page -- were still in their jobs despite allegations made by allies of the president that they had been disloyal to him and had unfairly targeted him and his administration.... The president also pressed his attorney general and FBI director to work more aggressively to uncover derogatory information within the FBI's files to turn over to congressional Republicans working to discredit the two FBI officials.... The very next day, Trump met Sessions again, this time without Wray present, and even more aggressively advocated that Strzok and Page be fired, the sources said. Trump's efforts to discredit Strzok and Page came after Trump was advised last summer by his then-criminal defense attorney John Dowd that Page was a likely witness against him in ... Robert Mueller's investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice, according to two senior administration officials." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Bad news, Donaldo. Now both Sessions & Wray could wind up as witnesses against you, too.
Kevin Brueninger of CNBC: "Memos leaked by former FBI Director James Comey contain information that is now considered classified, prompting the Justice Department's watchdog to review the matter, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.... At least two of the memos Comey gave to a friend contained classified information, the Journal reported. Comey reportedly redacted portions of one of those two memos himself before sending them to his friend.... A person familiar with the matter told the newspaper that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is now spearheading an investigation into the classification of the documents. Comey has said he considers the documents to be personal documents. But in a Jan. 7, 2017 email containing the first memo he wrote, Comey said he was 'not sure of the proper classification here so have chosen SECRET.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Michael Shear of the New York Times, in a story about how leaking the Comey memos seems to have backfired on House GOP leaders, has a fairly good explanation of the classification issue: "Mr. Comey gave copies of at least two of his memos to Daniel C. Richman, a longtime associate outside the F.B.I. Some of the memos were later deemed to contain classified information. In one case, Mr. Comey had personally redacted such information before handing it to Mr. Richman, and in another, the F.B.I. deemed the material classified only after it was in Mr. Richman's possession. Mr. Comey has said he shared the memos with Mr. Richman under the assumption that they would be shared with the news media and to put pressure on the Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor.... The inspector general has questioned witnesses about the matter, and F.B.I. agents conducted a search of Mr. Richman's New York office to ensure that the leak was contained." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's the thing: if Hillary Clinton was so "extremely careless" in using a not-officially-secured server to send a few e-mails to security-cleared staff, & if the memos were later deemed classified, & if no one intended to publish those e-mails, then even the most adoring Comey fan would have to conclude that Comey was "extremely manipulative" and "highly vindictive" to purposely arrange to leak his own memos. His argument that the memos belonged to him is nonsense. They describe privileged conversations with the POTUS*-elect & later POTUS*, conversations he had in his professional capacity as FBI director. The memos were work product when Comey wrote them, & they remained work product after Trump fired him. Just because he ascribes to himself a "noble purpose" doesn't make the leak any less a leak. By Comey's own reckoning (see published memos), his head belongs on a pike.
Josh Marshall: In the Comey memos, "Trump repeatedly not only denied the 'pee tape' accusations but he went on to say that he had not even spent the night in Russia. He apparently also told his high level staffers this.... There's ample evidence that Trump stayed not one but two nights. In July 2017, Bloomberg News's Vernon Silver and Evgenia Pismennaya reported out a detailed reconstruction of the trip based on FAA records, social media postings and interviews.... [Trump's] longtime bodyguard Keith Schiller... makes very clear [in testimony] that Trump did stay overnight in Moscow.... In any court, this lie would be entered as evidence of his lack of credibility on the main point." ...
... Greg Sargent has a good column arguing that release of the Comey memos sunk Trump: "These memos, if anything, confirm more credibly than before what Trump's frame of mind was in leading up to that firing — that is, the level of acquiescence that Trump wanted but did not get from Comey before firing him. These memos go further than before in supplying Trump's likely motive for the firing." Sargent is amused by the GOP's ludicrous claim that the memos actually vindicate Trump because Comey never wrote in a memo, "Woe is me! I feel so obstructed!" Sargent also notes an important question Rachel Maddow asked Comey last night in regard to Rudy Giuliani's foreknowledge of Comey's plan to reopen the Clinton investigation. Worth a read. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Here's that portion of Maddow's interview:
... Stephen Collinson of CNN: "If House Republicans thought they were helping ... Donald Trump by forcing the release of James Comey's memos, they might want to think again. The documents written by the then-FBI director, detailing his interactions with Trump, present a contemporaneous and deeply unflattering view of a President throwing his weight around in his first days in the White House -- that at the very least seems highly inappropriate.... The Comey memos suggest Trump has a scattershot and self-obsessed mindset, brooding about his subordinates, leaks, his campaign and his inaugural crowd size and not appreciating or caring about protocol boundaries that separate the White House and the Justice Department. Furthermore, the conversations with Comey soon after Trump moved into the White House paint a picture of a new President more concerned with own fortunes than the burden of his new responsibilities.... Trump responded to the release of the memos on Twitter in an apparent attempt to direct conversation away from the embarrassing substance of the documents." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Stef Kight of Axios: "Former Deputy FBI Director strong>Andrew McCabe is looking to sue for defamation, wrongful termination and other possible civil claims, his lawyer told reporters Friday....McCabe's lawyer, Michael Bromwich, also said his client told then-FBI Director James Comey that he was pushing back on stories about the Hillary Clinton investigation -- which would mean he didn't lack candor. They are seeking ways to release emails and phone call transcripts between McCabe and Comey to shed light on the issue."
Tom Hamburger, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Democratic National Committee filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit Friday against the Russian government, the Trump campaign and the WikiLeaks organization alleging a far-reaching conspiracy to disrupt the 2016 campaign and tilt the election to Donald Trump. The complaint, filed in federal district court in Manhattan, alleges that top Trump campaign officials conspired with the Russian government and its military spy agency to hurt ... Hillary Clinton and help Trump by hacking the computer networks of the Democratic Party and disseminating stolen material found there.... The case asserts that the Russian hacking campaign -- combined with Trump associates' contacts with Russia and the campaign's public cheerleading of the hacks -- amounted to an illegal conspiracy to interfere in the election that caused serious damage to the Democratic Party." Read on. The Democratic party won a similar suit against the Nixon campaign for the Watergate break-in. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Rachel Maddow ran a useful segment on the 1972 suit the DNC brought against the Nixon campaign. It begins at about 2:40 min. in. Mrs. McC: I'm ashamed to say I remember nothing about the suit, even though I was following the presidential campaign closely that year:
More Bad News for Trump & Cohen. Beth Reinhard & Emma Brown of the Washington Post: "Keith Davidson, the former attorney for two women who were paid to keep quiet about their alleged affairs with Donald Trump, has been contacted by federal authorities investigating Trump attorney Michael Cohen and is cooperating with them, a spokesman for Davidson confirmed. Davidson was asked to provide 'certain limited electronic information' for the probe led by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, spokesman Dave Wedge said. 'He has done so and will continue to cooperate to the fullest extent possible under the law,' Wedge said in a statement Friday." ...
... Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "For years Mr. Trump treated Mr. Cohen poorly, with gratuitous insults, dismissive statements and, at least twice, threats of being fired, according to interviews with a half-dozen people familiar with their relationship. 'Donald goes out of his way to treat him like garbage,' said Roger J. Stone Jr., Mr. Trump's informal and longest-serving political adviser, who, along with Mr. Cohen, was one of five people originally surrounding the president when he was considering a presidential campaign before 2016. Now..., Mr. Trump's lawyers and advisers have become resigned to the strong possibility that Mr. Cohen, who has a wife and two children and faces the prospect of devastating legal fees, if not criminal charges, could end up cooperating with federal officials who are investigating him for activity that could relate, at least in part, to work he did for Mr. Trump." ...
... Scott Glover, et al., of CNN: "A federal judge in California said Friday that he needed to hear from ... Donald Trump's attorney Michael Cohen directly before deciding whether to issue a stay in a civil lawsuit involving porn star Stormy Daniels.... Judge S. James Otero gave Cohen's attorney until Wednesday to file a declaration by Cohen himself indicating whether his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination could be at issue in the civil case due to an ongoing criminal investigation in New York." (Also linked yesterday.)
** White Supremacist-in-Chief. Dana Milbank: "I'd like to pause ... to reflect on just one thing the president did this week that, amid Russian hookers and his assaults on truth, law and decency, got little attention: his talk of immigrants 'breeding' in America's sanctuary cities. 'There is a Revolution going on in California. Soooo many Sanctuary areas want OUT of this ridiculous, crime infested & breeding concept,' the president tweeted on Tuesday.... Perhaps it is just coincidence that Trump used the language of [Nazis and] white supremacists.... A day after Trump's 'breeding' tweet, he visited a drug-interdiction operation and declared that 'human trafficking is worse than it's ever been in the history of the world.' Thus did the president erase three centuries of American history, during which millions of Africans were captured and enslaved in this hemisphere." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The "breeding" tweet, IMO, wasn't a dogwhistle to Trumpbots; it was a reflection of who the POTUS* is: a virulent racist.
Jonathan Greenberg, in a Washington Post story: "In May 1984, an official from the Trump Organization called to tell me how rich Donald J. Trump was. I was reporting for the Forbes 400, the magazine's annual ranking of America's richest people, for the third year. In the previous edition, we'd valued Trump's holdings at $200 million, only one-fifth of what he claimed to own in our interviews. This time, his aide urged me on the phone, I needed to understand just how loaded Trump really was. The official was John Barron -- a name we now know as an alter ego of Trump himself.... It took decades to unwind the elaborate farce Trump had built to project an image as one of the richest people in America. Nearly every assertion supporting that claim was untrue." Includes audio. If Trump's lies amuse you, read on. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Bernard Condon of the AP: "The Kushner Cos. has been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors for information related to an Associated Press report that the company filed dozens of false documents about its buildings in New York City. The real estate company issued a statement saying it has 'nothing to hide and is cooperating fully with all legitimate requests for information, including this subpoena.'"
Anna Merlan of Splinter: A whole lot of people -- Wikipedia, news organization, 51 Member of Congress, Marco Rubio, for instance -- say that Mike Pompeo is a Gulf War veteran. He isn't. ...
... Benjamin Hart of New York: "Throughout all this, Pompeo has said nothing to correct the record."
Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "The Central Intelligence Agency took the unusual step Friday of declassifying and releasing a memo clearing Gina Haspel of any wrongdoing in drafting an order to destroy videotaped evidence of brutal interrogation techniques, a move that comes as part of a greater campaign to rehabilitate her image and shore up congressional support for her bid to become the agency's director. The memo, which former CIA deputy director Michael Morell wrote in 2011, is the result of a disciplinary review in which he 'found no fault with the performance of Ms. Haspel' -- primarily because she drafted the cable 'on the direct orders' of her superior and did not release it herself.... But senators clamoring for the CIA to declassify documents related to Haspel's record on techniques often referred to as torture and the order to destroy evidence were angered by what they saw as a 'selective' response to their demands.... Widespread concern about Haspel's role in the CIA's interrogation program has caused senators from both parties to question her record and her fitness to serve as the agency's director." ...
... Adam Goldman & Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "The C.I.A. is trying to ensure its deputy director, Gina Haspel, a career spy, is confirmed as its next director. Almost every detail of her life and work is classified; what little is known stems from her role overseeing the brutal interrogation of a terrorism suspect at a secret prison in Thailand and conveying orders to destroy videos documenting torture. To promote a more positive view of Ms. Haspel, the agency has declassified secrets about her life as a globe-trotting spy and encouraged former clandestine officers -- typically expected to remain quiet even in retirement -- to grant interviews. It sought to generate favorable news coverage by providing selective biographical details about Ms. Haspel to reporters, then sent a news release to highlight the resulting stories. The campaign to secure Ms. Haspel's confirmation reflects the view of many officials inside the C.I.A., who see her as the agency's best chance to keep a political partisan from being installed as director."
Ryan Grim & Alex Emmons of the Intercept: "Shortly after ... Donald Trump was inaugurated last year, top Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy offered Russian gas giant Novatek a $26 million lobbying plan aimed at removing the company from a U.S. sanctions list, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.... Broidy proposed arranging meetings with key White House and congressional leaders and generating op-eds and other articles favorable to the Russian company, along with a full suite of lobbying activities to be undertaken by consultants brought on board. Yet even as he offered those services, Broidy was adamant that his company, Fieldcrest Advisors LLC, would not perform lobbying services but would hire others to do it. He suggested that parties to the deal sign a sweeping non-disclosure agreement that would shield their work from public scrutiny."
Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "Federal civil rights prosecutors have recommended charges against a New York police officer in the 2014 death of Eric Garner, three current and former officials said, but top Justice Department officials have expressed strong reservations about whether to move forward with a case they say may not be winnable. Mr. Garner died on a Staten Island street after the police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, used a chokehold to subdue him.... In recent weeks, career prosecutors recommended civil rights charges against Officer Pantaleo and sought approval from the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, to seek an indictment.... Based on the discussions so far, it appeared unlikely that Mr. Rosenstein would approve charges. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has also been briefed on the case and could weigh in after Mr. Rosenstein makes his own recommendation, officials said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Matthew Goldstein of the New York Times: "Wells Fargo is paying $1 billion to two federal regulators to settle an array of investigations into its mortgage and auto-lending practices. The settlements with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency were announced on Friday, as expected. The bank is effectively paying $500 million to each regulator. The consumer bureau said it was imposing a $1 billion penalty but was deducting from that the amount that Wells Fargo was paying to the currency comptroller." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Elizabeth Dias & Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: "Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont ... was blunt on Friday about the stakes for the Democratic Party. 'If Democrats control either the House or the Senate, Trump's agenda is dead,' Mr. Sanders said during a conversation with New York Times reporters and editors.... Mr. Sanders also argued that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and other national party organizations are not doing enough to support liberal grass-roots candidates who are running against Mr. Trump and backing a progressive agenda. 'The establishment Democrats are still, I think, looking toward candidates who can self-fund,' said Mr. Sanders.... National Democrats 'still have a tendency to believe that more conservative candidates are better positioned to win,' he added."
Beyond the Beltway
Joel Currier & Robert Kirkpatrick of the St. Louis Post Dispatch: Missouri "Gov. Eric Greitens, who has been in a public court fight against a felony invasion of privacy charge for nearly two months, now faces a new felony charge: that he misused a charity donor list to solicit campaign cash for his 2016 run for governor. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner charged Greitens, 44, with felony computer tampering relating to a list of donors to his St. Louis-based charity The Mission Continues, which Greitens founded in 2007 and left in 2014. The new charges rely at least in part on evidence shared with her office by Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, a Republican, who announced Tuesday that his office had uncovered evidence Greitens misused the list to help fund his 2016 campaign."
Ricardo Cano of the Arizona Republic: "Arizona educators and school employees fueling the teacher-led #RedForEd movement have voted in support of a walkout -- an unprecedented action aimed at pressuring state leaders to act on their demands for more education funding.... [Teacher & organizer Noah] Karvelis said they will continue non-disruptive walk-in demonstrations on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then walk out Thursday. This will give schools and parents time to prepare, he said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Way Beyond
Choe Sang-Hun of the New York Times: "North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, announced early Saturday that he had stopped nuclear and missile tests and would close a nuclear test site. The announcement, reported by North Korea's state media, appeared to signal a major policy shift ahead of Mr. Kim's meetings with the South Korean and American leaders. But Mr. Kim stopped short of promising to dismantle the nuclear weapons and long-range missiles North Korea has already built, holding onto them probably as a bargaining chip when he sits down with South Korea's leader, Moon Jae-in, next Friday, and President Trump weeks later."
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Reader Comments (9)
Something called 'Good News'! WaPO
‘Imploding’: Financial troubles. Lawsuits. Trailer park brawls. Has the alt-right peaked? By Terrence McCoy
As much as I firmly believe that Trump, and or his campaign, and almost everyone close to him, colluded with the Russians and Wikileaks to ratfuck the election, I have questions about this DNC suit. Naming Russia and Wikileaks was probably necessary, but how will that work going forward?
It’s not like they can subpoena Putin or Julian Assange, and even if they did, will both of those crooks be hopping a plane to come and testify? So the end result very well could be that the suit is tossed, giving Collusion Boy ample opportunity to beat his chest, play the heroic victim, and declare that he’s been found “innocent” of all charges which could hurt whatever Mueller’s got going, at least in the court of public opinion, and provide invertebrate, treasonous Confederates with enough cover to look the other way when Mueller’s findings finally come in. Plus they risk diluting the overall focus and provide “evidence” that “everyone” is out to get poor Donaldo.
But I’m not a lawyer. And unlike Mickey Cohen, I don’t play one on TV. So I hope that the DNC has got some double secret plan for success here. Otherwise, if they lose, or the suit is rejected or held up for years, they look ineffective and impotent and Trump walks, with full bragging rights. I don’t disagree that they're correct in their assertions, I just think that here in the Age of Trump Stupid, someone should be smart.
At this point, for the DNC, the best outcome is a Blue Wave in November, not the maybe, could have of a toss up law suit.
@Akhilleus: Sometimes a lawsuit is not just as lawsuit. As with the Stormy Daniels suit, the danger to Trump & his gang may come in the discovery phase. Mueller probably has pretty much all the material -- and more -- that the DNC could subpoena, but Mueller isn't publicizing anything, & reporters have to rely on what they can get out of witnesses, their attorneys & others. The DNC is under no such disadvantage. We'll find out what they find out. And their discovery will in no way resemble Devin Nunes' "investigation."
Rachel Maddow's report on the 1972 DNC suit, which I just posted, is an instructive precedent.
JAW-JAW better then WAR-WAR once coined by Churchill but now espoused by people like Jessica Mathews who are deeply concerned with both Pompeo and Bolton, who both share Trump's belligerence and are fierce opponents of the Iran nuclear deal. She worries that if Trump chooses to breach the deal in some fashion or pulls the US entirely out of it, "he will undermine his chances of of reaching a deal in North Korea. The North Koreans would have to conclude, going into the summit, that the United States cannot be trusted to abide by even its most carefully negotiated commitment."
Another thing to keep in mind: Little Kim continues to spend scarce resources on propaganda to remind his people that we Americans are "vicious killers." I'd say, wait a minute there, Bud, that's a little strong, don't you think? Surely not ALL of us? although we do have more guns going than you probably do.
But back to Mathews: the term "denuclearization" does not mean N.K. is going to abandon their weapons; it does mean that it will give up its nuclear program after the US withdraws from South Korea or possibly from all of Northeast Asia––no more US protection of S.K. If, Mathews says, the US were to abandon its alliances with S.K. and Japan in this way (before achieving peace on the Korean peninsula) "its word would mean little anywhere in the world."
Given these serious global concerns we are also "up to here" with everything else that continues to plague us each and every day because–––a phony baloney was elected by hook or crook and he along with his other fuckers in festive disguise are trying to run this country down to the ground along with wetting it with those golden showers that leave a bad stink only skunks are attracted to.
The WAPO report above on the Pretender's (whose pretending hardly began with his political career) use of an alter ego to inflate his wealth is doubly pathetic.
First, that the Pretender felt he needed to pretend at all. How many millions does anyone need? And why would anyone have to flaunt them? Just another early measure of just how sick this man was.
But more pathetic, because it says something about not just one sick man but about an entire country's illness, is the number of Americans the Pretender's wealth impressed and the admiration millions of Americans automatically and thoughtlessly lavish on the appearance of money, regardless of how it was gained.
In this sick country, Everyman's Eldorado, money acts as its own bleach, washing away its frequently dark and dirty origins.
And they lived happily ever after.
So Kim says he's closing the nuclear test site. OK. He probably just got the estimate for what it would take to make the site viable again (as opposed to "safe") and realized that its worth more as a re-gift to DiJiT than as a used site that needs a new engine, transmission, upholstery, re-wire and paint job (sort of a neutron flood-damaged thing). The place is a wreck.
So now he's going to donate this site to the good of the world, and DiJiT is already broadcasting Kim's philanthropy.
Two con men -- I'm taking odds they will not meet. They each get more mileage bullshitting from their own desks. Why spoil the game?
@Bea, Re: "Here's the thing"
Because HRC had deleted many of her emails, & because HRC's emails had surfaced on Anthony Wieners Laptop via Huma after the initial investigation had concluded (new evidence for an old investigation), & if HRC had won the election, but later it was found that the emails had contained incriminating evidence of classified info, AND Comey was silent (perceived intentional favoritism), then Comey would be in violation of the Hatch act by influencing an election by omission of prosecutorial duties). If that scenario were to come to pass then HRC's presidency would be as illegitimate as Trump's is.
Comey is flawed, as is HRC. There were no good choices in the 2016 election. The email fiasco was a confluence of terribly bad decisions. Nobody's head belongs on a pike.
The FBI director does not have to sign a NDA or a confidentiality agreement. I would hope that if information about Spanky von Clownstick's mental state or psychological fitness for office were found to be profoundly alarming by the FBI director that he would be free to publish that it to the public either as 'work notes' or as personal observation. Leak?
@Periscope: At the time Comey made his comments about the "extreme carelessness" of Clinton's email usage, he had no idea Huma & her lovely hubby were sharing them on their laptops. Comey never had a duty -- and indeed, if was counter to protocol, for good reason -- to offer his two cents to the public. Like you, I thought the whole e-mail thing showed, yet again, how arrogant Hillary Clinton is. But they also showed how high-handed Comey is. And that's a gift that keeps on giving.
Similarly, Comey had no duty to leak his observations about his encounters with Trump to the public. I don't know exactly what the "rules" are, but there is certainly a mechanism for getting this info to career DOJ officials who can make their determination about what to do with them. Am I glad they went to the NYT instead of where they should have gone? Well, yes. But Comey needs to admit he's either a leaker or a whistleblower, not just some holier-than-thou patriot.
Politics are stories with few heroes (but some!) and if Comey once wore the mantle of hero for his confrontation with Alberto Gonzales (& Andy Card I think it was), that mantle slipped from his shoulders after he became FBI director.
Marie,
I understand that the DNC is primatily a political operation and as such sees the world and opportunities therein through that lens. Perhaps I’m still too wedded to the sad days of the Wasserman Schultz DNC which couldn’t get out of its own way with help.
As much as I enjoy seeing Prez Crook humiliated, I’d prefer to do it without the dreaded unexpected consequences. Wingers fuck up all the time and it never seems to affect them. Democrats screw up once, they’re taken to the cleaners.