He thought that the pre election stuff meant that Comey was going to be his private cop, another loyal soldier. That’s why he invited him to that strange private dinner.
That whole dinner thing was like sexual harassment, except with corruption instead of sex. The tactic is one harassers use all the time, invite your victim to a party or dinner and lead them to believe it’s a group thing, then surprise them with a “private party” when they arrive. The whole incident was Comeys #MeToo moment.
That’s pretty insightful. I’d never thought of it like that.
The Manafort plea deal says that if he gets pardoned by Trump, Manafort can be re-tried on the charges he was not charged on.
That’s fuckin sweet!
I don’t really see the point of that provision. If Trump pardons him, he could just pardon him for those other charges at the same time.
Not if he isn’t the president any longer. For whatever reason. Could he pardon all crimes, whether charged and convicted?
All crimes? No. All crimes laid out in the indictment, even if not charged? Absolutely.
Right. Remember Jimmy Carter pardoning draft dodgers from the Vietnam War. It was a blanket amnesty, whether or not they’d been charged individually.
But not, as I know you are aware, state crimes. AIUI, Manafort pleaded to all criminal acts in excruciating detail (24 pages!). The guilty pleas can be used as evidence in cases brought at the state level, all of which are beyond Trump’s pardon reach.
We just have to hope there are enough people around him who will refuse his orders, to save the species. Because if they’re all of the ilk of Devin Nunes or Stephen Miller, kiss Homo sapiens goodbye.
Or into anyone who fails to look Swedish, really.
Sarah Palin accidentally describes how investigations work.
*“When we go fishing, have we ever stopped before we caught something?” Palin told DailyMailTV of the Russia investigation in an interview published Wednesday. “No…we keep fishing.”
'Unfortunately, that is what’s going on in our country,” the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee said.*
Guess Sarah fishes in mud puddles until she comes up with something. Mueller is ‘fishing’ in an ocean of Sharks, Barracudas and Clown Fish.
NYTimes is reporting that Rosenstein may have secretly recorded the president and discussed 25th Amendment options. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks this is being leaked as a pretext to fire him…
Of course it is. This is just going to fuel the “deep state” feelings of the Repub base and distract from chump’s attacks on Ford this morning.
I hope Mueller drops all his stuff on the state AGs this afternoon.
That makes 3 of us.
Related? Michael Cohen unexpectedly in court this afternoon.
Pretty much guaranteed related. Michael has been working with Mueller’s team quite a lot over the past month. Hours and hours and hours of discussions. Also NY AG Barbara Underwood. My, my, my.
It’s getting easier to list with whom Mueller doesn’t have cooperation than with whom he does.
By some accounts this was a poorly-sourced story. NBC had a source in the room when Rosenstein supposedly, according to the NYT, floated taping Trump as a serious suggestion–and the NBC source says Rosenstein was clearly being sarcastic.
The NYT had NO source in the room.
What they’ve accomplished is to give Trump the excuse he’s been looking for to fire Rosenstein. Seems profoundly irresponsible to report R. was serious, if they didn’t actually have ears in the room.
But then Hannity tonight advised Trump not to fire anyone, as he says the Deep State is now crumbling.
Sorry for the delay in answering; I just fell off my chair at the thought of Hannity saying something that would (inadvertently, I’m sure) protect Mueller.