the rich asshole attorney sends Bannon cease and desist letter over 'disparaging' comments
Lawyers on behalf of President some rich asshole sent a letter Wednesday night to former White House Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon demanding he refrain from making disparaging comments against the president and his family.
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The letter comes after excerpts from a forthcoming book by journalist Michael Wolff were made public Wednesday, causing a stir.
the rich asshole attorney Charles J. Harder of the firm Harder Mirell & Abrams LLP, said in a statement, "This law firm represents President some rich asshole and some rich asshole for President, Inc. On behalf of our clients, legal notice was issued today to Stephen K. Bannon, that his actions of communicating with author Michael Wolff regarding an upcoming book give rise to numerous legal claims including defamation by libel and slander, and breach of his written confidentiality and non-disparagement agreement with our clients. Legal action is imminent."
In the letter to Bannon, Harder, writes, "You [Bannon] have breached the Agreement by, among other things, communicating with author Michael Wolff about some rich asshole, his family members, and the Company, disclosing Confidential Information to Mr. Wolff, and making disparaging statements and in some cases outright defamatory statements to Mr. Wolff about some rich asshole, his family members, and the Company, knowing that they would be included in Mr. Wolff’s book and publicity surrounding the marketing and sale of his book."
During the campaign, then-candidate the rich asshole had all campaign staff sign a non-disclosure agreement which required all staff, according to campaign sources, to refrain from any disparaging comments against the candidate, his family or the the rich asshole campaign and organization.
Lawyers write cease and desist letters to tell a person or business to stop doing something they claim is illegal, typically threatening a lawsuit. If they follow through with legal action, a judge decides whether the conduct must stop.
A non-disclosure agreement is a legal contract between parties that specifies what shared information must be kept confidential from others.
Bannon has not responded to ABC News' request for comment.
In the letter, the rich asshole’s attorney writes, "Remedies for your breach of the agreement include but are not limited to monetary damages, injunctive relief and all other remedies available at law and equity,” although no dollar amount is disclosed.
The letter then cites parts of Paragraph 8 of the Agreement: "Consent to Injunction. A breach of any of your promises or agreements under this agreement will cause the Company, some rich asshole and each other the rich asshole Person irreparable harm. Accordingly, to the extent permitted by law, and without waiving any other rights or remedies against you at law or in equity, you hereby consent to the entry of any order, without prior notice to you, temporarily or permanently enjoining you from violating any of the terms, covenants, agreements or provisions of this agreement on your part to be performed or observed. Such consent is intended to apply to an injunction of any breach or threatened breach."
The "Damages and Other Remedies" part of the Agreement is then cited, "Notwithstanding anything to the contrary, each the rich asshole Person will be entitled to all remedies available at law and equity, including but not limited to monetary damages, in the event of your breach of this agreement. Nothing contained in this agreement will constitute a waiver of any the rich asshole Person’s remedies at law or in equity, all of which are expressly reserved."
Towards the end of the letter, Harder writes "Further, as the prevailing party in any litigation arising out of your breach of the Agreement, some rich asshole and the Company will be entitled to 'an award of reasonable legal fees and costs."
Earlier Wednesday, the rich asshole hit back at Bannon in scathing comments, saying that when Bannon was fired "he not only lost his job, he lost his mind".
President the rich asshole's comments, which came in the form of a written statement from the White House, were in response to Bannon's strident criticism of some rich asshole Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort for sitting down with a group of Russians who promised damaging information against Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election in excerpts from Wolff's new book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the the rich asshole White House".
“Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating seventeen candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party,” the president said in a statement. “Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans. Steve doesn’t represent my base — he’s only in it for himself.”
Bannon responded to that statement on Breitbart News' SiriusXM show on Wednesday, telling a listener who called in, "The president of the United States is a great man. You know I support him, day in and day out, whether going through the country giving the the rich asshole miracle speech or on the show or on the website."
At the White House Thursday, the rich asshole invoked Bannon's radio comment in response to a question about whether the former chief strategist betrayed him.
"I don’t know," the president said. "He called me a great man last night so he obviously changed his tune pretty quick."
As for whether he continues to communicate with Bannon, the rich asshole pushed back on such a suggestion.
"I don't talk to him," he said. "That's a misnomer."
Pres. Trump tells @CeciliaVega Steve Bannon "called me a great man last night, so, you know, he obviously changed his tune pretty quick." abcn.ws/2ApU21x
ABC News' Adam Kelsey contributed to this report.
Bannon: 2016 the rich asshole Tower meeting was 'treasonous'
(CNN)Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon called the 2016 rich asshole Tower meeting between the rich asshole campaign officials and a Russian lawyer purportedly offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton "treasonous," according to a new book obtained by The Guardian.
The book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House" by Michael Wolff, is based on hundreds of interviews, including ones with President some rich asshole and his inner circle. According to the Guardian, Bannon addressed the June 2016 the rich asshole Tower meeting between some rich asshole Jr., then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner and Russian operatives that was arranged when the rich asshole Jr. agreed to meet a "Russian government attorney" after receiving an email offering him "very high level and sensitive information" that would "incriminate" Clinton.
"The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside the rich asshole Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor -- with no lawyers. They didn't have any lawyers," Bannon continued, according to the Guardian. "Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it's all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately."
Bannon also reportedly told Wolff: "They're going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV."
An attorney for the rich asshole Jr. declined to comment. But the President unloaded on Bannon in a statement early Wednesday afternoon.
"Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind," the rich asshole said. "Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn't as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country," added the President.
Bannon also reportedly told Wolff that special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the rich asshole campaign's potential ties to Russia is centered on money laundering, saying that the White House is "sitting on a beach trying to stop a Category Five" hurricane.
"You realize where this is going ... This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose (senior prosecutor Andrew) Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy," Bannon reportedly said. "Their path to f***ing the rich asshole goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr., and Jared Kushner ... It's as plain as a hair on your face."
Bannon said he believes Kushner, the White House senior adviser and the President's son-in-law, could be convinced to cooperate if Mueller probes his financial records.
"They're going to go right through that. They're going to roll those two guys up and say play me or trade me," Bannon is reported as saying, apparently referring to the rich asshole Jr. and Kushner
The 10 most amazing lines in the new the rich asshole book
(CNN)Journalist Michael Wolff's new book documenting the first year of some rich asshole's presidency isn't out until next week, but the excerpts we got on Wednesday have already had a major impact -- leading the President to torch former senior strategist Steve Bannon.
There's lots and lots more news in the adapted excerpt of Wolff's book that New York magazine published Wednesday afternoon, however. I went through the piece and plucked out my favorite -- and most telling -- lines. (You can -- and should -- read the whole piece here.)
1. "This is bigger than I ever dreamed of," (the rich asshole) told (Fox News boss Roger) Ailes a week before the election. "I don't think about losing, because it isn't losing. We've totally won."
2. "The candidate and his top lieutenants believed they could get all the benefits of almost becoming president without having to change their behavior or their worldview one whit."
3. "There was, in the space of little more than an hour, in Steve Bannon's not unamused observation, a befuddled the rich asshole morphing into a disbelieving the rich asshole and then into a horrified the rich asshole. But still to come was the final transformation: Suddenly, some rich asshole became a man who believed that he deserved to be, and was wholly capable of being, the president of the United States."
4. "This was a real-life version of Mel Brooks's The Producers, where the mistaken outcome trusted by everyone in the rich asshole's inner circle -- that they would lose the election -- wound up exposing them for who they really were."
5. "We're going to flood the zone so we have every Cabinet member for the next seven days through their confirmation hearings," (Bannon) said of the business-and-military, 1950s-type Cabinet choices. "Tillerson is two days, Sessions is two days, Mattis is two days ... "
6. "the rich asshole did not enjoy his own inauguration. He was angry that A-level stars had snubbed the event, disgruntled with the accommodations at Blair House, and visibly fighting with his wife, who seemed on the verge of tears. Throughout the day, he wore what some around him had taken to calling his golf face: angry and pissed off, shoulders hunched, arms swinging, brow furled, lips pursed."
7. "Bannon?" said the President, jumping on his son-in-law. "That wasn't Bannon's idea. That was my idea. It's the rich asshole way, not the Bannon way."
8. "Between themselves, (Ivanka the rich asshole and Jared Kushner) had made an earnest deal: If sometime in the future the opportunity arose, she'd be the one to run for president. The first woman president, Ivanka entertained, would not be Hillary Clinton; it would be Ivanka the rich asshole."
9. "(the rich asshole) could not really converse, not in the sense of sharing information, or of a balanced back-and-forth conversation. He neither particularly listened to what was said to him nor particularly considered what he said in response. He demanded you pay him attention, then decided you were weak for groveling."
10. "If (the rich asshole) was not having his 6:30 dinner with Steve Bannon, then, more to his liking, he was in bed by that time with a cheeseburger, watching his three screens and making phone calls -- the phone was his true contact point with the world -- to a small group of friends, who charted his rising and falling levels of agitation through the evening and then compared notes with one another."
THE POINT: This book is explosive -- in a number of ways -- for Trumpworld. They will seek to push back on Wolff; White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday afternoon that the book was filled with falsehoods. But, if past is prologue with these sorts of behind-the-scenes tell-alls, we are just beginning to feel the impact of Wolff's book.
Read Wednesday's full edition of The Point.
the rich asshole Demands That Publisher Halt Release of Critical Book
By PETER BAKER JAN. 4, 2018
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President the rich asshole is furious about Michael Wolff’s account of his time in office and about Stephen K. Bannon’s comments, according to advisers. CreditAl Drago for The New York Times'
WASHINGTON — President the rich asshole escalated his attack on a new book portraying him as a volatile and ill-equipped chief executive on Thursday as his legal team demanded that the author and publisher halt the release of the account scheduled for next week and apologize or face a possible lawsuit.
In an 11-page letter, the president’s lawyer said the book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House,” by Michael Wolff, as excerpted in a magazine article, includes false statements about some rich asshole that “give rise to claims for libel” that could result in “substantial monetary damages and punitive damages.”
“some rich asshole hereby demands that you immediately cease and desist from any further publication, release or dissemination of the book, the article, or any excerpts or summaries of either of them, to any person or entity, and that you issue a full and complete retraction and apology to my client as to all statements made about him in the book and article that lack competent evidentiary support,” the letter said.
The letter was signed by Charles J. Harder, a prominent libel lawyer based in Beverly Hills, Calif., and was sent to Mr. Wolff and Steve Rubin, president and publisher of Henry Holt & Co. It follows a similar cease-and-desist letter sent by Mr. Harder on Wednesday night to Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s former chief strategist, who is quoted in the book making derogatory comments about the president and his family.
While other presidents have avoided direct confrontations with publishers over unflattering books for fear of giving them more publicity, some rich asshole is furious about Mr. Wolff’s account and about Mr. Bannon’s comments, according to advisers. Through a long career in real estate and entertainment, some rich asshole has repeatedly threatened lawsuits against authors, journalists and others, but often has not followed through, and it was unclear whether he would in this case.
“He called me a great man last night,” some rich asshole said on Thursday at the White House. “He obviously changed his tune pretty quick.
Mr. Wolff did not immediately reply to a request for comment. His editor, John Sterling, said by email, “We haven’t yet responded to the letter.”
The book, which quickly shot up to number one on Amazon’s best-seller list following articles about it on Wednesday, quotes Mr. Bannon describing a meeting held by some rich asshole Jr. with Russians during the 2016 campaign as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic” and quotes him calling Ivanka the rich asshole “dumb as a brick.”
It presents some rich asshole as an unengaged candidate and president who grew bored when an aide tried to explain the Constitution to him and refuses to read even one-page briefing papers. Various advisers to the president are reported to have called him an “idiot,” a “dope” or “dumb” as dirt. And Melania the rich asshole, the president’s wife, is described as being so unhappy about the prospect of life in the White House that she was in tears on election night.
some rich asshole fired back with a blistering statement on Wednesday saying that Mr. Bannon had “lost his mind” and “has nothing to do with me or my presidency.” In separate statements, the White House called the book “trashy tabloid fiction” that is “filled with false and misleading accounts” and Mrs. the rich asshole disputed characterizations of her views.
Mr. Bannon, who left the White House under pressure last summer but had until now stayed in touch sporadically with some rich asshole, sought to smooth over the rift during his Breitbart News radio show on Wednesday night.
When a caller said that some rich asshole “made a huge mistake, Steve, bashing you like he did,” Mr. Bannon brushed it aside. “The president of the United States is a great man,” Mr. Bannon said. “You know I support him day in and day out, whether going through the country giving the ‘the rich asshole Miracle’ speech or on the show or on the website.”
some rich asshole often reconciles with associates after feuds, but for the moment there was no love lost for Mr. Bannon in the president’s household.
“Steve had the honor of working in the White House & serving the country,” some rich asshole Jr. wrote on Twitter. “Unfortunately, he squandered that privilege & turned that opportunity into a nightmare of backstabbing, harassing, leaking, lying & undermining the President. Steve is not a strategist, he is an opportunist.”
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GOP senator opted for private briefing on the amendment allowing for removal of the president from office: report
President some rich asshole stares at the sun with unprotected eyes during a 2017 solar eclipse.
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Yale School of Medicine’s Law and Psychiatry Division professor Dr. Bandy Lee was summoned to Capitol Hill in November to brief lawmakers on the 25th Amendment and President some rich asshole’s mental state, Politico reports.
On Dec. 5 and 6, Dr. Lee warned lawmakers, “he’s going to unravel, and we are seeing the signs.”
The private briefings included a Republican senator who Dr. Lee declined to identify.
Dr. Lee edited the bestselling book The Dangerous Case of some rich asshole, featuring the work of 27 psychiatrists, psychologists and mental health experts to assess President the rich asshole’s mental health.
“One senator said that it was the meeting he most looked forward to in 11 years,” Lee recalled. “Their level of concern about the president’s dangerousness was surprisingly high.”
The 25th Amendment, along with impeachment, are the two legal mechanisms to remove the rich asshole from office prior to the end of his term in January 2021.
Mental health professionals have hosted nationwide town hall meetings to warn about the rich asshole’s mental state, citing a “duty to warn” of violent threats.
Following President some rich asshole’s Twitter threats against North Korea, Lee’s group demanded Twitter take “immediate action” and suspend the rich asshole’s Twitter account.
We are American Mental Health Professionals who have been WARNING that Trump is mentally UNSTABLE & DANGEROUS.
We ask @Twitter CEO @jack to delete the threatening tweet & suspend the account posing unprecedented GLOBAL DISASTER.#NuclearButton#DutyToWarnADutyToWarn.org
President the rich asshole used to boast about having sex with his friends’ wives, devised calculated infidelity plots
BY CHRIS SOMMERFELDT NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Wednesday, January 3, 2018, 7:16 PM
President the rich asshole used to brag that sleeping with your friends' wives makes "life worth living," according to a new book.
A passage of author Michael Wolff's Washington tell-all, "Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House," describes how the rich asshole would devise calculated plots to get the wives of his friends into bed, using jealousy and revenge as bait.
"In pursuing a friend's wife, he would try to persuade the wife that her husband was perhaps not what she thought," reads the passage, a copy of which was obtained by the Daily News.
the rich asshole would then have his secretary ask the husband to stop by his office. Once the husband got in, the rich asshole would subject him to "constant sexual banter" — all while having the wife listen in on the conversation via speakerphone.
"Do you still like having sex with your wife? How often? You must have had a better f--k than your wife?" the rich asshole would apparently ask friends. "Tell me about it. I have girls coming in from Los Angeles at three o'clock. We can go upstairs and have a great time. I promise."
Wolff's book, which is set to be released next week, details the inner workings of a White House in chaos. the rich asshole's former chief strategist Steve Bannon is extensively quoted in the book, oftentimes attacking the President's family and cabinet members.
In the passage about sexually-charged speakerphone incidents, a friend of the rich asshole's describe him as having a lot in common with former President Bill Clinton.
"Except that Clinton had a respectable front and the rich asshole did not," the passage states.
the rich asshole attorneys send Bannon a cease and desist letter accusing the former top aide of ‘disparaging’ the president
the rich asshole administration chief strategist Steve Bannon (Screen cap).
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Attorneys for some rich asshole sent former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon a cease and desist letter following a series of shocking revelations published Wednesday, ABC News reports.
In the letter, attorney Charles Harder, accused Bannon of breaking his nondisclosure agreement, “by, among other things, communicating with author Michael Wolff about some rich asshole, his family members, and the Company [the campaign], disclosing Confidential Information to Mr. Wolff, and making disparaging statements and in some cases outright defamatory statements to Mr. Wolff about some rich asshole, his family members.”
EXCLUSIVE: Lawyers for @realDonaldTrump sending a cease-and-desist letter to former Sr adviser Steve Bannon tonight, arguing he has violated an NDA with his comments in new Wolff book. @washingtonpost
The attorney’s letter follows a series of a report in Wolff’s forthcoming book Fire and Fury, which includes quotes from Bannon that allegedly disparage the rich asshole and members of his family. The letter warns the president may seek “remedies for your breach of the agreement include but are not limited to monetary damages”
the rich asshole on Wednesday fired back at Bannon after reports started to circulate, insisting when his former top aide lost his job at the White House, he also “lost his mind.”
In a statement, Harder’s law firm said “legal action is imminent.”
Paul Manafort’s suit against the Department of Justice, Rod Rosenstein, and Robert Mueller, is perplexing for (at least) three reasons. First, even if the suit is successful, and the Court sets aside all actions taken by Muller, nothing would prevent the Department of Justice from appointing another special counsel who could simply follow the exact same prosecution strategy. In other words, Manafort’s suit would not remove from collective consciousness the evidence unearthed by Mueller’s investigation. It would not be difficult for him to be indicted again.
Second, why did Manafort lodge these arguments as part of a collateral attack on his indictment, rather than directly as a motion to dismiss the indictments? Under Younger abstention, a federal civil rights action will usually be put on hold while the criminal matter is ongoing in state court. Because the criminal prosecution here is in federal court, Younger’s federalism concerns are somewhat inapt, but the guiding principles remain: defendants should challenge the legality of the indictment in the criminal proceeding through a motion to dismiss. This is especially appropriate where a criminal trial has not yet even begun. Finally, this parallel action runs the risk of the district court blessing the basis Mueller’s investigation, which would make it much harder to challenge it on appeal.
Third, there is a wolf that didn’t bark: Manafort did not include a challenge to the Special Counsel’s appointment under the Constitution’s Appointments Clause, as a means to overturn Morrison v. Olson. (This was the basis of Ted Olson’s motion to quash the subpoenas issued by Alexia Morrison.) Manafort cited Justice Scalia's Morrison dissent only in passing. I've written that the regulations under which Mueller was appointed are unconstitutional. Manafort does not even suggest this is a possibility. To the contrary, he refers to the regulations as “carefully crafted” and “binding.” Finally, Manafort makes no reference to the most vulnerable aspect of the regulations: the restrictions on the ability of the Attorney General to remove the Special Counsel. This initial complaint undermines a frontal assault on Morrison.
Unless there is an amended complaint forthcoming, this suit is less a wolf dressed as a sheep, and more a sheep dressed as a wolf.
6/ Unless there is an amended complaint forthcoming, this suit is less a wolf dressed as a sheep, and more a sheep dressed as a wolf.
NUCLEAR WINTER IS COMING
‘War Could Start From the Private Residence’: the rich asshole Aides Joke Away His Latest ‘Nuclear’ Tweet
The president’s social media missives alarmed much of Washington. Inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, however, all was—mostly—calm.
Wednesday will be remembered as the day President some rich asshole torched his former chief strategist Steve Bannon after Bannon said the rich asshole’s son may have committed treason. But below the new layer of essentially Trumpian drama, a good chunk of Washington D.C. was consumed by a presidential missive from the night before.
In a wild and cavalier tweet Tuesday evening, President the rich asshole boasted about the size of the “button” he could hit to annihilate North Korea with a nuke. It was a remarkable social media dispatch that prompted macabre thoughts about the end of life on Planet Earth.
Inside the White House, however, the mood was notable only for its serenity.
Aides to the president generally didn’t bat an eye at his latest, most provocative, salvo against North Korea’s brutal dictator Kim Jong-Un. They’ve come to accept that this is the man for whom they work. It’s a dark existence. But it is—judging from the multiple White House officials and administration veterans The Daily Beast talked to for this story—also one they have normalized internally.
“It’s a running joke [in the West Wing] that nuclear war could start from the private residence during Fox [News] primetime,” one senior the rich asshole aide told The Daily Beast. “Sometimes the joking includes more uncomfortable [or] nervous laughter than other times.”
After a year in office, much of Washington D.C. has changed, but the president himself has not. Left alone in his residence at night,the rich asshole will watch Fox News and will tweet his feelings. Aides in the administration say they approach it as a facet of the job. And that means not growing alarmed even when the boss talks about brandishing a nuke.
“When he goes off on stuff like this, it's the [White House's] job to rally around him and make up reasons for why it was okay," a former senior the rich asshole administration official said.
RELATED IN POLITICS
But while the White House was presenting an all-is-calm-facade, the mood elsewhere in D.C. was decidedly more alarmed. Foreign policy experts were aghast at the school-yard taunting around a nuclear standoff. Sen. Ed Markey, (D-MA) said the tweet bordered “on presidential malpractice.” And Republicans, as they are prone to do in such moments, ducked the matter entirely
“Well I don’t have a comment on the president’s tweets,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA).
Such responses would, in more conventional times, persuade the president to turn down the proverbial dial or perhaps reconsider his approach. But the rich asshole has no plans to do either. Part of the reason is he’s encountered little, if any, pushback from inside his administration. The “standard operating procedure [in these cases] is, for most people working in the [the rich asshole] White House, to just roll with the punches,” another former White House official told The Daily Beast late last year.
But beyond that, even outside the administration, the rich asshole’s most prominent allies are inclined to assure his tact is just right.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich—a top outside adviser to the president who was at the White House on Wednesday—told The Daily Beast that “the news media reaction [to the North Korea tweet] strikes me as over the top,” and said he recalled some people on social media claiming the rich asshole was using the “Button” as a “phallic symbol.”
“Look, it’s pretty straightforward: we have more nuclear weapons...and we’re not likely to be intimidated,” Gingrich continued.
When asked if he thought the president’s tweet was wise, Gingrich replied, “I think it is who he is,” before chuckling. “The news media will have eight years of him doing stuff like this…[But] by contrast, Obama still hasn’t tweeted anything about the Iranians. Look at that for contrast…If you’re asking would I rather have an active, aggressive president than one hiding, I think I’d prefer the rich asshole model.”
Chris Ruddy, CEO of Newsmax and a longtime friend of the rich asshole’s, emailed that “overall the President’s tweets are OK.” But, Ruddy added, “on very sensitive issues like this, [the rich asshole’s] tweets should be looked at by his national security team.”
“I have always said the president should have a review process for his tweets before they go out,” Ruddy said, “it’s just wise.”
Perhaps the most remarkable element of the rich asshole’s North Korea tweet was how quickly he moved on to other topics. A mere 16 minutes following the “Nuclear Button” outburst, @realDonaldTrump gleefully posted: “I will be announcing THE MOST DISHONEST & CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS OF THE YEAR on Monday at 5:00 o’clock. Subjects will cover Dishonesty & Bad Reporting in various categories from the Fake News Media. Stay tuned!”
It was a remarkable change in direction that reflected the president’s notoriously short attention span. It was also an idea with which the rich asshole has flirted before, often as he vents to friends and aides about the cable news he so often hate-watches.
“We should do a contest, wouldn’t that be fun?” the rich asshole said last month, according to a Republican source close to the administration. “Fake news contest, wouldn’t that be great?”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Tomorrow's cover: In a Shakespearean twist, Steve Bannon called Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with Russians "treasonous," prompting President Trump to say his former chief strategist had "lost his mind" nyp.st/2COQdpA
Sanders: '95 percent' of interviews for book on White House authorized by Bannon
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday that a vast majority of the interviews cited in an explosive new book on the rich asshole presidency were held “at the request” of former chief strategist Steve Bannon.
“So far from what I can tell of the roughly just over a dozen interactions that he had with officials at the White House, I think close to 95 percent were all done so at the request of Mr. Bannon,” Sanders said during the White House press briefing, referring to the author of the book, Michael Wolff.
In an adapted excerpt published by New York magazine on Wednesday from the forthcoming book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House,” Wolff cites more than 200 interviews with sources in and out of the rich asshole administration in detailing internal strife in the West Wing. The report says the conversations for the book were conducted “over a period of 18 months with the president, most members of his senior staff, and many people to whom they in turn spoke.”
Sanders added that Wolff "never actually sat down with the president" and that their interaction was limited to a five- to seven-minute conversation.
In a separate excerpt obtained by The Guardian, Wolff writes that Bannon labeled as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic” a meeting among some rich asshole Jr., top the rich asshole campaign officials and a Kremlin-linked lawyer in the rich asshole Tower.
The reports, which depict a chaotic White House, were disputed by Sanders, who said nothing to reduce tensions between the White House and Bannon.
“I know that the book has a lot of things so far of what we’ve seen that are completely untrue,” she said.
the rich asshole, in a scorching rebuke, personally lashed out at Bannon for what he said was Bannon's pretending to “have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he helped write phony books.”
“Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency,” the rich asshole wrote in the statement. “When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind.”
Sanders echoed the president’s response in downplaying the significance of Bannon’s role.
“And I think in the actions that Steve took, the president was clear that it didn’t have a lot of influence on him or the decision-making process throughout his time at the White House,” she said Wednesday.
According to an explanation attached to the New York magazine article, Wolff had “no ground rules placed on his access, and he was required to make no promises about how he would report on what he witnessed.”
Loyal the rich asshole aide turned White House communications director Hope Hicks fled a room in the rich asshole Tower after then-candidate some rich asshole made a crude comment about her relationship with his former campaign manager, according to a book obtained by the Daily News.
In the Michael Wolff's book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House,” he reveals Hicks and Corey Lewandowski, who was fired in 2016 for clashing with the rich asshole’s family, had an on-and-off romantic relationship that reportedly ended with a fight on a street.
Wolff recounts one moment when Hicks was sitting with the rich asshole and his sons in the rich asshole Tower, worrying about how Lewandowski would be portrayed in the media and how she could help him after his firing.
“the rich asshole, who otherwise seemed to treat Hicks in a protective and even paternal way, looked up and said, ‘Why? You’ve already done enough for him. You’re the best piece of tail he’ll ever have’” the rich asshole allegedly told Hicks. Hicks immediately fled the room, according to the book.
Hicks was described as a trusted the rich asshole loyalist who primarily handled the rich asshole’s communication and was even seen as a daughter to him.
Corey Lewandowski, former campaign manager for President the rich asshole, was fired in 2016.
(DAKE KANG/AP)
“Hicks, sponsored by Ivanka and ever loyal to her, was in fact thought of as the rich asshole’s real daughter, while Ivanka was thought of as his real wife,” an excerpt of the book reads.
“More functionally, but as elementally, Hicks was the president’s chief media handler. She worked by the president’s side, wholly separate from the White House’s forty-person strong communications office.”
She was brought on board the campaign by Ivanka the rich asshole after working for Ivanka’s fashion company. Hicks' family thought she was being taken captive, and her friends talked about the “therapies or recuperation” she would need after her term in office was over, according to the book.
'Idiot': Murdoch mocked the rich asshole after phone call on immigration, book claims
Author Michael Wolff describes alleged foul-mouthed comment by media mogul after discussing visas with the then president-elect
David Smith in Washington
Wed 3 Jan ‘18 13.04 EST
Rupert Murdoch described some rich asshole as “a fucking idiot” over his contradictory views on immigration policy, a new book reveals.
The remark is contained in a fly-on-the-wall account of internecine warfare in the White House written by Michael Wolff, a Murdoch biographer, a copy of which has been seen by the Guardian.
Wolff describes the rich asshole Tower meeting on 14 December 2016 – during the presidential transition – involving the rich asshole and executives from Silicon Valley companies including Alphabet (parent of Google), Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. Among the issues at stake was a potential crackdown by the incoming president on H-1B visas, the main visa used to hire foreign talent to tech companies.
Later that afternoon, Wolff writes, the rich asshole called Murdoch, who asked how the meeting had gone.
“Oh, great, just great,” the president-elect said, according to Wolff’s account. “Really, really good. These guys really need my help. Obama was not very favourable to them, too much regulation. This is really an opportunity for me to help them.”
The book records Murdoch’s reply: “Donald, for eight years these guys had Obama in their pocket. They practically ran the administration. They don’t need your help.”
the rich asshole is quoted as saying the companies “really need these H-1B visas”.
Wolff writes that Murdoch suggested a more liberal stance on H-1B visas would sit oddly with the rich asshole’s hardline stance on immigration, to which the president-elect replied: “We’ll figure it out.”
Wolff writes that Murdoch shrugged as he got off the phone, and said: “What a fucking idiot.”
H-1B visas admit 65,000 workers plus 20,000 graduate student workers each year. Most are awarded to outsourcing firms, which critics say exploit loopholes to fill lower-level IT jobs with foreign workers, often at lower pay.
Promising to “Buy American, Hire American”, the rich asshole offered varying positions on the issue several times during the election campaign. Last month his administration proposed eliminating a regulation that allows spouses of H-1B visa holders to work.
Murdoch’s remark is a rare, revealing moment of discord in his lockstep alliance with the president. According to New York Times reports last year, the two men speak “on the phone every week” or “almost every day”. Murdoch’s conservative Fox News has been a powerful cheerleader for the rich asshole, who has frequently returned the compliment, urging his supporters to watch it.
The White House confirmed last month that the rich asshole had spoken with Murdoch, 86, to congratulate him on the proposed sale of a significant chunk of 21st Century Fox to Disney for $52.4bn. According to Vanity Fair magazine, the rich asshole spoke with Murdoch before the deal “to make sure Murdoch wasn’t selling Fox News”.
the rich asshole has opposed AT&T’s attempted takeover of Time Warner, which owns CNN, the network often branded “fake news” by the president. The justice department has filed a lawsuit to block the $85bn deal.
Wolff, a media columnist, is the author of the Murdoch biography The Man Who Owns the News. His new book, Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House, published next week, offers an insight into the close ties between the rich asshole and Murdoch empires.
Wolff also describes a dinner where John Bolton, a favourite of the then Fox News chief executive, Roger Ailes, was touted for the job of national security adviser. Ailes is quoted as saying: “He’s a bomb thrower. And a strange little fucker. But you need him. Who else is good on Israel? [The eventual appointee Michael] Flynn is a little nutty on Iran. [The eventual secretary of state Rex] Tillerson just knows oil.”
Steve Bannon, head of the rich asshole’s election campaign and about to become his chief strategist, reportedly provided a bizarre objection based on facial hair: “Bolton’s mustache is a problem. the rich asshole doesn’t think he looks the part. You know Bolton is an acquired taste.”
Ailes died last May, aged 77. The book suggests there was anger that the rich asshole failed to call Ailes’s widow, Beth. Sean Hannity, a pro-the rich asshole host on Fox News, is quoted as asking: “What the fuck is wrong with him?”
Earlier on Wednesday the Guardian, which obtained Fire and Fury from a bookseller in New England, reported that Bannon told Wolff some rich asshole Jr’s June 2016 meeting with a group of Russians at the rich asshole Tower was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic”. Bannon also reportedly predicted of the Russia investigation: “They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV.”
The book describes a poisonous atmosphere at the White House, with bitter infighting between factions. Wolff, who previously conducted interviews with the rich asshole in June 2016 and Steve Bannon in November 2016 that were published in the Hollywood Reporter, gained unique access to the West Wing.
the rich asshole breaks with Bannon in dramatic fashion
BY JORDAN FABIAN AND JONATHAN EASLEY - 01/03/18 06:07 PM EST
President the rich asshole split from Steve Bannon in dramatic fashion on Wednesday after his once close political ally offered explosive criticism of the president and his family in a new book.
In a 267-word statement, an infuriated the rich asshole accused his former chief White House strategist and top campaign aide of having “lost his mind” and of being “only in it for himself.”
“Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he helped write phony books,” the rich asshole said.
The break could prove perilous for Bannon, who is trying to wage a war against the Republican establishment in an effort to elect conservatives he believes will be more loyal to the rich asshole’s agenda.
While the rich asshole has sometimes reconciled with foes, including Mitt Romney, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, it was difficult to imagine that the president and Bannon could see eye-to-eye again after the rich asshole’s blistering words, which the White House and its allies piled on to in an effort to bury the Breitbart News leader.
the rich asshole’s tone on Wednesday stood in stark contrast to his reaction after Bannon’s departure from the White House last August, underscoring the magnitude of the break between the two men.
“I want to thank Steve Bannon for his service. He came to the campaign during my run against Crooked Hillary Clinton — it was great! Thanks S” he tweeted at the time.
the rich asshole and Bannon last spoke in the "first part of December," according to Sanders. They have not spoken since.
Allies of Bannon’s sought to distance themselves as the extent of his break with the rich asshole became clear.
A pro-the rich asshole outside group named Great America Alliance, which until recently had been a vehicle for Bannon’s endorsements of congressional candidates, said in a statement that it would continue to back candidates that support the rich asshole’s agenda “whether or not Bannon shares this priority.”
In West Virginia, Rep. Evan Jenkins, a candidate in the state’s GOP Senate primary, called on rival Patrick Morrissey to renounce Bannon’s endorsement.
The White House also sent the signal that it wasn’t worried about a counterattack from Bannon and Breitbart, with press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying the rich asshole’s base would choose him over his adviser,.
“The base and people that supported this president still support some rich asshole and his agenda. Those things haven't changed,” she told reporters.
“Bannon has no contingent,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a rich asshole backer, told reporters at the White House. “There's a rich asshole wing of the Republican Party. There's not a Bannon wing.”
Going after Bannon also shifted the focus a bit from the allegations made by the former White House aide and others as reported by a forthcoming book from the author Michael Wolff.
Excerpts of the book paint a chaotic picture of the rich asshole’s campaign and first year in the White House.
Bannon is sharply critical of some rich asshole, Jr., for setting up a 2016 meeting at the rich asshole Tower with a Russian lawyer that was attended by the rich asshole’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and former the rich asshole campaign chairman Paul Manafort, describing it as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”
He also said that he believed the visitors were taken to meet then-candidate the rich asshole afterward.
Sanders swiftly denied that claim during her Wednesday briefing before turning her fire back to Bannon.
“Going after the president's son in absolutely outrageous and unprecedented way is probably not the best way to curry favor with anybody,” she said.
The spokesperson said the president was “furious” and “disgusted” by the “completely false claims against the president, his administration and his family.”
Bannon and his allies were in crisis mode on Wednesday, blindsided by the sudden turn of events.
Some were dispirited by the break, believing the controversy was totally unnecessary, even if they sided with Bannon’s view that the rich asshole, Jr., had created an unnecessary political mess for his father.
Bannon has yet to respond to the rich asshole’s statement. Several sources in Bannon’s immediate orbit were resigned to the avalanche of negative stories set to come out about him.
Enemies of Bannon celebrated the complete fracture of the rich asshole-Bannon relationship.
Bannon had promised to back primary candidates against every sitting Republican senator, with the exception of Cruz.
Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) allies cheered the news; a Twitter account belonging to the senator’s political operation posted a short video clip of McConnell grinning after the rich asshole’s statement was released.
“Congrats to @POTUS the rich asshole for pulverizing loud mouth self promoter Bannon,” tweeted Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) “Time for Bannon to disappear or find work in a circus.”
the rich asshole dissolves voter fraud commission
BY JORDAN FABIAN AND BRANDON CARTER - 01/03/18 06:49 PM EST
President the rich asshole on Wednesday dissolved a controversial commission that was set up to investigate his unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud during the 2016 election.
The order brought an abrupt end to a highly touted commission that the rich asshole created last May.
The White House said the rich asshole decided to disband the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity because several states failed to hand over voter information.
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement that “rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense,” the rich asshole signed an executive order abolishing the panel and turning the matter over to the Department of Homeland Security.
It was established months after the rich asshole claimed without citing evidence that millions of people voted illegally in 2016, depriving him of a popular-vote victory against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a vocal supporter of voter ID laws, led the commission. It was made up of Republicans and Democrats.
The panel met twice, but was quickly bogged down amid states’ unwillingness to comply with its requests and lawsuits alleging it did not follow federal record-keeping laws.
The Government Accountability Office announced last October it was opening an investigation into the commission at the request of three Democratic senators who said the panel did not properly disclose its work.
Democrats and civil-rights groups described the commission as part of a broader conservative effort to deprive minorities of voting rights and a cover to back up the president’s claims.
"The claim of widespread voter fraud in the United States is in fact, fraud. The demise of this commission should put this issue to rest," Michael Waldman, president of the liberal Brennan Center for Justice, said in a statement.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) celebrated the panel's end, calling it a "front to suppress the vote, perpetrate dangerous and baseless claims" that "was ridiculed from one end of the country to the other."
Some leading Republicans, including Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), also urged the rich asshole last year to drop his claims of widespread fraud.
The announcement of the panel’s demise capped off a chaotic news day at the White House, which scrambled to push back against former the rich asshole strategist Steve Bannon’s explosive criticism of the president and his family in a new book.
It also came roughly 24 hours after the rich asshole challenged North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Twitter over the size of his "nuclear button," a comment that sparked new fears of a deadly conflict with Pyongyang.
-Updated 7:40 p.m.
Confusion over the rich asshole's border wall delays spending talks
BY ALEXANDER BOLTON - 01/03/18 08:43 PM EST
Senate negotiators say a lack of clarity from President the rich asshole about his plans for a proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is holding up talks to avoid a government shutdown.
the rich asshole has demanded tougher immigration controls and more border-security measures in return for relief for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program recipients in the 2018 spending bill.
But Republicans and Democrats working on a possible immigration deal said Wednesday they're still waiting to receive the rich asshole's specific demands for tighter border security to hash out a deal.
Republicans are now saying that a deal to fund the government might have to move separately from a bill that provides a DACA fix and tightens border security.
Democrats, however, say they extracted a concession from GOP leaders and senior the rich asshole administration officials Wednesday afternoon to keep the spending and immigration talks linked as part of the same bargain.
The biggest question is whether the rich asshole will insist on building a 2,200-mile wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, as he indicated in a recent interview with The New York Times, or whether he’ll settle for increased patrols and surveillance.
“That’s something we’re waiting on the White House to give us clarity on,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), one of the negotiators. “When you talk to [the Department of Homeland Security] and the other individuals, they talk about technology, they talk about personnel, they talk about physical barriers.
“The president has just said, ‘I call it wall.’ Everything is ‘wall.’ But I don’t think he really means 30-foot high wall for 2,000 miles,” Lankford added.
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee plan to meet with the rich asshole on Thursday to get a better sense of what border security needs must be met as part of an immigration deal.
the rich asshole indicated in an impromptu interview with The New York Times last week that he would insist on a border wall in exchange for granting legal status to immigrants covered under the Obama-era program Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also known as DACA.
“I wouldn’t do a DACA plan without a wall. Because we need it. We see the drugs pouring into the country, we need the wall,” the rich asshole told Michael Schmidt of The Times.
But negotiators are somewhat confused by what the rich asshole means when he calls for a wall.
The president appears in his public pronouncements to be calling for a 2,200-mile solid structure while senior administration officials talk about the wall as more of a metaphor for tighter security.
“There will be wall components, not a 2,200-mile wall,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the negotiators, said before the Christmas break.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), one of the Democrats working on a prospective immigration deal, said the reason the rich asshole hasn’t wanted to put his proposal for a border wall on paper is because it would appear unfeasible and draw opposition from fellow Republicans.
“It has been almost three months since we asked the administration to provide us with a specific border security proposal. Still, I haven’t seen it,” Durbin said.
“What do you think ‘the wall’ means? Nobody knows. When they’re forced to put it on paper they have a problem. It’s too expensive and it’s controversial and there are parts of it that Republicans don’t like so they’re afraid to write it down. But they’re holding us up.”
Now some senior Republicans are floating the possibility that the 2018 spending deal will move separately from immigration legislation.
Government funding runs out on Jan. 19 and Congress has until March 5 to come up with a solution to protect Dreamers from deportation.
Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Thune (S.D.) said Wednesday that he doesn’t think the spending package will include the immigration legislation.
“I think that can be handled it separately,” he said. “On this one you’ve got health care extenders, tax extenders, you have disaster, 702, Alexander-Murray, you have a lot of moving parts,” referring to various provisions to extend expiring tax breaks, subsidize insurance companies, authorize intelligence surveillance and provide disaster relief funding that will be added to the fiscal year 2018 spending bill.
Thune said a prospective deal on Dreamers and border security probably won’t be done in time to add to the spending bill.
“I don’t think they’re anywhere close. That’s not ripe yet,” he said of a possible immigration deal.
But Democrats are pushing back hard on the notion that the omnibus spending package will move without a deal on immigration.
A Democratic leadership aide said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) agreed in a Wednesday afternoon meeting that the fate of Dreamers will be part of the broader talks on spending.
“The four leaders and White House officials agreed to keep negotiating a bipartisan budget agreement to lift the defense and non-defense caps, a DACA and border agreement, a health care package, as well as a disaster aid bill,” the aide said.
White House budget director Mick Mulvaney and legislative affairs director Marc Short also attended the Wednesday meeting.
Manafort sues Mueller, challenging scope of Russia investigation
BY KATIE BO WILLIAMS - 01/03/18 03:10 PM EST
Former the rich asshole campaign chairman Paul Manafort is suing the Department of Justice and special counsel Robert Mueller in an attempt to kneecap the federal probe into alleged coordination between the campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.
In a court filing on Wednesday, lawyers for Manafort argue that the order establishing Mueller's investigation is overly broad and not permitted under Justice Department regulations.
Mueller should be ordered to stop investigating any of Manafort’s conduct that doesn’t relate to his time as campaign chair, the suit says, and the appointment itself should be declared invalid.
“By ignoring the boundaries of the jurisdiction granted to the Special Counsel in the Appointment Order, Mr. Mueller acted beyond the scope of his authority. Mr. Mueller’s actions must be set aside,” the filing states.
Manafort, whom Mueller is prosecuting on tax fraud and money laundering charges, is also suing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who issued the order in May appointing Mueller as special counsel.
That appointment, according to Manafort’s lawyers, was “arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance” with a law governing the implementation of federal regulations — in this case, the regulation that allows for the appointment of a special counsel.
Even if the appointment of Mueller were legal, Manafort’s lawyers argue, by investigating “stale allegations” that predated the campaign by over a decade Mueller has far exceeded the scope laid out by Rosenstein.
The Justice Department rule that allows the attorney general to appoint a special counsel, the lawyers say, requires him to provide a “specific factual statement of the matter to be investigated.” If the special counsel wants to investigate an unrelated matter than comes to light during the course of an investigation, the rule requires him to consult with the attorney general.
After President the rich asshole fired then-FBI Director James Comey in May, Rosenstein authorized Mueller to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President some rich asshole,” along with “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.”
That order, Manafort’s lawyers wrote, “purports to grant Mr. Mueller carte blanche to investigate and pursue criminal charges in connection with anything he stumbles across while investigating, no matter how remote.”
A Department of Justice spokesperson called Manafort’s suit “frivolous,” adding, “the defendant is entitled to file whatever he wants.”
Some outside analysts were skeptical that the lawsuit would be successful, calling it a “public relations move.”
Even if Manafort is able to argue that he has standing to bring the case, “there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that a judge is going to reject DOJ’s interpretation here of the scope of permissible authority that can be delegated to Mueller,” said Bradley Moss, a national security lawyer.
The filing comes amidst a firestorm of criticism against Mueller from the right, including from a small but vocal group of conservative lawmakers who have called for his resignation. President the rich asshole has derided the probe as a “witch hunt,” insisting that there is “no collusion.”
"Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the rich asshole campaign. But why aren't Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus," the rich asshole tweeted when the charges were handed down in October.
In the indictment of Manafort, the special counsel’s office detailed years of financial transactions that they allege were part of a sprawling money-laundering scheme that continued into March of 2016, when he began to work for the rich asshole campaign.
The indictment also charges Manafort with making false statements to the FBI in 2016 and 2017.
According to Manafort’s lawyers, “early in the process,” Mueller “diverged” from his mandate to probe the alleged coordination between the campaign and the Kremlin to focus on the former campaign chair’s overseas consulting business. In August alone, they said, Mueller issued more than 100 subpoenas related to Manafort’s business dealings, dating back to 2005.
Mueller paid particular attention to a 2014 lobbying campaign led by Manafort on behalf of a pro-Kremlin political party in Ukraine, they allege. Those dealings had “no connection whatsoever” to the 2016 election or the rich asshole, the filing argues, nor were they uncovered during the course of the investigations.
Manafort’s lobbying efforts on behalf of the Kremlin candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, had been publicly reported prior to the indictment. According to the filing, Manafort voluntarily met with DOJ investigators in 2014 to discuss his consulting activities, but he was not the target of that investigation and it was closed shortly thereafter.
“The investigation of Mr. Manafort is completely unmoored from the Special Counsel’s original jurisdiction,” the suit claims.
Mueller alleges that Manafort’s consultancy was paid tens of millions of dollars for the advocacy work and then laundered the money “in order to hide Ukraine payments from United States authorities.”
Mueller alleges that Manafort’s consultancy was paid tens of millions of dollars for the advocacy work and then laundered the money “in order to hide Ukraine payments from United States authorities.”
Beginning in 2006, according to the government, Manafort began to do work for the Party of Regions, a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine. In 2010, its candidate, Yanukovych, was elected president. He was later forced to flee to Russia in 2014 in the wake of popular protests, effectively ending Manafort’s work.
During that period, Mueller’s indictment alleges that Manafort created more than a dozen foreign financial entities in Cyprus, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and the Seychelles.
But in his tax filings from 2008 to 2014, Manafort reported that he did not have authority over any foreign bank accounts, according to the indictment. He allegedly used his offshore accounts to purchase real estate in the U.S. on which he took out mortgages, thereby gaining tax-free cash in the United States.
Prosecutors allege that Manafort used his hidden overseas wealth to enjoy a “lavish lifestyle in the United States, without paying taxes on that income,” spending millions on luxury goods and services through payments wired from his offshore accounts.
Questioned about these activities by federal investigators in 2016, Mueller claims, Manafort and an associate who has also been charged, Robert Gates, “responded with a series of false and misleading statements.”
When the charges against Manafort were unveiled last year, it was seen by some as a signal that Mueller was trying to “flip” Manafort — or convince him to act as an informant, potentially about the rich asshole campaign.
Others suggested Mueller may have simply believed that he had sufficient evidence against Manafort to prove charges in court — or both.
Mueller has already convinced Michael Flynn, the rich asshole’s former national security adviser, to cooperate with his investigation. Flynn pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI.
Moss noted that Manafort chose to file a separate suit — not file a pretrial motion to dismiss the criminal case against him.
“Courts will reject the premise that there is a viable [Administrative Procedure Act] claim when there is an alternative remedy available to the plaintiff. There is one here,” he said.
“That is one more reason I view this as nothing more than a publicity stunt.”
Olivia Beavers contributed.
5 surprising allegations from the new book about the rich asshole's presidency
BY BRETT SAMUELS - 01/03/18 07:52 PM EST
Washington, D.C. on Wednesday was dominated by a series of explosive excerpts from a forthcoming book focused on the early days inside the rich asshole White House.
Michael Wolff’s upcoming book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House,” depicts a president who didn't expect to defeat Hillary Clinton in November 2016 and who clashed with White House staff. Excerpts of the book were published Wednesday.
Wolff acknowledges in the book’s introduction that it contains conflicting and untrue statements. He writes that certain accounts reflect “a version of events I believe to be true."
One problem with all insider accounts of Trump is that many of his insiders have a similar take on truth to Trump. It adds a gigantic grain of salt. twitter.com/BenjySarlin/st…
A few figures quoted in the book, including some rich asshole Jr. and First Lady Melania the rich asshole, pushed back against certain claims on Wednesday. The White House slammed the book as filled with “false and misleading” information, adding that the author did not sit down with the rich asshole himself for the project.
Here are some of the more explosive allegations from Wolff’s book excerpts:
the rich asshole may have met with Russians after a June 2016 meeting in the rich asshole Tower
Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon said there was “zero” chance President the rich asshole was unaware of the now-infamous meeting in the rich asshole Tower involving his son and a Russian lawyer.
Bannon, who is said to be one of the primary sources for Wolff’s book, called the meeting between some rich asshole Jr. and a Russian lawyer in July 2016 “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”
“The chance that Don Jr. did not walk these Jumos up to his father’s office o the 26th floor is zero,” Bannon said, according to an excerpt obtained by MSNBC.
the rich asshole Jr. agreed to attend the meeting after an intermediary told him that the lawyer had damaging information on Hillary Clinton. the rich asshole Jr. has called the meeting a waste of time, saying the lawyer instead wanted to discuss American adoptions of Russian children.
The meeting has come under intense scrutiny as special counsel Robert Mueller and multiple congressional committees look into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Bannon was fired from his role in the White House in August 2017, and has since returned to his role as head of Breitbart News. His comments released Wednesday contradicted past statements from the White House that the rich asshole did not know of the meeting.
The White House tore into Bannon on Wednesday, and the rich asshole said in a statement that his former chief strategist “has nothing to do with me or my presidency,” adding that he “lost his mind” when he lost his job.
the rich asshole Jr. also pushed back against Bannon’s comments, saying “Steve is not a strategist, he is an opportunist.”
Steve had the honor of working in the White House & serving the country. Unfortunately, he squandered that privilege & turned that opportunity into a nightmare of backstabbing, harassing, leaking, lying & undermining the President. Steve is not a strategist, he is an opportunist
the rich asshole was allegedly surprised by his victory in 2016
Leading up to Election Day in 2016, the rich asshole and several aides reportedly believed he would not be president.
Instead, he told one staffer, he would lose and still be “the most famous man in the world,” and would exit the campaign with a strong business brand, Wolff wrote.
But as the results came in and indicated the rich asshole may actually win the election, some rich asshole Jr. is said to have told a friend that his father looked as if he had seen a ghost.
First Lady Melania the rich asshole was in tears, Wolff wrote.
Bannon watched the rich asshole shift from befuddled, to disbelieving to horrified, Wolff wrote.
Both the rich asshole Jr. and the First Lady have since pushed back on Wolff’s description of events. A spokeswoman for the First Lady said Melania the rich asshole was "confident" her husband would win the election, and "was very happy when he did."
Rupert Murdoch reportedly called the rich asshole a “f---ing idiot”
Rupert Murdoch, co-chairman of 21st Century Fox and a long-time ally of President the rich asshole, is said to have called the president a “f---ing idiot” after the rich asshole didn’t seem to grasp the politics of Silicon Valley, according to the book.
In December 2016, the rich asshole met with a delegation of Silicon Valley officials. After the meeting, the rich asshole phoned Murdoch, and the two spoke about the meeting.
the rich asshole indicated that the meeting had gone well, and that Silicon Valley executives needed his help to recover from Obama-era policies. Murdoch pushed back, telling the rich asshole that Silicon Valley officials “practically ran” the Obama administration.
the rich asshole then reportedly didn’t seem to understand that taking a liberal stance on the H-1B visa program would conflict with his border security rhetoric of the campaign.
“We’ll figure it out,” the rich asshole reportedly told Murdoch.
When he got off the phone, Murdoch reportedly shrugged and said “What a f---king idiot.”
the rich asshole allegedly clashed with White House housekeeping
Shortly after arriving at the White House, the rich asshole reportedly established ground rules about his room and possessions.
Staff members were not to touch his belongings, especially his toothbrush. The book claims when housekeepers picked his shirts up off the floor, the rich asshole lashed out.
“If my shirt is on the floor, it’s because I want it on the floor,” the rich asshole reportedly said.
The book also states that the rich asshole has his own bedroom, making it the first time in several decades a presidential couple has not shared a room.
The president requested a lock on his door, but Secret Service pushed back. He also reportedly asked for two additional televisions to be installed in his bedroom, giving him three total.
the rich asshole has frequently clashed with the media over claims he has a habit of watching a lot of television, claiming he has no time to watch TV.
the rich asshole’s staff reportedly believed him to be semi-literate
Pitching policy ideas to the rich asshole was “deeply complicated,” Wolff writes in his book, citing the belief among some close to the president that he “was no more than semi-literate.”
the rich asshole “didn’t read” or “didn’t really even skim,” Wolff writes, creating issues when aides attempted to pitch policy to him.
Former Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Walsh reportedly said working with the rich asshole in those instances was “like trying to figure out what a child wants.”
the rich asshole said on the campaign trail he hadn’t read biographies of previous presidents, saying “I’m always busy doing a lot.”
the rich asshole told The Washington Post in July 2016 that he doesn’t read much, but instead comes to the right decisions “with very little knowledge other than the knowledge I had.”
More recently, a White House official spokesman told CNN he couldn’t saywhether the rich asshole had read all of a 55-page national security document.
the rich asshole signs executive order to dissolve voter fraud commission
Critics saw the commission as an attempt by the White House to justify unfounded claims made by the rich asshole that voter fraud cost him the popular vote in 2016.
WASHINGTON—U.S. President some rich asshole has signed an executive order disbanding his controversial voter fraud commission amid infighting, legal threats and information denials.
The White House blamed the decision, announced Wednesday evening, on a refusal by more than a dozen states to comply with the commission request for reams of personal voter data, including voters’ names, voting histories and party affiliations.
“Rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense, today President some rich asshole signed an executive order to dissolve the Commission, and he has asked the Department of Homeland Security to review its initial findings and determine next courses of action,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
Critics saw the commission as part of a conservative campaign to make it harder for poor people and minority voters to access the ballot box, and to justify unfounded claims made by the rich asshole that voter fraud cost him the popular vote in 2016.
the rich asshole has repeatedly alleged, without evidence, that 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally in the 2016 election, delivering the popular vote to his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
Past studies have found voter fraud to be exceptionally rare.
Critics also viewed the commission as an attempt to distract from the ongoing investigations into Russian election meddling and potential collusion between Moscow and the rich asshole campaign aides. The intelligence community concluded that the Russian government mounted a campaign to help the rich asshole win.
At least a dozen states, plus Washington, D.C., had rebuffed the commission’s request for voter data, citing privacy concerns and a fear that complying would legitimize the idea that voter fraud is widespread.
Read more:
While there have been isolated cases of people voting illegally, and many voter rolls often contain outdated data, there is no evidence voter fraud is a widespread problem in the United States or has impacted election results.
A study by a Loyola Law School professor found that out of 1 billion votes cast in all American elections between 2000 and 2014, there were only 31 known cases of impersonation fraud.
the rich asshole, during the commission’s first meeting, questioned the motives of states that refused to comply with the commission’s requests, suggesting they had something to hide.
Voter advocacy groups and Democrats applauded the development.
“President the rich asshole created his sham voting commission to substantiate a lie he told about voter fraud in the 2016 election. When he couldn’t come up with any fake evidence, and under relentless pressure, he had no choice but to disband his un-American commission,” said Let America Vote President Jason Kander in a statement.
Kander added, “Good riddance.”
Paul Manafort’s Lawsuit is Dead-On-Arrival, and Everyone Knows It
by Elura Nanos | 7:50 pm, January 3rd, 2018
It’s a nice PR move, I’ll give him that.
On Wednesday, former the rich asshole campaign manager Paul Manafort sued the DOJ, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller in a civil lawsuit. The point of the lawsuit? If we’re being honest, not much beyond exciting up conservatives with aggressive-sounding headlines. The Complaint, filed in federal court for the District of Columbia, requests “injunctive relief to restrict public officers to their lawful authority.” In other words, the Russia investigation has gone too far and Manafort is asking the court to order the DOJ to stand down.
Like many lawsuits filed for the purpose of getting a court to declare someone “correct,” this one is going nowhere. Manafort’s arguments ranged from the ridiculous to the passé, and none of them will amount to a do-over of his indictment. Here are the top three losers, straight from the lawsuit.
1.
What Manafort’s Complaint said, paraphrased: “Mueller was supposed to be investigating Russian collusion, not other stuff. I may have done all sorts of incredibly shady stuff, but it was totally separate from the 2016 election and Russia. Therefore, Mueller should have looked the other way, and now a court should dismiss my indictment.”
What the Court is probably going to say: “Sorry, Paul, it’s close enough for jazz.”
I’m always amused when criminals defend themselves by saying that they did commit wrongdoing, but that whoever is prosecuting them lacks the authority to do so. The Complaint characterizes the charges against Manafort as, “completely unmoored from the Special Counsel’s original jurisdiction,” which might make sense if Mueller’s investigation uncovered that Manafort had punched someone in a bar fight a decade ago; however, Manafort’s history of alleged lying to the FBI about interactions with Russian officials feels a lot like the entire reason Mueller was appointed in the first place. It’s true that much of what was uncovered against Manafort predated his work with the rich asshole campaign, but given the nature of the indictment against him, this argument lacks any real credibility. And it seems like everyone knows it:
While there certainly are limits to the scope of Robert Mueller’s authority, it’s beyond unlikely that any court would side with Manafort on this issue.
2.
What Manafort’s Complaint said, paraphrased: “If a court doesn’t put Mueller in his place now, Mueller is going to become an out-of-control super-villain.”
What the Court is probably going to say: “Been there, decided this, and Scalia is gone. Nice try, though.”
This argument is one that initially sounds reasonable, especially to anyone who remembers Kenneth Starr. I especially liked it when Manafort’s Complaint described limited government with much drama:
“The principle that government must be both limited in power and accountable to the people lies at the core of our constitutional traditions. That principle must be zealously guarded against creeping incursions. One of the most notorious violations—the “wolf” that famously came “as a wolf”—was the now-defunct independent counsel law from the Ethics in Government Act of 1978…”
The only problem is that the Supreme Court has already ruled on the whole independent counsel thing back in 1988, and found the idea of an independent prosecutor to be perfectly Constitutional. Sure, there may be policy reasons to object oppose the Independent Counsel Act, but not everything with which one disagrees is illegal. Legal scholars, such as national security expert Steve Vladeck, have been quick to point out that this argument is a loser:
The only way that this complaint has a chance is if there really is a majority of the current #SCOTUS that wants to, and will, overrule Morrison v. Olson. And as Eric Posner and I testified before the Senate in September, we just don't see that happening:judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/speci…twitter.com/ZoeTillman/sta…
In SCOTUS’ decision in Morrison v. Olson, Justice Scalia issued one of his famous dissents, in which he warned against an independent prosecutor, influenced by politics, wielding too much power. The arguments Scalia raised in dissent, somewhat prescient in the retrospectful context of Starr’s prosecution of Bill Clinton, did form the basis of Congress’ decision not to renew the Ethics in Government Act when it expired. However, the part which provided for the appointment of a special prosecutor (like Mueller) to investigate wrongdoing (like Russian collusion) is still alive and well – albeit it, under a different statutory heading. Given that SCOTUS specifically ruled in Morrison v. Olson that the independent counsel did not violate constitutional principles, what Manafort is asking would require an overruling of that case. While 2018 is certainly the time of “anything’s possible,” I’d file such an outcome under “not going to happen.”
3.
What Manafort’s Complaint said, paraphrased: “The DOJ already knew I’d committed crimes and sat on that info. Therefore, the indictment against me shouldn’t count.”
What the Court is probably going to say: “Umm, what? Yeah, that’s not how criminal law works. Like at all.”
Don’t take my word for it. Check out the actual words of the Complaint:
“Even if that grant of authority were lawful, Mr. Mueller’s investigation and the resulting indictment exceed it. The indictment raises stale allegations DOJ must have been aware of for nearly a decade; they are not matters that ‘arose . . . from the investigation” into the 2016 election and alleged collusion with the Russian government. By ignoring the boundaries of the jurisdiction granted to the Special Counsel in the Appointment Order, Mr. Mueller acted beyond the scope of his authority. Mr. Mueller’s actions must be set aside.’”
If only there were a legal concept that deals with the idea of the government waiting too long to charge someone with a crime. Oh wait. Right. We have “statutes of limitation.” Simply declaring that the Department of Justice “must have been aware” of something isn’t quite the same thing as arguing that a statute of limitation has been violated.
Losing argument aside, there’s also the procedural issue of who’d have to decide this case. Given the nature of the legal issues involved, this is one that would SCOTUS to take it on. And that’s not exactly likely to happen any time soon. We’ll keep you posted as this case makes its way through the courts, but we’re not expecting much.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
Bannon bombshells and more: The 10 most shocking revelations from Michael Wolff’s the rich asshole book
some rich asshole speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at Fountain Park in Fountain Hills, Arizona (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
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Journalist and author Michael Wolff on Wednesday dropped several bombshells on some rich asshole in printed excerpts of his upcoming book, Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House.
The first excerpts of the book were originally leaked to The Guardian, before New York Magazine published an even more substantive portion.
The book details the intrigue, in-fighting, and all-around chaos that swirled around both the rich asshole’s election campaign and his first year in the White House. Here are the ten most shocking revelations.
1.) Steve Bannon predicts special counsel Robert Mueller will “crack Don Jr. like an egg” over his infamous 2016 meeting with Russian officials, which Bannon also described as “treasonous.”
2.) the rich asshole didn’t seem to know who former House Speaker John Bohener was. When former Fox boss Roger Ailes recommended the rich asshole consider Boehner to be his chief of staff, the rich asshole reportedly asked, “Who’s that?”
3.) First Lady Melania the rich asshole was horrified by the rich asshole’s win — and she cried “tears — and not of joy” on the night of her husband’s victory.
“I got as far as the Fourth Amendment before his finger is pulling down on his lip and his eyes are rolling back in his head,” Nunberg explained.
5.) the rich asshole is paranoid about germs — and he warned the White House cleaning staff to never, under any circumstances, touch his toothbrush. The president also reprimanded the cleaning staff after one of them picked up a shirt he left on the floor.
“If my shirt is on the floor, it’s because I want it on the floor,” he said, according to Wolff.
6.) 21st Century Fox boss Rupert Murdoch called the rich asshole “a f*cking idiot” after the two had a discussion on H1-B visas. the rich asshole drew Murdoch’s ire after he seemingly didn’t understand that helping Silicon Valley tech companies secure more of H1-B visas would be breaking his own campaign promising.
7.) Ann Coulter warned the rich asshole against hiring his children — and then he did it anyway. “You just can’t hire your children,” Coulter told the rich asshole during the presidential transition. Shortly afterward, he hired both daughter Ivanka the rich asshole and son-in-law Jared Kushner to key White House advisory positions.
8.) the rich asshole didn’t want former United Nations ambassador John Bolton to be secretary of state because of his mustache. The infamously belligerent Bolton, who made a habit of angering his fellow diplomats while serving as UN ambassador under the George W. Bush administration, was not picked to run Foggy Bottom because the rich asshole found that he didn’t “look the part” — primarily because of his big, bushy mustache.
9.) the rich asshole also allegedly referred to then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates as a “c*nt.”
10.) Hope Hicks, the rich asshole’s 28-year-old director of strategic communications, was reportedly subjected to crude comments. According to the book, “Hicks sat in the rich asshole Tower with the rich asshole and his sons, worried about Lewandowski’s treatment in the press and wondering aloud how she might help him. the rich asshole, who otherwise seemed to treat Hicks in a protective and even paternal way, looked up and said, ‘Why? You’ve already done enough for him. you’re the best piece of tail he’ll ever have’ sending Hicks running from the room.”
Forget ‘covfefe’: Steven Bannon just invented a new word and no one knows what the hell it means
Breitbart executive Steve Bannon wearing a "Guy Fawkes/Anonymous" mask on his head. Image via Twitter.
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Move over, covfefe — 2018’s already got a new indecipherable word.
“The chance that Don Jr. did not walk these Jumos up to his father’s office of the 26th floor is zero,” Breitbart executive and former White House aide Steve Bannon told writer Michael Wolff in Fire & Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House. He was referencing some rich asshole Jr.’s infamous the rich asshole Tower meeting with a cabal of Russians, but the strange term “Jumos” really stuck out to most readers.
“What the f*ck is a ‘Jumo’?” Spin‘s Maggie Serota asked in an article speculating that the term might “a new slur.”
Others were similarly confused by the word.
As Yahoo News’ Garance Frank-Ruta noted, Urban Dictionary provides several possible definitions, which range from Dominican Spanish slang for drunk to “the Act of J*cking off well [sic] experiencing the munchies.”
Yet another user came up with what appears to be a more plausible definition — “JUnior Moscow Operation.”
“The consensus among Spin staffers is that Bannon was probably referring to the Russians as ‘Jamokes,'” Serota wrote in Spin, “which Urban Dictionary defines as a ‘clumsy loser who is incapable of doing normal human tasks.’ The term probably got lost in translation when the interview recordings were transcribed, likely by someone other than Wolff.”
Sarah Sanders claims bombshell book is business as usual: ‘The president is exactly who he was yesterday’
Sarah Sanders (Screenshot)
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White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Wednesday pushed back against passages from Michael Wolff’s upcoming book, which alleges, among other things, that former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon virtually accused some rich asshole Jr. of treason after he met with Russians during the 2016 campaign.
In excerpts of the book that were revealed by several outlets on Wednesday, Bannon describes the rich asshole Tower meeting with Russians as “treasonous” and predicts that Congressional committees would “crack” some rich asshole Jr. “like an egg.”
the rich asshole eventually fired back at Bannon, asserting that the former White House staffer “lost his mind” after he was fired and returned to his previous job as head of Breitbart.
At Wednesday’s press briefing, Sanders insisted that the president’s remarks were “clear” and that his son was not a traitor to the U.S.
“The president is exactly who he was yesterday…. The president’s base is very solid,” Sanders said. “It hasn’t changed because the president hasn’t changed and his agenda hasn’t changed. And we’re continuing to accomplish what’s on the president’s agenda.”
When asked whether some rich asshole Jr. is a traitor as Bannon suggested, Sanders shot back that the idea was a “ridiculous accusation.”
Watch the video below from CNN.
the rich asshole disbands controversial voter fraud commission after states refuse to hand over information
some rich asshole and Kris Kobach (Screengrab)
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some rich asshole on Wednesday dissolved the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which was tasked with curbing voting fraud following the 2016 election.
the rich asshole created the commission after railing against illegal voters, which he attributed—without evidence—to losing him the popular vote. In a statement attributed to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the administration cites states’ refusal to provide voter data to the commission as the reason for the president’s decision. The actual statement is written in the first person and appears to be from the rich asshole himself.
The commission faced fierce opposition, including a federal lawsuit arguing its voter information collection efforts violated citizens’ right to privacy.
Read the statement below:
.@realDonaldTrump has DISSOLVED his voter integrity commission, citing states' refusal to provide data. --->
REVEALED: some rich asshole used his the rich asshole Tower secretary to trick his buddies’ wives into sleeping with him
Access Hollywood the rich asshole tape (Photo: Screen capture)
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some rich asshole had an intricate plan of deception to bed the wives of his friends, according to yet another bombshell revelation from Michael Wolff’s new book Fire and Fury.
MSNBC obtained a copy of the book and NBC News’ former embedded reporter with the rich asshole campaign, Katy Tur, tweeted a highlighted section.
“the rich asshole liked to say that one of the things that made life worth living was getting your friends’ wives into bed,” the starred paragraph begins.
“In pursuing a friend’s wife, he would try to persuade the wife that her husband was perhaps not what she thought. Then he’d have his secretary ask the friend into his office; once the friend arrived, the rich asshole would engage in what was, for him, more or less constant sexual banter. Do you still like having sex with your wife? How often? You must have had a better f*ck than your wife? Tell me about it. I have girls coming in from Los Angeles at three o’clock. We can go upstairs and have a great time. I promise … And all the while, the rich asshole would have his friend’s wife on the speakerphone, listening in,” the book reported.
the rich asshole called acquaintance from White House to rant about SNL and ‘golden showers’: report
some rich asshole on Phone (Twitter)
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President some rich asshole prefers to spend his evenings in bed by 6:30 p.m. to eat a cheeseburger, watch TV and make phone calls, according to a bombshell new book.
Michael Wolff spoke to numerous sources involved in President some rich asshole’s campaign and the first year of his administration, and they describe a surprised and unprepared president struggling to make sense of his new life, according to excerpts published in New York magazine.
The president often dined with chief strategist Steve Bannon, who served a source for Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House, but Wolff reported that the rich asshole preferred to get into bed early and spend the evening gossiping with friends over the phone as he watched three television screens.
“As details of the rich asshole’s personal life leaked out, he became obsessed with identifying the leaker,” Wolff reported. “The source of all the gossip, however, may well have been the rich asshole himself. In his calls throughout the day and at night from his bed, he often spoke to people who had no reason to keep his confidences. He was a river of grievances, which recipients of his calls promptly spread to the ever-attentive media.”
Wolff recounts one “seething, self-pitying, and unsolicited” phone call Feb. 6 to a casual acquaintance, where the president ranted about media coverage and his disloyal staff.
the rich asshole first attacked New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, whom he called “a nut job,” and then slurred Times columnist Gail Collins as a “moron.”
Next up was CNN chief Jeff Zucker, whose professional success the rich asshole believed he was personally responsible for, but the president was furious that his news network had aired an “unbelievably disgusting” report about a dossier detailing his salacious alleged activity with Russian prostitutes.
The opposition research compiled by a former British spy claims the rich asshole hired the prostitutes to perform a “golden shower” on a bed at a Moscow hotel where the Obamas had previously slept.
“Having dispensed with Zucker, the president of the United States went on to speculate on what was involved with a golden shower,” Wolff wrote. “And how this was all just part of a media campaign that would never succeed in driving him from the White House. Because they were sore losers and hated him for winning, they spread total lies, 100 percent made-up things, totally untrue, for instance, the cover that week of Time magazine — which, the rich asshole reminded his listener, he had been on more than anyone in history — that showed Steve Bannon, a good guy, saying he was the real president.”
the rich asshole lashed out at Bannon and son-in-law Jared Kushner, then turned his attention to “Saturday Night Live” – which he complained was too mean and “fake comedy,” and said adviser Kellyanne Conway had been keeping a record of the unfair treatment.
The rambling, out-of-the-blue call from the president of the United States to a casual acquaintance, who’s never identified in the article, lasted for 26 minutes, according to Wolff.
White House feels like a ‘bunker’ as the rich asshole does damage control over Bannon’s ‘Fire & Fury’ confessions: report
Steve Bannon and some rich asshole (Composite / RawStory)
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Though it’s not the first storm the rich asshole White House has weathered, the ranks of the West Wing are reportedly in full damage control mode amid revelations from former chief strategist Steve Bannon in a new book titled Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House.
As The Daily Beast reported Wednesday afternoon, sources inside the White House say “a bunker mentality took hold” in the aftermath of Bannon’s many confessions about the atmosphere when he worked for the administration.
“There was a sense of palpable anger at the quotes Bannon gave to [writer Michael] Wolff for his book,” the Beast’s report read.
People who spoke with the president following the Fire and Fury excerpt’s release said he seemed “more furious that Bannon appeared to take too much credit for the 2016 victory,” and appeared less focused on the Breitbart executive’s comments that some rich asshole Jr.’s infamous the rich asshole Tower meeting was “treasonous.”
“Members of President the rich asshole’s inner circle, including his immediate family, were instantly enraged on Wednesday after the Bannon excerpts dropped,” the report continued, “and began hitting the phones to communicate to friends the imperative of ensuring Bannon is banished in the rich asshole-world.”
Hope Hicks fled the room after the rich asshole called her ‘the best piece of tail’ Lewandowski will ever have: report
White House Communications Director Hope Hicks deplaning Air Force One and former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, composite image.
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Bombshell reports from Michael Wolff’s new Fire and Fury book continued to roil President some rich asshole’s White House as even more revelations are reported.
MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing, reading from the book live on air, revealed yet another shocking detail, this one about White House Communications Director Hope Hicks and former the rich asshole campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
“We know that Steve Bannon believes that he is the person who helped some rich asshole survive the infamous Billy Bush tape,” Jansing noted.
“Right,” Politico report Josh Dawsey agreed.
“So obviously, he was elected president, he got by that,” Jansing noted. “We’re in a very different sort of set of beliefs right now, America has changed its tune on the treatment of women.”
“And there is a quote in here about, Hope Hicks and Corey Lewandowski, who, according to the book, had an on and off again romantic relationship, and he was, of course, fired in 2016 for clashing with the rich asshole family members,” Jansing reminded.
“And this is what the book says “Hicks sat in the rich asshole Tower with the rich asshole and his sons, worried about Lewandowski’s treatment in the press and wondering aloud how she might help him. the rich asshole, who otherwise seemed to treat Hicks in a protective and even paternal way, looked up and said, ‘Why? You’ve already done enough for him. you’re the best piece of tail he’ll ever have’ sending Hicks running from the room,” Jansing read.
“Well, the rich asshole Tower is known, and in the White House, as being a pretty crass place, the president frequently curses and using off-color sayings, you obviously heard the “Access Hollywood” tape and his comments there,” Dawsey noted.
Watch:
Rod Rosenstein and Chris Wray meet with Paul Ryan as Devin Nunes’ DOJ-FBI subpoena deadline looms
Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) and FBI Director Christopher Wray
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Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray met with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) on Wednesday–a meeting reportedly requested by the top law enforcement officials.
That meeting comes among a series of reports directly or tangentially related to the special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Rosenstein named Mueller to head the probe after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from Russia related matters.
According to a request from House Intelligence Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), Wednesday marks the final day for the Department of Justice and the FBI to turn over documents related to the investigation—including sensitive information regarding the infamous the rich asshole-Russia dossier. ABC reports Nunes’ request was the bases for Rosenstein’s meeting.
This comes as the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation continues to fracture along partisan lines and GOP continues probing bias in DOJ investigations. twitter.com/benyc/status/9…
New: A source familiar with the meeting tells @PierreTABCRosenstein and FBI Director Wray were scheduled to meet with Ryan to discuss Chairman Nunes’ recent requests for additional documents.
Per another source familiar with the meeting: This is directly related to House intel chairman @DevinNunes's demand for documents -- by today -- related to FBI's handling of the Steele dossier. twitter.com/kyledcheney/st…
Per his Dec. 28, 2017 letter, Nunes—who’s been accused of conducting his own shadow investigation of the FBI and DOJ during the House intel’s Russia investigation—demanded documents and testimony from FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Strzok was removed from the Russia investigation last year after Mueller discovered anti-some rich asshole text messages between him and Page.
“Should DIOJ decided to withhold any responsible records … it must, consistent with the subpoena instructions, proved a written repose, under your signature, detailing the legal justification for failing to comply with valid congressional subpoenas,” Nunes’ letter warned.
“At this point it seems the DOJ and FBI need to be investigating themselves,” it added.
Read the full Dec. 28, 2017 letter below:
Congrats to @ScottWongDC for this scoop at The Hill. goo.gl/Se4q8c
Worth nothing we have just hit deadline by which Congressman Nunes told DOJ/FBI to hand over a lot of sensitive info on the investigation:
CNN's Jake Tapper
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CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday reacted to the fallout from Michael Wolff’s new book “Fire and Fury,” which quotes some rich asshole’s former chief White House counselor Steve Bannon as saying, among other things, that the infamous June 2016 the rich asshole Tower meeting between top campaign associates was “unpatriotic” and “treasonous.”
“For the youngsters out there, it’s impossible to overstate just how bizarre today’s news is,” Tapper began. “President the rich asshole issued a statement like no presidential statement ever before in American history, lambasting his former campaign and White House senior strategist Steve Bannon in no uncertain terms. This comes after the release of explosive excerpts from a new book claiming to reveal the inner-workings of the rich asshole campaign and White House.”
“What could be the most consequential revelation, Bannon seeming to tell the book’s author he thinks that meeting between Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort with others who were billed as being from the Russian government, that that meeting was ‘unpatriotic’ and ‘treasonous.’”
Tapper explained that the rich asshole, after being told about that excerpt, “unloaded today,” releasing an official White House statement insisting Bannon “not only lost his job, he lost his mind.”
“And then the president got nasty,” Tapper said.
Watch below, via CNN:
Watch below, via CNN:
After the rich asshole, it’s obvious that the certainty ‘it could never happen here’ was foolish in hindsight
some rich asshole speaks at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 18, 2016 (AFP Photo/Robyn Beck)
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For too long, progressive intellectuals have mocked conservatives as “know-nothings” for their insistence that the U.S. is immune to history and can’t be compared to other countries because it is simply superior.
I suspect, however, that historians, even radical ones, suffer just as much from American exceptionalism. Our version of this mindset is evoked by the title of Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel, It Can’t Happen Here. No military coups, no dictatorships, no violent revolutions, no breaks in the constitutional order—what do we really have to worry about? The United States will persevere somehow, and if you need reassurance, recall Watergate’s bipartisan removal of a president via constitutional processes.
And then along came the rich asshole. It’s pretty obvious that the certainty “it could never happen here” was foolish in hindsight. More than just admitting error, we need to face up to what history tells us is possible. It is thoroughly “exceptionalist” to treat Trumpism as a temporary aberration, brought on by the peculiarities of the Electoral College and the Republican Party’s takeover by the organized right. There is no fundamental reason to insist the U.S. is immune from authoritarian government, whether outright fascism or a regime maintaining the technical forms of democracy (a legislature; formal elections; courts that issue sentences) while actively subverting democracy’s real content. Turkey and much of central and eastern Europe, including Czechia, Hungary, and Poland, are trending towards authoritarian democracy, an oxymoron if there ever was one, and Putin’s Russia shows them how to do it.
We have to stop treating the deep anti-democratic currents in modern U.S. history as exceptions—mistakes that will never happen again. We should know better. In the past century, there are any number of existing legislative and judicial precedents for large-scale repression and direct attacks on democratic rights, none formerly overturned by Supreme Court action or constitutional amendment.
The Espionage Act of 1918 criminalized peaceful dissent in wartime. Approximately two thousand people were jailed for speaking or writing against U.S. entry into World War One, often for long sentences. Wartime repression functioned at many levels. Local authorities encouraged mob violence against radicals, leading to lynchings and an epidemic of flogging. In 1919, Attorney General Mitchell A. Palmer authorized raids to round up ten thousand immigrants without habeas corpus protections, and five hundred were shipped to the Soviet Union. That first “Red Scare” was powered by the new Bureau of Investigation led by the young J. Edgar Hoover. Over the next half-century his FBI centered an anti-subversive network inside and outside government which engaged in covert attacks on anyone Hoover considered “un-American.”
World War II was worse. In February 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the Army to deport anyone it saw fit from the West Coast. This order targeted Japanese immigrants (Issei) and native-born citizens of Japanese descent (Nisei), 120,000 of whom were deported to desert concentration camps for the rest of the war, unless released to do manual labor or serve in the armed forces. It was validated by the Supreme Court’s 1944 Korematsu decision, which has never been overturned.
Moving past 1945, the “McCarthyite” Red Scare is remembered, but in ways that soften its impact and mask the responsibility of liberals and the larger civil society. Large-scale purges of employment and blacklists began well before Senator Joseph McCarthy became a household figure in 1950 and lasted long after the Senate censured him in 1954. In 1947 President Truman ordered a Loyalty Security Program to assess the political sympathies of federal employees. The criteria for “loyalty” were entirely ideological. Thousands of government workers were fired and many more quit, a process repeated in every state and by all employers with government contracts. Constitutional protections of due process were abrogated; the FBI interviewed neighbors and associates and presented evidence in cameraas to what books people read or opinions they had voiced.
The Supreme Court has never struck down the concept that political tests can be used as a standard for employment. If the President were to instruct the current Attorney General to establish a similar loyalty program, why do we assume it would not pass muster with this Congress and this Supreme Court?
A worse precedent is the FBI’s covert COINTELPRO (Counter-Intelligence Program) of 1956-1971, focused on “disrupting” supposed radical threats, including the use of infiltrators, sabotage, and disinformation. As is well-known, the FBI tried to force Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to commit suicide by circulating taped recordings of his extramarital sexual activities to the press and then to his wife. The internal violence that consumed the Black Panther Party in 1969-1971 was largely the work of FBI agents spreading rumors. Repression by local law enforcement was more direct. The Chicago Police Department executed Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark while they slept, for instance.
It is naïve to think these precedents are not on the minds of the President and the people around him. the rich asshole justified his attempted ban on Muslims entering the U.S. by evoking FDR’s executive order authorizing internment; he has pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who used his shield to cover explicitly racial violence against Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. Newt Gingrich, one of the President’s closest advisers, has called for a new House Un-American Activities Committee, with the predictable consequences. Most frightening, of course, is the presidential tolerance extended to neo-Nazi “alt-right” groups, equating them with civil rights protesters.
In sum, it has, repeatedly, happened here. And it may again, with lasting consequences.
Van Gosse teaches history at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
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