February 17th-18th, 2017. It's been 462-463 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election of some rich asshole, no. 45, and 390-391 days since the Jan 20th inauguration.
Sanders: the rich asshole not speaking out against Russia 'is a horror show'
BY BRETT SAMUELS - 02/18/18 11:16 AM EST
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday blasted President the rich asshole for not taking action to protect the U.S. from Russian meddling in future elections, saying "that we don’t have a president speaking out on this issue is a horror show."
His comments follow an indictment released Friday by special counsel Robert Mueller outlining multiple actors who played a role in extensive Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election.
"We have got to bring Democrats and Republicans together despite the president to go forward to protect the integrity of American democracy,” Sanders said on NBC's “Meet The Press.”
The Department of Justice announced charges against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian organizations for allegedly attempting to interfere in the 2016 election. The indictment alleges the goal of the Russians was to support then-candidate some rich asshole, and damage his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Following the indictment, the rich asshole has sent roughly a dozen tweets about the Russia investigation, claiming his campaign did not collude with Russia and blaming the Obama administration for not doing more. He also said the indictment vindicated him and his campaign from allegations of collusion with Moscow.
Sanders said Sunday that former President Obama should have done more to push back against Russian interference in 2016, but acknowledged Obama was in a difficult position.
“The main point to be understood is that what everyone understands, except some rich asshole, is that this was not just the 2016 campaign. They intend to do this in 2018,” Sanders said.
“And I think one of the weirdest things in modern American history is you have every intelligence agency, you have the Mueller report, you have the rich asshole’s own administration saying [the Russians] want to sabotage the 2018 campaign. Everybody knows this, except the president of the United States,” he continued.
Axios: Kelly, Secret Service agent scuffled with Chinese officials over nuclear 'football'
BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN - 02/18/18 06:25 PM EST
White House chief of staff John Kelly and a Secret Service agent scuffled with Chinese security officials over the U.S. nuclear "football" during a trip to China in November, Axios reported Sunday.
The nuclear football is the black briefcase containing the nuclear launch codes for the president. The aide carrying it is required to remain close to the president at all times.
The interaction reportedly took place during President some rich asshole’s trip to Beijing's Great Hall of the People. The aide carrying the briefcase was blocked from entering the hall, and another official quickly told Kelly, five sources told Axios.
Kelly then came over and told the officials to continue walking in, after which a Chinese security official grabbed at Kelly, and the chief of staff pushed him off, according to Axios. A Secret Service agent then tackled the Chinese security official, the publication reported.
U.S. officials were asked to not discuss the interaction, according to Axios. Chinese officials were never in possession of the bag containing the launch codes, and a top Chinese security official apologized to the rich asshole team afterward.
The interaction took place during the rich asshole’s trip to China in November as part of his Asian tour.
The rich asshole administration’s handling of the launch codes came under scrutiny last year after a visitor to the rich asshole’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida posted a photo on Facebook with the person he said was responsible for carrying the football.
Obama ethics czar: Gates guilty plea shows Mueller’s flipping the rich asshole allies ‘like a short order cook’
Special counsel Robert Mueller on CNN (screen capture)
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Norm Eisen — founder and board chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) — compared special counsel Robert Mueller to a “short order cook” in response to news that former the rich asshole 2016 official Rick Gates is now a cooperating witness.
“Norm, what do you make of the fact that Mueller has been able to flip three people?” asked anchor Ana Cabrera, meaning former national security adviser Mike Flynn, campaign aide George Papadopoulos and now Gates.
“He’s flipping them like a short order cook, Ana,” said Eisen gleefully. “And what I make of it is this was a campaign led by a candidate who evinced contempt for the rule of law and for ethics.”
Watch the video, embedded below:
Schiff fires back at the rich asshole: 'If McMaster can stand up to Putin, why can't you?'
BY BRETT SAMUELS - 02/18/18 05:58 PM EST
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Sunday ripped President the rich asshole for failing to criticize Russia for meddling in the 2016 election, despite some prominent the rich asshole administration officials having done so.
“Sorry for delay @POTUS. Was on a plane back from Munich where General McMaster confronted Russia over its meddling,” Schiff tweeted in response to the rich asshole.
“I’ve always said Obama should’ve acted sooner. But you won’t recognize the truth, impose sanctions or act at all. If McMaster can stand up to Putin, why can’t you?” he continued.
Sorry for delay @POTUS. Was on a plane back from Munich where General McMaster confronted Russia over its meddling.
I’ve always said Obama should’ve acted sooner. But you won’t recognize the truth, impose sanctions or act at all. If McMaster can stand up to Putin, why can’t you? twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
I’ve always said Obama should’ve acted sooner. But you won’t recognize the truth, impose sanctions or act at all. If McMaster can stand up to Putin, why can’t you? twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
The comments came after the rich asshole tweeted about Schiff following news last week that the Justice Department was charging 13 Russian nationals and three Russian organizations for allegedly interfering in the U.S. election. The indictment alleges the goal of the Russians was to support then-candidate some rich asshole and damage his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
In the wake of the indictment, Schiff said he believed the Obama administration could’ve taken a stronger stance to push back against Russia when they began interference efforts.
the rich asshole took to Twitter to sarcastically praise Schiff for his comments, saying he was “finally right about something.”
Finally, Liddle’ Adam Schiff, the leakin’ monster of no control, is now blaming the Obama Administration for Russian meddling in the 2016 Election. He is finally right about something. Obama was President, knew of the threat, and did nothing. Thank you Adam!
Schiff, in his Sunday response to the rich asshole, was also referencing national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who following the indictments said in Munich that the evidence "is now incontrovertible" that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
the rich asshole later took to Twitter to speak for his national security adviser, saying McMaster forgot to say the election results "were not impacted or changed" by the Russians.
In an interview with CNN recorded before the rich asshole had tweeted at Schiff, the congressman said he was not taking a new stance on the Obama administration’s decisions, and noted the rich asshole administration has also not taken action.
“I think they should’ve engaged in conversations about sanctions, but none of that is an excuse for this president to sit on his hands,” Schiff said.
the rich asshole’s unpopularity giving huge boost to Democratic chances for 3 New Jersey Congressional seats
some rich asshole (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
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the rich asshole’s unpopularity helps boost Democratic chances in 3 N.J. House races
Jonathan D. Salant
Posted with permission from NJ.com
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with state and local officials about infrastructure in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Feb. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)In its latest ratings, Inside Elections gave a slight edge to Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-5th Dist.
It called the 2nd District seat being vacated by retiring Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-2nd Dist., a toss-up.
And it downgraded the chances of Rep. Leonard Lance, R-7th Dist., to win re-election.
While a president's party traditionally loses congressional seats in an off-year election, President Donald Trump is having an outsized influence in a state where only 34 percent in a Gallup poll approve of his performance in office.
N.J. races key for House Democrats
"President Trump is fueling the Democratic Party right now," said Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of Inside Elections. "He's the reason for the energy. He's the reason for the campaign donations. He's the reason some of these candidates are getting into the race."
Trump's major accomplishment was a tax bill that disproportionately affected New Jersey by curbing the federal deduction for state and local taxes. The legislation imposed a net federal tax increase on a state that already sends billions of dollars more to Washington than it receives in services.
Except for Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-3rd Dist., the entire bipartisan New Jersey congressional delegation voted against the Republican tax bill.
"New Jersey families are facing increased health care premiums, higher taxes, and depressed home values, and they know this Republican Congress is to blame," said Evan Lukaske, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Republicans dismissed the forecasts.
"As we saw in 2016, Beltway prognostications regularly miss the mark when it comes to electoral outcomes," said Chris Martin, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. "Republicans are running strong campaigns across New Jersey and voters will reward us for delivering on our promises in November."
Gottheimer, who ousted seven-term Republican Rep. Scott Garrett, began the off-year election as the New Jersey lawmaker most likely to lose his re-election bid in 2018. But he raised almost $3 million through Dec. 31, far outpacing both of his opponents, former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan and John McCann, general counsel to the New Jersey Sheriffs Association.
Lance represents one of only 23 Republican-held congressional districts carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016 and one of his Democratic challengers, former assistant U.S. Secretary of State Tom Malinowski, consolidated his support and had just $160,000 less to spend than the incumbent entering January.
Democrats also received a boost when LoBiondo announced his retirement after 24 years in Congress. State Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, has emerged as the early frontrunner.
"Democrats could pick up a handful of seats in New Jersey because of a combination of open seats, candidate recruitment and a good cycle," Gonzales said.
The DCCC has targeted all five GOP-held congressional districts this November. The Democrats need to pick up 24 Republican seats to win a House majority.
Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
Rick Gates will testify against former boss Paul Manafort and enter guilty plea: report
Paul Manafort and Rick Gates (Photos: Screen capture and social media)
February 18, 2018
David Willman
Tribune Washington Bureau
Posted with permission from Tribune Content Agency
WASHINGTON — A former top aide to Donald Trump's presidential campaign will plead guilty to fraud-related charges within days and has made it clear to prosecutors that he would testify against Paul Manafort, the lawyer-lobbyist who once managed the campaign.
The change of heart by Trump's former deputy campaign manager, Rick Gates, who had pleaded not guilty after being indicted in October on charges similar to those against Manafort, was described in interviews by people familiar with the case.
"Rick Gates is going to change his plea to guilty," said a person with direct knowledge of the development, adding that the revised plea will be presented in federal court in Washington "within the next few days."
That individual and others who discussed the matter spoke on condition of anonymity, citing a judge's gag order restricting comments about the case to the news media or public.
Gates' defense lawyer, Thomas C. Green, did not respond to messages left by phone and email. Peter Carr, a spokesman for special counsel Robert Mueller, declined to comment.
Mueller is heading the prosecutions of Gates and Manafort as part of the wide-ranging investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and whether Trump or his aides committed crimes before, during or since the campaign.
The imminent change of Gates' plea follows negotiations over the last several weeks between Green and two of Mueller's prosecutors senior assistant special counsels Andrew Weissmann and Greg D. Andres.
According to a person familiar with those talks, Gates, a longtime political consultant, can expect "a substantial reduction in his sentence" if he fully cooperates with the investigation. He said Gates is likely to serve about 18 months in prison.
The delicate terms reached by the opposing lawyers, he said, will not be specified in writing: Gates "understands that the government may move to reduce his sentence if he substantially cooperates but it won't be spelled out."
One of the final discussion points has centered on exactly how much cash or other valuables derived from Gates' allegedly illegal activity that the government will require him to forfeit as part of the guilty plea.
Gates, who is married with four children, does not appear to be well positioned financially to sustain a high-powered legal defense.
"He can't afford to pay it," said a lawyer who is involved with the investigation. "If you go to trial on this, that's $1 million to $1.5 million. Maybe more, if you need experts" to appear as witnesses.
The Oct. 27 indictment showed that prosecutors had amassed substantial documentation to support their charges that Manafort and Gates �� who were colleagues in political consulting for about a decade �� had engaged in a complex series of allegedly illegal transactions rooted in Ukraine. The indictment alleged that both men, who for years were unregistered agents of the Ukraine government, hid millions of dollars of Ukraine-based payments from U.S. authorities.
According to the indictment, Gates and Manafort "laundered the money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships and bank accounts" and evaded related U.S. taxes.
If Manafort maintains his not-guilty plea and fights the charges at a trial, the testimony from Gates could provide prosecutors with first-person descriptions of much of the allegedly illegal conduct.
Gates' testimony, said a person familiar with the pending guilty plea, would place a "cherry on top" of the government's already formidable case against Manafort.
The same individual said he did not believe Gates has information to offer Mueller's team that would "turn the screws on Trump." The president has repeatedly called the special counsel's investigation a "witch hunt."
Gates joined Trump's presidential campaign in June 2016, when the candidate hired Manafort as its chairman. At the Republican National Convention the next month, Gates directly handled the campaign's operations as Manafort's top aide.
Perhaps the most controversial step taken by Trump's campaign at the convention concerned how the U.S. should deal with the tense relations between Russia and Ukraine, which repudiated Moscow in a 2014 revolt.
When a delegate proposed that the Republican platform call for "providing lethal defensive weapons" to Ukraine's military in its struggle against Russian-backed armed forces, the Trump campaign defeated the effort. Instead of U.S. weapons, the convention platform committee accepted the campaign's substitute language, which offered Ukraine "appropriate assistance."
In mid-August 2016, Trump fired Manafort after reports of possibly improper payments he had received from a pro-Russia political party aligned with his longtime client, Viktor Yanukovych, who was Ukraine's prime minister from 2010 to 2014.
Gates, however, remained with the Trump campaign through the election as a liaison to the Republican National Committee. He also assisted Trump's inaugural committee.
GOP senator: 'There will be hell to pay' if Russia tries to meddle in 2018 midterms
BY JOSH DELK - 02/18/18 08:50 AM EST
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) on Sunday warned "there will be hell to pay" if Russians attempt to meddle in the upcoming U.S. midterm elections.
Speaking to radio host John Catsimatidis on New York's AM 970, Rounds said that officials are working to secure our elections, but wanted to send a signal to Russia that there are consequences for their attempts at interfering in elections.
"We have to have the ability to keep track of and to prove to people that these are honest elections and that an outside power didn’t do it," Rounds said of the upcoming elections. "Part of the way we do that is to let the Russians know that if they mess with that stuff there will be hell to pay.”
"We are in the process of preparing now," Rounds said when asked about preventative measures to secure elections. "And part of it is convincing people that it is actually happening."
The senator also said the U.S. would work to assure people of the integrity of state electoral systems as they go to vote, citing Russian attempts to probe state election infrastructure.
The intelligence community last year concluded that Russian-linked groups worked to meddle in the 2016 presidential election. According to an intelligence community report, Russian operatives attempted to hack into more than 20 states' voter registration systems and conducted a misinformation campaign through social media sites.
Illinois reported a breach of its voter registration database by hackers that gained information on 200,000 voters in 2016.
The senator's comments come after warnings by top U.S. intelligence agency officials to the Senate this week assuring lawmakers that Russians will attempt to meddle in the midterms and likely other upcoming elections.
"There should be no doubt that Russia perceived its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the Senate panel.
‘Stormy Daniels is not the only one’: Ex-adult star hints more performers may be coming forward to expose the rich asshole
Aruora Snow on MSNBC-- screengrab
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Speaking with MSNBC host Alex Witt, a former adult film star who still has connections in the industry claimed more actresses may come forward with tales of dalliances with President some rich asshole,
According to RebeccaKensington, who writes for the Daily Beast while still using her acting name, others may follow in the footsteps of porn actress Stormy Daniels and discuss their interactions with the president before he was elected.
Discussing the latest revelation that a former Playboy playmate admitted she had an affair with the rich asshole, Snow stated she it was to be expected.
‘I don’t think it’s a surprise,” she told the MSNBC host. “This isn’t something we expect from a presidential candidate, much less our president, because usually signs of affairs are, you know, a mark of bad character. But I think there’s a lot of other evidence of that out there.”
“What about Stormy Daniels?” Witt pressed. “I know you’ve written about it. Do you see similarities between her story and that of the most recent one which came out this week?”
“There are quite a bit of similarities down to the place that they were, down to the money that was offered. They have very similar descriptions,” Snow agreed while admitting, “I mean, obviously I wasn’t there, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire. I would not be surprised if there are more stories like this out there.”
“Did some rich asshole have a reputation?” Witt asked. “Had you heard about him and the exploits that he would brag about or that he was involved with people or anything in your world, the world you inhabited, in the adult film world, before you started writing?”
“There are certainly a few other people in the adult film world that have had some experiences, but those aren’t my stories to share,” Snow teased before coyly pausing and claiming, “Stormy Daniels is not the only one.”
Watch the video below via MSNBC:
Retiring lawmakers warn GOP move to the rich asshole will drive away women, minorities, youth
"We would be foolish to not see that we're heading into trouble."
Four Congressional Republicans who are not seeking re-election this November appeared together on Face the Nation on Sunday to discuss the state of the nation. Three of them — Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), and Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) — each sharply criticized their own party’s move toward President some rich asshole.
Ros-Lehtinen warned that the GOP’s policies in the rich asshole era are alienating women and minorities, especially the administration’s “schizophrenic” approach to immigration policy. “When you look at the future of the Republican Party, I think that we would be foolish to not see that we’re heading into trouble,” she observed, noting that women are becoming Democrats and outreach to minorities has been inactive at a time the nation’s demographics are changing.
Dent noted that “the rich asshole took over the Republican Party” and “a lot of members have adjusted their politics to suit the president.”
“It’s really about loyalty to the man, more than it is about any set of given principals or ideals,” Dent observed.
Flake noted that he agreed with his two former House colleagues and warned that the country continues to get less white, on average. “I don’t think we’ve made enough of an effort as Republicans to appeal across the broader electorate,” he said, “And then, with young people as well, given some of the positions and the behavior that the President has exhibited, it makes it very difficult for young people to identify with the Republican Party.” Flake added that while younger voters have been “walking away from the party” for a while, “they are at a dead-sprint right now.”
Watch:
Polling would appear to confirm their concerns; a September 2017 CNN poll found just 29 percent of Americans had a favorable view of the Republican Party — the lowest since CNN began asking the question in 1992.
While all three lawmakers have previously criticized the rich asshole, they have voted with him on the vast majority of issues since his 2017 inauguration.
Howard Dean: Devin Nunes and people like him ‘belong in jail’
Howard Deans speaks to MSNBC (screen grab)
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Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) on Sunday asserted that Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) “belongs in jail” for using his power as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to obstruct the investigation into Russia’s interference in the U.S. election.
In an interview on MSNBC, host Alex Witt asked Dean if President Barack Obama “should have done more” to prevent Russia from meddling in the election.
Dean agreed that “in retrospect” Obama could have done more.
“I told him a long time ago before he started his term that he was wasting bipartisanship on the Republicans,” Dean said. “They don’t give a damn about the country. They only care about their own power.”
“I have plenty of disagreements with Obama but Obama always put the country first,” he continued. “That is something that [Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell] does not do and certainly people like Devin Nunes, who I suspect belong in jail, has not done.”
Nunes has been accused of repeatedly colluding with the rich asshole White House to cast doubt on investigations into Russia’s election interference.
Watch the video below from MSNBC.
WATCH: Jill Stein comes unglued when asked about her visit to Russia in bonkers MSNBC interview
MSNBC's Alex Witt, Jill Stein -- MSNBC screengrab
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Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein attempted a frantic defense Sunday afternoon over reports that Russian hackers worked to promote her campaign in an effort to defeat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Speaking with MSNBC’s Alex Witt, the two-time nominee at times shouted over the host, after deflecting questions about Russian involvement in her campaign, saying she knew of only one post on her Facebook page out of “trillions” posted on the social media site.
As Witt attempted to ask the candidate if she was aware of Russian’s helping her campaign, Stein talked over the host, complaining that they should be discussing the “$6 billion dollars” in free advertising the networks gave to then-candidate some rich asshole.
“No, we were not aware,” Stein exclaimed. “Let me say we were aware of other kinds of interference. For example, we know that $6 billion in free air time was given to some rich asshole by the big networks. Six billion, this was twice as much as Hillary Clinton’s campaign and four times as much as Bernie Sanders’ campaign and way more than the independent candidates.”
“But it is not Russian interference, and I am proud to say that we had you on our broadcast several times and I had you on in person,” Witt reminded the former candidate.
“some rich asshole, he was damn good, that was the word — he was damn good for the networks even though he was not good for America.,” Stein pressed on, ignoring Witt. “The point I am making here, Alex, is we don’t want to miss the forest here through the trees. Yes, there was Russia interference but there was compelling interference going on by way of media and the DNC. Did the DNC did not rig the primaries?”
Things went further downhill after Stein was asked about her meeting with Russian Vladimir Putin in Moscow, which Stein called a “smear.”
“Well, in fact, my presence there was not covered here in the United States whatsoever,” Stein protested. “It was not until it became a scam basically, a smear campaign against me and it speaks volumes of when did that happen? We were public and there were no backroom meetings and this was all being announced on our press releases and our website and e-mails. There was no secrets.”
“They saw you had an active campaign,” Witt attempted to explain. “‘Doctor Jill Stein, this is another presidential candidate.'”
“Well, they did not assist me in any way,” Stein shot back. “There was an effort being made to try to degrade my campaign, that was what was going on here. You had two political parties that are scared of their opposition because they saw a revolt.”
Watch the whole interview below via MSNBC:
the rich asshole falsely claims he never said Russia did not meddle
"Every time he sees me he says I didn't do that and I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it."
Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Friday indicted 13 Russian nationals on charges of meddling in the 2016 election with phony social media posts and other tactics. some rich asshole claimed on Sunday that he never said Russia had not interfered in the election — but he repeatedly did say that.
But he has repeatedly indicated that he believes Putin’s denials of Russian interference and dismissed reports of meddling as “fake news”.
Shortly after the 2016 election, the rich asshole told Time magazine “I don’t believe they interfered. That became a laughing point, not a talking point, a laughing point. Anytime I do something, they say ‘oh, Russia interfered.’”
Last July, the rich asshole said he had repeatedly asked Putin about the topic and that the Russian president had forcefully denied it. “First question, first 20, 25 minutes, I said, ‘Did you do it?’ He said, ‘No, I did not, absolutely not.’ I then asked him a second time, in a totally different way. He said, ‘Absolutely not,” the rich asshole recounted. “Somebody did say if he did do it, you wouldn’t have found out about it. Which is a very interesting point.”
Then, in November, he was even more adamant that he took Putin at his word on the topic. “Every time he sees me he says, ‘I didn’t do that,’ and I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it,” the rich asshole told Axios.
Parkland’s Emma Gonzales schools the rich asshole for lack of Twitter maturity: ‘The best thing for us to do is ignore him’
Parkland students speak to MSNBC (screen grab)
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Emma Gonzales, a survivor of the mass shooting Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, said on Sunday that President some rich asshole was using his Twitter account to divert attention away from gun control.
During an interview on MSNBC, host Alex Witt asked the student about a recent the rich asshole tweet blaming the shooting on the FBI’s Russia investigation.
“I think the best way to deal with this is to ignore him,” Gonzales asserted. “I think we can all agree that the things that President the rich asshole tweets is nothing that will have a lasting impact — unless it’s a negative lasting impact — on the people around us.”
“At this point especially, the things that he mentions when he brings up talk of the FBI, he’s trying to blame somebody,” she added. “And we can’t let him do that. So, the best thing for us to do is to ignore him and to continue fighting our fight, the fight that he refuses to acknowledge. The fact that he refused to even tweet the word ‘gun’ in any of his tweets. And yet, he insists on tweeting, and he insists on blaming the Democrats for something that he did wrong — looking back into the past instead of looking forward into the future.”
“It’s disgraceful,” Gonzales concluded.
Watch the video below from MSNBC.
the rich asshole ties Florida massacre to the FBI’s Russia investigation
The man who pushed the FBI to investigate Hillary Clinton now suggests they are too distracted.
President some rich asshole suggested that the FBI failed to stop the horrific Parkland, Florida school shooting because it was “spending too much time” investigating Russia’s involvement in his narrow 2016 election victory.
The claim is both demonstrably false and hypocritical, given his own frequent demands for investigations of his former opponent, Hillary Clinton.
the rich asshole made the argument in a tweet late Saturday night:
While the bureau has acknowledged that it did not follow up on a tip about the Parkland shooter, as the Washington Post noted, the FBI resources being devoted to investigating any coordination between the 2016 the rich asshole campaign and Vladimir Putin’s regime “should not have had any direct effect on the FBI’s response in Florida” as bureau sources said the tip was “reported to a call-center supervisor” but “never reached agents who would do an investigation.” The agents working on the Russia investigation would not likely have otherwise been staffing the public tip-line.
Moreover, the rich asshole’s sudden concern with “the basics” flies in the face of his demands throughout the 2016 campaign and his presidency that another investigation should be launched into Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.
Indeed after the rich asshole publicly chastised his own attorney general for not launching an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and its relationship with the Democratic National Committee last November and after the rich asshole’s legal team demanded an investigation into the widely debunked Uranium One conspiracy theory last December, the FBI reportedly did begin an investigation into the dealings of the Clinton Foundation — even though a previous investigation was closed in 2016 due to lack of evidence. the rich asshole has yet to denounce that inquiry nor claimed they are “spending too much time” on it. And his December claim that he has an “absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department,” would indicate that he could have directed more resources to the public tip-lines.
If the rich asshole was really concerned that the FBI was distracted by its political investigations, the outrage was short-lived. Less than eight hours later, he fired off yet another tweet, complaining that the FBI did not investigate the Obama administration’s payment of an arbitration claim to Iran.
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/965194903142719489
the rich asshole: That Thing About Russia I’ve Said 10,000 Times? I Never Said It.
Former reality show star some rich asshole launched a tweetstorm Sunday morning in which he lashed out at President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, CNN and’ Liddle Adam Schiff.’ the rich asshole’s public display of anger over the Russia investigation isn’t making him look very good. the rich asshole has repeatedly called the Russia investigation a ‘hoax’ and he has sided with Vladimir Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies multiple times but now he’s denying that he ever said those words which we all heard him say.
“I never said Russia did not meddle in the election, I said ‘it may be Russia, or China or another country or group, or it may be a 400 pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer,'” President Stable Genius wrote in one of his 8 tweets this morning. “The Russian ‘hoax’ was that the rich asshole campaign colluded with Russia – it never did!”
We can give eleventy hundred examples to prove that he’s lying but we’ll just show you a few.
It was just last year that the rich asshole said he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin when Putin said he didn’t meddle in the 2016 election.
Following a meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November last year, the rich asshole said he was reluctant to push Putin on Russia meddling in our election.
“Every time he sees me he says, ‘I didn’t do that,’ and I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it,” President Crazy Pants said. “I think he is very insulted by it.”
the rich asshole said last month at a press conference on the Russia investigation: “For 11 months, they’ve had this phony cloud over this administration, over this government and it has hurt our government, it does hurt our government. It’s a Democrat hoax”.
After meeting with Putin, the rich asshole told Reuters in an interview that he asked Putin whether or not Russia meddled in the US election.
“I said, ‘Did you do it?’ He said, ‘No, I did not, absolutely not.’ I then asked him a second time, in a totally different way. He said, ‘Absolutely not.'”
On Saturday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed that the rich asshole, the man who refused to apply sanctions to Russia in order to punish them for meddling in our election, is tougher on Russia than President Obama was, even though the latter quickly implemented the sanctions. A quick Google search of the rich asshole-Putin shows that the White House is lying. He has consistently praised Putin.
BREAKING: the rich asshole Campaign Aide Pleads GUILTY, Agrees To Testify
Looks like another of the rich asshole’s people has decided to stop fighting and cooperate with Robert Mueller.
For days, it has been rumored that the rich asshole campaign aide Rick Gates would be changing his plea to “guilty” — and he has now done just that. The Los Angeles Times reports that, in exchange for the possibility of a lighter sentence, Gates will now be testifying against former the rich asshole campaign manager Paul Manafort — a development that looks very bad for Manafort:
The Oct. 27 indictment showed that prosecutors had amassed substantial documentation to buttress their charges that both Manafort and Gates – who were colleagues in political consulting for about a decade – had engaged in a complex series of allegedly illegal transactions rooted in Ukraine. The indictment alleged that both men, who for years were unregistered agents of the Ukraine government, hid millions of dollars of Ukraine-based payments from U.S. authorities.
According to the indictment, Gates and Manafort “laundered the money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships and bank accounts” and took steps to evade related U.S. taxes.
If Manafort maintains his not-guilty plea and fights the charges at a trial, the testimony from Gates could provide Mueller’s team with first-person descriptions of much of the allegedly illegal conduct. Gates’ testimony, said a person familiar with the pending guilty plea, would place a “cherry on top” of the government’s already-formidable case against Manafort.
While the same person doesn’t believe Gates has enough insider information to “turn the screws on the rich asshole: himself, it is very likely that Manafort — who now is feeling more pressure with Gates ready to roll over on him — does.
Since Manafort was indicted, the rich asshole has repeatedly attempted to downplay his former campaign manager’s involvement in his campaign.
Mueller is closing in, and the rich asshole knows it. Once again, his desperate tweets proclaiming “NO COLLUSION” echo through the headlines. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait much longer before the greatest threat to America today is removed from office.
By
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February 18, 2018
the rich asshole basks in celebration while a community mourns
But he spent his Saturday night partying.
Even as his administration hid out from the press following Thursday’s mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the rich asshole was spending the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, less than forty miles from the scene of that horror.
He apparently couldn’t resist showing up at a loud and raucous gala at his club, arriving to the sounds of loud music, appreciative hoots, and chants of “Four more years!”
Tickets for the event cost $2,000.00 each.
As an added insult, the rich asshole’s grand entrance to the affair appears to have occurred just minutes after he posted a message blaming the shooting on the Russia investigation.
the rich asshole’s racism has caused over a dozen charities to cancel events at Mar-a-Lago, which charges up to $275,000.00 a night for such events. But Saturday night’s event was hosted by a charity affiliated with Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, and was “underwritten” by the charity’s donors.
In fact, according to the charity, Mar-a-Lago was chosen for the event at the insistence of “a group of major donors.”
the rich asshole had less than 35 minutes to devote to the tragedy that unfolded just miles away in Parkland, but as always, had all the time in the world for his wealthy worshippers at Mar-a-Lago.
GOP rep. shuts down Fox hosts wanting Hillary jailed over Mueller’s Russia indictments: ‘There’s nothing illegal’
Todd Piro and Griff Jenkins speak to John Ratcliffe (Fox News/screen grab)
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A Republican lawmaker on Sunday refused to take the bait on Fox News when he was asked if Hillary Clinton could be put in jail over indictments of Russians that we revealed last week by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The host of Fox & Friends asserted in a Sunday morning segment that the indictment of 13 Russians for interfering in the U.S. election could be a path to charging Clinton because her campaign paid for opposition research on then-candidate some rich asshole that was allegedly used by the FBI as evidence of Russian meddling.
“The question now, what does this mean for the Clinton campaign?” Fox & Friends co-host Todd Piro asked Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX). “And can they be charged for their alleged ties to that anti-the rich asshole dossier?”
“There is nothing inherently illegal about doing opposition research or even using foreign sources to do that,” Ratcliffe replied before insisting that “the greater abuses relate to how that dossier was used before the FISA court.”
While the Texas Republican agreed that some of the information in the indictments was “good news for the president,” he also argued that the rich asshole was not in the clear legally.
“I do think that the negative here is that Bob Mueller has clearly indicated in the indictment that the investigation will continue,” Ratcliffe said. “When a prosecutor uses the term that there are others ‘known and unknown’ to the grand jury that are part of the conspiracy, that’s a signal that there are other either superseding indictments to come or additional indictments about additional conspiracies.”
Watch the video below from Fox News.
AM Joy guest rips GOP for attacking FBI: They only like them when they are ‘bashing black people in the head’
MSNBC anchor Joy Reid and Dr. Jason Johnson, composite image.
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During a panel discussion on MSNBC’s AM Joy, host Joy Reid and her guests took the Republican Party to the woodshed for attacking the FBI in an effort to derail an investigation into President some rich asshole’s White House.
After running clips of Fox News personalities Jeanine Pirro and Tucker Carlson, Reid called out conservatives who are suddenly not so law-and-order when it comes to the rich asshole and Russian involvement.
“Here’s Jeanine Pirro who worked with law enforcement. Here she is last night on fox talking about law enforcement,” Reid said as she prepared to roll the Fox News clip.
“Although shooter Cruz pulled the trigger, the potential slaughter twice reported to the FBI could have been prevented had they bothered to lift a finger,” Pirro opined. “This FBI was stained and politicized by Mr. ‘Holier Than Thou’ Jim Comey, but the seeds were sowed by Former FBI Director Bob Mueller, now investigating President the rich asshole.”
“How the heck did she not get elected to the United States Senate?” Reid quipped, referencing Pirro’s ill-fated — then aborted — plans to run against eventual-New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Reid then turned to MSNBC regular Jason Johnson to figure out what is going on with conservatives.
“Jason, your thoughts on the wholesale collapse of right-wing support for federal law enforcement?” Reid asked.
“It’s interesting,” Johnson began with a knowing look. “They like cops when cops are doing what they want them to do: which is bashing black people in the head. They don’t like cops whenever it comes to investigating what’s going on in the world.”
“Part of this, Joy, is not only is it extremely ignorant and an attack on our federal officers. They act like the FBI is like the ‘X-Files,'” he continued.
“You have people that work on these issues and things get lost, overlooked and at the end of the day Cruz was still going to be able to buy his gun,” he explained. “Lastly there is the blame. All of this comes from President the rich asshole — this is what he does. He makes everything about him, he makes everyone else to blame.”
Watch the video below via MSNBC:
‘They are laughing their asses off in Moscow’: the rich asshole tweets Russia ‘succeeded beyond their wildest dreams’
President some rich asshole. Image via White House.
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President some rich asshole on Sunday asserted that Russia “succeeded beyond their wildest dreams” when it tried to influence the 2016 U.S. election.
In a tweet, the president suggested Russia accomplished its “goal” by prompting FBI investigations and hearings in Congress.
“If it was the GOAL of Russia to create discord, disruption and chaos within the U.S. then, with all of the Committee Hearings, Investigations and Party hatred, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams,” he wrote. “They are laughing their asses off in Moscow. Get smart America!”
The tweet was part of a Sunday morning rant on Twitter, in which the rich asshole also attacked former President Barack Obama and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).
‘He’s scared out of his mind’: Ex-official nails the rich asshole over blaming FBI for shooting to deflect from Russia probe
Frank Figliuzzi -- MSNBC screenshot
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Appearing on AM Joy, former FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi harshly criticized some rich asshole for attacking the FBI over the tragedy in Parkland, Florida, in an attempt to deflect attention away from Friday’s bombshell indictments of 13 Russians accused of meddling in the election that put the rich asshole in the White House.
During a panel discussion, Figliuzzi was asked about a Sunday morning tweet from the president which implied that the FBI “missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter” because “[t]hey are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the rich asshole campaign.”
“Frank, I’ll go to your reaction to the President of the United States blaming the FBI, in essence, for the massacre at Parkland,” host Joy Reid prompted.
The former FBI official appeared furious at the suggestion.
“Joy, let’s distill down what that late night tweet really says after some cheeseburger induced coma after 11:00PM last night,” Figliuzzi explained. “The president puts this squarely on FBI. Here’s what he’s telling parents of America, ‘hey, our gun violence problem would go away if the FBI would just leave me alone.’ That is what he’s saying.”
“He’s saying the FBI is spending too much time on the Russian threat while he is spending zero time addressing the gun violence threat,” he continued. “He’s choosing to ignore what the FBI actually does for a living. He’s choosing to ignore the fact that the local police visited this guy 39 times in response to 911 calls. Social services for the county had to do an assessment of this. Everyone in the school saw the warning signs and indicators, yet he decides not to address the mental health issues, not to propose solutions on making it easier to deny an assault weapon purchase because you have mental health issues.”
“Instead he ‘s defending himself from the FBI,” the disgusted FBI man stated. “Why? He’s read the 32-page indictment Mueller issued on Friday and he knows there’s electronic intercepts of Russian officials. He’s scared out of his mind and playing with the parents of America this morning.”
Watch the video below via MSNBC:
‘This mofo is tweaking hard’: Internet flays the rich asshole for admitting Moscow is ‘laughing their asses off’ at US
US President some rich asshole and Russia's President Vladimir Putin shake hands during a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, 2017 (AFP)
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President some rich asshole left himself open for both mockery and criticism after he tweeted, “They are laughing their asses off in Moscow,” at American discord following the 2016 election.
The president went on two Twitter binges on Sunday morning — one calling on the Justice Department to investigate former President Barack Obama — and another about Russia.
“If it was the GOAL of Russia to create discord, disruption and chaos within the U.S. then, with all of the Committee Hearings, Investigations and Party hatred, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams,” he wrote. “They are laughing their asses off in Moscow. Get smart America!”
That tweet opened the floodgates on Twitter. see below:
You’re not sleeping much lately, are you?
So you're saying you're still in touch with your bosses in Moscow?
They’re laughing their asses off at the fact that their President owns ours.
The teenagers in Florida make more sense than you. I would feel more comfortable with any one of them. leading our country. You create the discord in this country, with your own policies & abashment of our IC. I can't wait for Mueller's next move. #ImpeachTrump #TickTock
AZ SAR 
This mofo is tweakin' hard.
Well we are laughing our asses off every time you tweet.
They also wanted a POTUS they could out smart. That YOU Donald.
Maybe this “Russia is laughing their asses off” could be at the entrance to his Presidential library and “Grab ‘em by the p_____” could be at the exit.
The terrifying danger of the rich asshole’s deteriorating mental health
President some rich asshole addresses a rally held in Harrisburg, PA to commemorate his 100th day in office, Saturday, April 29, 2017. (Shutterstock)
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Don’t be fooled by the happy lull of the Winter Olympics.
“We are not in a static situation,” Dr. John Gartner said, at a presentation on presidential mental health and nuclear weapons in Washington on Monday. “We are in a deteriorating situation. And every day that goes by we are at greater risk of total nuclear annihilation.”
The sporting competition in South Korea has governments and leaders spouting bromides of peace and friendship, at least for a couple of weeks. There is talk of reconciliation between North and South Korea, independent of White House wishes. South Koreans are fascinated by the “Ivanka the rich asshole of North Korea.”
All the while, the danger posed by the rich asshole’s control of nuclear weapons continues to grow, says Gartner, founder of Duty to Warn, a group that argues President the rich asshole is not mentally fit for office. He spoke at a National Press Club forum sponsored by Need to Impeach, the campaign bankrolled by billionaire investor Tom Steyer.
The unanimous conclusion: the rich asshole is not qualified to make decisions about nuclear weapons.
Airman the rich asshole
Psychiatrist Steven Buser explained how he evaluated nuclear personnel for the U.S. Air Force’s Nuclear Personal Reliability Program. According to PRP standards, “only those military personnel with the highest degree of reliability, trustworthiness, conduct and behavior will be allowed to work in the vicinity of nuclear weapons.”
“What if those same standards were applied to our president?” Dr. Buser asked. “What if President the rich asshole instead was Airman the rich asshole?…Would I feel comfortable in certifying Airman the rich asshole as being safe to be around nuclear weapons?”
“What if I had reliable information that Airman the rich asshole had cyberbullied others regularly on Twitter?” Buser went on. “That he had sexually abusive behavior toward women; that he was prone to erratic personal states; that he showed paranoia about being surveilled by others or unjustly persecuted; and that he had a history of highly distorted, if not untruthful statements.”
“Would I certify Airman the rich asshole as being safe around nuclear weapons? My answer was, absolutely not.”
Dr. Gartner said the rich asshole’s mental health “is deteriorating and is going to continue to get worse.”
“If you watch interviews that the rich asshole did in the 1980s and ’90s, he not only spoke in complete sentences, he spoke in polished paragraphs. Compare that to interviews and public speech today: his vocabulary is thin, reasoning is loose. He repeats himself. He is actually impaired in his ability to complete a sentence or form a thought without derailing into some kind of irrelevancy.”
“When someone begins to deteriorate cognitively, anything that was bad about their personality gets worse,” Dr. Gartner said. “When people are in a state of pre-dementia they become more impulsive, more paranoid, less conscientious, more aggressive, more irritable.”
And eventually, “they begin to become psychotic.”
Malignant Narcissism
The implications for presidential decision-making on North Korea policy are frightening, said Jim Doyle, former systems analyst at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, who specializes in nuclear weapons systems.
The most desirable characteristics in a nuclear decision-maker are “rationality, the ability to weigh actions and consequences,” Doyle said.
“Characteristics that would be undesirable,” he continued, “would be somebody who is impulsive, easily angered and frustrated. Somebody who seeks confrontation, has a high sense of bravado or is vindictive. In addition, it probably would be undesirable to have somebody who didn’t have the ability to empathize or see the situation through the eyes of their potential adversary.”
But a complete lack of empathy characterizes the rich asshole’s malignant narcissism, said Jacqueline West, a psychoanalyst in New Mexico.
“When we say ‘the rich asshole is being narcissistic again,’ we get it that he is egotistical. We get it that he is dominating. What we don’t get is that he’s dangerous.”
The malignant narcissist, she said, “grows up with a tremendous determination to dominate, to win at all costs, and they sacrifice the integration of conscience and the capacity for empathy. He is involved in a ‘kill or be killed’ reality.”
Latest Developments
Dr. Gartner worries that the investigation being conducted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller “is pushing [the rich asshole] toward pushing the nuclear button.”
“It would solve all of his problems,” Gartner said. “He will not care about the destruction it causes other people. It will be irresistible to transform him from feeling like a victim of a witch hunt to being an omnipotently destructive victor.”
That may sound paranoid to some, but who could deny that fear of the rich asshole’s irrationality has a rational basis, especially in recent developments on the Korean Peninsula, where the president has promised to bring “fire and fury” to “Little Rocket Man” if he threatens the United States.
The rich asshole administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, released earlier this month, articulates a more aggressive interpretation of past U.S. policies with a lower threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.
Despite the Pentagon’s reluctance, the rich asshole has demanded options for a “bloody nose” strike on North Korea.
And most ominously, when Victor Cha, the rich asshole’s hawkish choice to serve as ambassador to South Korea, published an article stressing the United States has no viable military options in North Korea, the rich asshole withdrew his nomination.
“A new Korean war is now perhaps more likely than not in 2018,” tweeted Stephen Saideman, a scholar of U.S. foreign policy at Canada’s Carleton University.
And Airman the rich asshole has his finger on the button.
the rich asshole calls for DOJ to investigate Obama over Iran and slams ‘monster’ Adam Schiff in early morning tweetstorm
President some rich asshole (Photo: Screen capture)
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President some rich asshole was up early Sunday morning, tweeting that he can’t understand why former President Barack Obama was not investigated for the Iran deal before then launching an attack on House intel member Adam Schiff (D-CA).
Hours after undermining his own National Security Adviser on Twitter, the rich asshole went after Obama.
“Never gotten over the fact that Obama was able to send $1.7 Billion Dollars in CASH to Iran and nobody in Congress, the FBI or Justice called for an investigation!” the rich asshole wrote.
Turning to Schiff, he added, “Finally, Liddle’ Adam Schiff, the leakin’ monster of no control, is now blaming the Obama Administration for Russian meddling in the 2016 Election. He is finally right about something. Obama was President, knew of the threat, and did nothing. Thank you Adam!”
You can see the tweets below:
Melania the rich asshole stirs rumors by breaking presidential protocol once again amid new affair allegations
Carlin Becker
Posted with permission from Rare
Melania Trump
As the Trumps headed to Florida to meet with the victims of this week’s mass shooting at a high school, they began the journey separately. While it’s tradition for the couple to cross the White House lawn to Marine One together, Mrs. Trump decided to forgo the usual walk and instead drove separately to Andrews Air Force Base. She arrived in a separate vehicle ahead of the president and ascended the stairs to Air Force One without him.
First lady Melania Trump skipped the traditional South Lawn couple's walk to Marine One for travel to Florida, opting instead to drive separately ahead of President Donald Trump cnn.it/2HmsZsB
RELATED: A large percentage of Americans think first lady Melania Trump should leave President Trump
“With her schedule, it was easier to meet him on the plane,” Stephanie Grisham, the first lady’s communications director, explained the situation, adding that she does intend to join her husband in visiting the victims.
The suspicious choice comes just hours after The New Yorker published a report based on an account from McDougal, who provided details about her alleged affair with President Trump between June 2006 to April 2007. At the time, the Trumps had been married for two years, and their son Barron had just been born a few months earlier.
The White House responded to the allegations in a statement saying, “This is an old story that is just more fake news. The President says he never had a relationship with McDougal.”
This isn’t the first time the first lady has broken with tradition in the wake of infidelity accusations. Last month, she arrived at the U.S. Capitol separately from the President to attend his first State of the Union address. It was her first public event following a bombshell report alleging the president paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence after the pair had an affair in 2006.
The rich asshole administration goes to war — with itself — over the VA
February 16, 2018
Isaac Arnsdorf
Posted with permission from ProPublica
David Shulkin, the secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, showed up to what he thought would be a routine Senate oversight hearing in January, only to discover it was an ambush.
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., was the sole holdout among members of the veterans affairs committee on a bill that would shape the future of the agency. The bipartisan bill had the support of 26 service groups representing millions of veterans. But Moran was pushing a rival piece of legislation, and it had the support of a White House aide who wields significant clout on veterans policy. Neither proposal could advance as long as there was any doubt about which President Donald Trump wanted to sign.
Moran blamed Shulkin for the impasse. “In every instance, you led me to believe that you and I were on the same page,” Moran said at the hearing. “Our inability to reach an agreement is in significant part related to your ability to speak out of both sides of your mouth: double talk.”
There were gasps in the hearing room. It was an astounding rebuke for a Trump appointee to receive from a Republican senator, especially for Shulkin, who was confirmed by the Senate unanimously.
Clearly ruffled, Shulkin hesitated before answering. “I think it is grossly unfair to make the characterizations you have made of me, and I’m disappointed that you would do that,” he said. “What I am trying to do is give you my best advice about how this works.”
Moran dug in. “I chose my words intentionally,” he said. “I think you tell me one thing and you tell others something else. And that’s incompatible with our ability to reach an agreement and to work together.” Moran then left the hearing for another appointment.
The exchange exposed tensions that had been brewing for months behind closed doors.
A battle for the future of the VA has been raging between the White House and veterans groups, with Shulkin caught in the middle. The conflict erupted into national headlines this week as a result of a seemingly unrelated development: the release of a lacerating report on Shulkin that found “serious derelictions” in a taxpayer-funded European business trip in which he and his wife enjoyed free tickets to Wimbledon and more.
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., delivers opening remarks during a hearing in Washington, D.C., July 19, 2017. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)
The underlying disagreement at the VA has a different flavor than the overhauls at a number of federal agencies. Unlike some Trump appointees, who took the reins of agencies with track records of opposing the very mission of the organization, Shulkin is a technocratic Obama holdover. He not only participated in the past administration, but defends the VA’s much-maligned health care system. He seeks to keep the organization at the center of veterans’ health care. (An adviser to Shulkin said the White House isn’t permitting him to do interviews.)
But others in the administration want a much more drastic change: They seek to privatize vets’ health care. From perches in Congress, the White House and the VA itself, they have battled Shulkin. In some instances, his own subordinates have openly defied him.
Multiple publications have explored the turmoil and conflict at the VA in the wake of the inspector general report. Yet a closer examination shows the roots of the fight stretch back to the presidential campaign and reveals how far the entropy of the Trump administration has spread. Much has been written on the “chaos presidency.” Every day seems to bring exposés of White House backstabbing and blood feuds. The fight over the VA shows not only that this problem afflicts federal agencies, too, but that friction and contradiction were inevitable: Trump appointed a VA secretary who wants to preserve the fundamental structure of government-provided health care; the president also installed a handful of senior aides who are committed to a dramatically different philosophy.
The blistering report may yet cost Shulkin his job. But the attention on his travel-related misbehavior is distracting from a much more significant issue: The administration’s infighting is imperiling a major legislative deal that could shape the future of the VA.
Taking better care of veterans was a constant refrain at Trump’s presidential campaign rallies. In the speech announcing his candidacy, he said, “We need a leader that can bring back our jobs, can bring back our manufacturing, can bring back our military, can take care of our vets. Our vets have been abandoned.” Ex-military people overwhelmingly supported him on Election Day and in office.
Trump’s original policy proposals on veterans health, unveiled in October 2015, largely consisted of tweaks to the current system. They called for increasing funding for mental health and helping vets find jobs; providing more women’s health services; modernizing infrastructure and setting up satellite clinics in rural areas.
The ideas drew derisive responses from the Koch brothers-backed group Concerned Veterans for America (CVA). Pete Hegseth, its then-CEO, called the proposal “painfully thin” and “unserious.”
Trump then took a sharp turn toward CVA’s positions after clinching the Republican nomination. In a July 2016 speech in Virginia Beach, he embraced a very different vision for the VA, emphasizing private-sector alternatives. “Veterans should be guaranteed the right to choose their doctor and clinics,” Trump said, “whether at a VA facility or at a private medical center.”
Trump’s new 10-point plan for veterans policy resembled the CVA’s priorities. In fact, six of the proposals drew directly on CVA ideas. Three of them aimed to make it easier to fire employees; a fourth advocated the creation of a reform commission; and two involved privatizing VA medical care.
Trump’s new direction, according to a campaign aide, was influenced by Jeff Miller, then the chairman of the House veterans committee. Miller, who retired from Congress in January 2017, was a close ally of CVA and a scathing critic of Obama’s VA.
Miller became one of the first congressmen to endorse Trump, in April 2016. He did so a few weeks after attending a meeting of the campaign’s national security advisers. (That meeting, and the photo Trump tweeted of it, would become famous because of the presence of George Papadopoulos, who is cooperating with investigators after pleading guilty to lying about Russian contacts. Miller is wearing the light gray jacket in the front right. Now a lobbyist with the law firm McDermott Will & Emery, he didn’t reply to requests for comment.) Miller became Trump’s point man on veterans policy, the campaign aide said.
Jeff Miller, former chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, speaks during a veterans reform campaign event, in Virginia Beach, Virginia, July 11, 2016. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Miller and CVA portrayed the VA as the embodiment of “bureaucratic ineptitude and appalling dysfunction.” They were able to cite an ample supply of embarrassing scandals.
The scandals may come as less of a surprise than the fact that the VA actually enjoys widespread support among veterans. Most who use its health care report a positive experience. For example, 92 percent of veterans in a poll conducted by the Veterans of Foreign Wars reported that they would rather improve the VA system than dismantle it. Independent assessments have found that VA health care outperforms comparable private facilities. “The politicization of health care in the VA is frankly really unfair,” said Nancy Schlichting, the retired CEO of the Henry Ford Health System, who chaired an independent commission to study the VA under the Obama administration. “Noise gets out there based on very specific instances, but this is a very large system. If any health system in this country had the scrutiny the VA has, they’d have stories too.”
One piece of extreme noise was a scandal in 2014, which strengthened Miller and CVA’s hand and created crucial momentum toward privatization. In an April 2014 hearing, Miller revealed that officials at the VA hospital in Phoenix were effectively fudging records to cover up long delays in providing medical care to patients. He alleged that 40 veterans died while waiting to be seen. A week later, CVA organized a protest in Phoenix of 150 veterans demanding answers.
Miller’s dramatic claims did not hold up. A comprehensive IG investigation would eventually find 28 delays that were clinically significant; and though six of those patients died, the IG did not conclude that the delays caused those deaths. Later still, an independent assessment found that long waits were not widespread: More than 90 percent of existing patients got appointments within two weeks of their initial request.
But such statistics were lost in the furor. “Nobody stood up and said, ‘Wait a minute, time out, are we destroying this national resource because a small group of people made a mistake?’” a former senior congressional staffer said. “Even those who considered themselves to be friends of the VA were silent. It was a surreal period. The way it grew tentacles has had consequences nobody would have predicted.”
In the heat of the scandal, Miller and CVA pushed for a new program called Choice. It would allow veterans who have to wait more than 30 days for a doctor’s appointment or live more than 40 miles from a VA facility to get private-sector care. The VA has bought some private medical care for decades, but Choice represented a significant expansion, and Democrats were wary that it would open the door to privatizing VA health care on a much broader scale.
Still, the Phoenix scandal had made it hard for the Democrats to resist. The Choice bill passed with bipartisan support and President Obama signed it into law in August 2014.
By 2016, then-candidate Trump was demanding further changes. “The VA scandals that have occurred on this administration’s watch are widespread and inexcusable,” he said in the Virginia Beach speech. “Veterans should be guaranteed the right to choose their doctor and clinics, whether at a VA facility or at a private medical center. We must extend this right to all veterans.”
Trump’s contacts with CVA and its allies deepened during the transition. He met Hegseth, who left CVA to become a Fox News commentator, in Trump Tower. Trump picked Darin Selnick for the “landing team” that would supervise the transition at the VA. Selnick had directed CVA’s policy task force, which in 2015 recommended splitting the VA’s payer and provider functions and spinning off the latter into a government nonprofit corporation. Such an operation, organized along the lines of Amtrak, would be able to receive federal funding but also raise other revenue.
Trump’s consideration of Hegseth and Miller to lead the VA ran into fierce resistance from veterans groups, powerful institutions whose clout is boosted by the emotional power that comes with members’ having risked their lives for their country. At a meeting with the Trump transition in December 2016, officials from the major veterans groups held a firm line against privatizing the VA and any secretary intent on it.
Trump finally settled on Shulkin, 58, who ran the VA health system under Obama. Shulkin is a former chief of private hospital systems and a doctor — an internist, he still occasionally treats patients at the VA — who comes across more as a medical geek than the chief of a massive organization.
Trump heaps praise on Shulkin in public appearances and meets with him regularly in private. He was one of the first cabinet secretaries Trump consulted about the impact of the government shutdown on Jan. 21. They met at Camp David in December and lunched at the White House on Feb. 8. “You’re doing a great job,” Trump told Shulkin at a Jan. 9 signing ceremony for an executive order on veterans mental health services, handing Shulkin the executive pen. “We appreciate you.”
Trump may like Shulkin. But that didn’t stop his administration from appointing officials who opposed his philosophy. One of them, Jake Leinenkugel, a Marine Corps veteran and retired Wisconsin brewery owner, became the White House’s eyes and ears inside the agency. He works in an office next to Shulkin’s, but his title is senior White House adviser. Leinenkugel, 65, said he came out of retirement to take the position because he was “excited about taking POTUS’s agenda and advancing it.” As he put it, “I’m here to help veterans.”
President Donald Trump hands a pen to Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin, after signing an executive order supporting veterans, in the White House on Jan. 9, 2018. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
He and Shulkin got along fine for a few months. But then, in May 2017, the two men clashed, as Shulkin accused Leinenkugel of undermining him. Shulkin wanted to nominate the VA’s acting under secretary for health, Poonam Alaigh, to take the position permanently, according to two people familiar with his thinking. But, the VA secretary charged, Leinenkugel told the White House to drop Alaigh. Shulkin confronted Leinenkugel, who denied any sabotage, according to an email Leinenkugel subsequently wrote. Alaigh stepped down in October and the position remains unfilled.
Shulkin has even been at odds with his own press secretary, Curt Cashour, who came from Miller’s House committee staff. Last month, Shulkin assigned an official to send a letter to a veterans group that said the agency would update its motto, to be inclusive of servicewomen. (Adapted from Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, the original reads, “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.” The new version would read: “To care for those who shall have borne the battle and their families and survivors.”)
Cashour told The Washington Post the motto wouldn’t change. A few days later, the secretary’s strategic plan went out using the updated, gender-neutral motto. Cashour then denied the change a second time, telling the Post that was “not VA’s position.” A new document with the Lincoln quote restored subsequently appeared on the VA’s website. Shulkin was stunned at being disobeyed by his own spokesman, two people briefed on the incident said. (Cashour denied defying the VA secretary. “The premise of your inquiry is false,” he told ProPublica. Cashour said Shulkin never approved the letter regarding the updated motto and authorized the restoration of the original one.)
Then there was Selnick, who became the administration’s most effective proponent for privatization. He joined the VA as a “senior advisor to the secretary.” Though he reported to Shulkin, he quickly began developing his own policy proposals and conducted his own dealings with lawmakers, according to people with knowledge of the situation. In mid-2017 Shulkin pushed him out — sort of.
Selnick left the VA offices and took up roost in the White House’s Domestic Policy Council. There he started hosting VA-related policy meetings without informing Shulkin, according to people briefed on the meetings. At one such meeting of the “Veterans Policy Coordinating Committee,” Selnick floated merging the Choice program with military’s Tricare insurance plan, according to documents from the meeting obtained by ProPublica.
Veterans groups were furious. At a Nov. 17 meeting, Selnick boasted that Trump wouldn’t sign anything without Selnick’s endorsement, according to a person present. Shulkin would later tell a confidant that moving Selnick out of the VA was his “biggest mistake” because he did even more damage from the White House. (Selnick did not reply to a request for comment. A White House spokesman said some VA officials were aware of the policy meetings that Selnick hosted. The spokesman said Selnick does not brief the president or the chief of staff.)
Selnick, 57, is a retired Air Force captain from California who worked in the VA under the George W. Bush administration. At CVA, he not only ran the policy task force, he testified before Congress and appeared on TV. In 2015, House Speaker John Boehner appointed Selnick to the Commission on Care, an independent body created by a Congressional act to study the VA and make recommendations.
Selnick impressed his fellow commissioners with his preparation but sometimes irked them with what they viewed as his assumption that he was in charge, people who worked with him on the commission said. Selnick often brought up his experience at the VA. But some commissioners scoffed behind his back because his position, in charge of faith-based initiatives, had little relevance to health care. Whatever his credentials, Selnick had audacious ambitions: He wanted to reconceive the VA’s fundamental approach to medical care.
Selnick wanted to open up the VA so any veteran could see any doctor, an approach that would transform its role into something resembling an insurance company, albeit one with no restrictions on providers. Other commissioners worried that would cost the government more, impose fees and deductibles on veterans and serve them worse. “He was probably the most vocal of all of the members,” said David Gorman, the retired executive director of Disabled American Veterans who also served on the commission, “in a good and a bad way.”
The bad part, in the view of Nancy Schlichting, the chairwoman, emerged when Selnick tried to “hijack” the commission. Selnick and a minority of commissioners secretly drafted their own proposal, which went further than CVA’s. (The group included executives of large health systems that stood to gain more patients.) They wrote that the “the current VA health care system is seriously broken” with “no efficient path to repair it.” They proposed closing facilities, letting all veterans choose private care, and transitioning the rest to private care over two decades.
The draft was written in a way that seemed to speak for the commission as a whole, with phrases like “the Commission recommends.” The commission staff suggested labeling it a “ straw man report,” implying it was meant to provoke discussion. Still, veterans organizations were angry, and Schlichting had to publicly disavow the draft. “Darin Selnick has never run a health system in his life and doesn’t understand the complexity of it,” Schlichting told ProPublica.
For his part, Shulkin publicly staked out his vision in a March 17, 2016 article in the New England Journal of Medicine. In it, he defended the VA’s quality of care and proposed reimagining the VA as an integrated system composed of its own core facilities, a network of vetted private-sector providers, and a third layer of private care for veterans in remote places. Shulkin also edited a book published last year trumpeting the VA’s successes, called “Best Care Everywhere.”
Almost four years after the Phoenix scandal, the emergency measure letting some veterans get care outside the VA is still limping along with temporary extensions, not to mention payment glitches and confusion about its rules. Key legislators grew tired of renewing emergency funding and wanted to find a long-term solution. In the House, negotiations broke down after Democrats boycotted a listening session featuring CVA. So last fall, focus turned to the Senate.
The crux of the debate was the extent to which the VA should rely on private care. The chairman and ranking member on the Senate veterans committee, respectively, Johnny Isakson of Georgia and Jon Tester of Montana, drafted a bill to consolidate all of the VA’s programs that pay for private care and let doctors and patients decide where veterans would get care. The VA would buy private care when that makes the most sense but would still coordinate all veterans care in an integrated, comprehensive way. The bill garnered the support of 26 veterans organizations and every committee member except Moran.
Moran represents the Koch brothers’ home state; employees of Koch Industries are the second-largest source of campaign contributions in his career, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. With the support of CVA, Moran wanted to establish clear criteria making veterans eligible for private-sector care, like the 30 days/40 miles standard in the Choice program. It might sound like a subtle distinction, but it means the difference between keeping all veterans within the VA system versus ceding the direction of patient care to the private sector. When the committee rejected his amendment, Moran proposed his own bill and signed up Sen. John McCain as a co-sponsor.
Moran’s bill initially called for all veterans to be able to choose private care. When a McCain aide shared it with a lobbyist for the American Legion, the lobbyist was so enraged by what he viewed as a bid to undermine the VA that he torched a copy of the bill and sent the McCain aide a photo of the charred draft. (An American Legion spokesman declined to comment.) With the American Legion’s input, McCain’s and Moran’s staffs toned down the bill to the point that they got letters of support from the group, along with Amvets and CVA. But American Legion and Amvets were still working to get consensus on the Isakson-Tester bill.
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., left, and Sen. Johnny Isakson R-GA., right, question Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin during a hearing in Washington, D.C., June 7, 2017. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Still, the Moran-McCain bill had a few key allies: Selnick and Leinenkugel. They had gained sway in part because of a White House vacuum. The president himself has been largely absent on veterans policy and there’s no senior point person. The portfolio has at times belonged to Kellyanne Conway, Jared Kushner and Omarosa Manigault, according to veterans groups and congressional officials. (A White House spokesman said those officials played a role in “veterans issues,” but not “veterans policy.” The latter, the spokesman said, is overseen by Selnick on the Domestic Policy Council.)
That has given Selnick and Leinenkugel wide latitude to shape White House positions on issues that don’t rise to Trump’s level. “Darin [Selnick] is pretty much in the ascendancy,” said Michael Blecker, the executive director of Swords to Plowshares, a San Francisco-based charity serving veterans.
As long as Moran had a competing claim to the Trump administration’s support, the Isakson-Tester bill was stuck. Republicans wouldn’t risk a floor vote on a bill the president might not sign. Shulkin supported the Isakson-Tester bill but he knew his rivals inside the White House were pushing for Moran’s proposal. So Shulkin hedged, awkwardly praising both bills. “We still don’t know which bill he wants,” Joe Chenelly, executive director of Amvets, said. “If the White House wants something different, then we need to know how to reconcile that.”
Amid the impasse, the Choice program was out of money again and needed an extension as part of the end-of-year spending deal. Tester vowed to make it the last one he’d agree to. He called on Shulkin to break the stalemate by publicly endorsing his and Isakson’s bill. “I would love to have the VA come out forcefully for this bill,” he said on the Senate floor in late December. “I think it would help get it passed.”
In a private meeting, Isakson and Tester chided Shulkin for withholding support for their bill, according to three people briefed on the meeting. Shulkin told them he was doing the best he could, but he had to fend off a competing agenda from the White House.
Unbeknown to Shulkin, there was already talk in the White House of easing him out. On Dec. 4, Leinenkugel wrote a memo, which ProPublica obtained, summarizing his disillusionment with Shulkin as well as with Shulkin’s deputy, Thomas Bowman, and chief of staff, Vivieca Wright Simpson. (“I was asked to tell the truth and I gave it,” said Leinenkugel of his memo; he declined to say who requested it.)
Leinenkugel accused Bowman of disloyalty and opposing the “dynamic new Choice options requested by POTUS agenda.” The memo recommended that Bowman be fired — and replaced by Leinenkugel himself. It also asserted that Wright Simpson “was proud to tell me she is a Democrat who completely trusts the secretary and it’s her job to protect him.” Leinenkugel accused her of delaying the placement of Trump’s political appointees. Leinenkugel recommended replacing her, too.
As for Shulkin, Leinenkugel’s memo advocated he be “put on notice to leave after major legislation and key POTUS VA initiatives [are] in place.”
After the clash between Moran and Shulkin at the January hearing, Isakson said the White House would provide feedback on his bill to help the committee chart a way forward. “The president basically is pushing to get a unanimous vote out of committee,” said Rick Weidman, the top lobbyist for Vietnam Veterans of America. “The only reason why we didn’t get it before was there is one mid-level guy on the Domestic Policy Council who threw a monkey wrench into it by confusing people about what the administration’s position is.” That person, Weidman said, is Selnick.
The White House’s feedback on the Isakson-Tester bill, a copy of which was obtained by ProPublica, was the closest the administration has come to a unified position on veterans health care. It incorporated input from the VA and the Office of Management and Budget. Selnick told veterans groups he wrote the memo, leaving some miffed that Selnick seemingly had the final word instead of Shulkin. (A White House spokesman said Selnick was not the only author.)
Selnick requested changes that might look like minor tweaks but would have dramatic policy consequences. “It’s these very small differences in details that the public would never notice that change the character of the thing entirely,” said Phillip Longman, whose 2007 book, “Best Care Anywhere,” argued that the VA works better than private health care. (The title of the book Shulkin edited, “Best Care Everywhere,” was a nod at Longman’s book.)
Most important, the White House wanted clear criteria that make veterans eligible for private care. That was the main feature of Moran’s bill and the sticking point in the negotiations. The administration also asked to preserve a piece of the Choice program by grandfathering in veterans living more than 40 miles away from a VA facility. CVA praised the White House for nudging the bill in Moran’s direction. “We applaud President Trump for taking a firm stand in favor of more health care choice for veterans at the VA,” the group’s director, Daniel Caldwell, said in a statement dated Jan. 24.
The White House feedback also called for removing provisions that would regulate providers, such as requiring them to meet quality standards and limiting opioid prescriptions. And the administration objected to provisions in the bill that would require it to fill critical vacancies at the VA and report back to Congress.
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Selnick got what he asked for, but it still might not be enough. Isakson and Tester agreed to most of the changes. But in a White House meeting with veterans groups on Feb. 5, Selnick continued to insist on open choice, suggesting that’s what Trump wants. Selnick visited Moran’s staff, a person with knowledge of the meeting said, and Moran indicated he wouldn’t support the modified version of the Isakson-Tester bill. (A White House spokesman said Isakson and Tester did not accept all the changes and negotiations continue. He denied that Selnick pushed for open choice.) Moran’s spokesman didn’t answer emailed questions by press time.)
The tensions spilled out publicly again on Feb. 8, when the Washington Post reported that the White House wanted to oust Bowman, Shulkin’s deputy. The article said the purpose was to chastise Shulkin for “freewheeling” — working with senators who don’t share the administration’s position. Isakson’s spokeswoman called it a “shameful attempt” to derail the negotiations. Isakson resolved to move ahead without Moran, the spokeswoman said, but it’s not clear when the bill will get time on the Senate floor (the Senate focused on immigration this week and then will take a recess). Moran could still place a “hold” on the bill or round up other senators to oppose it.
Shulkin determined that Selnick and Leinenkugel had to go, according to four people familiar with the secretary’s thinking. But Shulkin doesn’t appear to have the authority to fire them since they work for the White House. Plus, the attacks from the right were already taking a toll on Shulkin’s standing. “If leaders at Trump’s VA don’t support REAL CHOICE — why won’t they resign?” former CVA chief Hegseth tweeted on Feb. 13, tagging Shulkin in the post.
Veterans advocates responded by defending Shulkin against attacks they viewed as originating with Selnick and Leinenkugel. “They thought they could coopt David,” said Weidman, the lobbyist for Vietnam Veterans of America. “When he couldn’t be coopted, they decided to go after his character.”
The biggest blow came on Feb. 14, when the VA’s Inspector General released its reporton Shulkin’s trip to Europe in April 2017. It concluded that Shulkin improperly accepted Wimbledon tickets, misused a subordinate as a “personal travel concierge,” lied to reporters, and that his chief of staff doctored an email in such a way that would justify paying travel expenses for Shulkin’s wife.
Shulkin disputed the IG’s findings, but he again ran into trouble getting his message out from his own press office. A statement insisting he had “done nothing wrong” disappeared from the VA’s website, and Cashour replaced it with one saying “we look forward to reviewing the report and its recommendations in more detail before determining an appropriate response.” Cashour said the White House directed him to take down Shulkin’s statement and approved the new one.
Shulkin told Politico the IG report was spurred by internal opponents. “They are really killing me,” he said. By Feb. 16, his chief of staff had told colleagues Friday she would retire, USA Today reported.
The condemnation after the IG report was swift and widespread. House veterans committee member Mike Coffman, R-Colo., called on Shulkin to resign. Democrats, though generally sympathetic to Shulkin, couldn’t resist lumping the imbroglio in with other travel-expense tempests across Trump’s cabinet (involving Tom Price, Ryan Zinke, Scott Pruitt, and Steven Mnuchin). The chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate veterans committees said they were “disappointed” and want Shulkin to address the allegations, but acknowledged the politics at work and the stakes in a joint statement: “We need to continue progress we have made and not allow distractions to get in the way.”
The next day, Shulkin appeared before another routine oversight hearing, in this instance on the House side. He told the representatives he would reimburse the government for his wife’s travel and accept the IG’s recommendations. Shulkin thanked the chairman and ranking member for urging their colleagues not to let the scandal commandeer the hearing. “I do regret the decisions that have been made that have taken the focus off that important work,” he said.
Turning to the VA’s budget, Shulkin resumed his tightrope walk. He praised the VA’s services while acknowledging the need for some veterans to be treated outside the government’s system. By the time he left the hearing, two hours later, the Trump administration’s position on veterans health privatization remained a mystery.
GOP Lawmaker: The Indictments, Which I Haven’t Read, Prove There Was No Collusion (VIDEO)
Claudia Tenney (R-NY), a first-term Tea Party congresswoman, discussed the indictments handed down by special counsel Robert Mueller with CNN anchor Fredricka Whitfield. This is the ‘Reading is HARD’ edition because just after her lengthy defense – and she is actually a lawyer – for some rich asshole, she admitted that she hadn’t read all of the 37-page indictment. “I’m skimming through it right now,” she added.
“Thirteen Russians now indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller, charged with attempting to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,” Whitfield said. “The indictment describes an unprecedented campaign by Russia to support some rich asshole, disparage Hillary Clinton and communicate with, quote, unwitting people tied to the rich asshole campaign.’”
“The indictments say there were Americans who were unwitting participants, the president continues to say there was no collusion,” Whitfield continued. “How do you interpret these indictments?”
Tenney somehow claimed that Democrats are ‘overreacting’ to the news.
“Well, I think the indictments are instructive because what they show is the Russians really are trying to create some kind of chaos in our country,” Tenney said. “I think it’s unfortunate that the Democrats are overreacting to this as far as, you know, really focusing on just the rich asshole/Russia collusion, I think this doesn’t say …”
Tenney said that the investigation “has been going on for over a year” and “the Democrats have been trying to take down the administration claiming there was Russian collusion.”
Then, she claimed the investigation “wasted resources.”
“I think it’s really clear from the indictment of whether the Department of Justice and others in the FBI, what they’re saying is it was clear that they didn’t affect the elections but they attempted to,” she continued. “We’ve used millions of dollars and thousands of hours of time and wasted resources on investigating something that looks like it wasn’t really there in the first place.”
She said that Democrats are taking part in a “smear campaign.”
Then she admitted that she has not read the indictments, but said, “that this is showing that there is clearly no collusion by the rich asshole campaign with Russian operatives to try to steal the election from Hillary Clinton.”
Watch:
She couldn’t be more wrong. The investigation may go on for several more months so unless she has a time machine, she has no way of knowing whether the rich asshole will be cleared. It’s going to be a bumpy ride for her.
13 Russians, three groups, and a list of others were indicted yesterday. And even before that, the rich asshole’s Former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former the rich asshole campaign adviser George Papadopoulos have both pleaded guilty to charges from Mueller. Both of them have agreed to cooperate with Mueller in the investigation. Robert Gates is finalizing a plea deal with Mueller and is expected to cooperate. Prosecutors say that they have found ‘additional criminal conduct’ by former the rich asshole campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
And she thinks Democrats are ‘overreacting.’
the rich asshole Spent Just Over A Half Hour With Shooting Victims Before Going Golfing
If you suspected that the rich asshole’s only reason for visiting Parkland school shooting victims was that he was already planning to golf at Mar-a-Lago anyway and it wasn’t too far out of his way, you were right.
While initial reports indicated that President Stable Genius only spent six minutes meeting with victims, it turns out we’re not giving him enough credit. He was actually in the building for a whole 40 minutes before he hopped in his limo and headed back to his resort.
Palm Beach Post political reporter George Bennett says that The rich asshole spent just over 30 minutes with shooting victims — not all of them, though. He visited exactly two victims. Let’s compare that to what President Obama did “in secret” after Newtown:
Person after person received an engulfing hug from our commander in chief. He’d say, “Tell me about your son. . . . Tell me about your daughter,” and then hold pictures of the lost beloved as their parents described favorite foods, television shows, and the sound of their laughter. For the younger siblings of those who had passed away—many of them two, three, or four years old, too young to understand it all—the president would grab them and toss them, laughing, up into the air, and then hand them a box of White House M&M’s, which were always kept close at hand. In each room, I saw his eyes water, but he did not break.And then the entire scene would repeat—for hours. Over and over and over again, through well over a hundred relatives of the fallen, each one equally broken, wrecked by the loss. After each classroom, we would go back into those fluorescent hallways and walk through the names of the coming families, and then the president would dive back in, like a soldier returning to a tour of duty in a worthy but wearing war. We spent what felt like a lifetime in those classrooms, and every single person received the same tender treatment. The same hugs. The same looks, directly in their eyes. The same sincere offer of support and prayer.The staff did the preparation work, but the comfort and healing were all on President Obama. I remember worrying about the toll it was taking on him. And of course, even a president’s comfort was woefully inadequate for these families in the face of this particularly unspeakable loss. But it became some small measure of love, on a weekend when evil reigned.
But the rich asshole can never be a fraction of the man President Obama is, so he stick around for long enough to feel like he did something, posed for a photo with some hospital staff (with a big cheesy grin on his face while giving a thumbs up) and got the hell out of there.
Though President Obama didn’t advertise the time he spent with shooting victims, the rich asshole made sure that photographers were present for the couple he did bother to visit:
President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump visit with Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student Madeline “Maddy” Wilford, 18, and her family, who is recovering from gunshot wounds at Broward Health North Medical Center in Deerfield Beach, Florida. #StonemanShooting
Asked by reporters if our nation’s gun laws need to be changed to prevent another tragedy like this, the rich asshole refused to respond and “walked into another room.”
While our last President treated shootings like they were a serious problem and genuinely cared about the victims, this was just another campaign stop to the rich asshole.
Image via Twitter
Huckabee Sanders Gets Wrecked For Saying ‘Unlike Obama,’ the rich asshole Is Tough On Russia
President Barack Obama warned some rich asshole against hiring Michael Flynn as national security adviser just after the 2016 election but the former reality show star refused to listen. Flynn had been fired by the Obama administration and after he resigned in disgrace from the rich asshole administration, the so-called president called him a ‘wonderful guy’ then proceeded to blast the ‘fake media.’ Obama applied sanctions to Russia in January of 2017 as punishment for interfering in the 2016 election. the rich asshole recently failed to impose sanctions against the hostile foreign power.
Still, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted that ‘unlike Obama,’ the rich asshole “isn’t going to be pushed around by Russia.”
“Unlike Obama, @POTUS isn’t going to be pushed around by Russia or anybody else,” Ms. Liar Pants tweeted. “As he said yesterday: It’s time we stop the wild and false allegations that further the agendas of bad actors like Russia & unite as Americans to protect the integrity of our democracy & our elections.”
Unlike Obama, @POTUS isn’t going to be pushed around by Russia or anybody else. As he said yesterday: It’s time we stop the wild and false allegations that further the agendas of bad actors like Russia & unite as Americans to protect the integrity of our democracy & our elections
Sanders is being laughed off the Internet.
Why won't he enforce the sanctions against Russia? Why has he not called for punitive action for their election tampering? Why was Russia helping him?
Why did he register this trademark in 2012 Sarah? If he wasn’t thinking about running for president then.
So, he's going to implement the sanctions that Congress passed?
Obama imposed SANCTIONS for Kremlin meddling. Trump is a Kremlin tool. Sarah Sanders is lying to and gaslighting American citizens. twitter.com/slsmith000/sta…
BTW... you’re the bad actor. You and your bloated, lying fuckbag boss are the biggest threat to the United States
July 25 the House passed legislation for sanctions on Russia 419-3. That's 207 days ago. Where are the sanctions?
the rich asshole has repeatedly sided with Putin over U.S. Intelligence agencies after he was warned about Russian interference in our elections.
Go fuck yourself, Sarah, and keep Obama’s name out of your lying mouth.
the rich asshole lashes out at 'Fake News Media' over Mueller indictments
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 02/17/18 03:16 PM EST
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President the rich asshole on Saturday attacked the news media for its coverage of special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of more than a dozen Russians accused of interfering in the 2016 election.
In a series of tweets, the rich asshole said news outlets have not highlighted the ways he believes the charges exonerate his campaign from colluding with Moscow’s election-meddling efforts.
“Funny how the Fake News Media doesn’t want to say that the Russian group was formed in 2014, long before my run for President. Maybe they knew I was going to run even though I didn’t know!” the president tweeted.
the rich asshole has repeatedly seized on the charge, included in Mueller’s indictments released Friday, that the Russian efforts began well before the business mogul entered the presidential race. There were signs, however, that the rich asshole was exploring a run as early as 2014.
The president on Saturday also cited a New York Post column that called the indictment “a big win” for the rich asshole, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s statement that it did not include allegations that “any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity" and a Facebook executive's claim that most Russian ad spending came after the election.
The tweets are part of the rich asshole’s efforts to spin the indictment in his favor, even though it undercut his longstanding claim that Russia's election meddling was a "hoax."
the rich asshole’s critics have accused the president of misrepresenting Mueller’s charges.
The Justice Department has said the special counsel’s investigation is still ongoing and has yet to definitively conclude whether the rich asshole’s campaign cooperated with the Kremlin’s efforts to interfere in the election. Mueller’s probe is also believed to be exploring whether the rich asshole obstructed the federal investigation into Russian interference.
The special counsel on Friday brought charges against 13 individuals and three companies associated with the Internet Research Agency, a Russian "troll farm" that set out in 2014 to interfere with the U.S. political system.
By early to mid-2016, the U.S. concluded that the Russians were “supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate some rich asshole and disparaging Hillary Clinton” — something the rich asshole has repeatedly refused to acknowledge.
White House aides have gone to great lengths to back up the president’s efforts to downplay Russia’s election interference.
"There are two groups that have created chaos more than the Russians and that’s the Democrats and the mainstream media,” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said Saturday on Fox News, a comment that drew widespread backlash on social media.
the rich asshole unleashed his Twitter barrage on a sunny day in South Florida, where he is spending the holiday weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.
The president skipped his usual trip to the golf course, something aides told Bloomberg News was meant to respect the victims of Wednesday’s mass shooting at a nearby high school and those mourning them.
After landing on Air Force One on Friday night, the president and first lady Melania the rich asshole visited a hospital to meet with victims and their families and thanked law enforcement officers at the Broward County Sheriff’s office.
the rich asshole on Saturday also called the Parkland, Fla., the Broward County comissioner and the principal of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where the shooting took place, to "express condolences, receive updates, and offer support," the White House said.
But by the afternoon, the Mueller indictments appeared to be on the top of the president’s mind. He tweeted five times over the course of an hour about the Russia investigation, and once about the shooting victims.
“Melania and I met such incredible people last night in Broward County, Florida. Will never forget them, or the evening!” he wrote.
Updated: 3:50 p.m.
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