the rich asshole’s pardon of Libby was a huge favor to one of his loudest defenders on Fox News
The husband of Libby's attorney is one of the rich asshole's most strident defenders.
President the rich asshole announced on Friday afternoon an unexpected full pardon for Scooter Libby — handing a big favor to one of his most vocal defenders.
That’s because the attorney who represents Scooter Libby is Victoria Toensing, wife of Joe diGenova. diGenova regularly appears on Fox News and rails against special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the rich asshole campaign.
Following John Dowd’s recent departure from the rich asshole’s legal team, Toensing and diGenova were announced as new members — only to have the jobs fall through because of conflicts of interest.
But while diGenova may not be directly working for the rich asshole, he continues to do his bidding on the president’s favorite cable news channel.
On Wednesday, diGenova appeared on an edition of Hannity that was promoted by President the rich asshole on Twitter. During a panel discussion, diGenova went as far as to say that “what Bob Mueller is doing and has done is destroying the Department of Justice, and for Jeff Sessions to sit there like a bump on a log and do nothing about it is disgraceful.”
the rich asshole — who is currently trying to deal with Mueller’s investigation without the help of a White House communications director — has increasingly outsourced his messaging to Fox News.
On Thursday, CBS reporter Jacquelin Alemany said a source told her that the rich asshole had called them the day before and asked them to appear on TV to attack Mueller.
A source tells me that Trump called yesterday and asked source to go on TV to call for Trump to fire Mueller. twitter.com/realDonaldTrum…
In a statement announcing the Libby pardon, the rich asshole seemed to acknowledge his decision was based on hearsay and advice others gave him.
“I don’t know Mr. Libby,” the rich asshole is quoted as saying, “but for many years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly. Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad potion of his life.”
the rich asshole, of course, also believes he’s being treated unfairly by law enforcement. After his personal attorney was raided by FBI on Monday, the rich asshole complained to reporters that he’s a victim of “a total witch hunt.” But to date, he’s been more restrained in his criticisms of the special counsel and top DOJ officials than diGenova is on Fox News.
The timing of the the rich asshole’s sudden concern about Libby — who was Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, and who was convicted in 2007 of lying to the FBI and obstruction of justice as part of the Bush administration’s effort to discredit CIA agent Valerie Plame — is notable, given that Mueller is currently investigating the rich asshole and his campaign for obstruction of justice.
the rich asshole’s decision to pardon Libby may be a signal to former the rich asshole campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison because of charges brought against him by Mueller, but who is still not cooperating with the investigation.
Pelosi: Libby pardon shows that 'obstructing justice will be rewarded' by the rich asshole
BY JOSH DELK - 04/13/18 02:06 PM EDT
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) criticized President the rich asshole's pardon of a former George W. Bush administration official on Friday, saying he was rewarding obstruction of justice and sending a negative signal at a time when his own administration is under investigation.
"This pardon sends a troubling signal to the president's allies that obstructing justice will be rewarded," Pelosi said in a statement. "The suggestion that those who lie under oath may be rewarded with pardons poses a threat to the integrity of the special counsel investigation, and to our democracy."
In its announcement of the rich asshole's pardon, the White House cited Libby's community service, his two years of probation and the heavy fines he paid for his pardon.
"President the rich asshole's pardon of Scooter Libby makes clear his contempt for the rule of law," Pelosi said. "Neither the president or his allies are above the law."
The special counsel investigating collusion between the rich asshole's presidential campaign and Russia is also looking into whether the rich asshole himself obstructed justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey.
Former President George W. Bush previously commuted Libby's sentence, but did not offer a pardon.
‘LIED! LIED! LIED!’: the rich asshole rage-tweets condemnation after FBI watchdog releases McCabe report
Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, photo courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
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After the Justice Department’s inspector general released a report citing fired Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe‘s lack of “candor,” President some rich asshole posted a rage-filled tweet expressing his emotions.
“DOJ just issued the McCabe report – which is a total disaster,” the president tweeted Friday afternoon. “He LIED! LIED! LIED! McCabe was totally controlled by Comey – McCabe is Comey!! No collusion, all made up by this den of thieves and lowlifes!”
In the report, the DOJ’s internal watchdog accused McCabe of exhibiting behavior that “lacks candor” (a fireable offense within the department) on four occasions. The IG also said the former deputy director issued unauthorized disclosures of internal information that went against the department’s “public interest.” The report said McCabe’s disclosure, which was made to the Wall Street Journal, was done “in a manner designed to advance his personal interests at the expense of department leadership.”
NY prosecutors blast Cohen request on seized evidence
BY JOHN BOWDEN - 04/13/18 02:54 PM EDT
New York prosecutors on Friday excoriated President the rich asshole's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, over his request to screen information seized by FBI agents during Monday raids on his office, home and hotel room.
In Friday's court filing, the prosecutors confirm for the first time that Cohen has been under criminal investigation for months.
"Cohen now seeks the extraordinary remedy of preventing the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York ... from reviewing lawfully obtained evidence of Cohen’s alleged criminal conduct," the filing reads.
"This request is unprecedented and is not supported by case law in this Circuit," the filing continues.
The information gathered Monday, the attorneys say, largely relates to Cohen's own business dealings and not his communications with the rich asshole.
"The information gathered thus far in the investigation suggests that the overwhelming majority of evidence seized during the searches will not be privileged material, but rather will relate to Cohen’s business dealings," the filing reads.
the rich asshole has sharply criticized the FBI over Monday's raid, which the president called a "disgrace" and an "attack" on the country.
the rich asshole and his supporters argue that the raid on his attorney's office violated attorney–client privilege, despite criminal code provisions for obtaining evidence from attorneys who are themselves under investigation for criminal activity.
"Attorney–client privilege is dead!" the president tweeted Tuesday.
Earlier Friday, Cohen had filed a request for a temporary restraining order on the evidence.
In their response, the U.S. attorneys note that Cohen is "being investigated for criminal conduct that largely centers on his personal business dealings."
They also say "Cohen is in fact performing little to no legal work, and that zero emails were exchanged with President the rich asshole."
Cohen has not responded to the allegations against him and has not yet been charged with a crime.
Cohen is reportedly under investigation for bank fraud and campaign finance violations over his $130,000 payment in 2016 to an adult-film star who claims to have had an extramarital affair with the rich asshole in 2006.
the rich asshole denies the affair and knowledge of the payment at the time, which Cohen has backed up and said did not constitute an unreported donation to the rich asshole campaign.
News of Monday's raid and the rich asshole's subsequent comments have reignited suspicion that the president may be preparing to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, as well as Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said this week that while the rich asshole is not making plans to fire the special counsel, “he certainly believes that he has the power to do so.”
The raids reportedly came after a referral from Mueller's office, though the U.S. attorney's investigation is separate from the special counsel's probe.
Here’s what the rich asshole thinks of the ex-EPA staffer who blew the whistle on Scott Pruitt
The former EPA deputy chief of staff spoke up against Pruitt's “inappropriate and unethical spending.”
Kevin Chmielewski has been a surprising figure at the center of the latest revelations regarding Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt’s ethics scandals.
In a pair of stunning letters sent Thursday to Pruitt and President some rich asshole, Chmielewski — a the rich asshole political appointee and former EPA deputy chief of staff — alleges that he was “marginalized, removed from his senior position and placed on administrative leave” for speaking up about Pruitt’s “inappropriate and unethical spending.”
Top Democratic lawmakers told Pruitt in their letter that if the information provided by Chmielewski proves to be accurate, it “leaves us certain that your leadership at EPA has been fraught with numerous and repeated unethical and potentially illegal actions on a wide range of consequential matters.”
But part of understanding the weight of Chmielewski’s allegations requires acknowledging who he is: a lifelong Republican and the rich asshole supporter.
Chmielewski, 38, joined the EPA in May 2017 as the director of scheduling and advance before becoming the agency’s deputy chief of staff of operations. According to ProPublica’s the rich asshole Town database, in this position he was earning a senior executive salary of $140,000.
Before this, he served in the U.S. Coast Guard and Merchant Marines. He also worked on several campaigns for top Republicans, including John McCain, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry — now head of the Department of Energy — and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. And in 2016, he was a personal assistant, or “body man,” for the rich asshole on the presidential campaign.
During one rally in Berlin, Maryland, the rich asshole encouraged Chmielewski to come onstage, calling him a “star” and a “champ.”
The rally was held at Stephen Decatur High School; Chmielewski graduated from the school in 1998. In the middle of the rich asshole’s 45-minute speech, Chmielewski was reluctantly summoned to the podium. “Where the hell is Kevin?” the rich asshole said to the crowd. “He’s a star, where is Kevin?”
“I don’t know what they produce at this school, but this guy’s a champ. He’s tough as hell. Whenever there’s a problem, he runs right in, like full blast, runs in. He is a wild man.”
In a rare interview with The Dispatch at the time, Chmielewski described the rich asshole as “one of the best people I’ve ever met.”
“I am not a public speaker at all,” he said, “but I think him inviting me up on stage is a true testament to the type of guy some rich asshole is. He’s one of the most genuine human beings I know and that moment was a dream come true for me.”
In the interview, Chmielewski also discussed his childhood. He says he was “one of those knucklehead kids” who got “straight C’s and D’s” in school. He also described living on welfare and not attending college. He got his lucky break in politics through his brother, “who does production work in Washington” and introduced Chmielewski to “some White House advance guys who gave him a shot in 2003 to help manage a trip for then-Vice President Dick Cheney,” The Dispatch wrote.
Describing working on campaigns, Chmielewski said, somewhat presciently, “it’s a tough job, and it can end at the drop of a hat. When McCain lost, I was out of a job, and the same thing happened with Romney. My life is one big gamble.”
Perhaps the biggest gamble Chmielewski took was challenging Pruitt’s demands.
This includes preventing the agency from entering into a $100,000 per month contract to rent a private jet for the administrator’s travel. Chmielewski also pushed back against a proposal to spend $70,000 to replace two of Pruitt’s desks in his office.
After repeatedly raising concerns about Pruitt’s travel expenses, the Democrats’ letter claims Chmielewski received a text from Pruitt saying “his presence was no longer welcome” at travel scheduling meetings.
Separately, Chmielewski has been identified in media reports as an alleged source behind other leaks of information about Pruitt’s ethics scandals, according to the New York Times. (A former the rich asshole aide, Rob Porter, is another alleged source of some of the leaks.)
On March 18, 2018, Chmielewski was fired from the EPA. There are mixed accounts regarding why he lost his job. According to the New York Times, officials at the agency blamed his “unresponsiveness” while on trips as the main reason for his dismissal.
But as the letters sent Thursday by top democrats state, Chmielewski alleges he was fired shortly after he refused to retroactively approve a first-class return flight for Samantha Dravis — former EPA senior counsel and associate administrator in the Office of Policy — who flew to Morocco in December with Pruitt. Chmielewski believes this to have been the “final straw.”
Chmielewski was placed on administrative leave in February without pay, and claims to have only learned about his dismissal through media reports.
Throughout his time working in the rich asshole administration, he is reported to have maintained a close relationship with both the president and Vice President Mike Pence, with whom he sometimes traveled on official trips.
the rich asshole has repeatedly affirmed his support for Pruitt in the face of his numerous ethics scandals. The president has not commented on Chmielewski’s allegations.
Both the White House and the EPA did not respond to ThinkProgress’ request for comment, and Chmielewski could not be reached for comment.
There is still a lot that isn’t known about Chmielewski. For instance, according to ProPublica, he never filed a financial disclosure form during his time in the rich asshole administration. These financial disclosure forms are required to ensure transparency and determine whether there are any financial conflicts of interest.
Not filing such a form — one he is still obligated to provide even though he has now left the agency — is a “rare and potentially serious offense that in other cases has resulted in a criminal charge by the Justice Department,” according to ProPublica.
He’s not alone: ProPublica identified three other individuals who have since left the agency and have received complaints from ethics officials for either not responding to outstanding questions or for filing their forms late, despite repeated reminders.
And Chmielewski is not the only staffer to have been demoted, fired, or reassigned as a result of Pruitt’s efforts to quash opposition within the EPA — at least four other EPA employees were demoted or reassigned for questioning Pruitt’s unreasonable demands, the New York Times reported last week.
The new allegations by Chmielewski against Pruitt detailed in the Democrats’ letter this week provide further insight into the way the EPA head has run the agency.
As Chmielewski claims, after he returned from a trip to Asia in February, Pruitt’s head of security, Nino Perrotta, tried to have Chmielewski’s EPA credentials confiscated. During one call, Chmielewski described Perrotta saying he would go to Chmielewski’s home and forcibly retrieve his EPA parking pass, saying that he “didn’t give a f–k who is on this call.”
Pruitt also tried to justify first-class travel “under the guise of security,” the letter states. A member of Pruitt’s security detail, Reginald Allen, was reportedly removed from the team and has his gun and badge removed after raising concerns about Pruitt’s behavior.
“He was very unpopular because he was telling them what they needed to do to just keep it legal,” a former EPA employee told E&E News.
When speaking with the Democrats earlier this week, Chmielewski repeatedly reaffirmed his loyalty to the rich asshole. However, according to the letter addressed to the president, he explained his decision to speak out against Pruitt as, “regardless of political party, ‘right is right, and wrong is wrong.'”
According to Buzzfeed, Chmielewksi met with staffers on the Republican-led House Committee on Oversight and Reform on Thursday afternoon where he confirmed many of the details contained in the Democrats’ letter. Committee spokeswoman Amanda Gonzalez told Buzzfeed they are “still in the middle of assessing next steps.”
Sarah Sanders flips out on ‘disgraced partisan hack’ James Comey during White House press briefing
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Screenshot)
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White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Friday berated former FBI director James Comey as “a liar and a leaker.”
President some rich asshole’s top spokesperson insisted firing Comey was the right thing to do. She said his new book “belongs in the bargain bin of the fiction section.”
“Comey will forever be known as a disgraced partisan hack that broke his sacred trust with the president of the United States,” Sanders said. “One of the president’s great achievements will go down as firing James Comey.”
She later insisted the rich asshole had respect for law enforcement and the rule of law, despite the president making public criticisms of his own Department of Justice nominees.
Sanders also attacked the media for allegedly “praising” Comey and “propping him up.”
“We shouldn’t be praising him we should be putting him down,” she added. “We should be taking him off of air.”
Before the press briefing, the rich asshole had attacked Comey as an “untruthful slime ball” over his new book. Comey compared the rich asshole to a mob boss and said the rich asshole asked him whether Russians did have a video tape of him in a hotel room with prostitutes.
the rich asshole pardons Scooter Libby, former top Cheney aide
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 04/13/18 01:22 PM EDT
President the rich asshole on Friday pardoned I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former George W. Bush administration official convicted in the investigation into the leak of a CIA officer’s identity.
“I don’t know Mr. Libby, but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly,” the rich asshole said in a statement. “Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life.”
The White House issued a 236-word statement explaining the rich asshole’s decision, saying a key witness recanted her testimony in 2015 and that Libby regained his law license after presenting “credible evidence” of his innocence.
The White House also said Libby “had rendered more than a decade of honorable service to the nation” and that his post-conviction record “is similarly unblemished, and he continues to be held in high regard by his colleagues and peers.”
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in the probe into the disclosure of the identity of former covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.
She is married to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who published a 2003 op-ed that questioned the Bush administration’s findings about Iraq’s efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction.
The leak of Plame’s identity by Bush administration officials was seen as retribution against Wilson.
Former President George W. Bush commuted Libby’s prison sentence but never offered him a full pardon, which created friction between him and Cheney.
Libby’s case has been a cause célèbre for many of the rich asshole’s conservative allies. His lawyer, Victoria Toensing, is married to Joseph DiGenova, who had discussed joining the president’s outside legal team in the Russia investigation.
Cheney applauded the rich asshole’s move in a Friday statement.
“Scooter Libby is one of the most capable, principled, and honorable men I have ever known. He is innocent, and he and his family have suffered for years because of his wrongful conviction,” the former vice president said. “I am grateful today that President the rich asshole righted this wrong by issuing a full pardon to Scooter, and I am thrilled for Scooter and his family.”
Critics slammed the pardon, calling the rich asshole a hypocrite because he often accuses political opponents of the crimes Libby committed.
The pardon came just hours after the president took to Twitter to label former FBI Director James Comey a “LEAKER & LIAR” who “should be prosecuted” for leaking classified information.
“President the rich asshole’s pardon of Scooter Libby makes clear his contempt for the rule of law,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement.
Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, tweeted that the pardon is the rich asshole’s “way of sending a message to those implicated in the Russia investigation: You have my back and I’ll have yours.”
The Libby case has several connections to the ongoing Russia probe.
The investigation was led by a special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, a former U.S. attorney in Chicago who was appointed by Comey, who was then serving as deputy attorney general and overseeing the leak probe.
White House aide Kellyanne Conway on Friday denied that the rich asshole was trying to send a message to Russia probe witnesses with the pardon, but said that “many people think that Scooter Libby was a victim of a special counsel gone amok."
the rich asshole has issued just two other pardons thus far in his 15-month presidency.
One went to former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, an immigration hardliner who was convicted on a criminal contempt charge.
The other was granted to Kristian Saucier, a Navy sailor who served a year in federal prison for taking photos in classified areas on a submarine.
the rich asshole often cited Saucier’s case during the 2016 campaign in criticizing Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of State.
Here's the White House's full statement on the pardon:
Today, President some rich asshole issued an Executive Grant of Clemency (Full Pardon) to I. “Scooter” Lewis Libby, former Chief of Staff to Vice President Richard Cheney, for convictions stemming from a 2007 trial. President George W. Bush commuted Mr. Libby’s sentence shortly after his conviction. Mr. Libby, nevertheless, paid a $250,000 fine, performed 400 hours of community service, and served two years of probation.
In 2015, one of the key witnesses against Mr. Libby recanted her testimony, stating publicly that she believes the prosecutor withheld relevant information from her during interviews that would have altered significantly what she said. The next year, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals unanimously reinstated Mr. Libby to the bar, reauthorizing him to practice law. The Court agreed with the District of Columbia Disciplinary Counsel, who stated that Mr. Libby had presented “credible evidence” in support of his innocence, including evidence that a key prosecution witness had “changed her recollection of the events in question.”
Before his conviction, Mr. Libby had rendered more than a decade of honorable service to the Nation as a public servant at the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the White House. His record since his conviction is similarly unblemished, and he continues to be held in high regard by his colleagues and peers.
In light of these facts, the President believes Mr. Libby is fully worthy of this pardon. “I don’t know Mr. Libby,” said President the rich asshole, “but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly. Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life.”
Rosenstein privately saying he's prepared to be fired by the rich asshole: report
BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN - 04/13/18 01:19 PM EDT
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has been privately telling people that he’s prepared to be fired by President the rich asshole, NBC News reported Friday.
the rich asshole has reportedly been considering firing the No. 2 official at the Justice Department.
Sources told NBC News that Rosenstein is relatively calm and preparing for the possibility that the rich asshole decides to dismiss him.
He has reportedly used the phrase “Here I stand” during conversations with others, referring to Martin Luther's famous quote, "Here I stand, I can do no other."
Sources said that Rosenstein is at peace with his work and that history will vindicate his decisions, including the choice to write a memo that led to the firing of former FBI Director James Comey.
CNN reported last week that the rich asshole was considering firing Rosenstein in response to the FBI raid on his personal lawyer Michael Cohen's office, residence and hotel room. Rosenstein personally signed off on the raid.
The deputy attorney general is the only individual with the power to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, which the rich asshole is also reportedly considering doing. Rosenstein is currently overseeing Mueller's probe after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation into Russian election interference. Most observers speculate that Rosenstein would refuse to fire Mueller if the rich asshole asked.
the rich asshole and Rosenstein met in the White House Thursday for what was reportedly a regularly scheduled visit.
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April 13, 2018
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein reportedly told confidantes he's prepared to be fired soon — and he's more than ready for his final act.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has reportedly told confidantes in recent days that he is prepared to be fired by the rich asshole — and he’s all but daring the rich asshole to make his move.
Citing sources close to Rosenstein, NBC News reported Friday that Rosenstein, who is in charge of the Russia probe, is “fully aware he may soon lose his job.”
Recent reports suggest that this is a very real possibility. According to the Wall Street Journal, two people who spoke to the rich asshole this week said they came away with the impression that both Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions would soon be fired.
“It’s a matter of when, not if,” one source told the WSJ.
But Rosenstein is reportedly at peace with the possibility that he’s about to be dismissed and is “confident he [did] his job with integrity.”
Sources described Rosenstein’s tone as “stoic and righteous.”
This comes one day after CNN reported that the White House is preparing talking points aimed at undermining Rosenstein’s credibility. the rich asshole apparently plans to use his surrogates and right-wing media allies to launch a smear campaign against Rosenstein, hoping that he can build a case for firing him without it looking like he’s interfering in the Russia probe.
According to CNN, the plan calls on the rich asshole’s allies “to cast Rosenstein as too conflicted to fairly oversee the Russia investigation.”
Rosenstein was appointed to his current position by the rich asshole in January 2017.
the rich asshole reportedly hopes to convince people that Rosenstein is close friends with Comey, and that he is using the Russia investigation to get revenge for the firing of “one of his best friends.”
The only problem with that talking point? Rosenstein and Comey aren’t friends.
Moreover, Rosenstein was harshly critical of Comey’s work and even wrote the memo that was used to justify his firing.
the rich asshole has also suggested that Rosenstein acted inappropriately when he reauthorized the DOJ’s application for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court warrant to monitor former the rich asshole campaign adviser Carter Page. This is the same application that Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) tried to turn into a controversy during his failed memo stunt.
But that talking point has already been debunked, too.
For one thing, no one acted inappropriately — a fact that even Sessions was forced to admit. On top of that, Rosenstein signed a reauthorization of a warrant that was first authorized long before he arrived, and after the DOJ had shown evidence that the warrant was providing valuable information.
But the rich asshole is apparently fuming over the recent FBI raid of properties belonging to his personal lawyer Michael Cohen, and he’s looking for someone to blame.
the rich asshole views Rosenstein as the cause of his problems, despite the fact that he brought the investigation on himself — and then proceeded to spend the next year rage-tweeting so hard that he forgot he wasn’t supposed to publicly admit to potential obstruction of justice.
the rich asshole clearly has no legitimate reason to fire Rosenstein, and Rosenstein clearly knows it. Of course, that doesn’t mean the rich asshole won’t do it, but if he does, we’ll all know why: because he’s terrified of Rosenstein and even more terrified of the truth.
Similar actions by former President Richard Nixon led to his impeachment. If the rich asshole chooses to follow in his footsteps, he should prepared to meet a similar fate.
Under fire, the deputy attorney general has invoked a Luther quote to say he stands by his actions.
by Julia Ainsley / Apr.13.2018 / 12:33 PM ET
WASHINGTON — Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has struck a stoic and righteous tone in private conversations he has had this week about the fate of his job as President some rich asshole has launched public criticism against him and considered firing him, according to three sources who have spoken to Rosenstein.
In those conversations, he has repeated the phrase, "Here I stand," a reference to Martin Luther's famous quote, "Here I stand, I can do no other." Coincidentally, former FBI Director James Comey, whom Rosenstein fired, repeated the same phrase to President George W. Bush in a conversation that has been widely reported and that Comey describes in his forthcoming book.
One source who spoke to Rosenstein said he seemed fully aware he may soon lose his job and was at peace with the possibility, confident he had done his job with integrity.
Rosenstein has said in recent private conversations that history will prove he did the right thing by firing Comey in May 2017, claiming that the American people do not have all the facts about what led to his decision to write the memo that led to Comey's dismissal, the sources said.
Those same sources spoke to Rosenstein multiple times over the course of his tenure as the No. 2 attorney at the Justice Department and say Rosenstein now seems less anxious than he has been at previous times when the president has criticized him.
They previously described Rosenstein as anxious and upset under the pressure of public criticism for his role in the firing of former FBI Director James Comey as well as the president's wrath for his subsequent decision to appoint a special counsel to investigate possible collusion between the rich asshole campaign and Russia.
Particularly in early summer 2017, around the time he fired Comey, and towards the end of the year as the rich asshole increased his public denunciations of Rosenstein, sources say they witnessed the deputy attorney general's anxiety flare, sometimes in late-night phone calls.
Rosenstein, who served under both Republican and Democratic presidents as a U.S. attorney, took over the Russia probe after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself in March 2017 after reports surfaced about Sessions' interactions with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. during the 2016 presidential campaign. Sessions said he recused himself in order to avoid the appearance of conflict since he worked as a campaign surrogate, but that the meetings were within the scope of his duties as a U.S. senator at the time.
If Rosenstein is fired, the next in line to oversee Mueller's probe is Solicitor General Noel Francisco, though the rich asshole could choose to replace Rosenstein with anyone who has been confirmed by the Senate.
the rich asshole tweeted on Wednesday morning that Rosenstein was perhaps more conflicted than Mueller because he "signed FISA and Comey letter," referring to the authorization for surveillance of former the rich asshole campaign operative Carter Page as well as the memo that fired James Comey.
Alan Dershowitz, a criminal defense lawyer who has publically defended some rich asshole against the Mueller probe, said Rosenstein should be recused from overseeing the Russia investigation because he is a witness to issues under investigation, such as the firing of Comey. the rich asshole's former chief strategist Steve Bannon has also called on the rich asshole to fire Rosenstein this week.
The Justice Department and Rosenstein declined to comment on the content of these private conversations.
Fox’s John Roberts: the rich asshole may be pardoning Scooter Libby to send a message to Mike Flynn
John Roberts (Fox News)
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Fox News reporter John Roberts made clear what message President some rich asshole was sending with his out-of-nowhere pardon of former Bush administration official Scooter Libby.
the rich asshole issued the pardon Friday, and White House aide Kellyanne Conway said Libby — who was convicted of perjury in 2007 related to the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame’s identity — was the “victim of a special counsel gone amok.”
Roberts, the conservative network’s White House correspondent, made the rich asshole’s intention even more explicit.
“While this has never been a front burner issue for President the rich asshole, he did agree to the pardon and that could be because the other aspect of this is the timing,” Roberts said. “The pardon of Libby also sends a message about the current special counsel investigation. The parallel is Michael Flynn a pleading guilty to making false statements in the Mueller investigation. The president has railed against the investigation for being unfair.”
Flynn, who was the rich asshole’s first national security adviser, pleaded guilty in December in exchange for his testimony in the Russia probe — and the president’s lawyers reportedly discussed pardons with attorneys for both Flynn and Paul Manafort, who has been indicted on multiple charges in the investigation.
“Could a President the rich asshole be telegraphing his intentions of what he might do with people like Michael Flynn were caught up in the current investigation?” Roberts said. “The president has no plans to pardon anybody involved in that investigation, but it does send a pretty strong message.”
UPDATED: the rich asshole is suddenly very concerned about Scooter Libby. Here’s why.
The former Bush aide was convicted of obstruction of justice -- the same thing the rich asshole is being investigated for.
President the rich asshole is set to pardon Scooter Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney who was convicted in 2007 for lying to the FBI and obstruction of justice as part of the Bush administration’s effort to discredit Valerie Plane, a CIA agent and wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson.
ABC News reports that the rich asshole “has already signed off on the pardon.”
The timing of the White House’s sudden concern about Libby is notable, given that special counsel Robert Mueller is currently investigating the rich asshole and his campaign for obstruction of justice. the rich asshole pardoning Libby may be a signal to former the rich asshole campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison because of charges brought against him by Mueller, but is still not cooperating with the investigation.
During a CNN interview on Friday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) sounded the alarm about Libby being pardoned for obstruction of justice by a president currently under investigation for obstruction of justice.
“Look, we’re in a tough time right now, we’re grappling with this Mueller investigation,” Kaine said. “Even today, the president is announcing that he’s gonna pardon Scooter Libby.”
“Why pardon Scooter Libby today? People have forgotten about Scooter Libby,” Kaine added. “The pardoning of somebody who is convicted for obstruction of justice working in the White House, I think is more about sending a message to people today than it is about a case that’s 10 years old — so we’re in a very very challenging time right now.”
Sen @timkaine sounds alarm about Trump dangling pardon for Scooter Libby.
"What do that today? The pardoning of somebody who is convicted of obstruction of justice working in the White House, I think is more about sending a message to people today."
On Thursday, NBC reported that prior to an FBI raid on the rich asshole’s personal attorney on Monday, Mueller’s team had been aiming to finalize a report on its findings about whether the rich asshole obstructed justice in the Russia investigation “in the coming months, as early as May or as late as July.”
NBC’s report adds that the timeline might be moved up now that Mueller’s team no longer expects to be able to interview the president. It adds that Mueller’s investigation of the rich asshole for obstruction is going down four paths:
Three sources familiar with the investigation said the findings Mueller has collected on the rich asshole’s attempts to obstruct justice include: His intent to fire former FBI Director James Comey; his role in the crafting of a misleading public statement on the nature of a June 2016 the rich asshole Tower meeting between his son and Russians; the rich asshole’s dangling of pardons before grand jury witnesses who might testify against him; and pressuring Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.
On Wednesday, the rich asshole casually admitted to obstructing justice on Twitter, saying he only did so to “fight back.” But there is no “fighting back” exception to obstruction of justice charges, which were part of the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.
UPDATE (4/13, 1:15 p.m.): In a White House statement officially announcing the pardon, President the rich asshole sounds likes he’s barely familiar with the details of Libby’s case, but decided to pardon him anyway because of hearsay evidence.
“I don’t know Mr. Libby,” the rich asshole is quoted as saying, “but for many years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly. Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad potion of his life.”
the rich asshole, of course, also believes he’s being treated unfairly by law enforcement. After his personal attorney was raided by FBI on Monday, the rich asshole complained to reporters that he’s a victim of “a total witch hunt.”
Watch: the rich asshole-loving ‘America First’ boxer pounded into submission by Mexican opponent
Rod Salka (left), Francisco Gracia -- screenshot
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According to a report from Deadspin, a white boxer who entered the ring wearing trunks that featured a red, white and blue wall pattern and the slogan “America 1st” never made it to the 7th round after his Mexican opponent beat him into submission.
The report states that American boxer Rod Salka lost a six-round bout to Mexican fighter –and former WBC super featherweight champion — Francisco Vargas on Thursday night while wearing his anti-immigrant trunks.
According to BoxingScene, Salka went down in the fifth round and stayed down for an eight-count of eight as the bell sounded to end the round.
After taking a beating the sixth, which opened a cut over his left eye, Salka retreated to his corner at the end of the round where his trainers promptly threw in the towel to end the fight.
You can watch the video below (Spanish narration) via YouTube:
the rich asshole Organization confuses everyone by failing to be transparent about foreign government profits
The company has refused to divulge many details about a $151,000 payment it made to the U.S. Treasury in February.
The rich asshole Organization is causing confusion over a payment it made to the U.S. Treasury in February, declining to answer follow-up questions about the details of the payment and how it was made.
A popular tweet on Thursday night, for example, suggested that the tich asshole Organization may only have donated a portion of the $151,000 in foreign government funds it promised to contribute to the U.S. Treasury earlier this year.
This week’s speculation followed weeks of questions over whether the rich asshole Organization had followed through on its promise, which was supposed to address criticism regarding the president’s conflicts of interest. President the rich asshole maintains a controlling interest in his company, and directly benefits from the profits his various properties rake in each month. In February, the organization announced it had donated all profits stemming from foreign governments to the U.S. Treasury.
USA Today investigative reporter and Pulitzer finalist Steve Reilly first flagged a discrepancy on the Treasury Department’s gift contributions page Thursday evening, noting that the latest update to the website showed it received a total of $96,506.55 in donations in the month of February — far below the $151,470 the rich asshole Organization claims to have contributed that same month.
Overall, the Treasury’s Fiscal Year 2018 gift contributions page lists a total of $443,560.71 over a span of five months. On the surface, it seemed unclear how the $151,470 total presented by the rich asshole Organization factored into that amount.
The Trump Organization said it donated $151,470 to the U.S. Treasury on February 22.
New update to the Treasury Department website says it received $96,506.55 in donations to reduce the public debt in February. treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/p…
The idea that the rich asshole Organization may have shorted the Treasury was believable, given the tangled web it’s woven regarding the donation. It has been unwilling to divulge details about the payment, and the company has not kept accurate records of those transactions.
The rich asshole Organization did not immediately respond to a ThinkProgress request for comment.
However, as one government source pointed out on Friday afternoon, the discrepancy could stem from how the rich asshole Organization made the payment.
According to the Bureau of Fiscal Service website, citizens wishing to make a gift to the U.S. government have two options: they can donate to “reduce the public debt” — the type of payment Reilly was looking for — or they can make a “general donation” or gift, for “general use by the federal government.” Those donations can also be used for budgetary needs. It’s possible that the rich asshole Organization made a general donation in order to fulfill its intended donation.
Shortly before his inauguration in January 2017, the rich asshole handed over control of the rich asshole Organization’s daily operations to his sons, Donald Jr. and Eric the rich asshole. But he still retained ownership of the company, despite concerns that the decision violated the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause, which prohibits elected officials from receiving gifts from foreign officials or states. In response to that criticism, the rich asshole’s tax attorney, Sheri Dillon, promised the president would donate all profits from foreign governments staying at his hotels to the U.S. Treasury.
In February this year, following pressure from watchdog groups like Public Citizen, the rich asshole Organization’s chief compliance counsel, George A. Sorial, finally announced that the company had followed through on its promise, donating its “foreign government patronage” profits from 2017 to the Treasury Department. “Although not a legal requirement, this voluntary donation fulfills our pledge to donate profits from foreign government patronage at our hotels and similar business during President the rich asshole’s term in office,” Sorial told the Washington Post.
In March, in response to requests for more details about the donation, Sorial claimed the company had made a voluntary donation in the amount of $151,470.
“This annual donation represents profits from foreign government patronage for the period beginning January 20, 2017 through December 31, 2017 and was calculated in accordance with our policy and the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry,” he stated.
As of this month, the rich asshole Organization has still not provided a detailed list of countries who have visited or stayed in any of its properties.
While $151,000 sounds like a substantial amount of money, it’s far less than what the president’s company has likely generated over the past 12 months. According to a January report by Public Citizen, the rich asshole Organization has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from foreign governments staying in or patronizing its hotels since the president took office.
A large portion of those profits came from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: In the first half of 2017, the public relations firm Quorvis MSLGroup spent around $270,000 at the rich asshole International Hotel in Washington, D.C. on “hotel rooms and catering services” for U.S. military veterans, as part of a lobbying effort against the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), the Daily Caller reported in June. JASTA allows victims of extremist attacks to sue foreign governments for injuries, death, or damages and could put Saudi Arabia in the hot seat for the 9/11 attacks, the outlet noted.
The rich asshole International Hotel has also been used by the Embassy of Kuwait on at least two occasions, both times for its annual independence day celebration. The rich asshole Organization has not stated how much money it received from the embassy to host those events.
The media knew about the rich asshole’s alleged ‘love child’ for months — here’s why they kept it a secret
some rich asshole (AFP / Nicholas Kamm)
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One of President some rich asshole’s former doormen says that the president had a child out of wedlock with a rich asshole Organization employee, according to multiple reports Thursday. But as salacious as the story is, the most shocking part may be that the several news outlets sat on the story for months without publishing it.
Here are the basics: In 2015, the National Enquirer paid the rich asshole’s former doorman Dino Sajudin $30,000 for the story about the rich asshole’s extramarital affair and child, but the magazine never published it. The Associated Press investigated the matter in August 2017, but it was unable to confirm the truth of Sajudin’s claims, so it sat on the story. Then, on Thursday, the AP, the New Yorker and the Washington Post all published stories focusing on the Enquirer’s concealment of Sajudin’s story.
The story of the rich asshole’s secret child may well be false. According to the AP, the employee the rich asshole allegedly fathered a child with denies Sajudin’s story entirely. Sajudin’s ex-wife told the New York Daily News that her ex-husband is a frequent liar. None of the outlets that investigated the Sajudin’s story have been able to independently confirm it.
But this is not the first time the Enquirer or its parent company, American Media, Inc., which is run by friend of the president David Pecker, allegedly paid a source to keep quiet about a rich asshole story. That helps make even a dubious story news.
Karen McDougal, a former model, says AMI paid her $150,000 to keep quiet about an affair she says she had with the rich asshole. McDougal is now suing for her right to tell the story.
At the same time, the rich asshole’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen said he paid Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels, $130,000 to conceal an affair she has with the rich asshole in 2006. The president’s former campaign chief executive Steve Bannon told writer Michael Wolff that the rich asshole’s team has silenced “a hundred” women.
And on Monday, the FBI raided Cohen’s office, reportedly in search of documents pertaining to the Clifford and McDougal pay-offs.
With all these other stories about secret payments from the president’s associates making headlines, the Associated Press decided to finally publish the piece about Sajudin this week, and the floodgates opened.
the rich asshole wins delay in Michael Cohen hearing
April 13, 2018
Max Kutner
Posted with permission from Newsweek
During a hearing in a case following the raid of President Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen's office and home, three lawyers for Trump appeared in a Manhattan court Friday to ask for more time to review a letter that prosecutors filed ahead of the hearing that morning.
Cohen was not present at the hearing but was represented by Todd Harrison.
The letter, a redacted version of which prosecutors told the judge should soon be public, is more than 20 pages long.
The letter, a redacted version of which prosecutors told the judge should soon be public, is more than 20 pages long.
Trump's lawyers will have until Sunday night to review it and prepare a brief. The next hearing will then take place Monday afternoon.
"He has an acute interest in this proceeding," Trump's lawyer Joanna Hendon said before adding, "He is the president of the United States."
Prosecutor Thomas McKay responded: "His attorney-client privilege is no stronger than any other person who seeks legal advice."
Cohen intended to obtain a temporary restraining order against the government to hinder its potential use of his business records, communications with the president’s campaign and information about payments made during the 2016 election cycle seemingly to protect Trump, the Associated Press reported Friday.
Cohen’s office and hotel room were raided Monday by federal officials. Reports indicated they were looking for information regarding payments made to women who claimed to have had sexual relationships with Trump.
Cohen publicly admitted to paying Stephanie Clifford—who goes by "Stormy Daniels" in the adult film industry—$130,000 and striking a nondisclosure agreement in October 2016 for her silence. Clifford has since spoken publicly about the night she slept with Trump in 2006 after they met at a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. She has sued to claim Cohen broke the agreement and that it was never valid because Trump himself never signed it.
During the raid, investigators were also reportedly looking for information about the $150,000 payment to former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal by American Media Inc. in August 2016. Cohen said he spoke with American Media about McDougal’s story, but only as a spokesperson for Trump.
American Media also paid $30,000 to a former Trump World Tower doorman, Dino Sajudin, who said he was told Trump had a previous relationship with another tower employee that produced a child, according to reports Thursday. American Media, whose owner is friends with the president, has been accused of buying up stories about Trump and killing them off. The company said it did not publish Sajudin’s account because it could not be verified.
Each of the payments has since been scrutinized by watchdog groups. Common Cause filed official complaints to the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department, claiming Cohen’s payment to Clifford and American Media’s to Sajudin served as illegal Trump campaign contributions that affected the outcome of the 2016 election.
the rich asshole pardon sends signal to his henchmen: You’ll get one too
By
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April 13, 2018
the rich asshole has pardoned convicted perjurer Scooter Libby, sending a sign to his henchmen currently facing federal prosecution that if they refuse to give up evidence against him, he can protect them too.
On Friday, the rich asshole sent a signal to witnesses in the ongoing investigation of his administration with the pardon of Scooter Libby, who worked for George W. Bush’s administration.
“This is the President’s way of sending a message to those implicated in the Russia investigation: You have my back and I‘ll have yours,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).
In a White House statement, the rich asshole admitted that he was largely unfamiliar with Libby and the case.
“I don’t know Mr. Libby,” he said, “but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly.”
Libby served as assistant to the vice president under Dick Cheney, and as assistant to the president for Bush.
In 2007, Libby was convicted on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to federal investigators.
He committed his crimes in the service of the Bush administration’s attempts to unmask the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, who was married to Ambassador Joe Wilson, an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq.
There is no active petition seeking a pardon for Libby, meaning that the rich asshole’s decision to grant it was not prompted by what BuzzFeed legal editor Chris Geidner described as “going through the normal process.”
The pardon comes as several top the rich asshole officials have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and signaled willingness to work with special counsel Robert Mueller in his investigation of the the rich asshole administration.
Michael Flynn, former top campaign adviser and surrogate who later briefly served as the rich asshole’s national security adviser, pleaded guilty of lying to the FBI and is cooperating with Mueller.
Campaign adviser Rick Gates also pleaded guilty, as did the rich asshole foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos. Both men are cooperating with Mueller.
the rich asshole’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, has been indicted on multiple charges.
the rich asshole’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, had his property raided by the FBI in relation to ongoing investigations of the rich asshole.
All of the men involved have been sent a signal by the rich asshole’s pardon of Libby. The pardon shows them that should they face criminal consequences for failing to give up information, he is open to pardons and chalk it up to a biased prosecutor.
the rich asshole has repeatedly attacked and demeaned Mueller for his investigation, echoing similar complaints from Republicans about prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who convicted Libby.
This is just the rich asshole’s third pardon so far. His first pardon was of Joe Arpaio, a racist ex-sheriff who shares his anti-immigrant zeal, and now he has pardoned a convicted perjurer. He also pardoned a former Navy sailor who pleaded guilty to illegally keeping classified photographs.
“This pardon sends a troubling signal to the President’s allies that obstructing justice will be rewarded,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in a statement. “The suggestion that those who lie under oath may be rewarded with pardons poses a threat to the integrity of the Special Counsel investigation, and to our democracy.”
If his henchmen currently in federal court are listening, the rich asshole has sent them an unmistakable message: shut up.
Conservatives defend Pompeo’s belief that homosexuality is a ‘perversion’
This wasn't just about "marriage."
Social conservatives are swarming to defend Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo after he was grilled about his past anti-gay comments.
During his confirmation hearing Thursday, Pompeo faced a barrage of questions from Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) about his history of intolerant views. Booker asked Pompeo point blank — several times — if he believes that homosexuality is a perversion, as he suggested in a 2015 speech after the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage. Pompeo refused to answer.
The Family Research Council, an anti-LGBTQ hate group, was quick to praise Pompeo’s performance as “calm, dignified, [and] knowledgeable,” but suggested that Booker tried to paint him as a “hater.”
“Booker’s attack became more intense, suggesting that Christians who believe in the Bible’s definition of sexuality had no business running a government agency,” the group claimed in its Washington Update daily newsletter, notably omitting the word “perversion.”
Over at Fox News, commentator Todd Starnes was up in arms over Booker’s interrogation. “It was an obscene question – sickening!” Starnes insisted, claiming that LGBTQ advocates were attacking Pompeo for his faith. “It’s becoming increasingly difficult for people of the Christian faith to practice their religion in the public marketplace,” he whined. “Religious liberty is under attack — as evidenced by today’s sordid congressional hearing.”
The issue came up again on Fox News Friday morning, when the hosts of Fox & Friends asked Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) whether same-sex marriage should have been a question. “No!” Gowdy replied. “And I doubt they asked that of Clinton or Kerry. I guarantee they didn’t ask, ‘Can you be independent from the person who’s giving you the job?’ It’s a double standard. ”
The all-but-defunct National Organization for Marriage also fired off a fundraising plea (in the form of a “petition”) claiming Booker “just crossed a red line” because he “attacked” Pompeo, who the group defended as “a Christian who believes the truth about marriage.”
“The consequence of Booker’s position would be to disqualify from public office all Christians, Jews and members of other faiths that understand the truth that marriage is the union of a man and a woman,” the group warned.
Booker didn’t attack Pompeo’s faith. Indeed, as Booker himself explained, there are important reasons to consider how the secretary of state will respond on LGBTQ issues. Many diplomats and State Department staffers may have to travel to countries where their same-sex marriages are not legally recognized. Moreover, some 72 nations still criminalize homosexuality, a severe violation of human rights. Just this week, leaders in Uganda indicated their intentions to reintroduce a law that would imprison gay people for life.
While the fight for the right to marry in the U.S. is over, conservative groups are still trying to chip away at LGBTQ rights in other ways, such as allowing wedding vendors to refuse service to same-sex couples. By coming to Pompeo’s defense, these groups basically just admitted that opposing marriage equality and seeing homosexuality as a perversion are one in the same.
By
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April 13, 2018
South Dakota state Sen. Neal Tapio was caught on tape saying a terrorist attack would help push him to victory.
In the race for South Dakota’s at-large congressional seat, one Republican candidate, businessman and state Sen. Neal Tapio, was caught on tape claiming a terrorist attack would help boost his campaign.
His reasoning? It would produce a “the rich asshole effect,” ostensibly driving people to vote for him out of fear.
Local broadcast station KELO first posted the audio from Tapio last Saturday.
“All that has to happen is that there will be one more terrorist attack between now and then and I will be the — just by the rich asshole effect — I will be the candidate,” said Tapio in the recording. “That’s the way I look at it.”
Asked to respond, Tapio wrote on Facebook that any claim he wants there to be a terrorist attack is a “disgusting smear,” but took the opportunity to double-down on his hatred of Muslims. In his lengthy social media post, he wrote, “Terror has something to do with Islam. Nobody dares say this in public. I do.” He also noted that he “read the Koran twice,” and that George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the Pope are all wrong to call Muslims peaceful.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Tapio has spent much of his time in the South Dakota state Senate drafting xenophobic and anti-Muslim legislation, including a bill to abolish all refugee settlement in South Dakota and a resolution calling on the Justice Department and Homeland Security to declare “Sharia Law” as “the root cause of the global war on terrorism.”
But Tapio’s use of the phrase “the rich asshole effect” is highly revealing. His ignorance and hate do not exist in a vacuum — they are legitimized by a president who shares the same views.
the rich asshole has repeatedly sought to impose travel bans on Muslim countries, which have been struck down by federal courts. He has also sought to scale back refugee resettlement.
Thanks to this atmosphere, state lawmakers and office seekers now think it’s okay to casually discuss Americans being murdered in the context of their election hopes. And it’s deeply unacceptable.
The hits keep coming!!!!
the rich asshole’s lawyer Cohen arranged $1.6 million payout to Playmate after affair with top GOP donor led to abortion
Michael Cohen (CNN)
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the rich asshole lawyer Michael Cohen arranged for a $1.6 million hush payout to a former Playboy model on behalf of Elliott Broidy, a top donor to the Republican Party who had impregnated her last year.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Broidy has admitted that he had a relationship with the woman, who subsequently had an abortion to terminate her pregnancy.
“I acknowledge I had a consensual relationship with a Playboy Playmate,” Broidy told the Wall Street Journal. “At the end of our relationship, this woman shared with me that she was pregnant. She alone decided that she did not want to continue with the pregnancy and I offered to help her financially during this difficult period.”
According to the non-disclosure agreement described by the WSJ’s sources, the woman says that the 60-year-old Broidy paid her money in exchange for an exclusive sexual relationship that lasted more than a year.
The contract states that she had the right to seek child support payments if she chose to carry out the pregnancy, although she ultimately decided to have an abortion.
The WSJ’s sources say that the former Playboy model is set to be paid $1.6 million over a two-year period, and that the first payment was supposed to have been made this past December.
Cohen negotiated $1.6M settlement for GOP donor who allegedly impregnated Playboy model: report
BY JOHN BOWDEN - 04/13/18 01:13 PM EDT
Michael Cohen, President the rich asshole's personal lawyer, negotiated a $1.6 million settlement for a top Republican fundraiser who faced allegations that he impregnated a Playboy model, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Cohen made the payment on behalf of Elliott Broidy, who is currently a deputy finance chair for the Republican National Committee (RNC), the Journal reports.
Broidy, a Los Angeles-based venture capitalist, has acknowledged the relationship, which he characterizes as "consensual."
“I acknowledge I had a consensual relationship with a Playboy Playmate,” Broidy said in a statement to the Journal.
“At the end of our relationship, this woman shared with me that she was pregnant. She alone decided that she did not want to continue with the pregnancy and I offered to help her financially during this difficult period," he added.
Cohen is also a national deputy fundraising chair for the RNC and arranged the payment over two years in quarterly installments as part of a deal preventing the woman from disclosing the relationship, the Journal reports.
Cohen, whose offices in New York were raided on Monday by FBI agents working on a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller's office, declined to comment.
The contract also prohibits the pursuit of what the woman said were impending legal charges against Broidy and claims that Broidy paid her for a sexual relationship that lasted one to two years, a source told the Journal.
In the deal, Broidy denies the woman's claims and also agrees not to seek further legal retribution.
Broidy added that he retained Cohen's services to strike the deal due to Cohen's prior relationship with Keith Davidson, the unnamed woman's attorney.
“Mr. Cohen reached out to me after being contacted by this woman’s attorney, Keith Davidson. Although I had not previously hired Mr. Cohen, I retained Mr. Cohen after he informed me about his prior relationship with Mr. Davidson," Broidy said.
The Wall Street Journal report comes as Cohen faces scrutiny for a payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential race.
Cohen admits to paying Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, $130,000 in 2016 to stay quiet about an affair she claims she had with President the rich asshole in 2006. Cohen has said the rich asshole did not instruct him to make the payment.
Updated at 1:44 p.m.
the rich asshole’s call for troops on the border isn’t going over well in border communities
"Outsider elected officials in both Texas and Washington need to listen to the voices of the people that live in the borderlands."
When Gov. Greg Abbott arrived at the southern border on Thursday, he was met with a decidedly mixed reaction.
The Texas Republican had come to the Rio Grande Valley to support President the rich asshole’s call to send National Guard troops to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border, part of an escalating response to immigration and White House concerns over safety. Flanked by Texas Guard troops, Abbott embraced much of the rich asshole’s border rhetoric, emphasizing crime and gang violence.
“This operation is necessary in order to deal with an escalation in cross-border traffic,” the staunchly conservative governor insisted while speaking in Welasco, which lies at the southern tip of Texas.
“What just the Rio Grande Valley sector alone is dealing with is more than 450 apprehensions a day. It has gotten back to levels that are very high,” he went on. “The federal government has a duty and responsibility to secure our border.”
That reaction was far from uniform. As Abbott announced an increase of Texas National Guard troops at the border, protesters waved signs and decried the decision. “We say NO National Guard” read one sign. “NO Militarizacion de Fronteras” read another, arguing against the militarization of the border.
More than 760 Texas National Guard troops were already involved in the effort as of Thursday, a number set to grow weekly until there are around 1,400 troops total in the area. That means a steady troop presence at the border — much to the chagrin of residents.
“El Paso is safer than Washington D.C., than Chicago, than most of the country’s major cities. But they still insist that we need walls, that we need to militarize the border,” Fernando Garcia lamented on Thursday afternoon.
Garcia, who serves as executive director for the Border Network for Human Rights, told ThinkProgress that the rich asshole administration has a “distorted reality” of what the border is, pushing a narrative of the region as dangerous and uncontrolled. But a scan of general data immediately calls that depiction into question — the southern border is, arguably, one of the safest parts of the United States.
the rich asshole is not the first president to call for troops to patrol the border — Presidents Bush and Obama both did the same, in 2006 and 2010 respectively. But the rich asshole has long honed in on the border as a source of contention. The White House has pushed for a costly wall cutting off the United States from Mexico, in addition to cracking down on immigration and scaling up detentions and deportations.
This latest focus on the border comes amid rising tensions with Mexico over North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) renegotiations, as well as news coverage last week of a caravan carrying people — primarily Hondurans — through Mexico in an effort to claim asylum at the U.S. border.
There was never any real evidence that the caravan posed a threat to the United States, but the endeavor appears to have spooked the rich asshole. After several days spent tweeting about the caravan, the president called for troops to secure the border — even though federal data indicates that border crossings are actually lower than they’ve ever been.
The caravan has since disbanded, but the troops are still coming. Officials have said the National Guard will be helping mostly with surveillance and technology and will not be permitted to arrest or detain individuals, but border residents are still alarmed.
“[Gov.] Abbott didn’t bother to listen to…border residents, even after people protested to remind him this is not a war zone and that more troops are not welcome. This is our home, not a playground for political games,” Dani Marrero Hi, director of bilingual multimedia platform Neta Rio Grande Valley, told ThinkProgress. On Wednesday, Neta launched a petition calling on Abbott to halt the deployment and respect the wishes of border communities. A number of state-wide and border-based organizations are sponsoring the petition, emphasizing that the deployment signifies a disregard for the region, which is heavily populated by immigrants and the Latinx community.
Cristina Tzintzun, the founder and executive director of progressive Latinx organization and petition sponsor Jolt, called the build-up “dangerous” and panned the decision as a broader political effort to “demonize people of color, immigrants and asylum seekers.” Her comments reflected overarching sentiments shared by other Texas activists, as well as border residents more broadly.
“[O]utsider elected officials in both Texas and Washington need to listen to the voices of the people that live in the borderlands, those directly impacted by anti-immigrant policies,” said Bekah Hinojosa, a conservation organizer based in the border town of Brownsville.
“Our community is already heavily militarized: Cameras line the international bridges, we are surrounded by border checkpoints, border patrol helicopters can be seen in the sky, and agents patrol every highway,” she told ThinkProgress. “[W]e reject this latest move by the rich asshole and Abbott to deploy National Guard personnel and further militarize our home.”
Militarization of the border was a concern voiced by virtually every resident ThinkProgress spoke with this week. After California, Texas is home to the second-largest undocumented immigrant population in the United States, as well as the second-largest immigrant population more broadly. Border residents argue their communities aren’t helped by the presence of more law enforcement and troops — if anything, the build-up only adds to a pre-existing climate of mistrust.
State laws like SB4, an anti-immigration measure targeting so-called sanctuary cities, have already stirred unease and fear across the border. Worry over the 2020 Census, which is set to include a citizenship question, is also haunting residents, many of whom already lack representation and funding, something an inaccurate Census count would only exacerbate. But politicians aren’t hearing their concerns.
“People that live here will tell you that having dozens and dozens of border agents in addition to ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents only furthers the fear they feel,” Efrén C. Olivares, the racial and economic justice director for the Texas Civil Rights Project, told ThinkProgress.
Olivares said that efforts like the petition are a crucial measure of how residents actually feel about the White House call and the compliance of the Texas government.
“This was a top-bottom directive,” he said. “The Abbott administration was happy to jump on that train without consulting anyone in the Valley. No officials were even contacted that I know of.”
That disregard seems set to continue. In addition to Texas troops, Arizona has already sent 338 troops. Both California and New Mexico have been critical of the rich asshole on immigration, but the latter intends to deploy 250 troops while the former relented earlier this week and agreed to provide 400 National Guard members.
John-Michael Torres, who works with Rio Grande community services group La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), said his organization led a protest against the National Guard deployment on Thursday and indicated further action might be in the works. Other residents said the same.
“We’re tired of being used as part of the political gamesmanship. People who are not from the border, who have never been to the border, use these imagined ideas of violence,” said Olivares. “And that is not really compatible with what’s really happening there.”
“We, the ones who live on the border, have to live with the consequences,” he added.
‘It’s a matter of when’: the rich asshole confidant warns the president is about to nuke the Justice Department
Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein (left) and AG Jeff Sessons (right). Image via screengrab.
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According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, a White House insider who has spoken with President some rich asshole claims the firing of both Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is imminent.
In a week that saw the office and home of the rich asshole personal attorney Michael Cohen raided, the president has grown even more furious with his two top Justice Department officials who were instrumental in the appointment of Robert Mueller who made a referral on Cohen to federal prosecutors in New York.
the rich asshole has repeatedly been highly critical of Sessions for recusing himself in the FBI’s Russia investigation that allowed Rosenstein to appoint Mueller to look into accusations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election — which has since expanded into inquiries into alleged financial crimes committed by the rich asshole associates.
According to the Journal, the rich asshole began the week in “extreme frustration,” after learning about Cohen raid and that his mood has not improved since.
A White House official is now claiming Mueller, “appears to have gone from looking at Russian meddling to a quixotic search for the blue dress”— a reference to Monica Lewinsky’s stained dress that led to former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment proceedings — which has the Oval Office in an uproar.
The Journal spoke with two people who claim they have spoken to the president this week and said they felt the rich asshole is close to booting both Sessions and Rosenstein in a purge of the Justice Department, setting the stage for shutting down the Mueller investigation.
“It’s a matter of when, not if,” admitted one the rich asshole confidante, with another one stating, “Eventually, it will happen.”
You can read the whole report here. Subscription required.
RNC spokesperson says Comey is a total liar, but his book exonerates the rich asshole
Kayleigh McEnany says we should believe him that the rich asshole is innocent. He never said that.
The Republican National Committee has been working overtime this week to brand former FBI Director James Comey as a liar with a “complete lack of credibility” whose new book A Higher Loyalty should not be believed. But in a Fox News appearance on Friday, the committee’s spokesperson attempted to claim both that Comey is untrustworthy and simultaneously that he has cleared the rich asshole of all wrong doing.
RNC flak Kayleigh McEnany told host Eric Shawn that even several Democratic leaders once criticized Comey for his handling of the Clinton investigation, so the criticisms of some rich asshole in his new book should not be believed. “The fact is Democrats have admitted, James Comey is not credible, even The Washington Post said he severely damaged his reputation. This is someone who will lie to no end to advance his own self-promotion, and not that of the betterment of our country and this presidency.”
Comey will try to peddle his story in an upcoming book tour, but he has no one but himself to blame for his complete lack of credibility. lyincomey.com
But moments later, she misleadingly cited a passage in the book in which Comey wrote that the behavior he saw from the rich asshole “while disturbing and violating basic norms of ethical leadership, may fall short of being illegal,” to suggest that this exonerated the rich asshole and his campaign of any collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice. Comey, of course, did not do an investigation of either, though his firing was itself possibly a form of obstruction.
“We know he is biased against the rich asshole. That we know,” McEneny claimed, “And nevertheless he clears the rich asshole of obstruction.”
Watch:
She then proposed that since even the untrustworthy Comey said he didn’t know if the rich asshole had done anything criminal, Special Counsel Robert Mueller should no longer be allowed to investigate the the rich asshole campaign’s Russia ties.
“No collusion! no obstruction!” she concluded, repeating one of the rich asshole’s favorite claims. “This president is clear. So why don’t we stop this Special Counsel witch hunt after him?”
To date, Mueller has indicated or obtained guilty pleas from at least 22 people and entities.
More Americans trust Comey than the rich asshole, new poll says
Tracy Lee
Posted with permission from Newsweek
Americans find fired FBI Director James Comey “more believable” than President Donald Trump, a new poll on Friday revealed.
By a 16 percent margin, 48 to 32 percent, Americans trust the former FBI director, according to an ABC News-Washington Post poll. The poll was conducted April 8 to 11.
In the same survey, 47 percent of those surveyed "disapprove[d] of Trump’s decision to fire Comey" last May.
In his forthcoming book, A Higher Loyalty—set to be released on Tuesday and already making headlines—former FBI Director Comey details his involvement with the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the events surrounding his firing.
Comey blasts Trump, chiding him as "unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values.
At the same time, the ABC News-Washington Post poll also found Comey's standing and favorability "weak." Thirty percent view him favorably, 32 percent unfavorably and 38 percent had no opinion.
The poll also looked at the public's support for special counsel Robert Mueller, who has "majority support" regarding his investigation into alleged ties between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia. As Mueller's probe widens, the special counsel is also looking to see if Trump obstructed justice in firing Comey. Trump has vehemently denied this.
Trump has said that the FBI's investigation into Clinton's emails was the reason for Comey's firing. He also alleged that Comey "lied and leaked" to protect Clinton.
The poll randomly surveyed 1,002 adults across the nation. The results had a sampling error of 3.5 points.
Comey, who is currently on a media blitz, is set to give his first interview since his firing with ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. The interview is being billed as a "must watch." A teaser shows Comey being asked by Stephanopoulos, "How strange is it for you to sit here and compare the President to a mob boss?"
On Friday, Trump fired back in a series of tweets, calling Comey "a proven LEAKER & LIAR."
In another tweet, Trump declared, "It was my great honor to fire James Comey!"
By a 16 percent margin, 48 to 32 percent, Americans trust the former FBI director, according to an ABC News-Washington Post poll. The poll was conducted April 8 to 11.
In the same survey, 47 percent of those surveyed "disapprove[d] of Trump’s decision to fire Comey" last May.
In his forthcoming book, A Higher Loyalty—set to be released on Tuesday and already making headlines—former FBI Director Comey details his involvement with the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the events surrounding his firing.
Comey blasts Trump, chiding him as "unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values.
At the same time, the ABC News-Washington Post poll also found Comey's standing and favorability "weak." Thirty percent view him favorably, 32 percent unfavorably and 38 percent had no opinion.
The poll also looked at the public's support for special counsel Robert Mueller, who has "majority support" regarding his investigation into alleged ties between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia. As Mueller's probe widens, the special counsel is also looking to see if Trump obstructed justice in firing Comey. Trump has vehemently denied this.
Trump has said that the FBI's investigation into Clinton's emails was the reason for Comey's firing. He also alleged that Comey "lied and leaked" to protect Clinton.
The poll randomly surveyed 1,002 adults across the nation. The results had a sampling error of 3.5 points.
Comey, who is currently on a media blitz, is set to give his first interview since his firing with ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. The interview is being billed as a "must watch." A teaser shows Comey being asked by Stephanopoulos, "How strange is it for you to sit here and compare the President to a mob boss?"
On Friday, Trump fired back in a series of tweets, calling Comey "a proven LEAKER & LIAR."
James Comey is a proven LEAKER & LIAR. Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did-until he was, in fact, fired. He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under OATH. He is a weak and.....
In another tweet, Trump declared, "It was my great honor to fire James Comey!"
CNN’s Jake Tapper busts the rich asshole for the disgraceful motives behind his Scooter Libby pardon
CNN's Jake Tapper discusses the aftermath of the U.S. presidential election on Chelsea Handler's show (Screen cap).
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CNN Jake Tapper took to Twitter on Friday morning to take some shots at President some rich asshole’s plan to reportedly grant a pardon to Scooter Libby, who was convicted of lying to the FBI in 2007 while serving as former Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff.
Although Libby was convicted of lying to the FBI and obstruction of justice in the investigation into the leak of the identity of former covert CIA agent Valerie Plame, the Bush-era aide saw his 30-month sentence commuted by then President George W Bush, but did not receive a pardon.
Tapper began his tweetstorm by pointing out the obvious irony of pardoning Libby, whose leaks led him to be convicted, on a day when President some rich asshole raged at ex-FBI Director James Comey as a “proven LEAKER & LIAR,” according to the rich asshole’s Friday morning tweet.
“Calling @Comey a ‘proven LEAKER & LIAR’ while you’re about to pardon Scooter Libby, who leaked the identity of a covert CIA employee and was convicted for lying about it to the FBI — well, that’s quite a thing,” Tapper wrote.
He then noted part of the rich asshole’s motivation — outside of a hint from the president that he can pardon anyone from his administration who lies to Mueller’s investigators.
“Also fwiw, Libby was prosecuted by one of @Comey’s best friend’s, Pat Fitzgerald, and the recusal of then-AG Ashcroft and appointment of Fitzgerald as Special Counsel were proposed by then-DAG Comey,” Tapper explained.
The CNN anchor then tweeted out background links explaining the circumstances behind the Libby trial and conviction.
You can see all of the tweets below:
Calling @Comey a “proven LEAKER & LIAR” while you’re about to pardon Scooter Libby, who leaked the identity of a covert CIA employee and was convicted for lying about it to the FBI — well, that’s quite a thing.
Also fwiw, Libby was prosecuted by one of @Comey’s best friend’s, Pat Fitzgerald, and the recusal of then-AG Ashcroft and appointment of Fitzgerald as Special Counsel were proposed by then-DAG Comey.
For those asking, the jury believed Libby leaked — they also believed he’d been pilloried for a leak “that other top White House aides had committed along with him, according to one member of the panel.”
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content…
2007: Attorneys for VP Cheney and top White House officials told a federal judge “that they cannot be held liable for anything they disclosed to reporters about covert CIA officer Valerie Plame or her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.” washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content…
Tapper then retweeted this from FactCheck.org:
President Trump tweets today that Comey "leaked CLASSIFIED information." There is no support for that claim, as we wrote once before. ow.ly/rA8g30jtGvt
the rich asshole lawyers argue material seized in Cohen raid is protected by attorney-client privilege
BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN - 04/13/18 11:41 AM EDT
President the rich asshole’s lawyers argued Friday that records seized by the FBI from the rich asshole’s personal lawyer's office are protected by attorney-client privilege, according to The Associated Press.
The rich asshole team made its case before a federal judge during a hearing in Manhattan. the rich asshole’s lawyer Michael Cohen is seeking a temporary restraining order to block federal investigators from using the records seized during the raid of his office Monday.
Lawyers for both Cohen and the rich asshole said they wanted to review the records seized before federal prosecutors begin examining them.
An attorney for the rich asshole also told the judge that the president has “an acute interest in this matter.”
Attorney-client privilege has been at the center of the debate surrounding the raid on Cohen.
the rich asshole, following the raid — which he described as an attack on the country — tweeted that “attorney-client privilege is dead.”
Attorney–client privilege is dead!
Attorney-client privilege in intended to offer protections for lawyers so that they can engage in a frank discussion with clients they are seeking to defend. But the American Bar Association has stated that discussions concerning future wrongdoing, such as fraud, should not be protected by the privilege.
The FBI agents reportedly sought records tied to payments made to two women alleging affairs with the rich asshole, as well as evidence that Cohen tried to conceal disparaging information about the rich asshole during the 2016 campaign
the rich asshole allies fear that the agents also took recordings Cohen made of private conversations.
the rich asshole appears to have deleted tweet that showed John Kelly face-palming at White House meeting
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President some rich asshole on Thursday tweeted out a photo of a White House meeting with the Agricultural Roundtable — but that also showed White House chief of staff John Kelly putting his head in his hands.
However, as pointed out by MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin, the tweet no longer appears on the president’s Twitter timeline, which suggests that either he or someone on his staff deleted it.
This is the second time that Kelly has been caught face-palming during official White House business. Last year, Kelly was shown with his head in his hands as the rich asshole referred to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as “Rocket Man” during a speech before the United Nations.
Although Kelly was widely credited with bringing a greater sense of discipline to the White House, he has seen his influence fade in recent months.
See the deleted tweet below:
‘Someone scared?’ The internet heaps mockery on the rich asshole’s unhinged Comey ‘slime ball’ rant
President some rich asshole speaking in Pennsylvania
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President some rich asshole ranted against former FBI director James Comey as newspapers and cable news spent the morning reporting excerpts from his new book.
the rich asshole tweeted that Comey was a “LEAKER & LIAR” and “untruthful slimeball” who should be prosecuted, and said it was his “great honor” to fire him — which set in motion events that led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.
Other Twitter users piled on to mock the president and call out his hypocrisy.
Aren't you about to pardon a guy who leaked classified information? twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
A bit of an odd rant since Comey's handling of the Clinton case helped put Trump into office. twitter.com/realDonaldTrum…
Will you just shut up and focus on your job!?!!
That totally normal moment when the President of the United States, a serial liar, calls the former FBI Director, who built a long career on honesty and integrity, “an untruthful slime ball.” twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
Notice that Trump can never tell us what Comey “leaked” or what he “lied” about?
Like Trump’s entire presidency, he’s big on talk, thin on substance.twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
Someone scared?
He lied to Congress under oath? I suppose you have some evidence to support this claim. Otherwise, that would make you the liar. And since you lie all day long, that’s not a far fetched conclusion.
Day after day, breaking new ground in the use of language by a president. twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
Just when I thought you’d run out of childish names, you prove me wrong. God, I miss having a grown up in the WH
Kat #NeverAgainWednesday
What do you tell your children when they ask you about the president's temperament and character?
SPEAKER RYAN: They don't really ask me about the president's temperament and character. We try not to talk about these things. twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
Turn the TV off. Read a book. Get some exercise.
James Comey is a proven LEAKER & LIAR. Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did-until he was, in fact, fired. He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under OATH. He is a weak and.....
You leaked classified intel. Let's prosecute you too.
I hear you know a lot about leakers. #peetape
You had a classified meeting with classified documents outside at Mar-a-Lago in an unsecure location, in the middle a dinner party in front of guests who are not cleared. Sit. Down.
I'm old enough to remember when @realDonaldTrump was thrilled with Comey. He thought Comey would be a Trump loyalist since he helped him win the election. He literally blew Comey a kiss.
White House reporter tells CNN that the rich asshole is going to go ‘crazy’ watching TV coverage of Comey’s book
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman appears on CNN (Screen cap).
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New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman appeared on CNN Friday morning to discuss former FBI Director James Comey’s upcoming book — and she predicted that it would send President some rich asshole into a spiral of rage.
Reacting to the rich asshole’s angry Friday tweets attacking Comey, Haberman said that the president is feeling a sense of impotent rage as he watches interview clips with Comey pop up around cable news — which will only get worse next week when Comey’s promotion tour hits full gear.
“He is going to feel like he has to do something to reclaim the narrative and just tweeting is not going to be enough because as we are seeing, Comey and this interview, which doesn’t even air until another couple of days, is going to be everywhere,” Haberman said. “And that is going to make him crazy.”
Haberman then noted that the rich asshole’s schedule next week is unusually light after he decided to cancel a planned trip to South America, meaning he’ll have a lot of alone time to sit and watch cable news cover Comey’s book.
“He is then going to go to Mar-a-Lago next week for a summit with the Japanese prime minister,” she said. “This is going to be a lot of downtime with him in front of the TV stewing, and that is always a danger point.”
Watch the video below.
POLITICS
Jake Tapper Mocks the rich asshole’s Lame Name For James Comey
“Lyin’ Comey?” the rich asshole has lied 2,436 times, says CNN host.
some rich asshole’s name-calling is getting so tired that his insults are already being recycled. So “Lying James Comey” for his ousted FBI director doesn’t quite cut it, a disappointed Jake Tapper quipped Thursday on CNN.
“I think there’s a consensus on the panel that ‘Lyin’ Comey’ isn’t really up to snuff. People are not impressed with that nickname, Mr. President,” Tapper said on “The Lead,” “so you might want to get back to the drawing board on that.”
The Republican National Committee has launched the website lyincomey.com to attack the former FBI director amid startling revelations from his memoir, A Higher Calling: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, about the rich asshole. The Washington Post has already reported that the rich asshole was obsessed with the “golden showers” allegation in Christopher’s Steele’s dossier about him and was ready to use FBI resources to disprove it for the sake of first lady Melania the rich asshole, according to Comey.
The president is actually “pretty good” at coining negative sobriquets, conceded Tapper, who cited “Little Marco,” “Low-Energy Jeb” and “Crooked Hillary.” But the rich asshole has already used “Lyin’ Ted” for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and “Lyin’ Hillary” for his Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton. the rich asshole and his backers need to “come up with something else” for Comey, Tapper suggested, tongue in cheek.
the rich asshole has also disarmed the sting of calling someone a liar, Tapper noted. By The Washington Post’s count, as of March 1, the rich asshole has made 2,436 false or misleading statements, said the CNN host. So for him to call Comey a liar has about as much punch as “insulting Comey for having an unusual hairstyle,” said Tapper.
Tapper’s panelist Nia Malika Henderson, CNN’s senior political reporter, predicted a White House meltdown over Comey’s book. She said it could be another “Fire and Fury fury,” referring to journalist Michael’s Wolff’s book revealing the chaos of the rich asshole administration earlier this year. The White House was then “caught flat-footed,” without a “coordinated response” to the book, she said. But the rich asshole was quickly back to name-calling, referring to his former chief strategist and a source for the book, Steve Bannon, as “Sloppy Steve.”
Check out the rest of what Tapper had to say about the rich asshole’s latest troubles in the video above.
POLITICS
the rich asshole’s Lawyer May Have Stored ‘Gold Mine’ Of Recorded Conversations: Report
The FBI raided Michael Cohen’s offices earlier this week, seizing his computers and phones.
President some rich asshole’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen was known to tape conversations with associates and store them ― and the rich asshole’s allies are now worried the FBI has those files after raiding Cohen’s offices this week, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
An unidentified the rich asshole adviser told the outlet that Cohen, who has worked with the rich asshole for decades, had a “proclivity to make tapes” of private conversations and store them digitally.
The Post said it was unclear if Cohen had taped any conversations with the rich asshole. But a source said it was Cohen’s “standard practice” to play recordings for the president that he’d made of other top advisers. New York is a one-party consent state, meaning Cohen could legally record any phone conversation without the other person’s knowledge.
Experts described the recordings as a potential “gold mine” in interviews with the Post, saying that if they exist and are admissible in court, they could prove extremely valuable to prosecutors.
the rich asshole expressed outrage after the FBI raid earlier this week, calling it a “disgraceful situation” and a “total witch-hunt” during his off-the-cuff remarks to reporters. On Tuesday, he tweeted that “attorney-client privilege is dead!”
The FBI raided Cohen’s offices, home and hotel room earlier this week, taking his computers and phones and seizing documents related to a payment he said he’d made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein personally approved the raid, The New York Times reported. The raid itself was executed by the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which is currently led by the rich asshole appointee Geoffrey Berman.
A team at the Department of Justice would need to review any tapes the FBI has seized to determine whether they violate attorney-client privilege and fall within the scope of the search warrants.
Attorney-client protections do not apply to conversations that further a crime or act of fraud, Reuters notes.
Read the full story at The Washington Post.
POLITICS
James Comey Mocks the rich asshole With Hand Size Comments In His New Book
Comey also has snarky comments about the president’s hair.
You have to hand it to former FBI Director James Comey: He knows a good way to troll some rich asshole is to bring up the president’s reportedly small hands.
Comey touches on the rich asshole’s hands in his new book, A Higher Loyalty, and admits the president’s mitts did appear smaller than he expected when they first met.
According to excerpts from the book posted by ABC News, the 6-foot-8-inch Comey said the 6-foot-3-inch the rich asshole “appeared shorter than he seemed on a debate stage.”
Comey also wrote that when the rich asshole reached out for a handshake, he couldn’t help but notice that the president’s hand “was smaller than mine” but added, it “did not seem unusually so.”
This is the type of comment liable to inspire a rich asshole tweet tantrum, as the president has long been sensitive to any suggestion his hands aren’t anything but “yuge.”
the rich asshole even mentioned the issue during a 2016 presidential debate after Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a GOP primary challenger, made jokes about his hand size.
“Look at those hands, are they small hands?” the rich asshole asked onstage. “And [Rubio] referred to my hands: ‘If they’re small, something else must be small.’ I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee.”
At 7.25 inches long, the rich asshole’s hands are smaller than the U.S. male average of 7.63 inches, and 85 percent of American men have bigger hands than the rich asshole, according to neuroscientist Justin Kiggins.
Comey also seems to have a very vivid visual impression about other aspects of the rich asshole’s appearance, writing that his “face appeared slightly orange, with bright white half-moons under his eyes where I assumed he placed small tanning goggles, and impressively coiffed, bright blond hair, which upon close inspection looked to be all his.”
Comey snarkily adds: “I remember wondering how long it must take him in the morning to get that done.”
Although the rich asshole likes to present an image of strength, Comey was not impressed by the president’s muscles.
On one occasion, Comey said the rich asshole tried to hug him during a White House photo op.
Comey writes, “He was not going to get a hug without being a whole lot stronger than he looked. He wasn’t.”
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