MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow explains why the rich asshole hired two no-name lawyers — and it has nothing to do with Russia
Rachel Maddow (Photo: Screen capture)
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MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Thursday night threaded the needle between the quiet announcement of President some rich asshole’s two new no-name lawyers that accompanied his hiring of former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani and the government’s case against his longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen.
Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that the rich asshole hired husband-and-wife lawyers Martin and Jane Raskin, a legal duo based out of a tiny Miami suburb, after meeting with the pair at Mar-a-Lago.
“Because their hiring was announced at the same time as Mr. Giuliani’s hiring,” Maddow noted, “it was assumed that they too were hired to represent the president in the Russia investigation.”
As she pointed out, however, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Instead, as the Post reported, they’re also figuring out “attorney-client protections to keep investigators from scouring the rich asshole’s communications with his personal lawyer.”
“They weren’t just hired for [the investigation led by special counsel Robert] Mueller, which is what we had previously thought,” Maddow said. “That’s supporting evidence for what The New York Times has been reporting about how clear and present the president feels the danger is from the Michael Cohen case. He’s hiring new lawyers and putting them on that.”
Their hiring, paired with an analyses of the president’s initial response to Cohen’s raid earlier in April, offers “overwhelming evidence” of the president’s defense in his longtime lawyer’s case, Maddow said.
“From the very beginning,” the host noted, the rich asshole has opined about attorney-client privilege in the wake of his lawyer’s raid. On April 10, the day after Cohen’s residences and office were searched by federal investigators, he tweeted that “attorney-client privilege is dead.”
In his outlandish Fox & Friends interview earlier on Thursday, however, he insisted that despite Cohen working for him for over a decade, their business relationship makes up a “tiny, tiny percentage” of his legal representation — an admission prosecutors used in a filing hours later to prove Cohen and the president’s communications are not privileged and therefore subject to search.
“The president shredded his own legal case in this tv interview claiming that Michael Cohen does almost no legal work for him at all,” Maddow said gleefully.
Watch below, via MSNBC.
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the rich asshole will not be greeted with a royal welcome when he visits the U.K. in July. Instead, he's likely to be greeted by a wall of people who don't want him there.
The White House announced Thursday that the rich asshole will finally make his first visit to the U.K. after a year of putting it off.
But there will be no pomp and circumstance when he arrives in Britain in July.
The trip will be a “working visit” with Prime Minister Theresa May — a “downgrade from the kind of ceremonial state visit that was initially offered,” The New York Times reported Thursday.
the rich asshole was first invited to visit the U.K. in January 2017. At the time, May extended an invitation to the rich asshole and Melania for a state visit from Queen Elizabeth II.
the rich asshole reportedly had high hopes for the visit, expressing his desire to play golf with the Queen and requesting to ride with her in a gold-plated carriage.
But the rich asshole’s caviar dreams didn’t come true. Instead, he spent the next year stumbling through a series of embarrassments and growing increasingly unpopular with the British public.
In February 2017, members of Parliament sent a petition to the government calling for the rich asshole’s state visit to be canceled or downgraded. The petition, which garnered over 1.8 million signatures, argued that the rich asshole “should not be invited to make an official State Visit because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen.”
In June 2017, just as plans were being made for his first visit, the rich asshole launched a Twitter attack on London Mayor Sadiq Khan, criticizing him for his handling of the London Bridge terrorist attack.
His tweets drew condemnation from British politicians across the political spectrum, resulting in calls to the British government to cancel his visit.
Tentative plans for the rich asshole to visit the U.K. the next month were called off, and the visit was rescheduled for the fall.
But then in September, the rich asshole used a bombing in London as an opportunity to promote his Muslim ban, prompting a new wave of backlash.
Two months later, the rich asshole once again drew fierce condemnation from Britain when he retweeted a series of anti-Muslim videos from a British far-right political group.
Then in January, the rich asshole canceled a planned trip to the U.S. embassy in London. While the rich asshole claimed he had scrapped the trip because he was unhappy that the embassy was moving to a new location, British and American officials said it was more likely that he canceled the visit to avoid being embarrassed by widespread protests.
Unfortunately for the rich asshole, those protesters haven’t gone away — nor have they called off their plans to protest his visit.
“We have got a great history in our city of protests,” London’s mayor said Wednesday. “I have no doubt that if he does come, there will be some people who want to express their views loudly and peacefully to the president.”
If the rich asshole actually makes it to the U.K. this time, he won’t be greeted with a royal welcoming ceremony or a gold-plated carriage ride. Instead, he can expect to be greeted by a wall of people who don’t want him there.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper: the rich asshole’s ‘surreal’ Fox & Friends interview sounds like a ‘crazy guy mumbling incoherently’
CNN's Anderson Cooper
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In the aftermath of Donald the rich asshole’s unhinged 30-minute rant on Fox & Friends Thursday morning, CNN’s Anderson Cooper said he thinks the president is sounding more and more deranged.
“How do you ever interpret statements made by some rich asshole?” Harvard law professor and sometimes presidential legal ally Alan Dershowitz told the host and former diplomat and pundit Norm Eisen. “He made a vague, general statement intended to convey different points to different people.”
Cooper agreed with the the rich asshole confidante’s analysis — but not in a positive manner.
“Professor Dershowitz, don’t you think that it’s kind of surreal that we are in a place now as a county where we’re like ‘Oh, don’t listen to the president!’ like he’s a crazy person on a park bench with an onion tied to his belt, just mumbling incoherently,” the host mused. “You’re saying, essentially, don’t listen to him, don’t pay attention to the words that come out of his mouth because they have no meaning.”
“It was like listening to the rantings of Richard Nixon on tapes,” Cooper concluded. “Except this is on live television.”
Watch below, via CNN:
GOP senator won’t vote to protect Mueller because he thinks it’ll create ‘a new fourth branch of government’
Special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller. Image via Tim Sloan/AFP.
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Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) thinks it’d be “disastrous” if President some rich asshole fires special counsel Robert Mueller — but that it’s more dangerous still if a bill is passed to protect the investigator.
In a statement given to the conservative Weekly Standard magazine, the Nebraska Republican said that although he thinks the rich asshole “firing Robert Mueller while Russia is waging a shadow war against America would be disastrous for the nation,” he won’t vote for the Senate’s bill to protect the special counsel because he believes doing so would create a new branch of government.
“We can’t solve a crisis of public trust by creating a constitutional crisis with a new fourth branch of government,” Sasse said in his statement. “And unfortunately, that’s the road this bill takes.”
According to the magazine, Sasse and his retiring Senate colleague Orrin Hatch (R-UT) are worried the Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act, which was sponsored by two Republicans and two Democrats, creates an improper extra-legislative body because it would require a three-judge panel to approve if the attorney general fires a special counsel. They’re joined in their opposition to the bill by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said he would not vote for the bill protecting the special counsel because he doesn’t believe the president would sign it.
Sasse told the Standard that although he doesn’t support the current bill, he does support a non-legislative resolution that Mueller “should be permitted to finish his work in a timely fashion.”
“We should say loudly and clearly: if the President tries to deep-six the Special Counsel, the Senate will use all of its constitutional authority to ensure the investigation is sustained until completion,” the Nebraska senator said.
Steven Moore goes down in flames trying to claim Pruitt’s sketchy ethics are actually ‘character assassination’ by the left
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Steven Moore, a top economic advisor to President some rich asshole, thoroughly embarrassed himself trying to claim that EPA chief Scott Pruitt was the victim of some kind of character assassination.
Pruitt, whose scandals have stacked up over the past several months, was brought before a hearing to explain himself Thursday and finally told the truth after lying publicly for weeks. Moore claimed it was nothing more than politics as usual in Washington.
“What’s going on in Washington, D.C. in the last couple of months has just been disgraceful,” he proclaimed, playing the victim.
All commentator Joan Walsh could do was laugh and shake her head at the hubris.
“Nobody on the left made Scott Pruitt install a $43,000 phone booth, cone-of-silence in his office, Steve,” she schooled Moore. “Nobody made him travel first class. Nobody made him first tell [Fox News reporter] Ed Henry one story about a set of pretty extreme raises, and now tell a committee the other story. You had Greg Walden, a conservative Republican, today criticizing Scott Pruitt. Nobody on the left is making him do this. I’m surprised you’re taking this tack, because it’s as though you can’t find a guy who’s tough on climate change or pro-drilling who doesn’t have these kinds of ethical problems.”
Moore than tried to claim that the previous administration was misappropriating buckets of money to take staff to fancy conferences. The so-called “fancy conferences” Moore addressed was the international Paris Climate Accord, attended by nearly every world leader, scientists and their staff.
Walsh explained to Moore that if the previous administration had done anything wrong or even suspected of anything wrong that House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) or House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) would have hauled them into hearing after hearing.
Host Erin Burnett walked through the ethical breaches and overwhelming spending from Pruitt, including a new $70,000 bullet-proof desk for an office that the public doesn’t have access to.
The conversation devolved into absolute chaos from there. Watch below:
Watch MSNBC’s Ari Melber gives a surprise defense of Kanye West’s newfound love for the rich asshole
MSNBC host Ari Melber discusses rapper Kanye West's newfound love for some rich asshole. Image via screengrab.
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In the current climate, MSNBC host Ari Melber’s rap knowledge is rarely deployed in favor of politics. But when hip hop and politics collided amid Kanye West’s newfound “love” for President some rich asshole, the host was able to display his ample knowledge of the genre — and in doing so, came to a surprising conclusion.
“Put Kanye to the side,” Melber said. “The story tonight is still that millions are blasting an artist for simply praising a president’s style. People have every right to take that stance — but is it thoughtful, is it tolerant and is it politically effective?”
To explore the question, the host launched on a West lyric-laden look through the history of the rapper as both an individual and within the context of hip hop’s former love affair with the rich asshole’s brash billionaire persona.
“Before Kanye was tripping off the power, many rappers did show the rich asshole love back when he was a celebrity associated with money,” Melber said, noting that artists like Meek Mill, Ludacris, Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar and many others. “Kanye’s part of that history even if he’s behind the curve.”
After the rich asshole “went from a joke to a birther to a divider,” the host said, many artists began confronting him on his apparently racist beliefs about President Barack Obama — but Kanye didn’t appear to get on board.
Many critiques of the rapper seem ironically similar to one of West’s own songs, Melber said, quoting the rapper’s satirical song “I Love Kanye” where he jokes that people complain that they “hate the new Kanye, the bad mood Kanye, the always rude Kanye, spaz in the news Kanye.” He went on to argue that from a different perspective, however, the artist and designer appears to be praising the president’s style and role as a “media innovator” rather than his policies — and that West “said that explicitly” multiple times on Twitter.
Melber argued West expressed a similarly politically-incorrect attitude when he criticized then-President George W. Bush after Hurricane Katrina, telling a stunned Michael Myers and American public the president “does’t care about black people.”
“In a world of euphemism and people hiding behind their screens, Kanye stands up,” the host concluded. “It does not mean Kanye’s right — but this is part of his brash artistry.”
Watch Melber’s Kanye West history lesson below, via MSNBC:
CNN panel mocks the rich asshole’s unhinged Fox & Friends interview: ‘You could almost picture him red in the face’
Dana Bash, Nia-Malika henderson, Laura Coates, and Chris Cillizza (Photo: Screen capture)
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President some rich asshole called into Fox News’s morning show “Fox & Friends”Thursday and the interview went completely off the rails quickly. In their afternoon commentary, Wolf Blitzer’s political panel couldn’t help but note that the rich asshole seemed like he was spitting fire straight into the phone.
The segment began by playing a short clip of the 30-minute long tirade.
“That we just heard from the president — never mind that the president of the United States just called in a cable news show he likes to watch for 30 minutes, OK? Take that aside. You know, that is not a typical scenario,” explained CNN’s Dana Bash. “But the tone. He was yelling! He was so agitated.”
She said that she could almost picture the rich asshole, “red in the face.”
“And that was the sort of the theme and the thing that we heard from him throughout most of the phone call,” she continued. “That is not a president when you’re talking about the person who America and people around the world look to for leadership and calm and sort of control. That is not the kind of M.O. that generally a president wants to give off.”
Editor Chris Cillizza noted that Fox hosts had to rush the rich asshole off of the phone.
“The anchors saying, ‘All right, Mr. President, OK. Well –‘ He keeps talking!” Cillizza continued. “And they’re like, ‘Well, you have a lot of important –‘ and he keeps talking! That and in itself is — sorry.”
Commentator Nia-Malika Henderson explained that the behavior is a glimpse into what the president is like at night when he is calling friends and venting about the commentary and punditry throughout the day.
“I think that’s in a way what we got. Almost some rich asshole just venting over and over and over with all of these grievances for 30 minutes,” she continued. “Some people tweeted saying this is what we want from some rich asshole and what we like.”
Blitzer said that he was only guessing but he’s been in situations where interviews were going on and on and typically he wants for it to continue, because the longer the better. He said that what usually happens in those cases is a handlers typically end up calling in to tell producers to shut it down.
Watch the full conversation below:
CNN’s Joan Walsh calls BS on the rich asshole’s defense of Ronny Jackson: Veterans are treated more ‘unfairly’ than he was
CNN commentator and national affairs correspondent for "The Nation" Joan Walsh (Photo: Screen capture)
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In a Thursday discussion with CNN’s “The Lead” panel, national affairs correspondent “The Nation” Joan Walsh was appalled by President some rich asshole’s constant defense of his Veterans Administration nominee.
Dr. Ronny Jackson, the president’s White House physician, removed his name from consideration to be V.A. Secretary, and the president was not pleased.
“He’s a great man,” the rich asshole said of Jackson at a White House event Wednesday. “He got treated really unfairly. He’s a hell of a man, too.”
Walsh quickly jumped in to call out the president’s claims.
“You know who’s treated unfairly? The veterans of America,” she said. A similar claim was made by Republican Meghan McCain Wednesday. “That’s who’s treated unfairly. This man had no business being nominated. It is like we were saying, one reason: the president trusts him. He gave the president a really, really nice clean bill of health that some of us wondered about at the time.”
“Said he would live to be 200,” Tapper recalled.
“We could all be so lucky,” she replied.
“That’s not really a medical diagnosis,” Tapper qualified.
“I don’t think there’s any science involved right there,” Walsh laughed. “But our veterans deserve better and always did and all this news is terrible. But he was really unqualified before this terrible news came out and he had no business being there.”
“I just have to say, as someone who has covered confirmation battles since the 90s, I have never seen a White House so unprepared to answer questions,” Tapper said. “You know what it reminded me of in when the McCain campaign, John McCain, God bless him wherever he is now. But whenever the McCain campaign was asked about Sarah Palin and they didn’t know about her almost. And this is what it reminded me of.”
In another matter, Tapper wondered if the recent Fox & Friends” interview with the rich asshole was the perfect evidence for why the president’s lawyers refuse to let him speak to special counsel Robert Mueller.
“That’s why he has lawyers and frankly he needs them,” Republican commentator Margaret Hoover agreed.
Watch the clip below:
VA nominee debacle may distract from the agency’s 3 major problems
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President some rich asshole's nominee to be U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Navy Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, meets with Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) at his office on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., April 17, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
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The White House has withdrawn the nomination of its physician, Adm. Ronny Jackson, to be secretary of Veterans Affairs.
Jackson is best known for his fulsome report on the rich asshole’s health following an annual physical in January 2018.
His nomination came into question after allegations surfaced that he abused subordinates, created a hostile work environment, was drunk on the job, and freely passed out prescription pills including Ambien, Provigil and Percocet. The allegations came from various sources, including a summary prepared by Democratic Senate staff.
Now, whoever gets that position will have the task of trying to manage an agency that has long been in crisis. Nevertheless, the VA has pioneered evidence-based medicine and, overall, gets better outcomes at lower costs than many private health care providers. The VA has 360,000 employees and a US$186 billion annual budget.
As someone who has studied government budgets and the organization of government agencies, I believe the next secretary, like his predecessor, will have to address three major problems if the VA is to be effective in meeting the needs of the millions of veterans who depend on it for their care.
1. Funding
First, the VA is funded much less generously than private medical providers. That means VA doctors earn substantially less than other physicians, making it hard to fill vacancies.
Occasionally, Congress votes to increase the VA budget, allowing the department to offer raises or one-time bonuses that attract new physicians. But then, subsequent budget cuts and government-wide salary freezes drive VA doctors to the private sector. Physician and nurse shortages, due entirely to inadequate budgets, are the main reason why veterans have long waits for appointments and procedures.
2. Access
Second, the VA has no control over the number or location of veterans who gain the right to medical care through their military service. The number of veterans was shrinking prior to 9/11. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq made 4 million additional veterans eligible for VA medical services. Dramatic advances in saving the lives of wounded soldiers mean there are more severely disabled veterans needing complex care. Growing understanding of the psychological effects of combat has led to a dramatic increase in the number of veterans who apply for and can benefit from psychological treatment.
In addition, veterans, like other Americans, are more likely to live in the South and West than earlier generations. Thus, VA hospitals and clinics, mostly built in the post-war era, are not where the veterans live. It should be no surprise that some of the longest waits for care and the center of the scandal around VA officials falsifying data on the wait time for care was in Arizona, an area with many veterans and not enough VA facilities.
3. Privatization
Finally, many conservatives and for-profit health providers in search of new customers want to convert the VA into a conduit for government money to buy private insurance or care for veterans. Private care is more expensive and generally of lower quality care than what the VA now provides. Thus, increasing the use of private facilities will disrupt the continuity of care that is the basis for much of the VA’s lower costs and better outcomes. Funds diverted to pay for private care will rob the VA of resources needed to hire more doctors and nurses or to build facilities where they are needed.
President the rich asshole said he fired former VA Secretary David Shulkin, the man Jackson had been nominated to replace, to facilitate further privatization. Veterans’ organizations and members of Congress from both parties oppose privatizing because of the deleterious budgetary and health effects they say it would have.
It remains to be seen what role the new VA head will play in this conflict. The outcome will determine whether the VA’s problems worsen as the VA takes on the faults of America’s private health care system, or if the VA is given the resources to demonstrate the advantages of government provided medical care.
Richard Lachmann, Professor of Sociology, University at Albany, State University of New York
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
the rich asshole once embarrassed Michael Cohen at his son’s bar mitzvah: report
President some rich asshole's longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen (Screen capture)
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In a profile on the strange relationship between President some rich asshole and his FBI-raided personal attorney Michael Cohen, the Wall Street Journal reported on an embarrassing anecdote from the lawyer’s son’s bar mitzvah in 2012.
According to a source who attended the younger Cohen’s coming-of-age event, the rich asshole told the crowd, after showing up late and delaying the service, that he only attended the bar mitzvah after being urged by his attorney, secretary and children.
Guests at the celebration laughed because, as the source told the Journal, “everyone knew it was very realistic-sounding.”
Read the entire article looking into the unique — and now-strained — relationship between the rich asshole and Cohen via the Wall Street Journal.
Kanye’s tweets just helped the rich asshole fund his 2020 re-election
President some rich asshole (left, via AFP/Saul Loeb) and rapper Kanye West (right, via Twitter), both wearing MAGA hats.
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Never one to miss a business opportunity, President some rich asshole’s re-election campaign on Thursday sent out an alert to supporters that is meant to fundraise off of rapper Kanye West’s tweets endorsing him.
“Group think is a mandate in today’s society and when a free thinker like Kanye West speaks truth, they attack him” the text alert, as posted on Twitter by the Wall Street Journal‘s Julie Kykowicz, read.
“We support Kanye speaking his mind, even if sometimes we do not agree on the issues,” the alert continued. “Do not let them silence you. Get your red MAGA hat today.”
Watch: Survivors of rapist Bill Cosby break into tears after verdict at courthouse
Survivors of rapist Bill Cosby cry outside the courtroom where he was found guilty/Screenshot
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Survivors of sexual assault by the convicted rapist and disgraced TV personality Bill Cosby broke into tears outside the courthouse. The emotional scene was captured by cameras from CNN.
The 80-year-old faces 10 years in prison on each count
It’s not yet clear whether Cosby is going to go home tonight or be remanded to custody pending sentencing.
The women were overwhelmed by the moment, an analyst said. Having their truths validated by a jury was deeply meaningful and emotional after the ordeal of the investigation and hung jury trial of the rapist Bill Cosby.
the rich asshole Gives Bonkers Interview On Fox And Friends, Immediately Gets Used Against Him In Court
some rich asshole gave such an insane interview on Fox & Friends this morning that the hosts kept trying to pull him back in to address the questions at hand. He rambled on and on and admitted to things he previously denied. the rich asshole was like that racist uncle you try to calm down as he rants and raves while making himself look even worse. the rich asshole was yelling on the phone during the interview while talking about FBI raids of Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen, then suddenly, he tried to distance himself from his longtime attorney Michael Cohen. “I have nothing to do with his business,” he said, then claimed that Cohen only dealt with “a tiny, tiny little fraction” of his overall legal work.
Watch:
“Michael is in business — he’s really a businessman, a fairly big business as I understand it, I don’t know his business but this doesn’t have to do with me,” the rich asshole said of Cohen. “Michael is a businessman. He’s got a business, he also practices law. I would say probably the big thing is his business, and they’re looking at something to do with his business. This doesn’t have to do with me. I have many attorneys — sadly, I have so many attorneys you wouldn’t even believe it.”
But, Cohen has argued that the documents the FBI seized in a raid related to his work for the rich asshole should be protected by attorney-client privilege, but the so-called president just destroyed his attorney’s argument and federal prosecutors in New York noticed.
On Thursday, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York argued on that the public statements by the rich asshole and Fox News host Sean Hannity indicated that the materials seized from Cohen are “unlikely” to contain large amounts of privileged information, which the rich asshole’s attorneys had previously claimed.
SDNY tells court: "Trump, reportedly said on cable television this morning that Cohen performs 'a tiny, tiny little fraction' of his overall legal work." assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4447…
Now: SDNY says Hannity, Trump statements about ties to Michael Cohen 'suggest that the seized materials are unlikely to contain voluminous privileged documents' assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4447…
“These statements by two of Cohen’s three identified clients suggest that the seized materials are unlikely to contain voluminous privileged documents, further supporting the importance of efficiency here,” Robert Khuzami, the deputy U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, wrote in a letter to U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood.
Stormy Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti is all over this.
Here is a link to our motion and supporting papers to be filed this morning in the SDNY whereby we seek to intervene in order to address document issues relating to Ms. Daniels. dropbox.com/s/xw5kiu41niku…
I imagine the hosts of Fox & Friends are tossing back a few shots of Jack Daniels right now.
Convicted rapist Bill Cosby ‘exploded’ in courtroom and screamed obscenities at prosecutor
Bill Cosby arrives at the Montgomery County courthouse for pre-trial hearings in the sexual assault case against him in Norristown, Pennsylvania, on Feb. 3, 2016. (Agence France-Presse/Kena Betancur)
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Just after being found guilty on sexual assault, comedian Bill Cosby reportedly had an outburst at his prosecutor and screamed obscenities while his potential incarceration without bail was discussed.
Reporting on information from correspondents in the courtroom, Fox News’ Shep Smith noted that Cosby yelled “obscenities” at the district attorney when he said the comedian’s bail should be revoked.
As Fox News producer Lissa Kaplan told the host, former basketball player and Cosby victim Andrea Constand noted the comedian’s $3 million bail was a “paltry sum” for the disgraced TV star — a comment that led Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele to ask for the revocation. When the DA mentioned that Cosby owns a private plane, the comedian stood up in court and declared he did not.
As ABC News producer Stephanie Wash noted, Cosby called the DA an “assh*le” in the courtroom during the outburst.
Each second-degree felony count carries a maximum ten-year sentence and no minimum, @CDFrancescani and @LinseyDavis report.
Bill Cosby just called the DA an asshole in court, while discussing whether bail should be revoked, per @CDFrancescani.
DA expressed fear Cosby is a flight risk.
Judge asked to where.
DA: To any place, he has a plane!
Cosby, screamed: He doesn’t have a plane you asshole!
the rich asshole Fan Laughed Out Of Court After Suing Bar For Kicking Him Out
When the rich asshole supporters proudly declare “RICH ASSHOLE IS MY GOD” and similar insane things on social media, it’s time we realize that these inbred motherf*ckers might be serious.
A judge in Manhattan was blessed to find himself presented with perhaps the dumbest case he has seen in his career. 31-year-old Greg Piatek developed an extreme case of the sads just after his Lord and Savior some rich asshole took the oath of office in January when his celebration was cut short.
Piatek was sitting in The Happiest Hour, a popular West Village watering hole, when he found himself treated with the same respect with which the rich asshole supporters treat the rest of us. Noticing Piatek’s dumbass red “Make America Great Again” hat, the bartender refused to serve him because he’s a terrible human being. But the bartender didn’t realize that he was crazy, too.
“Anyone who supports the rich asshole — or believes what you believe — is not welcome here! And you need to leave right now because we won’t serve you!” Piatek says a manager told him as he was kicked out of the bar. Piatek and his friends had been served earlier in the evening, but after the bartender noticed the MAGA hat, she skipped them.
One of Piatek’s moronic friends rudely demanded immediate service, but the bartender replied, “Is that hat a joke?”
“Immediately it clicked,” Piatek said. “Ignoring me because I’m wearing the hat is ridiculous.” Ultimately, he was served a second round, but the bartender allegedly “slammed the drinks down.”
“I can’t believe you would support someone so terrible and you must be as terrible a person!,” a third bartender told Piatek later, refusing to serve him. “I wasn’t even trying to order a drink and she said, ‘Don’t even try to order from me. I won’t get you a drink.’”
When the tortured little snowflake and his friends complained to management, they were told to leave.
Piatek sued in the Manhattan Supreme Court, saying his much-deserved treatment “offended his sense of being American.”
That’s about as sane as this situation gets.
When the bar’s lawyer pointed out that only religious beliefs — not political ones — are protected under New York discrimination laws, adding that “supporting the rich asshole is not a religion,” Piatek’s attorney argued that the rich asshole is his god and master and MAGA is his religion. The NY Post reports:
“The purpose of the hat is that he wore it because he was visiting the 9/11 Memorial,” his attorney Paul Liggieri told Justice David Cohen in court Wednesday.“He was paying spiritual tribute to the victims of 9/11. The Make American Great Again hat was part of his spiritual belief,” Liggieri claimed. Piatek and his pals had, in fact, visited the memorial before the bar.“Rather than remove his hat, instead he held true to his spiritual belief and was forced from the bar,” Liggieri said.When the judge asked how the bar employees were supposed to be aware of Piatek’s unusual religious beliefs, Liggieri answered, “They were aware he was wearing the hat.”
Sound dumb? Oh, you just wait — it gets dumber:
“How many members are in this spiritual program that your client is engaged in?” the judge asked.“Your honor, we don’t allege the amount of individuals,” Liggieri said.“So, it’s a creed of one?” the judge asked.“Yes, your honor,” Liggieri replied.After nearly an hour of argument the judge took a short break and then returned to the bench with his ruling.“Plaintiff does not state any faith-based principle to which the hat relates,” Cohen said in tossing the case.Piatek had sued for unspecified emotional damages, but the judge said the incident amounted to nothing more than a “petty” slight.“Here the claim that plaintiff was not served and eventually escorted out of the bar because of his perceived support for President the rich asshole is not outrageous conduct,” the judge ruled.
After this, no the rich asshole supporter gets to call anyone who finds their conduct offensive a “snowflake” ever again.
Bill Cosby convicted of sexual assault in retrial
Bill Cosby departs the Montgomery County Courthouse after a preliminary hearing in Norristown, Pennsylvania, U.S. May 24, 2016. REUTERS/Matt Rourke/Pool/File Photo
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A Pennsylvania jury convicted comedian Bill Cosby on Thursday on all three counts of drugging and molesting a onetime friend in 2004, a decisive victory for prosecutors in one of the first celebrity sexual-assault trials of the #MeToo era.
Cosby, 80, best known as the lovable father from the 1980s TV hit “The Cosby Show,” faces up to 10 years in prison for each of the three counts of aggravated indecent assault of Andrea Constand, who is now 45.
A former administrator for the women’s basketball team at Temple University, Cosby’s alma mater, Constand is one of about 50 women who have accused him of sexual assault. All of the other allegations are believed to be too old to be prosecuted. Cosby has said any sexual encounters were consensual.
The unanimous decision by the seven-man, five-woman jury came less than a year after a different jury deadlocked in his first trial on the same charges, prompting the judge to declare a mistrial. Prosecutors decided to retry him.
The first trial ended just before a flood of sexual assault and harassment accusations against rich and powerful men in media, entertainment and politics gave rise to the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements. Those high-profile revelations have encouraged women in all walks of life to go public with personal stories of abuse, in some cases after years of silence.
WATCH: As the rich asshole fumbles on live TV, Fox & Friends abruptly ends disastrous interview
Hosts of the rich asshole's favorite show seemed to realize it was not going well.
President the rich asshole’s trainwreck of a phone interview on Thursday’s edition of Fox & Friends came to an abrupt end after hosts basically cut him off.
“Our Justice Department, which I try and stay away from, but at some point I won’t,” the rich asshole yelled, striking an authoritarian tone as Steve Doocy let out an uncomfortable groan, “should be looking at that kind of stuff [alleged anti-the rich asshole bias in the FBI], not the nonsense of collusion with Russia.”
As soon as the rich asshole stopped talking, Brian Kilmeade brought the interview to a close, informing the president that he had to get going because he had a busy day ahead of him.
“We’d talk to you all day, but it looks like you have a millions things to do,” Kilmeade said.
the rich asshole seemed a bit surprised to hear it.
“You could,” he interjected, suggesting he was in the mood to keep talking. But hosts wrapped it up.
After the smoke cleared, Doocy quipped, “You know, I think he was awake,” as his co-hosts chuckled uncomfortably.
Watch:
You’d think hosts of the president’s favorite show would give him all the air time he wants, but they had good reason to usher him off the air — the rich asshole did a lot of damage to himself over the course of the roughly 25-minute interview.
the rich asshole scored two legal own-goals that could make it more difficult to fend off Mueller and a separate FBI investigation into his personal attorney, Michael Cohen. the rich asshole minimized his relationship to Cohen, which could complicate his lawyers’ effort to shield seized documents from federal investigators in prosecutors. But later, the rich asshole acknowledged that Cohen did in fact represent him during his dealings with a woman who claims to have had an affair with the rich asshole and received a hush payment that may have violated federal law — a claim at tension with the story Cohen has told about the payment.
Not even two hours after the interview ended, his words were used against him in federal court. The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York submitted a letter to a federal judge noting that the rich asshole’s Fox & Friends comments supported their position. The government specifically cited the rich asshole’s assertion that Cohen handled a “tiny, tiny little fraction” of his overall legal work.
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times reported that the rich asshole’s advisers have been trying to prevent him from doing exactly what he did on Thursday — calling a cable show and ranting.
While the rich asshole regularly called Morning Joe during the campaign, he hasn’t done a TV interview with a non-Fox News host since May 11, 2017, when he sat down with NBC’s Lester Holt days after firing FBI director James Comey. During that interview, the rich asshole admitted that he fired Comey because of his frustration over the FBI’s investigation into his campaign — a revelation that opened the door to the appointment of Mueller and his investigation of the rich asshole for obstruction of justice.
As Mueller’s obstruction of justice investigation reportedly nears its end, the rich asshole is hoping that people have forgotten about his interview with Holt. Last week, the rich asshole tweeted that Comey “was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation” — a claim impossible to square with his comments to Holt.
‘This thing needs to conclude’: Jeff Sessions says Mueller probe is distracting the rich asshole from ‘France and North Korea’
Jeff Sessions (HouseAppropsGOP)
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Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he shared President some rich asshole’s “frustrations” with the special counsel probe and called for it to wrap up.
The attorney general testified Thursday before the House Appropriations Committee, saying the investigation overseen by special counsel Robert Mueller was distracting the president from national security matters.
“Look, I think the American people are concerned, and the president is concerned,” Sessions said. “He’s dealing with France and North Korea and Syria and taxes and regulations and border and crime, every day, and I wish — this thing needs to conclude,” Session said. “So I understand his frustrations, and I understand the American people’s frustrations.”
Rep. Evan Jenkins (R-WV) prompted the response by complaining that Hillary Clinton and other political enemies of the president had escaped special counsel scrutiny, which he said angered his constituents.
“At the very root of this, I think my constituents are frustrated, are angry, they see a double standard historically,” Jenkins said. “They want justice.”
Sessions, however, sounded disinclined to appoint a second special counsel to investigate alleged wrongdoing by the rich asshole’s opponents.
“I do not think we need to willy-nilly appoint special counsels, and as we can see, it can really take on a life of its own,” Sessions said.
‘Fox & Friends’ host admits the rich asshole and GOP do nothing for black voters
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Some things are too true for even Fox News to deny.
“Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade, usually a devoted apologist for the rich asshole, actually called him out for failing to deliver anything but empty words to black Americans.
In advance of the rich asshole’s bizarre call-in interview Thursday morning, the Fox friends were crowing about Kanye West’s support for the rich asshole when Kilmeade observed that Republicans have failed to reach out to black voters at all.
“The Republicans don’t try,” Kilmeade said. “They say ‘We’re not going to do that’ or ‘That’s an urban community, we’re going to lose that city or we’re going to lose that county,’ and I never understood why they feel that way. Go in there and find out what the African-American voter needs. Find out what their concerns are.”
Co-host Steve Doocy then tried to paint the rich asshole as an exception. As a candidate, Doocy said, the rich asshole “was very interested in that demographic, and talked about how they had been so poorly served in the past.”
“The president should serve them,” Kilmeade said. “Offer those programs out there, because he promised to do it. The unemployment numbers are down. They are trending the right way. Let’s see the programs and then it will be game on on Election Day.”
Kilmeade doesn’t seem to be making a just or moral argument for serving black voters, but rather, a political one. However, the admission itself is quite telling.
the rich asshole did indeed make an insulting play for African-American votes during the 2016 presidential election by asking them during his rallies, “What the hell do you have to lose?”
But that ploy was belied by the rich asshole’s constant and overt racism, which only escalated after he assumed office.
He praised white supremacists as “very fine people” and defended “beautiful” Confederate monuments. He referred to African nations as “shithole countries.” He has encouraged police brutality and launched dozens of attacks on prominent black Americans.
In short, the rich asshole has proved the emptiness of that “outreach.”
And as Kilmeade pointed out, the rich asshole has no policy accomplishments to earn him black votes — only an unemployment trend that began under President Obama.
The overwhelming majority of black voters continue to resist the rich asshole where it counts, at the ballot box. No amount of support from Kanye West is about to change that.
Fox News reporter calls out Pruitt for lying to his network — and gets yelled at by angry the rich asshole supporters
John Roberts (Fox News)
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Fox News reporter John Roberts on Thursday reacted with incredulity when the rich asshole EPA boss Scott Pruitt admitted to Congress that he had full knowledge of two massive raises that were handed out to two loyalists at his agency — directly contradicting what he told Fox News earlier this month.
According to a report from The Atlantic this month, Pruitt overrode the rich asshole administration objections to boost aide Sarah Greenwalt’s pay from $107,435 to $164,200, and aide Millan Hupp’s pay from $86,460 to $114,590. Both women have worked with Pruitt for years, dating back to his tenure as Oklahoma’s attorney general.
However, when asked about this by Fox News’ Ed Henry, Pruitt said that members of his staff were the ones who approved the raises, while insisting that he had no knowledge of them before learning about them through media reports.
Reacting to Pruitt’s congressional testimony, Roberts slammed Pruitt for lying to his colleague and said it might end up finally forcing the rich asshole to fire his embattled EPA chief.
“Scott Pruitt just told a Congressional Committee he gave his COS the green light to give raises to two EPA officials — in direct defiance of the WH — and contradicting what he told Fox News — that he wasn’t aware of the raises,” he wrote. “This may be the end of the line.”
Scott Pruitt just told a Congressional Committee he gave his COS the green light to give raises to two EPA officials. That - in direct defiance of the WH - and contradicting what he told @FoxNews - that he wasn’t aware of the raises. This may be the end of the line .....
While Roberts earned kudos from some followers for calling out Pruitt, many the rich asshole supporters pelted him with angry comments telling him that they didn’t care if Pruitt blatantly lied to them.
Check out some reactions below.
Not hardly. Shut up and stop criticizing my man Pruitt
Thank you for your breathless reporting about total BS
An avalanche of bias against a man doing a great job for the country and the environment...
Nobody cares except the media
They haven’t let him answer question! They cut him off and put words in his mouth that he didn’t say! Total disgrace, Chair should step down!
...end of what line? Pruitt is saving the country billions. Leave him alone. Trump can keep him unless Pruitt is impeached by the House and removed from office by the Senate.
I don't give a damn. He is the best EPA Administrator of all time. Let the Democrats grind their teeth over him.
Pruitt is doing his job! Exactly how POTUS has directed him! Cutting all the frivolous regulations Obama put in place! Why he is being attacked like he is! Roberts shouldn't you be working with your wife over at CNN! You worked for them once before
Who cares.
Four GOP senators dare Mitch McConnell to choose the rich asshole over country
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is now in a very tough spot — and his fellow Republicans helped put him there.
The Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill Thursday to protect special counsel Robert Mueller from being fired by, setting up a test for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has vowed to cover for the rich asshole by blocking a vote on it.
All eight Democrats on the committee were joined by four Republicans to pass the legislation to protect Mueller.
Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) crossed the aisle with committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), while most of the Republicans on the committee voted against protecting Mueller.
That vote puts McConnell squarely on the spot. After consistently opposing any such proposed legislation, McConnell told Fox News that he absolutely would not allow the full Senate to vote on such a measure.
“I’m the one who decides what we take to the floor,” McConnell said last week. “That’s my responsibility as the majority leader, and will not be having this on the floor of the Senate.”
McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), and other Republicans have refused to support any measure to protect Mueller, despite reports that the rich asshole has been looking for a way to fire the special counsel. Those Republicans have insisted no such action is “necessary” because they don’t believe the rich asshole would follow through with those threats.
Such arguments ignore the fact that the rich asshole has already fired people to try to obstruct investigations into his campaign and his administration. He has even tried to fire Mueller on at least two separate occasions.
And the rich asshole’s attacks on Mueller and his investigation have been escalating for months.
Now, McConnell must choose between keeping his promise to cover for the rich asshole or following the will of the people who elected these senators, people who have promised massive resistance should the rich asshole fire Mueller.
But McConnell chose the rich asshole over his country long ago, and won’t likely change now.
CNN panelist explains why Scott Pruitt scandal could destroy the rich asshole’s presidency: ‘No greater danger’
Sahil Kapur on CNN/Screenshot
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Don’t sleep on the Scott Pruitt scandal.
That was the message Bloomberg News reporter Sahil Kapur sent on CNN on Thursday, as a panel discussed embattled EPA boss Scott Pruitt’s rocky testimony before congress, in which he was told to his face that he was unfit to hold public office and ought to resign.
Pruitt’s scandals have not captured the public imagination the same way Stormy Daniels has, but Kapur pointed out that the rich asshole’s corruption is a narrative that could destroy him by undermining his base.
“There is no greater danger to President the rich asshole and his popularity than the appearance of corruption and swampiness,” Kapur said. “The magic of his candidacy was that people believed him when he said he was too rich to be bought off or corrupted, and the more these things come out, the more these drip-drip-drips come out, the easier it is for Democrats to run on this culture of corruption.”
Watch below.
the rich asshole’s disgraced ‘Dr. Ronny’becomes his 23rd failed nominee
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Dr. Ronny Jackson is out as the rich asshole continues to gut the government from the inside.
By nominating somebody who was completely unqualified to run the sprawling Department of Veterans Affairs, and then watching that nomination implode in spectacular fashion, the rich asshole continues his historic campaign to gut the federal government from inside.
the rich asshole’s doing that by refusing to fill hundreds of government vacancies, randomly dismantling his year-old cabinet, watching a historic number of advisers abandon the White House, and tapping people who are largely unqualified and then watching their nominations get scuttled.
Dr. Ronny Jackson — or “Dr. Ronny,” as the rich asshole called him during his bizarre Fox appearance — fell into that last category when he withdrew his VA nomination on Thursday morning. And by doing so, Jackson became at least the 23rd the rich asshole nominee who has failed to confirmed, or never even made it through the confirmation process, according to a tally from NBC News.
NBC News
Those failed personnel choices extend all across the federal government, including failed nominations at the State Department, Health and Human Services, the Treasury Department and the FDIC.
The cumulative failures mean the government isn’t functioning the way it should be.
Now, the botched handling of Jackson’s role means that the often-struggling VA will remain without a clear leader. And this will likely be the case for months to come.
But maybe that’s the way the rich asshole wants it, since he has sent a clear signal over the last year that leaving a federal agency rudderless and understaffed is something he approves of.
the rich asshole’s White House Presidential Personnel Office, which is tasked with filling thousands of government jobs, has been described as a juvenile wasteland, where young staffers hang out vaping and playing drinking games.
Even the conservative National Review recently rebuked the rich asshole for completely abandoning his executive branch responsibility to staff a functioning government.
“Of the top 640 jobs that require Senate confirmation, the Partnership for Public Service has calculated that fewer than half — 275 — have been confirmed and are on the job,” the magazine noted. “Another 144 people have been named or nominated but are awaiting confirmation. A total of 217 positions — a third of the total — have never had anyone named to fill them.”
The Jackson mess was telegraphed the moment his nomination was announced, and the White House could not given a coherent reason why Jackson, who had never managed more than a couple dozen employees, was qualified to run the second-largest federal department in the country.
Jackson’s only qualification seemed to be that the rich asshole liked him and that Jackson had effusively praised the rich asshole’s health during an infamous White House press briefing Jackson gave to reporters back in January.
Still, the nomination proceeded until more than 20 active duty and retired military officers reached out to the Senate Veterans Affairs committee, detailing shocking allegations about Jackson’s behavior, which included claims of excessive drinking.
the rich asshole campaigned in 2016 promising he’d only hire the “best people.” But it looks like the best people won’t work for the rich asshole, and he’s not even interested in hiring.
Rep. Joe Barton calls Scott Pruitt ‘the victim’ and thanks him for stopping Obama’s ‘radical clean air’ agenda
Joe Barton appears at a House hearing (screen grab)
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Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton on Thursday insisted that EPA Director Scott Pruitt had been a “victim” of Democrats because of news reports which accuse Pruitt of corruption.
At a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Thursday, Democrats repeatedly suggested that Pruitt should resign over the reports, but many of the Republicans praised the EPA director.
“You’re not the first person to be the victim of — for lack of a better term — Washington politics,” Barton told Pruitt. “You got picked to be the EPA administrator because of the service you provided for the great state of Oklahoma in fighting some of the Obama administration radical clean air policies.”
Barton went on to thank Pruitt for advising President some rich asshole to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.
“If you can’t debate the policies in Washington, you attack the personality,” Barton said regarding the reports of Pruitt’s misconduct. “And that’s what’s happening to you. Republicans do it when it’s a Democratic president. The Democrats do it when it’s a Republican president. In my opinion, that’s what’s happening to you.”
In a series of quick questions, Barton dismissed many of Pruitt’s scandals, including allegations that he rented a condo from a lobbyist who has business with the EPA and Pruitt’s use of charter jets and flying first class.
“You’ve been attacked for flying first class,” Barton explained. “Is that illegal?”
“That was approved by the travel office and security team at the EPA,” Pruitt replied.
“But that was not illegal,” Barton said, continuing his questioning. “There was an energy secretary under the Clinton administration, she leased party jets that were used by rock stars. Party jets. Not one time but several times. Have you ever rented a party jet?”
“No, congressman,” Pruitt answered.
“Okay, that’s good,” Barton remarked.
Watch the video below.
Scott Pruitt deflects blame for spending on secure phone booth, salary increases
Even Republicans took issue with spending $43,000 on a private communications system.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt placed the blame on senior staff members for spending $43,000 on a secure phone booth inside his office at the agency’s headquarters.
Speaking at a packed House committee hearing on Thursday, Pruitt told lawmakers that he instructed staffers to figure out a way to create a secure communications system in his private office. But the administrator emphasized that he did not approve spending $43,000 on the the secure phone booth.
“I gave direction to my staff to address that and out of that came a $43,000 expenditure that I did not approve. That is something that should not have occurred,” Pruitt told the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on environment, the first of two hearings he appeared at on Thursday. “Career individuals at the agency took that process through and signed off on it all the way through.”
Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-CA), who pressed Pruitt on his spending habits, said he found it a “bit odd” that Pruitt did not know such a large amount was being spent on the phone booth. “If something happens in my office, especially to the degree of $43,000, I would know about it before, during, and after.”
Last week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report that concluded the EPA violated federal law in spending $43,000 to install the private phone booth in Pruitt’s office by failing to notify Congress that it was exceeding the $5,000 limit for agency heads to furnish, redecorate, or otherwise make improvements to their offices.
A common theme throughout the day of hearings was that according to the EPA administrator, other people, not Pruitt, were responsible for the costly expenditures. Pruitt also has said he gave his chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, authority to approve salary increases for two of his close aides. But the EPA chief explained, “I was not aware of the amount.”
Later in the day, Pruitt testified before another congressional panel, the House Appropriations subcommittee on interior, environment, and related agencies, where he also was grilled on his spending habits. “I simply requested a secure line in my office,” Pruitt told the committee about the phone booth.
From using taxpayer money for first-class flights to enjoying a 20-member security detail, Pruitt has come under attack for his lavish spending. Financial documents obtained by the Associated Press revealed that over his first year as administrator, Pruitt spent almost $3 million on the security team. Pruitt also spentmore than $105,000 on first-class flights in his first year on the job, according to records EPA provided to the House Oversight Committee.
At the House appropriations subcommittee hearing, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), the top Democrat on the subcommittee, told Pruitt that publicly blaming EPA staff for controversial expenditures “seems to be a pattern” for him.
McCollum concluded: “Mr. Pruitt, I think it’s time that you resign.”
Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ) was one of the few Republicans to confront Pruitt about his spending habits. During the morning hearing before the House environment subcommittee, Lance said installation of the phone booth was unnecessary, given that the EPA headquarters building has two other sensitive compartmented information facilities, or SCIFs.
Lance said former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, who served under President George W. Bush, told him that she did not see a need for an enhanced communications system in her private office during her tenure at the agency.
“I do not think it is appropriate,” Lance said. “I think it was a waste of funds.”
For the salary increases, the EPA’s inspector general’s office issued an interim report last week that found agency staff went behind the backs of White House officials who had objected to at least two of the salary increases.
Under questioning from Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) at the morning hearing, Pruitt acknowledged that he did have some knowledge of the raises. The statement contradicted what he had told Fox News earlier this month when he said: “I did not know that they got the pay raises until yesterday.”
Sarah Greenwalt, a 30-year-old attorney working as Pruitt’s senior counsel, received a $56,000 raise and now makes $164,200. And 26-year old Millan Hupp, Pruitt’s scheduling director, got a $28,000 raise and now makes over $114,590.
Later in the hearing, Pruitt said, “I was aware of one of those individuals” who was receiving a raise, in response to questions from Rep. Ryan Costello (R-IL), another Republican member of the environment subcommittee who criticized Pruitt’s spending decisions.
The weirdly fascinating reason that the rich asshole blocked the release of some JFK assassination files
President John F. Kennedy and Mrs. Jackie Kennedy in motorcade, 03 May 1961 (Photo: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)
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Of all the fascinating and weird things about the JFK assassination story, the veil of official secrecy that still surrounds the subject a half-century later is one of the most fascinating and weird.
Leave aside the implausible theories of conspiracy and the smug assurances that a little man shot a big man, get over it. The extreme and strange secrecy around the government’s information about the JFK assassination continues—even as the CIA insists we already know the whole truth of who killed a popular liberal president a long, long time ago.
On President the rich asshole’s April 26 deadline for full disclosure of the JFK files, that veil of secrecy is still in place. According to the Mary Ferrell Foundation’s analysis of the National Archives database, some 21,890 JFK files remain wholly or partially secret. Approximately 85 percent of the still-secret files are held by the CIA and FBI.
Such secrecy not only stokes JFK conspiracy theories and the specter of a “deep state.” It also discourages historians, journalists and students from completing the historical record of JFK’s murder. Official secrecy helps cede the question of who killed JFK to the social media cohort educated by InfoWars and Reddit. Nothing abets the conspiracy mongering like CIA secrecy.
As a journalist and historian who has written about these files since I broke the story of their existence back in May 2013, I’m less interested in what they say about conspiracy theories than in what they reveal about Washington’s response to a spectacular crime. The president of the United States was gunned down in broad daylight, and no one was ever brought to justice. No one at the CIA or FBI even lost their job over this atrocious intelligence failure. Now tell me exactly, how did that happen?
What the Files Show
As editor of the JFK Facts blog, I hoped the release of the last of the government’s JFK files in October 2017 would shed new light some aspect of the story. Was Kennedy’s death the work of unknown conspirators, abetted by CIA officers? Or the work of a lone gunman, abetted by sheer CIA incompetence?
As news organizations worldwide clamored to know what might be in the last of the government’s JFK files, President the rich asshole tweeted boldly but proceeded cautiously. He acceded to pressure from CIA director Mike Pompeo and delayed full implementation of the law for six months.
In November and December, there was a partial release of files. The National Archives posted four large batches of newly declassified CIA, NSA and FBI files about JFK’s assassination. As reporters and researchers delved into the records they found some revelations about FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton.
They also found many files had not been released. Many still had blanked out paragraphs and even whole pages. These files concerned top CIA officers involved in the assassination story such as David Phillips, Howard Hunt, and George Joannides.
It was weirdly fascinating, which is to say it was business as usual in the rich asshole’s Washington. The president’s October 26 tweet, “JFK Files are released, long ahead of schedule!” was wholly misleading. In reality, thousands of JFK files are still secret and their release is way behind schedule. Sad!
The prospects that scholars, journalists, and interested citizens will ever see all of these files this week are not bright. The reason is found in the recently released transcript of what Angleton told Senate investigators behind closed doors in September 1975.
“It is inconceivable,” he said behind closed doors, “that a secret intelligence arm of the Government has to comply with all of the overt orders of the Government.”
This bold assertion that the CIA could defy government orders did not go over well with the Senate Intelligence Committee or the public. Under withering questioning from the committee chair Senator Frank Church, Angleton walked back the remark. The exchange was so sensitive that the CIA suppressed the transcript for 40 years. The CIA doesn’t want you to know that top officials sometimes talk that bluntly.
Angleton’s axiom, once controversial, seems to be alive and well in Washington.
When it comes to the JFK files, the position of the overt, elected government is clear.
Then Congress voted unanimously in favor of the JFK Records Act, which mandates the release of all files. The act was signed into law George H.W. Bush, a Republican, and implemented by Bill Clinton, a Democrat. President the rich asshole favors full disclosure. Yet the will of the people—it seems a quaint concept these days—has not been achieved despite the letter and spirit of the law.
Indeed, since October 26, 2017, the CIA has flouted the JFK Records Act. The law gives the agency the right to postpone the release of records with the approval of the president. the rich asshole’s October 26, 2017, order on JFK files conforms with the law.
But the law also requires the CIA to provide a declassified summary of the reasons for postponement for each and every JFK file. That has not been done for the 21,000-plus record withheld from public view since last October.
Angleton is dead, but his shadow is long. In 2018 the secret intelligence arm of the government is saying, with its actions, that it does not have to comply with the overt orders of the government, at least not as they concern ancient JFK assassination files.
Will the rich asshole Cave?
Most JFK scholars and open government journalists who follow the JFK files story are pessimistic that the rich asshole will deliver on his tweeted promise to open all the JFK files, save the names of living persons.
Nate Jones, director of the FOIA Project of the non-profit National Security Archive, said, “I think the rich asshole will act like the presidents before him and have his opinions dictated by the disingenuous but hair-on-fire memorandums from the intelligence agencies warning of ‘grave irreparable harm’ to US espionage capabilities if all the information about what US spies were doing nearly 55 years ago during the JFK assassination is released.”
Jones predicts “the intelligence community will instruct to the president to sign off on the continued withholding of a substantial amount of material, and the president will listen to their orders.”
Larry Sabato, University of Virginia professor and JFK author, concurs. “My bet is the rich asshole will do whatever his new BFF Pompeo recommends. That means CIA will be protected.”
J. Pat Brown, executive editor of Muck Rock, a non-profit, collaborative investigative news site, said in an interview, “the original deadline was the last hope that the process would be held to any standard of control. [For the CIA] was more of a statement, ‘We can delay this as long as possible.’ So I would not be at all surprised if they continue to stall.”
Not in Your Lifetime
Phil Shenon, former New York Times reporter and JFK author, thinks last October was “the best shot” for full disclosure.
“I can’t see why, at a moment when his presidency is in greater peril, the rich asshole would now risk antagonizing allies like Pompeo on something like this,” Shenon wrote in an email.
“It is worth noting,” he went on, “that Chief Justice Warren’s famous comment that Americans might not see some assassination documents ‘in your lifetime,’ later described as a blunder that did not reflect his real views, may prove to be true.
Joan Mellen, Temple University historian and biographer of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, thinks the rich asshole is not competent to judge the issues.
“Neither he nor anyone in his government seems qualified to make the determination [of what should be released]. But if they found someone at Fox News to feed this information, they still would not do it. It is not, and has not been since 1963 in the interest of the government that participated in this murder to expose themselves as being caught in this act…. ”
One of the few JFK authors who predicts the rich asshole will enforce full disclosure is Gerald Posner, author of Case Closed, an anti-conspiratorial bestseller.
“I think POTUS will honor his commitment to release everything on April 26,” Posner wrote in an email. “It is unquestionably the right thing to do. The public has a right to know what its government knows about the murder of JFK.”
Posner says the rich asshole was uniquely qualified to force full disclosure.
“What was always needed to set these files free was an unconventional president, someone who refused to be caught up in the byzantine legal and technical morass utilized by the CIA, FBI and other agencies to keep files secret,” Posner wrote.
Peter Dale Scott, former diplomat turned literature professor, whose JFK books helped popularize the notion of “deep politics” in American life, thinks the rich asshole will ultimately accede to the CIA’s wishes.
“My uninformed guess is that the rich asshole may intend to release all, and perhaps even back this with some efforts unseen by us,” Scott wrote, “but that he will not avail against the entrenched forces who believe their own interests are the nation’s.”
Asked about the April 26 deadline, Jesse Walker, author of United States of Paranoia, wrote “I know better than to try to predict the behavior of some rich asshole. All I’ll say is that I hope some advocate of government transparency can get booked on Fox and Friends that morning.”
Republicans criticize Democratic lawmakers for asking Pruitt questions about his ethics scandals
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt faced lawmakers on Capitol Hill today.
On Thursday morning, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt appeared before the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Environment for the first of two hearings on Capitol Hill.
It was Pruitt’s first appearance before Congress since a cascade of scandals and ethics questions broke, from Pruitt’s $50-a-night condo deal with the wife of an energy lobbyist to reports that Pruitt reassigned staff critical of his spending habits.
But Republican lawmakers were largely disinterested in pressing Pruitt for answers on those scandals, preferring instead to praise the administrator for his deregulatory actions over the last year.
“I was hoping that we could stay on policy as much as we could today, but I see some just can’t resist the limelight,” Rep. McKinley (R-WV) said during the hearing, describing Pruitt’s scandals as “a classic display of innuendo and McCarthyism.”
At the outset of April, when news of Pruitt’s condo arrangement first broke, conservatives’ support was strongly behind Pruitt. But ahead of Thursday’s hearing, there was some feeling that support from conservative lawmakers was beginning to waver.
On Sunday, in response to a question on Twitter, Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ) said that Pruitt “should resign” and that he was the “wrong fit from the start for [sic] agency dedicated to protecting our environment” — bringing the total of Republican lawmakers calling for Pruitt’s resignation to five.
But any criticism voiced earlier by conservatives was not voiced on Thursday. Instead, at the first hearing on Thursday morning, Republican lawmakers largely defended Pruitt against the barrage of ethical questions, shifting the blame from the administrator onto the press, Democratic lawmakers, and opponents of Pruitt’s anti-regulatory agenda.
“If you can’t debate the policies, you attack the personality, and that’s what’s happening to you,” Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), said, adding that Pruitt was “the victim of Washington politics.”
Barton then defended Pruitt’s history of first class travel for EPA business — which cost some $105,000 during the administrator’s first year — saying that it’s not “illegal” for government officials to fly first class.
Federal rules require government employees to fly coach except in very limited circumstances, such as when there are no coach flights readily available or in the face of serious security threats. Pruitt has said that his first class flights were due to security concerns, though the Senate Democrats argue that the EPA has not produced proof of any credible threats against Pruitt while flying.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) has also questioned Pruitt and the EPA’s justification for first class flights.
Republican lawmakers also spent time criticizing their Democratic colleagues for pressing Pruitt on ethical concerns during the morning hearing. Rep. Gregg Harper(R-MS), who asked a single question about whether Pruitt had ever reassigned staff that disagreed with his policies, accused Democratic lawmakers of participating in “political blood sport to try and destroy anybody associated with the rich asshole administration.” Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH) called Democrats’ attempts to hold Pruitt accountable for his ethics questions “shameful.”
“I think it’s shameful today that this hearing has turned into a personal attack hearing, and a shameful attempt to denigrate the work that is being done at the EPA and with this administration,” Johnson said, following a line of questioning by Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) about a home Pruitt purchased and rented to another lawmaker during his time as a state legislator in Oklahoma.
Johnson’s criticism of Democratic lawmakers came despite the Republican leadership’s stated goal of addressing some of Pruitt’s ethical concerns during the hearing. In his opening statement, Environment Subcommittee Chairman Rep. John Shimkus said that while he found the scandals “a distraction,” they were nonetheless something “this committee cannot ignore.”
Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) also said during his opening statement that the committee should address questions surrounding Pruitt’s ethical issues and use of taxpayer dollars.
“Members on both sides of the aisle have some serious questions about the management and operations of the agency,” said Walden, who serves as the chairman of the full Energy & Commerce Committee, during his opening statement. “We expect you to answer these questions fully and truthfully.”
When it came time to questioning, however, neither Shimkus nor Walden appeared too keen to press Pruitt on his ethics issues. Shimkus allowed Pruitt to take a minute and a half to explain, in his own words, his scandals, leaving the administrator to call the issues “a distraction to our agenda.”
Walden, for his part, asked Pruitt to provide the committee with “all the documents and information EPA produces” for the numerous federal inquiries currently underway.
“My question is pretty easy,” Walden said, perhaps unintentionally summing up the Republican lawmakers’ approach to Pruitt’s scandals.
the rich asshole says hands-off approach to Justice Dept. could change: Fox News interview
Jeff Sessions and some rich asshole (Photos: Gage Skidmore/Flickr and AFP Photo/SAUL LOEB)
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President some rich asshole said on Thursday the hands-off approach he has taken to the U.S. Justice Department given the probe into possible collusion between his campaign and Russia could change, comments that could re-ignite concerns he might move to impede the investigation.
“Because of the fact that they have this witch hunt going on with people in the Justice Department that shouldn’t be there, they have a witch hunt against the president of the United States going on, I’ve taken the position – and I don’t have to take this position and maybe I’ll change – that I will not be involved with the Justice Department,” the rich asshole said in an interview with Fox News Channel.
In the interview, the rich asshole railed at former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey for what he said were illegal leaks of classified information, and suggested the Justice Department should be pursuing charges against him. Comey has said he never leaked any classified information.
“I am very disappointed in my Justice Department,” the rich asshole said. “I may change my mind at some point, because what’s going on is a disgrace. It’s an absolute disgrace.”
the rich asshole has frequently criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his decision to recuse himself from matters relating to the Russia probe, and has blasted both Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the investigation, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees it.
Many Democrats have expressed concern that the rich asshole may try to remove either Rosenstein or Mueller.
Many Democrats have expressed concern that the rich asshole may try to remove either Rosenstein or Mueller.
the rich asshole has denied there was any collusion between his campaign and Russia – and he did so again on Thursday – and Russia has denied interfering in the U.S. election, as U.S. intelligence agencies have charged.
POLITICS
Here’s The White House Questionnaire For GOP Candidates Who Want the rich asshole’s Backing
It asks about immigration, Pakistan and trade.
The White House has a few questions for candidates in Republican primaries hoping for President some rich asshole’s endorsement.
Do you support ending foreign aid to Pakistan? How about withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership? Did you back the president’s ban on visa-holders from several Muslim-majority countries? Do you support the president’s immigration proposals, including giving DACA recipients a path to citizenship? How about his proposal for steel and aluminum tariffs?
Candidates meeting with the White House in recent weeks and months are leaving with an “Opinion Leader Questionnaire” from the Office of Political Affairs, with eight yes-or-no questions to fill out and space to elaborate on their reasoning. The questions range from layups to relatively obscure issues. Some of the questions are potentially divisive in a GOP primary.
The document, described to HuffPost by three GOP sources on condition of anonymity, reflects how the White House hopes to use GOP primaries to move the Republican Party in the rich asshole’s direction. While former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s dream of a nationwide insurgency against incumbent Republicans has gone up in smoke, the White House is still looking to turn the GOP into a more populist party.
“It’s necessary for the White House to want to make sure the candidates President the rich asshole lines up behind share his views on issues like trade, immigration and an America first foreign policy,” said one former White House official.
Here are the questions included in the document:
- “Do you support or oppose President the rich asshole’s appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the United States Supreme Court?”
- “Do you support or oppose President the rich asshole’s decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multinational trade agreement?”
- “Do you support or oppose President the rich asshole’s Executive Order to suspend the issuance of visas and other immigration benefits to nationals of countries of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen?”
- “Do you support or oppose the repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate within the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017?”
- “Do you support or oppose the President’s intention to withhold foreign security assistance to Pakistan?”
- “Do you support or oppose President the rich asshole’s Infrastructure Initiative, which calls for $200 billion in Federal funds to spur at least $1.5 trillion in infrastructure investments with partners at the State, local, Tribal, and private level?”
- “On January 30, 2018, President the rich asshole released a framework with the following four proposals to reform our immigration system: 1. Establish a $25 billion trust fund for the border wall system, ports of entry and exit, and northern border improvements 2. Promote nuclear family migration by allowing immigration sponsorships of spouses and minor children only 3. End the visa lottery program 4. Provide legal status for DACA recipients and certain other DACA-eligible illegal immigrants. Do you support or oppose President the rich asshole’s framework for immigration reform?”
- “Do you support or oppose President the rich asshole’s imposition of 25 percent tariffs on steel imports and 10 percent tariffs on aluminum imports?”
After each question, respondents are given the chance to check “yes” or “no,” plus a box to explain the answer.
The document appears to be evolving; some campaigns had received a seven-question version that didn’t ask about the steel or aluminum tariffs. The version viewed by HuffPost was dated March 16 and requested answers by March 30.
Of the eight questions, five divide at least some elements of the GOP. Economic conservatives and free-traders have revolted against the rich asshole’s protectionist moves, including the tariffs and his decision to throw away the TPP, a 12-nation trade deal negotiated by the Obama administration.
Republicans who favor a robust American presence abroad are likely to question his desire to cut off aid to Pakistan. And conservatives are often unenthusiastic about the rich asshole’s infrastructure plan.
The most controversial might be the question on the rich asshole’s immigration principles, where border-state Republicans are often skeptical of the president’s proposed border wall and immigration hawks don’t like the decision to include permanent legal status for DACA recipients. When a proposal based on the framework came up for a vote in February, it received just 39 votes, with GOP senators opposing the proposal from both the center and the right.
While previous administrations hadn’t issued formal questionnaires to candidates, it was standard for them to gather intelligence on candidates and political leaders meeting with the president.
“The political office is trying to gather the information they need to inform the president,” said Scott Jennings, a GOP strategist who worked in the White House political office under the George W. Bush administration. “It’s absolutely their responsibility to know the political beliefs of the people the president meets with or endorses.”
The document isn’t just being given to candidates, and not every candidate running in a GOP primary has received one. The White House has also reportedly sent the document to state-level Republican committee members and other influential members of the party.
Lawyers for the rich asshole, Cohen to return to court over seized documents
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President some rich asshole's personal lawyer Michael Cohen exits a hotel in New York City, U.S., April 11, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
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A federal judge is expected to weigh who should get the first look at documents seized from U.S. President some rich asshole’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, at a hearing in Manhattan on Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood has ordered the hearing to discuss the possible appointment of an independent official known as a special master to review the documents and determine whether they are shielded by attorney-client privilege before handing them over to prosecutors.
Lawyers for Cohen and the rich asshole, who are seeking to limit prosecutors’ ability to review the documents, are expected to appear at the hearing.
Attorney-client privilege shields communications between a lawyer and a client, with some exceptions.
A lawyer for Cohen said at a court hearing last week that in addition to the rich asshole, Cohen’s clients included Republican donor Elliott Broidy and conservative Fox News commentator and the rich asshole supporter Sean Hannity.
Hannity has said he has had only “brief discussions” about legal matters with Cohen and never retained him.
Prosecutors have said the documents should be reviewed by a “taint team” of lawyers within their own office, who would be walled off from the main prosecution team. Cohen filed a legal action to block them from reviewing the documents, arguing that either his lawyers or a special master should get a first look.
Lawyers for the rich asshole have also argued that they should be allowed the first look at documents related to the president. In a court filing on Wednesday, they said that the rich asshole would personally “make himself available, as needed, to aid in our privilege review on his behalf.”
Wood said at a hearing last week that she believed a taint team could be fair, but that a special master might help ensure “the perception of fairness.”
Both prosecutors and Cohen’s lawyers last week submitted a list of candidates for special master.
Cohen has admitted paying $130,000 to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, before the 2016 election to secure her silence about a sexual relationship she said she had with the rich asshole. Daniels has sued to end her nondisclosure agreement.
On Wednesday, Cohen said in a filing in Los Angeles federal court that he would assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in connection with the civil lawsuit filed by Daniels.
Prosecutors are investigating Cohen for possible bank and tax fraud, possible campaign law violations in connection with the payment to Daniels, and perhaps other matters related to the rich asshole’s campaign, a person familiar with the probe has said.
The investigation stems in part from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into possible collusion between the rich asshole’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, something the rich asshole has repeatedly denied.
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