New documents suggest the rich asshole administration rigged military panel on transgender ban
It just doesn't add up.
The process that led to the implementation of President the rich asshole’s transgender military ban in March is becoming clearer, thanks to a trove of new documents that shed some light on the otherwise murky closed-door dealings.
Four different lawsuits are currently challenging the ban, which was first announced in a tweet last summer and then re-issued on March 23. A ThinkProgress review of several documents included in discovery finds a massive disconnect between what was discussed in the meetings and what was ultimately recommended, reinforcing concerns that the process was rigged from the beginning — in favor of a ban.
The documents offer a limited glimpse into the military panel that convened between October and January to study the potential consequences of such a ban, but they do nothing to help justify it. They include agendas from all 13 panel meetings, minutes from the first five of those meetings, and some other supplementary documents that guided the discussion.
Many of the details from the documents are redacted to block anything that might convey the panel’s “deliberative process,” i.e. the ways in which the panel used the information provided to make their determinations. The names of every guest who spoke at the meetings, as well as the “other attendees” present, were also blacked out.
What was left unredacted, however, is still revealing. Discussion at the first meeting (October 13, 2017) suggests that the military panel was divided on whether to allow trans service. Some offered positive comments about trans service members, but others expressed concerns about how “individual desires” might dictate what treatment they might receive. They seemed to believe that there should be a clear line as to what transition steps are “medically necessary” and which aren’t that could be objectively applied.
A “vast majority” of the panelists also expressed their belief that transition plans would make service members non-deployable for upwards of two years, counting hormone therapy and surgeries. It’s unclear where they came up with these estimates. The RAND study that informed the decision to lift the ban on trans service under President Obama rejected concerns that hormone therapy would have any impact on deployability and measured impacts from various surgeries in weeks — not years. It’s possible that unrealistic estimates offered by conservative groups to justify the ban had shaped their thinking.
At the four meetings that followed, the panel heard from various guests, including a group of nine current transgender service members, a panel of military medical experts, and a panel of civilian medical experts. Two of the trans service members who presented at the October 19 meeting, Navy Lieutenant Commander Blake Dremann and Army Staff Sergeant Patricia King, spoke to ThinkProgress about their experiences talking with the panel.
According to Dremann, each service member shared their personal story, and the panel’s subsequent questions focused primarily on medical care and deployability. None of the speakers had missed any deployments nor had any concerns with their units. Dremann noted that many panel members had been part of the group that previously decided to end the ban, with the exception of the new undersecretaries.
“There were a lot of head nods,” he said, suggesting that the panel was already familiar with the experiences of trans service members. “I didn’t get a sense that anyone took away that [letting transgender people serve] was a horrible idea.”
King described to the panel in detail how easily she was able to manage each of her surgeries, all within the course of one year. She had undergone the Defense Department’s first voice feminization surgery, which went very well and was managed entirely during the previous Christmas break. She’d undergone breast augmentation surgery, which she paid for herself, requiring only a four-day weekend. An Army surgeon completed her facial feminization surgery during her summer break, again having minimal impact on her service. She had also been scheduled for a gender reassignment surgery, which ended up taking place over Thanksgiving.
Combined with the Christmas break, King only missed three weeks of work.
In anticipation of her need to take light duty after that, King said she had also arranged with her unit to attend classes at an Army school. “This is what happens when a soldier supports their unit and a unit supports their soldier,” she explained. “We figured out the best time to have the surgery and the best way to use the time. They sent me to a school and I learned.”
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Still, some of the panel members wrestled with understanding transgender identity, with one of the military leaders asking, “When are you not transgender anymore?” According to King, he was trying to figure out whether a person no longer needs that label if they completed all necessary medical interventions. As documented in the minutes, one of the trans service members replied, “I am no longer transgender when it is no longer relevant.”
Both Dremann and King left the meeting feeling very optimistic about the direction the panel was headed. King said that, from her perspective, there wasn’t any question about whether they would continue to allow trans military members to serve. It simply sounded like the panel was simply asking how they might revise the policy to improve trans service.
“They wanted to know how trans service was being received and if they got it right,” she said. “That’s how I walked away from it. They were leaders dedicated to their service members.”
“We were as surprised by what was said in the [final] recommendations, as a lot of other people were, because that was not our experience talking to the panel members,” Dremann said. “They seemed to realize that we had not caused any problems with the units or with our medical care.”
Other experts’ remarks at subsequent panel meetings likewise only spoke to letting transgender people serve.
On October 26, the panel heard from three military medical experts. The experts voiced concerns they had about how trans service members are currently treated, but none broached the subject of them serving.
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For instance, with the ban looming, some experts said they were worried that service members may “[rush] to surgery” before being kicked out. They also expressed concern about how current policy for changing a service member’s gender marker is burdensome because it requires “completion of the medical treatment plan,” whatever that treatment plan is. And while they noted that suicide risk is high for individuals with untreated gender dysphoria, they said that suicidal ideation significantly decreases with treatment.
The military medical experts also addressed questions about how beginning cross-sex hormones would impact deployability. Ideally, a patient should receive lab work every 90 days until there is six months of hormonal stability. The experts suggested that there could be some side effects to hormone withdrawal, but also said that “it would be unlikely that an individual would be unable to take cross-sex hormones anywhere in the world.” The endocrinologist also noted that “roughly three times more cisgender men want testosterone supplements than transgender patients,” so hormone treatment is not a concern unique to transgender service members.
Two meetings later, on November 9, a group of three civilian medical experts refuted the previous experts’ concerns about hormonal withdrawal. They also explained that it wouldn’t matter if a service member missed a blood test because of deployment, because it would just freeze their current progress. “From an endocrinologist’s perspective,” the minutes recount, “there is no reason why a transgender [s]ervice member on cross-sex hormones could not deploy — it would just restrict the ability of the individual to have their dosages adjusted because that requires routine monitoring.”
Questions from the panel still suggested a lack of understanding among some of its members. For example, one member asked the civilian medical experts “if transgenderism could be cured.” One of the experts confirmed, “Gender dysphoria is a consequence of a failure to treat gender incongruence and relief can be achieved in numerous ways.”
Both groups of medical experts conveyed that allowing transgender service was the right call. Implementing a ban would hurt trans people who continue to serve in silence as well as civilians stigmatized by the ban. One medical expert also confirmed that allowing transgender transitions would “increase the lethality and readiness of the force” by “providing health care to an unserved population.”
Without minutes for the subsequent meetings, only a few other clues about the outcome are available from the remaining documents.
For example, a compilation of the administrative data presented during the panels offers an insight from the sixth meeting, where the panel heard from a “Retention and Non-deployable workgroup.” According to that group, “Mature theaters (Korea, Afghanistan) would likely be able to support transgender Service members with mental health and medical support.” This confirms what the medical experts said about deployability not being a concern.
Another “Data Extracts” document suggests that medical costs for service members with gender dysphoria (GD) have risen “nearly 3 times compared to a non-GD service member.” But the accompanying chart shows that the overall costs to the military have been as minuscule as the RAND study predicted. RAND estimated that the military would spend between $2.4 million and $8.4 million per year covering trans service members’ health needs — about a 00.1 percent increase in military health expenditures. In 2017, the first full year of open trans service, the military only spent about $2.2 million on transgender health needs.
The only other possible clue to the panel’s deliberations was a change of leadership. In early December, Robert Wilkie took over the panel following his confirmation as Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. the rich asshole had nominated Wilkie for the position back in July — just one week before he tweeted out the ban on trans military service. Wilkie has not spoken publicly about his views on the issue of trans service, but he previously worked for Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), whose anti-LGBTQ views included defending HB2, North Carolina’s 2016 law allowing open discrimination against transgender people.
Wilkie’s first meeting overseeing the panel was on December 7. Unless he was one of the redacted attendees at the earlier meetings, this means he only participated in the last five of the panel’s meetings. On January 11, Wilkie issued an action memo to Mattis with recommendations to reinstate the ban that mirror what Mattis later recommended to the rich asshole.
Contrary to previous assumptions, this memo is the only final work product from the committee. Wilkie’s recommendations include:
- Transgender people can only join the military if they serve “in their biological sex.” In other words, if they took any steps to transition (or plan to), they are forbidden from joining.
- Transgender people who are already serving may serve openly, “but only in their biological sex and without receiving cross-sex hormone therapy or surgical transition support.” In other words, for trans people to continue serving, they have to forego transitioning and any related medical treatment.
- A diagnosis of gender dysphoria (past or present) is disqualifying, except for those service members who came out as transgender when the ban was originally lifted.
Substantiation for these recommendations is found nowhere in the documents currently available.
As both ThinkProgress and Slate previously reported, Vice President Pence created his own separate “working group,” which included anti-LGBTQ activists like Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Ryan T. Anderson of the Heritage Foundation. Despite rumors that the military panel and Mattis himself favored allowing transgender people to serve, it was Pence’s recommendation to ban service, sources claim, that “effectively overruled” the panel’s work. Indeed, the final recommendations directly mirror the anti-transgender talking points those conservative groups regularly use.
The court record suggests, then, that Pence’s influence was already at work when Wilkie submitted his action memo. While questions remain, that continues to be the only explanation for how a panel that only heard information affirming transgender military service arrived at the opposite conclusion.
In the weeks since the new policy was issued, the White House has stood by the panel’s inexplicable decision to ban trans service members from the military, despite mounting criticism from major medical organizations, all of whom have provided evidence disproving the administration’s rationale, and all of the arguments presented in the panel experts’ presentations. All four service chiefshave also admitted under oath they have no knowledge of unit cohesion concerns — one of the primary justifications for the ban — related to trans people serving, once again mirroring the information presented by those who addressed the military panel.
Additionally, six former U.S. surgeons general have rejected the the rich asshole administration’s medical justifications for the ban.
This past week, a group of 49 senators also wrote a letter condemning Defense Secretary James Mattis for “establishing a new ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,'” calling it a “discriminatory” policy that will “harm our nation’s military.”
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May 2, 2018
the rich
asshole's outmanned legal team faces another major obstacle — getting his top
lawyers security clearances.
Ever since
the rich asshole’s top defense lawyer, John Dowd, abruptly
resigned in frustration that his client wouldn’t take his
advice, the rich asshole’s understaffed legal team has been careening from one
crisis to another.
Now, with
special counsel Robert Mueller closing in, and raising the
possibility of subpoenaing the rich asshole to demand answers
to the yearlong Russia investigation, it turns out the rich asshole’s remaining
attorneys don’t even have the proper security clearance needed to broker a deal
with Mueller’s team.
“some rich
asshole’s current team of lawyers lacks the security clearances needed to
discuss sensitive issues related to a possible presidential interview with
Special Counsel Robert Mueller,” Bloomberg reports.
“When Dowd quit in March over disagreements with the rich asshole on legal
strategy, Jay Sekulow became the lead lawyer on the investigation and is still
waiting for his clearance.”
Sekulow
isn’t even a criminal defense attorney. His background is arguing freedom of
religion cases. Rudy Giuliani recently joined the rich asshole’s team, but he’s
not a criminal defense attorney either.
The rather
stunning security clearance revelation indicates the rich asshole’s outmanned
legal team may not be up to the daunting challenge of defending him.
To date,
at least one dozen prominent, white-collar attorneys have refused offers
to help defend the rich asshole.
Attorneys
apparently don’t want to work for, and risk ruining their reputations for,
clients who disrespect them publicly, refuse to take their legal advice, and
have a habit of not paying their bills.
The
security clearance revelation also comes as the White House’s attempted
stalling game with Mueller appears to be running out of time.
Ever since
last winter, Mueller has been pressing for an interview with the rich asshole,
which presents all kinds of dangers for a man who cannot tell the truth.
For
months, the rich asshole’s attorney’s have reportedly been trying to limit the
scope or any potential interview, and even alternatively arguing the rich
asshole’s simply too busy to
be bothered with a formal Q&A about his possible involvement with Russian
operatives during the 2016 campaign.
But
ignoring Mueller simply won’t be an option. His team is examining a wide array
of troublesome topics, as the leaked list of
his questions from Monday reveals.
If the
rich asshole refuses, Mueller has signaled he’s willing to issue a subpoena for
a grand jury appearance in order to get answers.
Meanwhile,
the rich asshole’s top attorney is awaiting his security clearance.
Here’s how the rich asshole is gaming the New York Times by dribbling leaks — just like the Russians did
U.S. President some rich asshole and first lady Melania the rich asshole in Washington, U.S. July 12, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
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Perhaps after failing democracy in the worst way, you might think staff at the New York Times had learned their lesson. This week there’s reason to be worried that they didn’t — and not because of reporter Maggie Haberman’s feigned umbrage over the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, in an apparent effort to ingratiate herself with White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. (As bad as that was.) The real concern is that the Times is getting played by the rich asshole administration in almost the same way it got played by the Russians, which suggests the Gray Lady’s staffers are still allowing the desire for breaking news to trump their civic duty
At issue is a recent story from Michael Schmidt about a list of questions that Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller reportedly wants to ask the rich asshole, many of them focused on questions of possible collusion with Russian agents or attempts to obstruct justice. The story isn’t all that surprising in itself, but it nonetheless has that frisson of intrigue guaranteed to drive traffic: Secret documents obtained from anonymous sources, the suggestion that the Russia investigation is on the verge of a breakthrough, a hint that the president himself may soon be in the hot seat. As I write this on Tuesday evening, the story has been at the top of the Times homepage for nearly a full day, and became the basis for a dramatic episode of the popular podcast “The Daily.”
But there are plenty of visible hints that the Times may be being used by the rich asshole administration for propaganda purposes. While Schmidt is being tight-lipped about who gave him the list of questions — he denies getting it directly from the rich asshole’s lawyers directly — there’s good reason to believe the leak came from someone close to the president. As Schmidt indicates, the list of questions came out of a meeting between Mueller’s team and the rich asshole’s lawyers, who are continuing to negotiate over Mueller’s desire to interview the president. It’s unlikely that Mueller or his investigators are the leakers — the special counsel’s office is notoriously tight-lipped — and the rich asshole’s associates are the only realistic alternative source.
As soon as the Times story appeared, the rich asshole and his cronies snapped into action, publicly rending their garments and lamenting the evils of the leak — a leak that almost certainly came from someone on Team the rich asshole. Sean Hannity, who speaks to the rich asshole in private on the regular, appeared on Fox News shortly thereafter to say, “These New York Times questions, you could use it to burn in your fireplace tonight.”
To no one’s surprise, the rich asshole was on Twitter first thing on Tuesday morning, stoking outrage about leaks whose source, to speculate just a little, was almost certainly not a mystery.
The whole thing may seem bizarre at first blush. Why would the rich asshole and his lawyers leak a story and then run around publicly pretending that the rich asshole is the victim of an unfair and outrageous leak? If that’s what they’re doing, it actually makes a dark sort of sense. the rich asshole benefits both from increasing the noise and confusion around the Russia investigation and from stoking the narrative that he’s the victim of some kind of conspiracy involving the “deep state” and the “fake news” media.
Leaking a story and then acting like a victim of the leak seems like exactly the kind of plot the rich asshole and his crew would hatch to advance their narratives. The thing to remember is that the rich asshole has a long history of manipulating journalists, and of planting stories in the press while pretending they don’t come from him.
In the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, the rich asshole would frequently pretend to be other people while speaking to journalists, trying to trick reporters into giving him favorable coverage. He did this to get tabloids to portray him as a sexually dynamic heartbreaker. He did it trying to convince journalists that women who wouldn’t deign to speak to him were secretly having sex with him. He did it to deflect negative coverage about destroying a priceless work of art he had promised the city he would preserve.
As Jonathan Greenberg detailed in a recent Washington Post article, he had many interactions with the rich asshole as a reporter for Forbes in the ’80s. the rich asshole employed a whole range of complicated and subversive tactics to convince the magazine to list him as one of the wealthiest men in America, which he almost certainly was not. the rich asshole would pretend to be a third party named “John Barron” or would have his lawyer, the infamous Roy Cohn, claim to have documents proving this claim — documents he would then refuse to share.
In other words, there’s a long pattern here of some rich asshole deliberately playing games with journalists to blow his own horn and spread his flimsy, self-glorifying propaganda. In the past, he did this because he yearned to be depicted as a billionaire playboy rather than a small-time real estate developer with a string of business failures. It’s not unreasonable to suspect that he is doing much the same thing now, in an effort to kick up dust around the Russia investigation and create the illusion that he’s the victim of some conspiracy of leakers. I’m not the only journalist who is suspicious. Sam Stein of the Daily Beast is also skeptical:
the rich asshole’s behavior since his inauguration suggests that he has no interest in messaging to a broad audience. He’s only interested in signaling to his rabid base of support, to keep their loyalty locked down. This hypothetical strategy may be totally ineffective on the public in general, but it bolsters the rich asshole-friendly narrative that Mueller’s team is shady and untrustworthy — and therefore that none of their conclusions can be trusted.
So the question now rests with the New York Times. If, as I suspect, these leaks really came from the rich asshole’s people, then Times reporters must be alert to the possibility that they’re being used as instruments of Trumpian propaganda, just as they were previously used as instruments of Russian propaganda. Protecting sources is sometimes important, if those sources are genuine whistleblowers who fear retaliation. But if this is a case of the president’s men using the press as a weapon to sow confusion and misinformation, then the journalists at the paper of record need to stop chasing clicks and pay attention to their duty to democracy.
the rich asshole threatens to ‘get involved’ to stop Mueller’s Russia investigation
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As Mueller closes in, the
rich asshole pushes toward a constitutional crisis.
After the
latest bombshell in the Russia investigation, the rich asshole is loudly
threatening to use his “powers” to interfere with the Justice Department.
the rich
asshole’s spin about the revelation of Robert
Mueller’s questions has been failing for days, so the rich asshole has now
issued an explicit threat via Twitter.
“A Rigged
System – They don’t want to turn over Documents to Congress,” the rich asshole wrote Wednesday morning. “What are they afraid
of? Why so much redacting? Why such unequal ‘justice?’ At some point I will
have no choice but to use the powers granted to the Presidency and get
involved!”
Senate
Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) responded almost immediately with a
warning, tweeting “Mr. President, the powers of the
Presidency do not give you the right to interfere with or shut down the Russia
investigation. Firing the Deputy AG or Director Mueller would create a
constitutional crisis. Do not go down this road.”
the rich
asshole’s tweet goes further than more veiled comments he made during an unhinged interview with “Fox &
Friends” last week.
“I have
decided that I won’t be involved,” the rich asshole said last week, but added
“I may change my mind at some point.”
the rich
asshole’s latest threat comes barely a week after the Senate Judiciary
Committee passed a bipartisan bill that would protect
special counsel Robert Mueller from being fired by the rich asshole.
Senate Republican
Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has promised not to allow a vote on that measure,
arguing it isn’t “necessary” because he doesn’t believe the
rich asshole would fire Mueller.
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.
If this
latest threat isn’t enough to wake McConnell up, then nothing will be.
Conservative writer says Rubio’s tax cut flip-flop is another damning indictment of GOP policies
Marco Rubio speaks to CNN (screen grab)
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Conservative commentator Matt Lewis hit the Republican Party in his Wednesday commentary on the GOP’s plan to highlight their own policy screw-ups.
He began by noting that two GOP leaders have publicly denounced their party’s own policies mere months prior to the 2018 midterm elections. Worse, however, the officials called out their party’s outright lies to the American public
"The problem, they suggest, is not with the merits of the [tax] bill, but with the failure of the Republican Party to level with the public about the tradeoffs involved in getting there,” Lewis explained in his Daily Beast column, citing Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) denouncing of the tax bill.
Similarly, disgraced Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price agreed with Democrats that the health care exchange is only successful when everyone participates. Lewis conceded it wasn’t a “blaring-siren moment” the way Rubio’s statements were, however, it admits that removing the mandate for healthcare “would lead to ‘adverse selection.'” That’s exactly what the GOP did in the passage of their tax bill.
“Frankly, it was stunning how little discussion or uproar there was when the individual mandate was repealed as part of tax reform,” Lewis noted. “It was a huge deal, and it was pretty much considered a side issue. At least by Republicans. At least until now.”
Rubio’s admission about the tax bill fly in the face of promises made by the White House.
“But what Rubio was really getting at was how the bill was presented as addressing a looming crisis that, in actuality, remains unsolved,” Lewis wrote. He went on to note that Rubio also disagreed with President some rich asshole’s strive to bring back auto manufacturers because regardless of where it is located, it’ll be mostly automation.
Lewis wondered why suddenly Republicans are popping up to address the complexities of the GOP tax bill that they once described as simple.
“Why are they undermining their own party’s major policy achievement now, at the precise moment when the party needs something to run on in the 2018 midterms?” he wondered.
Price’s political career is mostly over after disgracing himself with scandal after scandal. Rubio, however, is another story.
Lewis explained that Rubio recently “hired Michael Needham of Heritage Action to be his chief of staff, a populist conservative whose greatest accomplishment prior to joining Rubio seems to have been pushing Republicans to shut down the government in 2013 (oh yeah, and attacking Rubio’s efforts to reform immigration).”
It could be a coincidence that Rubio hired a conservative populist to run his office, or it could be that the GOP takeover by the rich asshole supporters made Rubio realize policy is more complicated than the president’s sound bites.
Lewis speculated that Rubio might recognize “that the formula for success is to admit that nuance exists in both policy and politics and to take advantage of the vulnerabilities that could soon emerge for the president on the populist left.”
the rich asshole ignores killed Army specialist to promote Fox crackpot’s new book
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the rich asshole promoted a
fellow conspiracy theorist crackpot from Fox News while completely ignoring the
death of Army specialist Gabriel Conde, who was killed in combat.
Army
specialist Gabriel D. Conde was killed in Afghanistan on April 30 and
publicly identified by the Pentagon on May 1. The Army said his death occurred
in the process of combat operations.
Stars and
Stripes, citing the location of Conde’s death,
noted “the engagement likely occurred with Taliban fighters.”
Yet the
rich asshole has not mentioned the 22-year-old Army specialist killed in
Afghanistan. Instead, while in the midst of another public meltdown about the
Russia investigation, the rich asshole found time to promote a book from a Fox
News crackpot and conspiracy theorist.
Yes,
instead of speaking in support of Conde and his family, the rich asshole
promoted a book from Fox News anchor Greg Jarrett that seeks to deflect
attention from the rich asshole’s relationship with Russian operatives during
the election.
the rich
asshole wrote, “NEW BOOK – A MUST READ! “The Russia
Hoax – The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame some rich asshole”
by the brilliant Fox News Legal Analyst Gregg Jarrett.”
While all
of Fox News has dedicated itself to being an oozing geyser of pro-the rich
asshole propaganda, Jarrett (an attorney) has distinguished himself by providing a
pseudo-legal veneer for excusing the rich asshole and his abuses of power.
Jarrett,
the man much more worthy of the rich asshole’s time than a vet killed in
combat, is, like the rich asshole, a true believer in the
“deep state” conspiracy theory. He described the FBI — who is investigating
the rich asshole — as “America’s secret police” and its “shadow government.” He said the law enforcement agency has become
“like the KGB.”
Jarrett
has claimed that “conspiring to subvert the
government doesn’t rise to the level of treason,” while excusing emails from
some rich asshole Jr. making overtures to Russian operatives for dirt on
Hillary Clinton.
He also declared, “You can collude all you want with a
foreign government in an election.”
Echoing
the rich asshole’s revenge fantasies against Hillary Clinton, Jarrett wrote that the rich asshole should appoint
a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton’s emails.
Jarrett
also argued that President Barack Obama should
be subpoenaed as part of the Russia investigation, while also insisting that
federal marshals should storm the Department of Justice on the rich asshole’s
behalf to “seize these documents.”
He has
used his position in the media to enable the rich asshole’s abuses of power, arguing that when the rich asshole was
pressuring then-FBI director James Comey to drop the bureau’s investigation of
Michael Flynn, it was as innocuous as discussing the weather. Flynn has since pleaded guilty to multiple federal
charges.
Feeding
the rich asshole’s delusions, Jarrett said special counsel Robert Mueller is
“manufacturing crimes where crimes don’t exist” as part of a plot to get the
rich asshole.
He believes that the rich asshole is the true
“victim” of Russian collusion in the election.
the rich
asshole apparently felt Jarrett’s unhinged rantings and ravings deserved
presidential amplification, while he threw a serviceman to the wayside.
the rich
asshole has not mentioned Conde’s name or offered condolences to Conde’s
family. The decision to ignore the death echoes his actions after the deadly
Niger ambush that killed four U.S. troops, and which the rich asshole
refused to mention for over two weeks.
The
specter of the Russia investigation haunts everything the rich asshole does,
and his Twitter feed reflects that. He has whined and moaned and complained that the investigation is a
“hoax” and a “witch hunt” over the past few days, showing far greater interest
and passion in his own precarious political position than for America’s
military dead.
the rich
asshole doesn’t care about those who serve on the front line, fighting against
malevolent forces around the world. the rich asshole cares about protecting the
rich asshole and promoting those who make a fool of themselves while defending
him, no matter how absurd.
Those are
his priorities.
Russia gained three crucial advantages over the rich asshole campaign during Don Jr meeting: ex-CIA director
Michael Hayden (MSNBC)
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The Russians gained three valuable advantages over the rich asshole campaign during their meeting with some rich asshole Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, according to the former CIA director.
Michael Hayden — a retired U.S. Air Force general, former director of the National Security Agency, principal deputy director of national intelligence and CIA director — appeared Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to explain how the Kremlin compromised President some rich asshole’s inner circle.
“What did they learn?” Hayden said. “No. 1, they learned the campaign was willing to deal — which is a really big thing. They were willing to accept information on Hillary Clinton, with the providence of the Russian government on it.”
Hayden said the Russian intelligence operation against the rich asshole campaign was sophisticated, and he said they successfully ensnared the future president’s inner circle at that meeting.
“They learned that the campaign would not go to the feds with the Russian approach coming at them, because they didn’t see any increase in counterintelligence activity around them,” Hayden said.
Co-host Joe Scarborough agreed the Russians had gained an extraordinarily valuable insight into the rich asshole campaign at that meeting, which has fallen under close scrutiny by special counsel Robert Mueller.
“They learned that not only were the rich asshole team willing to play, but that they learned that the rich asshole team was not going to report the contacts — which is extraordinarily unusual,” Scarborough said. “I’ve said it before, even as a little congressman, if there were Russians that approached me for something I would talk to my chief of staff, who would immediately say we need to call the FBI. That’s just basic.”
The Republican candidate’s son, son-in-law and campaign chairman did not alert law enforcement to Russian efforts to deliver damaging information about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton — and Hayden said that failure provided the most crucial advantage of all.
“So based upon everything you’ve just said, all right, the (third) thing the Russians achieved with the meeting was, they got this little down payment on kompromat,” Hayden said. “You’ve taken the meeting and you didn’t report it. They’re pretty good, aren’t they?”
Hayden couldn’t say for sure whether the rich asshole campaign colluded with Russia, but he said their messages converged — and continued to match up after the rich asshole was in the White House.
“A word i use a lot in the book (The Assault on Intelligence) is something called ‘convergence,'” Hayden said, “where you may not be actually going this way, in terms of, ‘Hey, will you do this now, I’ll do that,’ but you each for your own purposes are doing something and your activities are mutually reinforcing.”
The former intelligence official said those efforts had divided his own family along political fault lines.
“Remember the ‘take a knee’ thing?” Hayden said. “So the president gives a speech, he feeds his base. Okay, before he gets back to Washington, the Russian bots are all over it. ‘Take a knee,’ ‘both sides,’ all right? The ‘patriotic’ side and the ‘constitutional’ side.”
“Alt-right media picks it up and mirrors the Russian bots,” he added, “they inject a powerful racial content into it, then it gets to the major networks, mostly to the one down the street and we have this cycle — everyone for their own interests, the president, the base. The Russians to mess with our heads, alt-right, they’re conspiratorial, the network, for ratings. They’re all driving in the same direction and the sum total is a more divided American society, including within my own family, when it comes to take a knee.”
the rich asshole isn’t fooling anyone: Most Americans think White House is a mess
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There's no method to any of
the rich asshole administration madness.
His chief
of staff reportedly thinks he’s an “idiot.” His former secretary of state allegedly
referred to him as a “fucking moron.” And senior advisers in the rich asshole
administration continue to head for the West Wing exits.
the rich
asshole angrily claims that everything’s fine, but
most Americans see what’s going on — and they think the White House is a
complete mess.
“More than
three in five voters, 62 percent, say the rich asshole’s administration is
running very or somewhat chaotically — nearly twice as many as the 32 percent
who say it’s running very or somewhat well,” Politico reports, according to a
new Politico/Morning Consult poll. “Moreover, the percentage of voters who
see chaos in the rich asshole’s White House has increased modestly, but
steadily, in recent weeks.”
Chaos has
defined this administration.
the rich
asshole in his first year and a half in office has already lost four cabinet
members, which obliterates the previous White House
for chaotic turnover.
Meanwhile,
at least 43 percent of the rich asshole’s top advisers have left their
positions or been fired since Inauguration Day, according to
figures compiled by Kathryn Dunn Tenpas of the Brookings Institution.
And according to a tally from NBC News, 23 the
rich asshole nominees have failed to be confirmed or never even made it through
the confirmation process.
White House
aside, the rich asshole can’t find lawyers who are willing to
defend him from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation either.
Not
surprisingly, there’s growing concern of a personnel “death spiral” in the West
Wing.
“the rich
asshole’s mercurial decision-making practices, fears of being drawn into
special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and a stalled legislative
agenda are keeping top-flight talent on the outside,” the Associated Press reported this
spring.
From
nominating someone who’s completely unqualified to run the Veterans
Affairs department (only to watch his nomination implode), to being caught in
at least 3,000 lies as president, the rich
asshole’s record of failure and deceit is epic. And there’s no hiding that from
public view.
the rich
asshole is governing as a total disrupter. The problem is there’s no method to
his madness.
Here’s why Robert Mueller’s questions are very bad news for Jared Kushner
Jared Kushner holds a news conference on government efficiency (Screen cap).
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Jared Kushner has nearly disappeared from the public eye in recent weeks, and one of the most likely explanations as to why is that he is in serious legal jeopardy as a result of the special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Joyce Vance, a law professor at the University of Alabama, said Tuesday that, based on the New York Times’ recent report about the questions Mueller has for President some rich asshole, his son in law may be in real trouble
"Kushner said what he had to say when he was up on the hill,” Vance said to MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace of Kushner’s congressional testimony. “But as the information that’s publicly available — and Nicolle, you’re always good to point out that what we know is just the tip of the iceberg — but just that tip of the iceberg points heavily in a direction that’s not good for Kushner.”
She continued: “Now we have these questions and they indicate an assumption that Kushner was involved in setting up a backchannel, that Kushner was in some way a part of this collusion package that the special counsel’s office is looking at, almost as if it’s a foregone conclusion that Kushner is guilty. And then we marry that knowledge with the that Kushner has not been recalled except for his brief one-hour testimony with the special counsel, it really looks like things are on a bad track for him.”
Watch the clip below:
Texas sues the rich asshole administration to end ‘Dreamers’ program
A woman holds up a signs in support of the Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, during an immigration rally, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017, at the White House in Washington. the rich asshole aides said the president is still undecided about the program's fate. Jacquelyn Martin AP
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Texas and six other Republican-governed states on Tuesday sued the rich asshole administration to try to end a program launched by Democratic former President Barack Obama that protects immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children.
The states filed suit in federal court in Texas in the latest twist in an ongoing policy and legal fight over the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that Republican President some rich asshole already has tried to rescind
The rich asshole said in September he would terminate DACA and end its protections for the immigrants who are sometimes called “Dreamers,” but gave the Republican-controlled Congress until March 6 to replace it. Policy differences between the rich asshole and lawmakers in both parties led to Congress’ failing to act.
In the meantime, courts ruled that the program can stay in place for now, although new applications will not be accepted.
The program protects around 700,000 young adults, mostly Hispanics, from deportation and gives them work permits for two-year periods, after which they must re-apply.
Texas, joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia, argued in the lawsuit that the Obama administration exceeded its authority by creating the program without congressional action.
“Our lawsuit is about the rule of law, not the wisdom of any particular immigration policy,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said in a statement.
“Texas has argued for years that the federal executive branch lacks the power to unilaterally grant unlawfully present aliens lawful presence and work authorization,” he added.
The head of a leading Latino legal civil rights organization said the filing came too late and was on the wrong side of the law.
“Today’s filing by seven retrograde states comes nearly six years after DACA was introduced and many weeks after three other federal courts began to order that the DACA initiative continue despite some rich asshole’s attempt to end it,” said Thomas Saenz, president the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
The lawsuit asks the judge to wind down DACA, which would prevent any new permits from being issued or renewed but would not cancel current permits.
Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Will Dunham and Leslie Adler
the rich asshole’s lawyers are preparing for a ‘showdown’ with Mueller: report
President some rich asshole is stepping up his attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election (AFP Photo/SAUL LOEB)
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After the Washington Post broke news that special counsel Robert Mueller raised the specter of a subpoena to some rich asshole’s lawyers in early March, CNN hit back with their own bombshell: that the president’s lawyers are preparing to go to war.
According to CNN’s sources familiar with the rich asshole’s legal team, the lawyers are “bracing for the dramatic possibility that Mueller would subpoena” the president — a move that could “could force a lengthy court fight” and challenge the president’s legal power “all the way up to the Supreme Court.”
When CNN asked their sources if the rich asshole would ever plead the Fifth Amendment in response to theoretical questions from Mueller, they responded that there are a number of “constitutional challenges” to be met for that to become a possibility.
“Many legal observers believe that if Mueller issues a grand jury subpoena for the rich asshole’s testimony,” CNN noted, “the courts will order the president to comply, because the Supreme Court has repeatedly ordered presidents to comply with subpoenas.”
POLITICS
Mueller Threatened To Subpoena the rich asshole If Lawyers Refused Sit-Down Interview
“This isn’t some game,” the president’s lead attorney said he replied.
Special counsel Robert Mueller warned President some rich asshole’s lawyers that he had the power to issue a subpoena if the White House refused a request for a sit-down interview with the president, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
Mueller met with the rich asshole’s attorneys in March to negotiate the terms of an interview, which he has sought for months as part of the inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The Post, citing four people familiar with the conversation, said the encounter quickly turned tense after the lawyers said the rich asshole had no legal obligation to meet with the special counsel. Mueller then suggested he could issue a subpoena that would compel the president to appear before a grand jury.
“This isn’t some game,” John Dowd, the rich asshole’s former lead attorney, replied. “You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States.”
Dowd later confirmed the encounter and his comments to Reuters.
The special counsel’s office has been negotiating the terms of any sit-down with the rich asshole and his legal team amid the president’s own public assertions that he was “looking forward” to the interview. Dowd was among those urging the rich asshole to reject the request, apparently over concerns that the rich asshole has a tendency to go off-script, which could lead him to make false statements.
The New York Times on Monday published a list of questions Mueller hopes to ask the rich asshole, a list that was compiled by the rich asshole lawyer Jay Sekulow as part of those negotiations. Many of the open-ended queries focus on potential efforts to obstruct justice through the firings of FBI Director James Comey or attempts to fire the special counsel himself.
Dowd, upon hearing of Mueller’s line of inquiry, was further convinced that the rich asshole should refuse an interview, the Times reported. He resigned from his role in March after the president appeared poised to reject his advice.
Dowd was replaced last month by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
the rich asshole on Tuesday condemned the release of the questions on Twitter and asserted that there were “no questions about collusion,” even though some do appear on the list.
“Oh, I see...you have a made up, phony crime, Collusion, that never existed, and an investigation begun with illegally leaked classified information. Nice!” he wrote.
The Post said the rich asshole and some advisers hope to use the release of the questions to further criticize Mueller’s investigation.
the rich asshole biographer stuns Chris Hayes by explaining sexual dysfunction caused by hair growth pill prescribed to the president
Pres. some rich asshole (screen capture)
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some rich asshole biographer Gwenda Blair analyzed the adverse reactions caused by a drug Dr. Harold Bornstein revealed he had prescribed to combat the president’s hair loss.
The renewed scrutiny came after Dr. Bornstein said that the White House robbed his office of the rich asshole’s medical files.
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism lecturer Gwenda Blair explained how the rich asshole attempts to cover up damaging information. Blair is the author of two the rich asshole biographies, The Trumps: Three Generations that Built an Empireand some rich asshole: Master Apprentice.
“Made me think about those tax returns,” Blair noted. “What’s in those medical records?”
“And Propecia is associated, you know, is used for hair loss, he doesn’t want to talk about that,” she continued.
“It’s also associated — it has a lot of bad side effects including sexual dysfunction,” Blair reminded. “I think he really doesn’t want to talk about that.”
In 2012, the USDA upped the warnings for Propecia, also known as Finasterid.
Since that decision, warning labels have cautioned users about “libido disorders, ejaculation disorders, and orgasm disorders that continued after discontinuation of the drug.”
By
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May 1, 2018
Tuesday's request for a sentencing delay indicates 'there's likely to be a big indictment in which Flynn is going to be one of the star witnesses,' said former Watergate prosecutor Nick Ackerman.
The move to delay sentencing for the rich asshole’s former national security adviser Mike Flynn is “not good news for some rich asshole,” according to former assistant special Watergate prosecutor Nick Ackerman.
Commenting on a court filing submitted Tuesday seeking to delay Flynn’s sentencing by at least two months, Ackerman said the news is an ominous sign for the rich asshole, because it indicates that Flynn is still talking — and special counsel Robert Mueller is still listening.
The request to push back sentencing for Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, was submitted by Mueller’s office and attorneys for Flynn. They said Flynn is not ready for sentencing “due to the status of the special counsel’s investigation,” according to the federal court filing.
“This is not good news for some rich asshole,” Ackerman told MSNBC’s Ari Melber. “What they are looking to do is bring a major indictment in which Flynn is going to be one of the star witnesses. What Flynn wants to do is get as many brownie points as he can so when he goes to a sentencing judge he can say that he went all out, he testified for the government, he testified truthfully and as a result of his testimony there were a number of convictions.”
Ackerman also noted that Mueller likely “wants to kind of keep the lid on Flynn so that he has an incentive to go in and testify fully and truthfully. And by doing that, he keeps open sentencing.”
“Both sides have a big incentive to keep this [sentencing] open,” Ackerman added, “and it’s all open because there’s likely to be a big indictment in which Flynn is going to be one of the star witnesses.”
Flynn pleaded guilty in December to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials. As part of his plea deal, Flynn agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s ongoing investigation into Russian interference and potential coordination with the rich asshole campaign.
Tuesday’s request for a sentencing delay not only suggests that Flynn is still providing valuable information to Mueller, but that the investigation is not going to be wrapping up anytime soon.
That news is likely to come as a surprise to Rudy Giuliani, who joined the rich asshole’s legal teamsix days ago with the promise that he would soon bring the Mueller probe to a close. Instead, the investigation looks to be entering an entirely new phase — and the implications look ominous for the man in the Oval Office.
‘They’re liars — liars lie!’ CNN’s Toobin shuts down the rich asshole-defender Dershowitz on obstruction of justice
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Lawyers Jeffery Toobin and Alan Dershowitz did not see eye to eye in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
When asked if collusion took place in the Muller investigation Toobin said that collusion absolutely took place without hesitation.
"It is not just blatantly false about the questions because as you have pointed out several times, there are many questions on the Mueller list that deal with collusion. But the fact that the president keeps saying over and over again, there was no collusion, there was no collusion, that has not been established and in fact there is lots of evidence that collusion did take place,” he said.
He also went on to say that of course the rich asshole is lying because, “People who are compulsive liars, they lie, and there doesn’t have to be an underlying crime.”
Dershowitz pointed out that lying alone is not necessarily a crime.
“The key is to distinguish between illegal aspects of collusion and unlawful. Meeting someone to get dirt is a terrible thing, but not unlawful,” he said.
Watch their full debate below.
the rich asshole-linked lawyer Alan Dershowitz explains how Mueller’s latest move is a prelude to impeachment
Alan Dershowitz (Fox News)
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Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor and longtime friend to some rich asshole, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday night that special counsel Robert Mueller appears to be gearing up for a new legal maneuver that could ultimately lead to impeachment.
“I think where we’re going is to a subpoena,” Dershowitz said in response to a new Washington Post report that revealed Mueller has already floated the idea of subpoenaing the rich asshole to his lawyers. He went on to say the president and his lawyers “should have no interest” in answering the special counsel’s “broad” line of questioning as evidenced by a leaked list of more than four dozen questions Mueller has for the rich asshole on a wide range of topics that was published last night
After arguing with CNN’s chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin about whether or not the rich asshole will plead the fifth, Dershowitz floated a novel concept: that Mueller will give the president immunity in exchange for information on Russian collusion because “immunity doesn’t apply in impeachment proceedings.”
“He is at not risk of being indicted or prosecuted,” the Harvard Law professor said. “He’s at risk of being impeached.”
Watch below, via CNN:
the rich asshole's legal team prepares for showdown with Mueller
Washington (CNN)President some rich asshole's lawyers are preparing for a legal showdown with special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources familiar with their thinking.
the rich asshole's legal team is bracing for the dramatic possibility that Mueller would subpoena the President, setting up a collision that could force a lengthy court fight and test the legal limits of the President's power all the way up to the Supreme Court.
Mueller has raised the possibility of a presidential subpoena in at least one meeting, according to two sources. But some of the President's legal advisers are gambling that Mueller would not go that far. The Washington Post first reported on the subpoena threat.
The already slim chances of the rich asshole sitting for a voluntary interview with Mueller's investigators are growing dimmer, sources close to the President say.
Asked whether the President would ever plead the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering questions, two sources said the legal team believes there are many "constitutional challenges" that would need to be met before that possibility even would be considered.
the rich asshole's lawyers are careful to say that the President hasn't shut the door to a possible agreement for an interview. His new legal team is still assessing that before making a recommendation, sources say.
If the rich asshole refuses to give a voluntary interview, prosecutors could issue a subpoena compelling testimony.
The leaking of a version of Mueller's potential questions for the President, first published by The New York Times, and the President's reaction on Twitter underscore where the issue is moving, sources say.
the rich asshole himself has told reporters he'd speak with the special counsel, and the President's legal team initially claimed that an interview could happen under the right terms.
The President's lawyers said they wanted to finish the interview quickly, claiming it would help end the special counsel's investigation.
But after the April 9 raid of his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, the President's view of sitting down with Mueller had a "seismic shift," according to one source -- from yes toward no.
Many legal observers believe that if Mueller issues a grand jury subpoena for the rich asshole's testimony, the courts will order the President to comply, because the Supreme Court has repeatedly ordered presidents to comply with subpoenas.
During independent counsel Kenneth Starr's investigation of President Bill Clinton related to Monica Lewinsky, prosecutors eventually subpoenaed the president for grand jury testimony. Clinton's lawyers attempted to delay Clinton from speaking to prosecutors for months and told a federal judge they would avoid arguing the issue in court. They ultimately agreed to let Clinton appear before the grand jury without the weight of a subpoena.
In 1974, in United States v. Nixon, the Justices unanimously directed President Richard Nixon to comply with a criminal trial subpoena for the White House tapes. And in 1997, in Clinton v. Jones, the Court directed Clinton to comply with a subpoena for his deposition in Paula Jones' civil sexual harassment lawsuit against him.
Yet if Mueller attempts to force the rich asshole to testify under subpoena -- as many legal analysts suspect could happen -- the sources familiar with the thinking of the rich asshole's legal team say they believe the rich asshole could successfully challenge the subpoena all the way to the Supreme Court.
One of the sources says the legal team views a subpoena for a presidential interview as "precipitating a constitutional crisis."
The rich asshole team's legal argument, according to multiple sources, is that they believe the special counsel does not have the authority to force a President to appear before a grand jury.
They also believe that Article II of the Constitution, which defines the office of the President, prevents the high court from ordering an investigation into the President's use of his executive powers. In this case, that could include the hiring and firing of persons like former national security adviser Michael Flynn and ex-FBI Director James Comey.
Their political argument also has changed. While the lawyers were originally in a let's-get-this-over-with mode, they now believe that time is on their side -- especially with the 2018 elections looming.
They believe that the rich asshole has done a good job discrediting the investigators and the investigation itself.
‘Fraudulent’ letter from former the rich asshole doctor renews skepticism of Ronny Jackson’s claims: Obama’s former doctor
some rich asshole eating McDonald's fast food aboard his private jet (screengrab from the president's Instagram account)
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Barack Obama’s former personal physician blasted Dr. Harold Bornstein for reportedly signing a “fraudulent” letter dictated by President some rich asshole.
“He dictated that whole letter,” Dr. Bornstein admitted. “I didn’t write that letter."
Dr. David Scheiner, who treated Obama for two decades and is a leading member of Physicians for a National Health Program, explained the significance of his admission.
“What’s your reaction, doctor, to hearing that the president dictated this letter to his doctor?” CNN anchor Erin Burnett asked. “And is there any issue you have ethically with this, that the rich asshole dictated it and the doctor would sign it?”
“Yeah, if the doctor signed it and it’s not his medical report, it’s fraudulent,” Dr. Scheiner explained.
“His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary,” read the 2015 letter signed by Dr. Bornstein. “If elected, some rich asshole, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
The admission also brings into question the highly controversial physical by Dr. Ronny Jackson.
“I’m even wondering if Ronny Jackson’s great report on his health was written by the rich asshole too, because he said things which were patently wrong,” Dr. Scheiner concluded.
Watch:
the rich asshole dictated doctor's note saying he was 'astonishingly' healthy, doctor says
Harold Bornstein tells CNN the rich asshole wrote publicized letter saying he would be ‘healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency’
A 2015 doctor’s note describing some rich asshole’s health as “astonishingly excellent” was dictated, it turns out, by the rich asshole himself, according to the doctor who signed the note.
Dr Harold Bornstein, described in the letter as the rich asshole’s physician “since 1980”, told CNN Tuesday that he did not write the letter, which the rich asshole publicized on the eve of the presidential primary contests to allay concerns about his fitness.
“He dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter,” Bornstein told CNN. “I just made it up as I went along.”
The story is a reversal by Bornstein, who claimed in August 2016 that he had dashed off the letter “in five minutes ... while the driver waited for me.”
Earlier Tuesday, Bornstein said the longtime the rich asshole bodyguard Keith Schiller and two other men had conducted a “raid” on his offices for the rich asshole’s medical records in February 2017, two days after Bornstein told a newspaper that he had for years prescribed a hair growth medicine for the rich asshole.
The raid left him “raped, frightened and sad”, Bornstein told NBC News.
The White House did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
the rich asshole produced the 2015 letter from Bornstein in response to media pressure for him to produce medical records.
Two days before the letter was released, the rich asshole tweeted: “As a presidential candidate, I have instructed my long-time doctor to issue, within two weeks, a full medical report – it will show perfection.”
Then, Bornstein now claims, the rich asshole dictated the letter to Bornstein, who signed it.
The letter said the rich asshole had shed 15lb in the prior 12 months, said “his cardiovascular status is excellent” and concluded: “If elected, Mr the rich asshole, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
the rich asshole in the past has pretended to be his own spokesman and was said by people who were there to have dictated aboard Air Force One a statement issued by some rich asshole Jr to explain why he met with Russian operatives at the rich asshole Tower in June 2016.
They “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children”, the rich asshole Jr’s statement said.
Kellyanne Conway Rips ‘Faux Outrage’ Over Michelle Wolf
The White House counselor told Sean Hannity that Wolf’s jokes were ‘just another day at the office’ for her.
05.01.18 11:23 AM ET
Even as female journalists like Maggie Haberman, Andrea Mitchell, and Mika Brzezinski come to the defense of both her and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kellyanne Conway still just doesn’t seem capable of taking yes for an answer.
Conway sat in icy silence at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner as comedian Michelle Wolf called out her tendency to mislead the media. “If you don’t give her a platform, she has nowhere to lie,” Wolf told reporters in the room. “It’s like that old saying: If a tree falls in the woods, how do we get Kellyanne under that tree?” Wolf’s jokes about Sanders received even more backlash, with many falsely claiming she criticized the press secretary’s appearance.
During an appearance on Hannity Monday night, Conway was still fuming. As much as Sean Hannity didn’t want to “dignify this ridiculous dinner,” he said it would “negligent” to not ask his guest for her thoughts on the “insulting and crude” comedy routine. And she had some.
“Sean, in some ways there was very little that was surprising on Saturday night,” Conway said, smiling. “The faux outrage from some people who look down at Twitter all day long and see the likes of Sarah and Ivanka and me insulted—this just happened right in front of them when they were all gussied up so they couldn’t deny it. I mean, in some ways it was just another day at the office.”
“But it doesn’t make some people any less miserable or us any less powerful,” Conway added, cryptically, before pivoting to dutifully defend her boss, saying the dinner “fed right into all of the cynicism, the skepticism that a lot of Americans have about the mainstream media writ large.”
At that point, Hannity tried to move on to his next topic, but Conway continued talking about her failed attempts to find out how much Wolf was paid to speak at the dinner. “When the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association stood up and said, ‘An attack on one journalist is an attack on all journalists,’ well folks, think about this,” she said. “Is an attack on one woman, or two women, an attack on all women?”
“I’m glad I didn’t interrupt you, that’s a powerful line,” Hannity responded. He then started asking her about North Korea without mentioning the numerous times some rich asshole actually has attacked women for the way they look.
Mueller raised idea of subpoena with President's lawyers
Washington (CNN)Special counsel Robert Mueller raised the notion of subpoenaing President some rich asshole in at least one meeting with the President's lawyers, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.
Mueller floated the possibility of subpoenaing the rich asshole to testify before a grand jury if he refused to sit down for an interview with the special counsel, The Washington Post first reported on Tuesday, citing four people familiar with the encounter.
The exchange between special counsel investigators and the rich asshole's lawyers, which took place in early March according to the Post, prompted the rich asshole's then-lawyer John Dowd to respond, "This isn't some game."
"You are screwing with the work of the President of the United States," Dowd continued, two people with knowledge of his comments told The Washington Post.
One source confirmed to CNN that Dowd retorted sharply to the special counsel's suggestion. Dowd has since left the legal team.
Mueller is leading the probe investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and any potential connections between the rich asshole campaign associates and the Kremlin. the rich asshole has repeatedly denied any collusion.
POLITICS
the rich asshole’s Doctor Says the rich asshole Basically Wrote That Glowing Health Letter: Report
“He dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter,” said the rich asshole’s personal physician Harold Bornstein.
President some rich asshole’s doctor claims that the rich asshole himself wrote the bizarre letter of health that included results from a 2015 physical suspiciously written with many superlatives, CNN reported Tuesday.
the rich asshole’s presidential campaign released the letter, signed by his personal physician Dr. Harold Bornstein, after the rich asshole’s health came into question in 2015.
“His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary,” Bornstein’s letter read. “If elected, some rich asshole, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
Bornstein told CNN on Tuesday that the rich asshole essentially wrote the letter himself.
“He dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter,” Bornstein told CNN. “I just made it up as I went along.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
POLITICS
Here’s What You Missed While The Internet Was Obsessed With Michelle Wolf
Among other happenings, the first fast-food union formed and a U.S. service member died in Afghanistan.
Believe it or not, other things have been happening the past few days besides Michelle Wolf’s comedy routine at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
An endless number of tweets, reports, think pieces and punditry have dwelled on the comedian’s Saturday night act, focused primarily on whether she was too mean to members of President some rich asshole’s administration.
While the debate has raged over the significance of Wolf’s comedy on the state of the nation, other things have been going on. Here’s some of what you may have missed:
- A U.S. service member was killed in an attack in Afghanistan.
- Arizona teachers are on strike.
- Oklahoma advanced an adoption bill that could discriminate against same-sex couples.
- Hawaii is set to ban gay conversion therapy.
- Workers at Burgerville in Portland, Oregon, voted to unionize, becoming the first fast-food union in the country.
- The Justice Department removed language about press freedom and racial gerrymandering from its manual providing guidance to federal prosecutors.
- Medicaid expansion is moving forward in Idaho.
- Two top officials at the Environmental Protection Agency resigned amid ethics scandals.
- A caravan of hundreds of Central Americans has reached the U.S.-Mexico border, and some of them have started applying for asylum.
- Puerto Rico is still struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island in September.
- Flint residents still don’t think their water is safe.
Deputy AG blasts GOP threats against him: DOJ will not be ‘extorted’
By
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Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is not backing down in the face of attacks from the rich asshole's congressional allies.
With congressional Republicans threatening to impeach him, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein fired back at GOP lawmakers on Tuesday, defiantly stating that “the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted.”
Rosenstein made the comments during an appearance at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. to celebrate Law Day.
Asked about threats from members of Congress, including a draft of “articles of impeachment” against him prepared by the rich asshole’s congressional allies, Rosenstein made it clear that he wouldn’t be intimidated by Republicans’ thinly veiled effort to disrupt the Russia probe.
“I can tell you that there have been people who have been making threats, privately and publicly, against me for quite some time, and I think they should understand by now: The Department of Justice is not going to be extorted,” Rosenstein said.
“We’re going to do what’s required by the rule of law,” he added. “Any threats that people make are not going to affect how we do our job.”
Rosenstein did not go into detail about the threats he was addressing, but as the DOJ’s top official overseeing the Russia probe, he has become the focus of intense criticism from congressional Republicans seeking to shield the rich asshole from scrutiny in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Rosenstein has also drawn the ire of the rich asshole, who blames him for launching the special counsel investigation.
In a recent rage-tweet, the rich asshole lashed out directly at Rosenstein, suggesting that he was “conflicted” because he lawfully reauthorized an ongoing surveillance warrant of former the rich asshole campaign adviser Carter Page. Strangely, the rich asshole also referred to Rosenstein — a Republican who was appointed to become a U.S. attorney by George W. Bush and then handpicked by the rich asshole to serve as the No. 2 official at the DOJ — as a “Democrat loyalist.”
“Much of the bad blood with Russia is caused by the Fake & Corrupt Russia Investigation, headed up by the all Democrat loyalists, or people that worked for Obama,” the rich asshole tweeted. “Mueller is most conflicted of all (except Rosenstein who signed FISA & Comey letter). No Collusion, so they go crazy.”
CNN reported last month that the White House was preparing a smear campaign aimed at undermining Rosenstein’s credibility. As part of that effort, the rich asshole reportedly planned to use his allies in Congress and right-wing media as attack dogs to go after Rosenstein, hoping to build a case for firing him without it looking like he’s interfering in the Russia probe.
Republicans appear to be going along with the plan. Led by North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, the right-wing House Freedom Caucus recently drafted a document that could be used to remove Rosenstein from office. It was leaked to The Washington Post on Monday.
During the question-and-answer session on Tuesday, Rosenstein took a swipe at the GOP lawmakers who prepared the document, saying, “They can’t even resist leaking their own drafts.”
Rosenstein also hit back at Republicans for suggesting that he is doing something improper by not turning over certain internal DOJ documents concerning aspects of the Russia investigation and the Hillary Clinton e-mail probe. He said the department isn’t going to just open the doors and let Congress “rummage through” files, noting that doing so might result in a violation of DOJ policies or laws.
“I saw that draft,” he said, referring to the GOP’s so-called impeachment articles against him. “It really does illustrate … a really important distinction between the way we operate in the Department of Justice: If we’re going to accuse somebody of wrongdoing, we have to have admissible evidence and credible witnesses. We need to be prepared to prove our case in court and we have to affix our signature to the charging document. We have people who are accountable.”
Rosenstein got in one more jab, adding, “I just don’t have anything to say about documents like that, that nobody has the courage to put their name on.”
This is just the latest gesture of confidence from an emboldened Rosenstein, who appears to be growing more defiant as the attacks from the rich asshole and his allies ramp up. Instead of backing down, Rosenstein is responding to Republicans’ threats by daring them to continue.
There’s likely a reason for Rosenstein’s confidence — and it’s almost certainly not good news for the rich asshole.
Mueller warned of a presidential subpoena if the rich asshole refuses voluntary interview: ‘This isn’t a game’
Robert Mueller in 2012 (U.S. Embassy Tallinn)
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Special counsel Robert Mueller warned President some rich asshole’s legal team that he was prepared to subpoena the commander-in-chief for testimony, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
At the March 5 meeting, then-the rich asshole attorney John Dowd was angered by the veiled threat.
"This isn’t some game,” Dowd reportedly argued. “You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States.”
POLITICS
Protestors Want Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’ To Top UK Chart For the rich asshole Visit
🎤 Don’t wanna be an American idiot... 🎤
Green Day’s seminal 2004 hit “American Idiot” could top the singles music chart in the United Kingdom this summer if an anti-President some rich asshole campaign continues to gain strength.
More than 14,000 have joined a Facebook page that calls on people to download the song between July 6 and July 12 ― days ahead of the rich asshole’s visit, tentatively scheduled for July 13. The American rock band originally wrote “American Idiot” about former President George W. Bush.
If enough people buy the track or stream it online during that period, the old song may hit No. 1 in time for the rich asshole’s visit to the U.K.
Check out the “American Idiot” music video here:
Organizers of the Facebook campaign described the effort as “a peaceful protest against a racist, misogynist, pussy-grabbing, elitist, healthcare-destroying, climate change-denying, bullshitting, backward, orange shitgibbon of an excuse for a man.”
Here a video detailing their protest:
Green Day has not yet commented on the campaign. But the group does have a history of bashing the rich asshole.
The band changed the “American Idiot” song lyrics from “subliminal mind-fuck America” to “subliminal mind-the rich asshole America” at the 2016 MTV Europe Music Awards. At the 2016 American Music Awards, the group added an extra line to the track “Bang Bang”: “No the rich asshole, no KKK, no fascist USA.”
In the January 2017 music video for “Troubled Times,” Green Day showed a the rich asshole-like figure spewing divisive rhetoric to crowds:
And in November 2017, the group portrayed the rich asshole as a zombie-like creature in the official clip for “Back in the USA.”
Top staffer at a pro-the rich asshole super PAC doubles down on claim that black people are ‘statistically’ lazier than whites
America First Policies' Carl Higbie (left) and President some rich asshole (right). Image via Higbie's Facebook.
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Carl Higbie, a former the rich asshole administration official who now works as a high-ranking staffer at a super PAC connected to the president’s agenda distanced himself from racist comments he made on the radio that led to his resignation in January. Now, however, he is doubling down on his claim that black people are “statistically” lazier than whites and claiming the comments were taken out of context.
CNN’s KFILE, the blog that originally revealed the America First Policies’ staffer’s numerous bigoted comments, reported Tuesday that Higbie has since recanted his apology for the remarks he made on his radio show in 2013 and 2014. During those shows, Higbie said he believes “wholeheartedly” that the “black race as a whole” are lazier than white people. He also claimed black women use welfare “as a form of employment,” and that he doesn’t like Muslims because their “ideology sucks."
When resigning from his position leading the government program that sponsors Americorps, Higbie said that his comments from years prior “do not reflect who I am or what I stand for” and claimed to “regret saying them.”
During a radio appearance on Friday, however, the former the rich asshole administration official said he stands by his comments.
“They dig up a couple things, a couple. Look, I had a radio show,” Higbie told Virginia talk radio DJ John Fredericks. “How many times have you said something on radio that could possibly be construed as very controversial when taken completely out of context? What, daily?”
Higbie went on to tout his time spent “in low-income, urban minority communities” as well as his “mission trips in high school to Dominican Republic, Central America [and] South America” before saying he made a “statistical observation” about black people as a race.
“It fit their narrative,” he said of KFILE’s reporting that led to his resignation. “And because I made a statistical observation, they think that’s racist.”
CNN noted that America First Policies, Higbie’s employer, has hosted a number of events that have been attended by President some rich asshole and Vice President Mike Pence, who is scheduled to attend another such event tonight where the staffer will reportedly be. The super PAC also used to employ Pence’s chief of staff before he took his job in the White House.
Sarah Sanders clumsily dodges difficult question about the rich asshole, Cohen and the Fifth amendment
If you don't have anything nice to say, ignore the question.
some rich asshole has a history of bashing those who plead the Fifth.
At a rally in 2016, the rich asshole said, “The mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth?” and during a debate with former Secretary of State and then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, he called pleading the Fifth “disgraceful.”
But now, the rich asshole’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen has invoked the Fifth amendment, using his right not to incriminate himself to secure a temporary stay in a lawsuit filed by adult film actress Stormy Daniels against the rich asshole.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked about Cohen’s choice to plead the Fifth by a reporter Tuesday, who asked whether the rich asshole stands by his earlier remarks about such a move being disgraceful.
“If I may, I wanted to ask you about something that took place last week involving the president’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen,” the reporter said. “He, in court documents, asserted that he would assert his Fifth Amendment rights in the stormy Daniels lawsuit filed against both him and the president.”
The reporter cited the rich asshole’s earlier comments about the mob pleading the Fifth, adding, “Do those comments apply to Michael Cohen? Does he stand by those comments?”
In response, Sanders only said, “I can’t speak for Michael Cohen.”
The (very short) back and forth is the latest example of how Sanders manages never to answer any questions from the press corps. Asked if the rich asshole stands by his earlier comments, she says only that she can’t speak for Cohen — who even isn’t the person for whom she’s being asked to speak.
Cohen is invoking his Fifth amendment rights in Daniels’ civil lawsuit to avoid negatively impacting an ongoing criminal investigation targeting him in New York. On April 9, Cohen’s home, office and hotel room were raided by the FBI. A special master was recently appointed by the court to review the seized material for potential attorney-client privilege.
In granting the stay of the civil case, the federal judge in California said he believed it was likely Cohen would be indicted soon.
Cohen’s precarious legal position has raised concerns that he might flip on the rich asshole. In a recent Fox and Friends interview, the rich asshole appeared to try to distance himself from Cohen. A recent cover of the National Enquirer, which is owned by a personal friend of the rich asshole and has provided him consistently favorable coverage, trashed Cohen.
CNN legal analyst schools the rich asshole on why there’s no such thing as a ‘perjury trap’
Special counsel Bob Mueller (left) and President some rich asshole (right). Images via screengrab.
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Jeffrey Toobin, a former associate counsel during the Iran-Contra investigation, debunked conservative talking points that it would be a “perjury trap” for special counsel Robert Mueller to interview President some rich asshole.
“Tonight, a new window into the Russia investigation as the special counsel asks for a two-month delay in sentencing the fired national security advisor, Michael Flynn, who pled guilty to lying to investigators and now is cooperating with the Mueller team,” CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer reported. “Also breaking, the White House is refusing to comment on the list of questions that Mueller reportedly wants to ask President the rich asshole if — and when — they actually sit down for an interview.
CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin explained why Mueller wants to interview President the rich asshole.
“What’s in his mind is the critical issue in the whole case,” the former federal prosecutor argued. “Obstruction of justice is an intent crime.”
“So, some say it’s a perjury trap, obviously,” CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger noted. “It’s clear that they’re, you know, they’re never going to let him sit down for an interview.”
“I’ve never understood the term perjury trap, just tell the truth and you’re not trapped,” Toobin noted.
“Easy for some but maybe not for this client,” Borger replied.
Watch:
POLITICS
the rich asshole Postpones Steel, Aluminum Tariffs Until June
The tariffs have increased frictions with U.S. trading partners worldwide and have prompted several challenges before the World Trade Organization.
WASHINGTON, April 30 (Reuters) - President some rich asshole has postponed the imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada, the European Union and Mexico until June 1, and has reached agreements for permanent exemptions for Argentina, Australia and Brazil, the White House said on Monday.
The decisions came just hours before temporary exemptions from the tariffs on these countries were set to expire at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday.
In a statement, the White House said the details of the deals with Brazil, Argentina and Australia would be finalized shortly, and it did not disclose terms.
“The administration is also extending negotiations with Canada, Mexico, and the European Union for a final 30 days. In all of these negotiations, the administration is focused on quotas that will restrain imports, prevent transshipment, and protect the national security,” the White House added.
A source familiar with the decision said there would be no further extensions beyond June 1 to stave off tariffs.
the rich asshole on March 23 imposed a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum, but granted temporary exemptions to Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the EU, Australia and Argentina. the rich asshole has also granted a permanent exemption on steel tariffs to South Korea as part of a revision of a free trade pact that he sharply criticized.
the rich asshole has invoked a 1962 trade law to erect protections for U.S. steel and aluminum producers on national security grounds, amid a worldwide glut of both metals that is largely blamed on excess production in China.
The tariffs, which have increased frictions with U.S. trading partners worldwide and have prompted several challenges before the World Trade Organization, are aimed at allowing the two U.S. metals industries to increase their capacity utilization rates above 80 percent for the first time in years.
the rich asshole administration officials have said that in lieu of tariffs, steel- and aluminum-exporting countries would have to agree to quotas designed to achieve similar protections for U.S. producers.
EXEMPTION TERMS UNCLEAR
Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the country’s Trade Minister Steven Ciobo welcomed the tariff exemption, and said the country would continue to work with Washington to prevent dumping.
“The exemption reflects the fair and reciprocal trade relationship Australia shares with the United States and underpins the unbreakable friendship between our two great nations,” they said in a statement.
Australia’s sole steel producer Bluescope, which supplies locally made steel to its own factories in the United States, said it was pleased with the exemption.
“Now it’s time to refocus, and get back to business,” Managing Director Mark Vassella said in a statement.
South Korea earned its permanent exemption from steel tariffs by agreeing to quotas that will cut its steel shipments by about 30 percent from 2017 levels. Seoul is still subject to U.S. aluminum tariffs
Most Asian markets were closed for a holiday on Tuesday but on the London Metal Exchange, aluminum and steel-linked materials eased on prospects supply could be cheaper to come by.
The White House said the agreements reflect administration efforts “to reach fair outcomes with allies to protect our national security and address global challenges to the steel and aluminum industries.”
Todd Leebow, president of Majestic Steel USA, a Cleveland-based distributor of domestic steel products, said American steelmakers needed certainty that import protections won’t be eroded.
“We’re hopeful this extension moves us toward the most productive path for our domestic steel industry - the tariffs President the rich asshole announced earlier this year and a quota system to limit the amount of imports flooding our country,” Leebow said in a statement.
The metals tariffs have caused some divisions within the rich asshole’s Republican Party, with steel- and aluminum-consuming industries warning higher prices would hurt their competitiveness.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, a pro-trade Republican from Texas, said he would work to ensure the tariffs “are narrow and targeted to protect our workers and job creators here at home.”
But Canada, Mexico and the European Union have all insisted they will not accept quotas to gain permanent exemptions from the U.S. tariffs.
The European Commission said the extension of the temporary exemption prolonged market uncertainty, which was already affecting business decisions.
“The EU should be fully and permanently exempted from these measures, as they cannot be justified on the grounds of national security,” it said in a statement.
A British government spokeswoman in Washington said the extension for the EU was “positive,” but the UK steel and aluminum industries needed safeguarding.
“We remain concerned about the impact of these tariffs on global trade and will continue to work with the EU on a multilateral solution to the global problem of overcapacity, as well as to manage the impact on domestic markets.”
Negotiations over U.S. steel and aluminum tariff exemptions for Canada and Mexico have also become intertwined with intensified talks to reach an agreement to update the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Canada is the largest steel exporter to the United States, and its industry is highly integrated with that of its southern neighbor, with raw materials and finished steel crisscrossing the Great Lakes region.
Any move by the United States to impose tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum would be a “very bad idea” guaranteed to disrupt trade between the two countries, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday.
If the EU is subject to tariffs on the 6.4 billion euros ($7.7 billion) of the metals it exports annually to the United States, it has said it will set its own duties on 2.8 billion euros of U.S. exports of products ranging from makeup to motorcycles.
the rich asshole doctor: President ‘dictated’ glowing letter claiming ‘he’d be the healthiest individual ever elected’
Dr. Harold N. Bornstein (Twitter.com)
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Dr. Harold Bornstein said that President the rich asshole influenced his health evaluation, according to CNN.
In an interview with CNN, Bornstein said that he didn’t write any of the rich asshole’s health documents and that the rich asshole wrote the glowing letters himself.
"He dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter,” Bornstein said. “I just made it up as I went along.”
The letter stated: The letter stated: “His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary. If elected, some rich asshole, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
This story is still developing.
Mueller floated subpoena for the rich asshole in legal team meeting: report
BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN - 05/01/18 08:17 PM EDT
Special counsel Robert Mueller suggested to President the rich asshole’s lawyers earlier this year that he would subpoena the rich asshole to appear before a grand jury if the president refused to talk with his team, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
Mueller made the comment in response to the rich asshole legal team’s argument during a March meeting that the president wasn’t obligated to speak with federal investigators in the probe into Russian election interference, according to the Post.
“This isn’t some game,” the rich asshole’s then-lawyer John Dowd reportedly replied. “You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States.”
Dowd, who was leading the response to Mueller's probe on the rich asshole's personal legal team, abruptly left the legal team in March.
The Post reported Tuesday that in the wake of the March meeting, the rich asshole’s attorneys created a list of questions they believed that Mueller’s team would ask the president during an interview.
Those questions were based off the topics that investigators told the rich asshole’s lawyers they wanted to discuss with the president.
The list of questions, which The New York Times first reported Monday night, includes inquiries about the decisions to fire national security adviser Michael Flynn and FBI Director James Comey; whether the rich asshole communicated with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the campaign; and the president's reported attempts to fire Mueller.
"What knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential assistance to the campaign?” Mueller also reportedly planned to ask.
the rich asshole railed against the questions in a tweet early Tuesday, claiming that there were "no questions about collusion," despite several questions about possible collusion between the rich asshole campaign and Russian being included on the reported list.
Former New York City Mayer Rudy Giuliani, a recent addition to the rich asshole's legal team, reportedly met with Mueller last week to discuss details of a possible interview with the president.
the rich asshole railed against the questions in a tweet early Tuesday, claiming that there were "no questions about collusion," despite several questions about possible collusion between the rich asshole campaign and Russian being included on the reported list.
Former New York City Mayer Rudy Giuliani, a recent addition to the rich asshole's legal team, reportedly met with Mueller last week to discuss details of a possible interview with the president.
“Hopefully we’re getting near the end. We all on both sides have some important decisions to make,” Giuliani told the Post on Tuesday. “I still have a totally open mind on what the right strategy is, which we’ll develop in the next few weeks.”
A spokesman for the special counsel declined to comment to the Post for its report Tuesday. the rich asshole’s lawyer Jay Sekulow and Dowd both also declined to comment.
Sanders confirms that White House employee took the rich asshole medical records from former doctor’s office
"Standard operating procedure."
During a news briefing on Tuesday, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed that the White House was involved in retrieving President the rich asshole’s medical records from his former doctor, Dr. Harold Bornstein, but disputed Bornstein’s claim that what a top White House aide and the rich asshole Organization official did to his office in February 2017 was tantamount to a “raid.”
“Why did Keith Schiller, who was a White House employee at the time, go and take medical records from the president’s personal doctor last year?” NBC’s Hallie Jackson asked. Schiller is the rich asshole’s longtime bodyguard and served as director of Oval Office operations from the rich asshole’s inauguration until September of last year.
“Ah, as is standard operating procedure for a new president, the White House medical unit took possession of the president’s medical records,” Sanders replied.
“It was characterized as a ‘raid’ — is that your understanding of what happened?” Jackson followed up. “The doctor seemed to be pretty upset about it.”
“Ah no, that is not my understanding,” Sanders replied, without elaborating.
A short time later, another reporter followed up, noting that “there are some today that are saying what happened with the president’s former personal doctor is a burglary, the way Keith Schiller busted in–”
Sanders cut him off.
“I don’t know if ‘some’ — I think there is one, but not ‘some,'” Sanders said, alluding to Bornstein’s recollection of in the incident. “Once again, it would be standard procedure for the president — a newly elected president’s medical records to be in possession by the White House medical unit, and that was what was taking place, is those records were being transferred over to the White House medical unit, as requested.”
Sanders’ portrayal of the February 2017 incident is at odds with Bornstein, who told NBC that the “raid” left him feeling “raped, frightened, and sad” and “created a lot of chaos.”
Bornstein said that the incident happened two days after he told the New York Times that the rich asshole takes Propecia, a drug that is often prescribed to stimulate hair grown in men.
“I couldn’t believe anybody was making a big deal out of a drug to grow his hair that seemed to be so important,” Bernstein said. “And it certainly was not a breach of medical trust to tell somebody they take Propecia to grow their hair. What’s the matter with that?”
Bornstein said that Schiller, the rich asshole Organization Chief Legal Officer Alan Garten, and another “large man” showed up unexpectedly at his office and spent about 30 minutes rummaging through it. He says they took the original and only copy of the rich asshole’s medical charts.
During a subsequent conversation with CBS, Bornstein compared what happened in his office to the Watergate break-in.
.@KaciSokoloff just spoke w Dr. Harold Bornstein, who refused an interview but said that NBC's piece was "a pretty good story." Bornstein also said that he spoke to the NBC reporter “in the bathroom” of his office. He signed off with: "Sweetheart, this is watergate, goodbye!"
During the presidential campaign, Bornstein — who was the rich asshole’s personal doctor for more than three decades — released a letter proclaiming the rich asshole had “no significant medical problems in the past 39 years” and would be “the healthiest individual elected to the presidency.”
During a press conference earlier this year, White House doctor Ronny Jackson provided a similarly glowing review of the rich asshole’s health. “Some people have just great genes. I told the president that if he had a healthier diet over the past 20 years he might live to be 200 year old,” Jackson said. He also confirmed that the rich asshole takes Propecia.
Jackson was recently nominated by the rich asshole to be director of the Department of Veterans Affairs, but his nomination quickly fell through amid allegations that he doled out prescription drugs like candy and drank excessively on the job. the rich asshole has repeatedly said he believes all of the allegations against Jackson are false.
During the briefing on Tuesday, Sanders confirmed that Jackson no longer serves as the rich asshole’s personal physician.
Ex-doctor says the rich asshole dictated letter claiming he would be 'healthiest' president ever
BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN - 05/01/18 07:26 PM EDT
President the rich asshole’s former personal physician claims that the rich asshole dictated the 2015 letter he wrote praising the then-presidential candidate’s health.
"He dictated that whole letter. I didn't write that letter," Dr. Harold Bornstein told CNN. "I just made it up as I went along."
"His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary,” read the letter, which Bornstein had initially said he wrote himself. “If elected, some rich asshole, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency."
“[the rich asshole] dictated the letter and I would tell him what he couldn't put in there," he said. "They came to pick up their letter at 4 o'clock or something."
"That's black humor, that letter. That's my sense of humor," Bornstein added. "It's like the movie 'Fargo': It takes the truth and moves it in a different direction."
the rich asshole had touted the letter ahead of its release on Twitter, saying it would "show perfection."
As a presidential candidate, I have instructed my long-time doctor to issue, within two weeks, a full medical report-it will show perfection
In September of 2016, Bornstein had defended the letter's effusive tone as a result of a rush he had been in at the time while seeing other patients.
The White House didn't respond to CNN's request for comment.
The new revelation comes hours after Bornstein told NBC News that the rich asshole associates had raided his office in February 2017, seizing medical records on the rich asshole.
“They must have been here for 25 minutes or 30 minutes. It created a lot of chaos,” the doctor said, adding that he felt “raped, frightened and sad.”
The White House pushed back against the account on Tuesday, saying that it was not a "raid" and that it was “standard operating procedure” for the White House medical unit to obtain a newly elected president’s medical records.
MSNBC hosts speculate who leaked Mueller questions to New York Times reporter also sitting on the panel
Rudy Giuliani and John Dowd, composite image.
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The Capitol Hill parlor game of attempting to discern the source of leaked questions special counsel Robert Mueller reportedly wants to ask President some rich asshole continued on Tuesday, as MSNBC’s Deadline: White House reported that two more people have denied spilling to reporters.
The New York Times reporter who wrote the story, Michael Schmidt, was on the panel
"In discussing the questions, of course, we can’t pose that question directly to the witness here we have before us, Mike Schmidt,” noted Jeremy Bash, the NBC News national security analyst who served as Chief of Staff at the Pentagon and CIA.
“He’d shoot all of us before he’d tell us who any of his sources are,” host Nicolle Wallace predicted.
“I think all of us believe it did not come from the tight-lipped special counsel’s office, so I was speculating earlier with Savannah Guthrie on The Today Show that perhaps Dohn Dowd could be the source of this,” Bash noted. “At 10:16 a.m. I got a very stern e-mail from John Dowd, he said ‘I was not the source, I was not the leak, please correct the record on national television.’ So I’m just putting it out there that John Dowd is saying emphatically on-the-record that he was not the source of this material.”
“I can one-up you,” Wallace replied. “Before I’d even gone on television, two people called me to tell me that Rudy [Giuliani] wasn’t Mike Schmidt’s source either.”
Watch:
the rich asshole glows in Nobel Peace Prize chatter
BY REBECCA KHEEL - 05/01/18 05:12 PM EDT
President the rich asshole is basking in the glow of chatter that he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts on the Korea Peninsula.
the rich asshole’s supporters — and even the South Korean president — say that getting North Korea to denuclearize and end the Korean War would be a monumental achievement worthy of the prize.
It’s far from sure, of course, that the rich asshole’s upcoming summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will lead to a lasting peace deal, and the rich asshole himself on Tuesday appeared to suggest that people are getting a bit ahead of themselves.
“I just think that President Moon [Jae-in] was very nice when he suggested it,” the rich asshole said Tuesday when asked about his Nobel prospects. “I want to get peace. The main thing, we want to get peace. It was a big problem, and I think it’s going to work out well.
“We’ll see. … But I thought it was very generous of President Moon of South Korea to make that statement, and I appreciate it, but the main thing is to get it done. I want to get it done.”
The talk of the rich asshole getting the prestigious award for statesmanship is a long way from when the world was on edge as the rich asshole mocked Kim as "Little Rocket Man” and threatened “fire and fury” if North Korea continued its nuclear threats.
It’s certainly possible that the rich asshole could have been nominated for this year’s peace prize, which former President Obama won in 2009.
The cut-off for nominations is Feb. 1, however, which came before the news of the rich asshole-Kim meeting. That means a 2019 nomination for the rich asshole might be more likely.
Anyone can be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by someone who falls into one of eight categories.
Eligible nominators include members of national assemblies or national governments of sovereign states — though people cannot nominate themselves. That means the rich asshole couldn’t throw his own hat in the ring, but a member of Congress or his Cabinet could.
The other categories of nominators are members of the International Court of Justice in The Hague and the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague; members of the Institute of International Law; university professors of history, social sciences, law, philosophy, theology and religion; university heads and directors of peace research or foreign policy institutes; past Peace Prize winners; board of directors members for institutions that are past Peace Prize winners; current and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; and former advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
The list of nominees officially remains secret for 50 years, though individuals sometimes publicize when they’ve nominated someone.
The other categories of nominators are members of the International Court of Justice in The Hague and the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague; members of the Institute of International Law; university professors of history, social sciences, law, philosophy, theology and religion; university heads and directors of peace research or foreign policy institutes; past Peace Prize winners; board of directors members for institutions that are past Peace Prize winners; current and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; and former advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
The list of nominees officially remains secret for 50 years, though individuals sometimes publicize when they’ve nominated someone.
On Feb. 1, the Norwegian Nobel Committee stops taking nominations and whittles down its long list of nominees into a short list. The committee, composed of five members appointed by the Norwegian parliament, then chooses a winner, announced in October each year.
This year there are 330 candidates, of which 216 are individuals and 114 are organizations, according to the Nobel Prize website.
This year there are 330 candidates, of which 216 are individuals and 114 are organizations, according to the Nobel Prize website.
the rich asshole was definitely nominated both this year and last — but the Nobel Committee said the public nominations appear to be forgeries, and both were referred to Norwegian police.
Politics has been seen as front and center in the Nobel prize, and there are those who doubt the committee would pick the rich asshole for the award even if he did achieve Korean peace.
Politics has been seen as front and center in the Nobel prize, and there are those who doubt the committee would pick the rich asshole for the award even if he did achieve Korean peace.
“My guess is they would not be comfortable giving it to him unless there was a tangible result,” said Andy Keiser, a principal at Navigators Global who worked on the rich asshole transition’s national security team. “Perhaps even then, it would be for all three of them, the rich asshole, Moon and Kim.”
The prize, first awarded in 1901, has had controversial winners in the past. Henry Kissinger’s win in 1973 for negotiating an ultimately short-lived ceasefire in Vietnam prompted two committee members to quit in protest for the first time in the prize’s history.
A committee member also resigned in 1994 when Yasser Arafat won alongside Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres for their roles in negotiating the Oslo accords.
It’s not unheard of for the committee to award works in progress.
The prize, first awarded in 1901, has had controversial winners in the past. Henry Kissinger’s win in 1973 for negotiating an ultimately short-lived ceasefire in Vietnam prompted two committee members to quit in protest for the first time in the prize’s history.
A committee member also resigned in 1994 when Yasser Arafat won alongside Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres for their roles in negotiating the Oslo accords.
It’s not unheard of for the committee to award works in progress.
In 2000, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung won the award for his so-called sunshine policy toward North Korea, which has been scrutinized for rewarding Pyongyang while failing to result in peace.
Obama’s win also elicited criticism as it was awarded in the first year of his presidency, before he accomplished much.
Last year’s winner was the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which successfully pushed the United Nations to pass the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. None of the world’s acknowledged nuclear weapons states have signed the treaty, though, leading some to dismiss the Nobel’s choice as aspirational.
In response to the chatter of the rich asshole deserving an award, ICAN Executive Director Beatrice Fihn tweeted that she’d “put in a good word” for the rich asshole if he works with Russian President Vladimir Putin to reduce both countries’ nuclear arsenals.
In a separate statement on last week’s inter-Korea summit, ICAN credited South Korea for the progress rather than the rich asshole.
“The dangerous rhetoric from some rich asshole and the U.S. brought us to the brink of nuclear war, and only careful diplomacy from South Korea has brought us back from it,” ICAN said in a statement Friday.
The talk of the rich asshole deserving a Nobel picked up after the Kim-Moon summit last week resulted in a joint declaration saying they are committed to denuclearizing the peninsula and ending the Korean War.
On Friday, Rep. Luke Messer (R-Ind.), who is in a crowded Senate primary campaign, released a statement saying he was gathering support from his colleagues to nominate the rich asshole for the award in 2019. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has also talked about the rich asshole deserving the award if there’s a peace deal.
During a rally in Michigan on Saturday, attendees, apparently unprompted, began chanting “Nobel” while the rich asshole discussed North Korea. the rich asshole stopped talking and stood smiling as they continued the chant.
“That’s very nice, thank you. That’s very nice. Nobel,” he said with a chuckle at the end. “I just want to get the job done.”
On Monday, Moon told a meeting of senior secretaries that “President the rich asshole should win the Nobel Peace Prize,” according to a South Korean presidential office official who briefed the media.
At least one betting market gives the rich asshole decent odds to win the prize this year. As of Tuesday, Britain-based Ladbrokes gave the rich asshole 10/1 odds, tied with the U.N. refugee agency. The only choice with better odds was a joint win by Moon and Kim, at 4/6.
Still, foreign policy experts have been highlighting Pyongyang’s history of breaking commitments to get rid of its nuclear program, suggesting the Nobel talk is premature.
“It’s definitely too early to be declaring victory, but the progress we’ve seen is not insignificant for sure,” Keiser said. “There have been multiple examples of the world thinking we have made progress in North Korea, all the while they’re developing their nuclear program on the side.”
Henrik Urdal, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, said signals from the inter-Korea summit are promising, but it’s still “far too early” to talk about awarding a Nobel Peace Prize to any of the parties in the Korea talks.
The institute is separate from the Nobel Institute, but it annually releases its own list of who the director thinks will make the Nobel’s short list.
The Nobel committee will likely want to see “real and irreversible” change in North Korea before it considers awarding anyone the Peace Prize, Urdal added.
“If successful, however, there is little doubt that solving the conflict on the Korean peninsula would be considered an exceptionally important contribution to global stability, and worthy of a prize,” Urdal said in an email.
“If the rich asshole makes a major contribution to such achievement, he will be considered for the Peace Prize, and it is quite possible that he could get it. However, he has been playing a high-stake game so far, so he needs to demonstrate statesman skills beyond threats and [deterrence] for that to happen.”
Obama’s win also elicited criticism as it was awarded in the first year of his presidency, before he accomplished much.
Last year’s winner was the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which successfully pushed the United Nations to pass the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. None of the world’s acknowledged nuclear weapons states have signed the treaty, though, leading some to dismiss the Nobel’s choice as aspirational.
In response to the chatter of the rich asshole deserving an award, ICAN Executive Director Beatrice Fihn tweeted that she’d “put in a good word” for the rich asshole if he works with Russian President Vladimir Putin to reduce both countries’ nuclear arsenals.
In a separate statement on last week’s inter-Korea summit, ICAN credited South Korea for the progress rather than the rich asshole.
“The dangerous rhetoric from some rich asshole and the U.S. brought us to the brink of nuclear war, and only careful diplomacy from South Korea has brought us back from it,” ICAN said in a statement Friday.
The talk of the rich asshole deserving a Nobel picked up after the Kim-Moon summit last week resulted in a joint declaration saying they are committed to denuclearizing the peninsula and ending the Korean War.
On Friday, Rep. Luke Messer (R-Ind.), who is in a crowded Senate primary campaign, released a statement saying he was gathering support from his colleagues to nominate the rich asshole for the award in 2019. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has also talked about the rich asshole deserving the award if there’s a peace deal.
During a rally in Michigan on Saturday, attendees, apparently unprompted, began chanting “Nobel” while the rich asshole discussed North Korea. the rich asshole stopped talking and stood smiling as they continued the chant.
“That’s very nice, thank you. That’s very nice. Nobel,” he said with a chuckle at the end. “I just want to get the job done.”
On Monday, Moon told a meeting of senior secretaries that “President the rich asshole should win the Nobel Peace Prize,” according to a South Korean presidential office official who briefed the media.
At least one betting market gives the rich asshole decent odds to win the prize this year. As of Tuesday, Britain-based Ladbrokes gave the rich asshole 10/1 odds, tied with the U.N. refugee agency. The only choice with better odds was a joint win by Moon and Kim, at 4/6.
Still, foreign policy experts have been highlighting Pyongyang’s history of breaking commitments to get rid of its nuclear program, suggesting the Nobel talk is premature.
“It’s definitely too early to be declaring victory, but the progress we’ve seen is not insignificant for sure,” Keiser said. “There have been multiple examples of the world thinking we have made progress in North Korea, all the while they’re developing their nuclear program on the side.”
Henrik Urdal, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, said signals from the inter-Korea summit are promising, but it’s still “far too early” to talk about awarding a Nobel Peace Prize to any of the parties in the Korea talks.
The institute is separate from the Nobel Institute, but it annually releases its own list of who the director thinks will make the Nobel’s short list.
The Nobel committee will likely want to see “real and irreversible” change in North Korea before it considers awarding anyone the Peace Prize, Urdal added.
“If successful, however, there is little doubt that solving the conflict on the Korean peninsula would be considered an exceptionally important contribution to global stability, and worthy of a prize,” Urdal said in an email.
“If the rich asshole makes a major contribution to such achievement, he will be considered for the Peace Prize, and it is quite possible that he could get it. However, he has been playing a high-stake game so far, so he needs to demonstrate statesman skills beyond threats and [deterrence] for that to happen.”
the rich asshole Personally Dictated Doctor’s Letter About ‘Astonishingly Excellent’ Health
Remember when the rich asshole announced that he would prove he was the fittest candidate by having his doctor compose a full medical report that would show “perfection?”
Yeah, that tweet comes to mind. And sure enough, Dr. Harold Bornstein wrote a letter detailing the rich asshole’s superman-like physical condition.
“His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary,” Bornstein said in the letter, which the rich asshole campaign released December 2015 as The rich asshole was trying to prove he was healthier than Hillary Clinton for some reason. “If elected, some rich asshole, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” It describes the rich asshole’s health as “astonishingly excellent.”
To many, the letter sounded as though it was written by the rich asshole himself. According to Bornstein, it was.
“He dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter,” Bornstein told CNN on Tuesday. “I just made it up as I went along.”
“Did I really write that letter? Yeah,” Bornstein said at the time when questioned about its authenticity. This news comes as Bornstein also recently revealed that the rich asshole’s ex-bodyguard Keith Schiller and two other men raided his office and stole the rich asshole’s medical records.
“That’s black humor, that letter. That’s my sense of humor,” Bornstein says. “It’s like the movie ‘Fargo’: It takes the truth and moves it in a different direction.”
He says that the rich asshole dictated the letter as Bornstein was driving across Central Park with his wife, and that he would “tell [the rich asshole] what he couldn’t put in there.”
“They came to pick up their letter at 4 o’clock or something,” he says.
Watch a report on these revelations below:
White House dodges on Mueller questions
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 05/01/18 04:04 PM EDT
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday repeatedly deflected questions about the leak of special counsel Robert Mueller’s questions for President the rich asshole.
Reporters asked Sanders multiple times about the questions, which were published by The New York Times, but each time Sanders instructed them to direct their inquiries to the rich asshole’s personal lawyers.
“As with all questions of this nature, I'd refer you to the president's outside personal attorneys, Jay Sekulow and Rudy Giuliani,” Sanders said when asked what the rich asshole thinks about the line of questioning.
Sanders declined to engage when a reporter asked whether the White House was behind the leak of the questions. When pressed that the question was about aides, and not the rich asshole himself, Sanders said she believed it was “actually specific to the president.”
Some have suggested the rich asshole associates leaked the questions in order to gauge public reaction. The Times said it obtained them from a "person outside some rich asshole's legal team."
The answers stymied reporters who were eager to dig into the questions, which shed light on the direction of Mueller’s months-long investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Mueller reportedly wants to ask the rich asshole about his intent in firing his national security adviser and FBI director to examine whether he obstructed justice.
His question about former campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s outreach to Moscow during the election suggested he is still probing whether the campaign colluded with Russia's election-interference efforts.
the rich asshole falsely claimed there were “no questions on Collusion” and said it was “disgraceful” the questioned were leaked.
“So disgraceful that the questions concerning the Russian Witch Hunt were ‘leaked’ to the media. No questions on Collusion. Oh, I see...you have a made up, phony crime, Collusion, that never existed, and an investigation begun with illegally leaked classified information. Nice!” the president tweeted Tuesday morning.
Sanders would not answer questions about the rich asshole’s tweet.
The spokesperson also refused to answer questions about longtime the rich asshole lawyer Michael Cohen’s decision to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination in a lawsuit filed by adult-film star Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had an affair with the rich asshole in 2006.
Cohen has said he made a $130,000 payment to Daniels as part of a nondisclosure agreement, while also denying any sexual encounter took place.
“I can’t speak on behalf of Michael Cohen. I’d refer you to him,” she said.
Sanders also didn't answer questions about comedian Michelle Wolf’s biting jokes about her at last weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
But that was for a different reason: No reporter asked about them.
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