Category: Bullying

Donald Trump’s rhetorical style is straight out of middle school. He’s like an eighth-grade girl.

Trump: McGahn had a better chance of being fired than Mueller

President Trump denounced his former counsel Don McGahn on Saturday, following a report that the White House asked the lawyer twice to say publicly that Trump didn’t obstruct justice by asking for special counsel Robert Mueller’s dismissal.

Why it matters:The New York Times report appears to indicate how far the Trump administration has gone to prove the president did not attempt to obstruct justice. The revelations prompted House Democrats to say it’s critical for McGahn to testify before Congress regarding the Mueller report.

[Axios]

Reality

The Mueller Report is very clear, Donald Trump fired Robert Mueller several times, it’s just his orders were never carried out because his aides knew they would be in deep legal jeopardy.

On June 17,2017 Don McGahn recalled Trump said something along the lines of, “You gotta do this. You gotta call Rod,” Mueller’s report said. McGahn said he told the president he would see what he could do and did not act on the request.

Trump followed up that call telling McGahn “Mueller has to go” and “call me back when you do it.”

Trump Claims He’s Still Under Audit, Decries Dem Request for Tax Returns: Voters Didn’t Care and I Won

President Donald Trump this afternoon blasted the House Ways and Means Committee request for his tax returns, claiming he is still under audit.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchinthis week rejected the request from Democratic chairman Richard Neal. The committee has now subpoenaed the Treasury Department and the IRS.

“I won the 2016 Election partially based on no Tax Returns while I am under audit (which I still am),” Trump tweeted this afternoon, “and the voters didn’t care. Now the Radical Left Democrats want to again relitigate this matter. Make it a part of the 2020 Election!”

He followed up with another tweet on the Mueller report, claiming that Democrats talking about obstruction instead of collusion are still wrong because “there was No Obstruction”:

Last night there were multiple reportsthat the White House had asked former White House counsel Don McGahn to publicly say Trump didn’t engage in obstruction, but McGahn declined.

[Mediaite]

Trump says bring on ‘Sleepy/Creepy’ Joe Biden

He’s got his heart set on Joe.

President Trump tweeted that he has his money on Vice President Joe Biden winning the crowded Democratic primary battle to take him on in 2020.

It was one of a head-spinning 16th tweet by 10 am eastern time for Trump. Critics have noted that the president spends most of his working day in so-called “Executive Time,” which is a euphemism for whipping out tweets and chatting with pals on the phone.

Trump regularly mocks Biden for his well-reported proclivity for getting touchy feely with women and men alike. Some women have expressed discomfort with Biden’s “tactile” personality for years but so far he has not faced more serious harassment or abuse allegations.

The president, on the other hand, was infamously caught on tape bragging about “grabbing” women by their private parts and has faced numerous claims of sexual impropriety, including paying hush money during the 2016 campaign to silence porn stars about extramarital affairs.

Twitter quickly piled on the POTUS for his dig at Biden. George (Mr. Kellyanne) Conway took just an hour to get 7,500 retweets for his riposte that Trump “palled around with” big bucks pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

[New York Daily News]

Trump suffers meltdown after James Comey tells CNN it is ‘possible’ that ‘the Russians have leverage over’ the president

President Donald Trump freaked out on Twitter after former FBI Director James Comey gave an exclusive interview to CNN on the two-year anniversary of being fired.

“Do you think the Russians have leverage over President Trump?” Anderson Cooper asked.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” Comey replied.

“Do you think it’s possible?” Cooper asked.

“Yes,” Comey answered.

That was not the only news Comey made.

Comey also said that Attorney General Bill Barr has behaved “less than honorably” and that America can’t have a president “who lies constantly.”

Trump lashed out after the interview was televised.

“James Comey is a disgrace to the FBI and will go down as the worst director in its long and once proud history,” Trump argued, seemingly unaware of the Bureau’s history.

“He brought the FBI down, almost all Republicans and Democrats thought he should be fired, but the FBI will regain greatness because of the great men & women who work there!” Trump argued.

[Raw Story]

Media

White House revokes press passes for dozens of journalists

IN WHAT APPEARS TO BE an unprecedented move, the White House revoked the press passes of a significant chunk of the Washington press corps because they didn’t meet a new standard, according to Washington Postcolumnist Dana Milbank. Under the new rules, rolled out earlier this year, in order to qualify for the highest level of access—known as a “hard pass”—journalists had to be present in the White House for at least 90 days out of a 180-day period. According to Milbank, virtually the entire press corps failed to meet this new test, including all six of the Post’s White House correspondents. Media outlets then had to apply for exceptions to cover their senior journalists, or settle for six-month passes, which don’t allow as much access.

The Post applied for and was granted exceptions for its White House correspondents, Milbank says, but he was not given one. “I strongly suspect it’s because I’m a Trump critic,” he wrote on Wednesday. “The move is perfectly in line with Trump’s banning of certain news organizations, including The Post, from his campaign events and his threats to revoke White House credentials of journalists he doesn’t like.” Milbank noted that, since dozens of senior correspondents didn’t meet the new standards either, “they all serve at the pleasure of Press Secretary Sarah Sanders” and
“therefore, in theory, can have their credentials revoked any time they annoy Trump or his aides.” (The White House press secretary told the Post the move was a result of security concerns, not a desire to crack down on specific journalists.)

Some seemed concerned that the new rules are an attempt to exert more direct control over the White House press corps, after an incident involving CNN reporter Jim Acosta in November. Acosta’s press pass was revoked following a contentious press conference in which the CNN reporter repeatedly asked the president questions about immigration policy that Trump refused to answer, and then refused to hand over the microphone when an aide tried to take it from him. Later that day, Acosta tried to access the White House in the usual way and was told his “hard pass” had been revoked because of his behavior. Sanders later released a statement saying the CNN reporter’s pass had been withdrawn “until further notice.”

CNN went to court to seek an injunction ordering the White House to return Acosta’s pass, and won. The media company and a number of other organizations that filed briefs in the case argued that the First Amendment protected the media’s right to cover the White House, and that this right couldn’t be abridged without due process. Judge Timothy Kelly agreed with the latter part of that argument, and said the Trump administration had failed to show why Acosta’s press pass was being revoked, or, in fact, that any process had been followed at all. “Whatever process occurred within the government is still so shrouded in mystery that the government could not tell me at oral argument who made the initial decision to revoke Mr. Acosta’s press pass,” he wrote.

Now, with its new standards for performance and most of the press corps holding passes that have only been issued as “exceptions,” the White House has a structure in place that could allow it to remove whoever it wishes to remove. That wouldn’t necessarily override First Amendment protection for press access (which Kelly didn’t rule on), but in the short term it gives the Trump administration new levers with which to control the press corps. Some argue that access to the White House is already almost meaningless, since press briefings are few and far between (there hasn’t been an on-camera briefing for 58 days, a new record) and what briefings there are often involve the White House press secretary and/or the president shutting down journalist questions and in many cases outright lying about various details of the administration’s behavior or plans.

Here’s more on the White House’s tangled relationship with the press:

  • Un-American: “This is what dictators do,” Patrick Leahy, the senior Democratic senator from Vermont, said in a tweet posted to his official Twitter account, quoting from the Dana Milbank piece in The Washington Post. Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator from Oregon, posted a similar sentiment on Twitter, saying: “Curtailing a free press and undermining the public’s access to government is a hallmark of authoritarianism & has no place in America. This purge of reporters is un-American and needs to be reversed ASAP. ”
  • Not normal: Even before the furor over the revoking of Jim Acosta’s press pass, New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen was arguing that the media should “suspend normal relations with the Trump presidency” because of the way it treated journalists and the press. New outlets and journalists should refuse to do background or off-the-record briefings, Rosen said, and stop repeating the president’s falsehoods. Rosen also argued as early as 2017 that media outlets should stop sending their senior journalists to White House briefings.
  • Does it matter? In September, Pete Vernon wrote for CJR about the inexorable decline of the White House press briefing and asked whether or not it matters anymore. Olivier Knox, the president of the White House Correspondents Association, told CNN’s Brian Stelter that the briefing “has both a symbolic and a substantive importance to the White House press corps,” because it shows that “the most powerful political institution in American life is not above being questioned.” But others argued it was just an exercisein political theater.
  • No dinner: Trump announced last month that he wouldn’t be attending the White House Correspondent Dinner, an annual fundraiser in which journalists dine with politicians and celebrities, and then ordered that no White House or administration officials would be allowed to attend the dinner either. Trump said the dinner was “so boring and negative” that he would be attending a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin instead. Last year, CJR looked at the dinner and found that less than half the money raised went to scholarships.

[Columbia Journal Review]

Trump Calls for the Prosecution of John Kerry Under the Logan Act

President Donald Trump called for the prosecution of former Secretary of StateJohn Kerry for his negotiations with a foreign government, namely Iran. In particular, Trump said Kerry violated the Logan Act.

“What I would like to see with Iran, I would like to see them call me. John Kerry, he speaks to them a lot. John Kerry tells them not to call. That is a violation of the Logan Act. And frankly, he should be prosecuted on that,” he said. “But my people don’t want to do anything — only the Democrats do that kind of stuff. You know? If it were the opposite way, they would prosecute him under the Logan Act. But John Kerry violated the Logan Act.”

“He’s talking to Iran and has been, has many meetings and tells them what to do,” Trump added. “That is a total violation of the Logan act.”

The Logan Act came up before in the context of fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. At the time, it was noted that the Logan Act is a 1799 law that is “rarely enforced” and has “never been used to successfully prosecute any American citizen.”

Here’s what 18 U.S.C. §953, the Logan Act, says:

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

Only two people have ever been indicted for a Logan Act violation, and neither of them were convicted.

[Law and Crime]

Reality

In September Marco Rubio sent a letter to the DOJ urging an investigation of the matter.

https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=Press-Releases&id=2D9F248A-E57B-468D-8B76-99D0290EE080

Media

‘Shoot them!’: Trump laughs off a supporter’s demand for violence against migrants

A roar rose up from the crowd of thousands of Trump supporters in Panama City Beach on Wednesday night, as President Trump noted yet again that Border Patrol agents can’t use weapons to deter migrants. “How do you stop these people?” he asked.

“Shoot them!” someone yelled from the crowd, according to reporters on the scene and attendees.

The audience cheered. Supporters seated behind Trump and clad in white baseball caps bearing the letters “USA” laughed and applauded.

“That’s only in the Panhandle you can get away with that statement,” Trump replied, smiling and shaking his head. “Only in the Panhandle.”

Though Trump didn’t explicitly endorse the suggestion to shoot migrants, his joking response raised concerns that he was tacitly encouraging extrajudicial killings and brutality against asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants. The president has long been accused of endorsing acts of violence through his incendiary rhetoric and allusions to the potential for violence at his rallies, a charge that members of his administration deny.

Reached for comment by The Washington Post on Trump’s reaction at the Florida rally, Matt Wolking, deputy communications director for the Trump campaign, pointed to a response he had given to many critics on Twitter. The president, he noted in his tweet, had specifically said that Border Patrol wouldn’t use firearms to stop migrants from entering the country.

The incendiary remark from the crowd came as Trump, standing before roughly 7,000 people who had gathered at an outdoor amphitheater in the hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast town, railed against what he described as an “invasion” of migrants attempting to enter the United States. Often, he claimed, only “two or three” border agents will contend with the arrival of “hundreds and hundreds of people.”

“And don’t forget, we don’t let them and we can’t let them use weapons,” Trump said of the border agents. “We can’t. Other countries do. We can’t. I would never do that. But how do you stop these people?”

The fans seated directly behind Trump wore serious, perturbed frowns, which were quickly replaced by broad grins after the shouted suggestion that the solution involved firearms. Uproarious laughter rippled across the room as audience members whistled and offered a round of applause.

To critics, Trump’s failure to outright condemn the idea of shooting migrants amounted to a “tacit endorsement” of the sentiment. Many pointed out that such rhetoric was especially concerning in light of the fact that an armed militia group, the United Constitutional Patriots, had been searching the borderlands for undocumented migrants and detaining them against their will.

Last month, after the group’s leader, Larry Mitchell Hopkins, was arrested on charges of being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition, the FBI said that the 69-year-old claimed militia members were training to assassinate former president Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and prominent Democratic donor George Soros.

One member of that militia had also questioned why the group wasn’t killing migrants, according to a police report first obtained by left-leaning news outlet The Young Turks.

[Washington Post]

Media

Trump’s tweet derails House bill opposed by lobbyist with close White House ties

President Trump on Wednesday helped derail a bipartisan casino bill opposed by a key White House ally after tying the measure to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a leading Democratic candidate vying to challenge him in 2020.

The intervention by Trump, contained in a morning tweet, eroded Republican support and prompted House Democrats to postpone a vote on the measure, which would pave the way for a new Massachusetts tribal casino.

The bill, H.R. 312, would confirm the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe’s sovereignty over 321 acres of land — including the Taunton, Mass., site eyed for the casino project. It was scheduled for a House vote Wednesday under expedited procedures requiring a two-thirds majority to pass, reflecting its broad support.

But opponents, including Rhode Island lawmakers, have argued that the bill would harm the business of two neighboring casinos across the state line. A key Trump ally, American Conservative Union chairman Matthew Schlapp, is lobbying for Twin River Management Group, which operates both Rhode Island casinos. Schlapp’s wife, Mercedes, is the White House strategic communications director.

In a Wednesday morning tweet that blindsided lawmakers of both parties, Trump urged Republicans to oppose the measure.

“Republicans shouldn’t vote for H.R. 312, a special interest casino Bill, backed by Elizabeth (Pocahontas) Warren,” Trump said, deploying a nickname he has frequently used to deride the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. “It is unfair and doesn’t treat Native Americans equally!”

Warren co-sponsored a similar 2018 bill introduced by Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), but there is no Senate legislation pertaining to the tribe pending in the current Congress. The House bill, introduced by Rep. William R. Keating (D-Mass.), has the support of 15 Democratic co-sponsors, including the entire Massachusetts delegation, as well as six Republicans.

The singular focus on Warren appeared to reflect a strategy embraced by Schlapp, who focused on the senator in a Wednesday morning tweet and an email he sent Tuesday to Republicans on Capitol Hill.

“Potentially giving her a win on such an issue is a real head scratcher,” Schlapp wrote in the email obtained by The Washington Post. It linked to a February story on a conservative website headlined “Warren’s Casino Fiasco.”

In a brief phone interview, Schlapp asked for questions to be texted to him but did not respond to a text or a subsequent phone call. He later referred a reporter to his Twitter feed, where he posted a statement saying that he “lobbied against the casino because it is a “terrible idea” and that his wife “had no role in my advocacy.” Schlapp is well-known in Washington Republican circles as the lead organizer of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC. A Warren spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment.

According to a person familiar with the circumstances surrounding the tweet, Trump was happy to attack the project once he learned it was a key priority for Warren. He agreed to send the tweet Tuesday evening, though it was not posted until the next morning, a senior White House official said.

But conservative opposition to the bill was brewing even before Trump’s tweet. White House officials have whipped against the vote in recent days — pointing to objections from the Interior Department, which in 2017 reversed a land decision, prompting the need for legislation.

Two prominent Republican lawmakers — Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), the ranking Republican on the Rules Committee and a supporter of the tribal legislation, and Rep. Gary Palmer (Ala.), chairman of the party policy committee and an opponent of the bill — sparred in a Tuesday night leadership meeting and again in a Wednesday morning GOP conference meeting. But Trump’s tweet appeared to seal its fate: House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) canceled plans for a vote less than two hours later.

“You get a little racist tweet from the president, and it creates a backwards stampede of people on the Republican side that previously indicated they were voting yes,” said House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.). “The lobbyist for CPAC did a lot of sabotage in the last few days on this issue, and made it a conservative vs. Democrat issue when it’s not.”

A Democratic aide said the Mashpee bill probably will get a vote next week under different procedures requiring only a simple majority to pass.

Cole, a leading GOP voice on Native American issues, said Trump’s tweet was the “precipitating factor” for the bills getting pulled Wednesday and disputed the notion that the bill ought to be dismissed by Republicans because of Warren’s apparent support.

“The communities in the area want it. The state is on record wanting it. Every member of the Massachusetts delegation wants it. Why should we be intervening in a state like that when there is unanimity?” he said. “The real conflict here is between private gaming interests that don’t want Native American competition.”

Cole said he was not aware of Schlapp’s specific involvement in lobbying against the bill or whether he played a role in getting Trump to tweet about it. “I don’t think he knows very much about Indian issues,” Cole said of Schlapp.

Democrats were happy to highlight Schlapp’s possible role while bemoaning the vote’s cancellation Wednesday.

“It is also not lost on anybody that a lobbyist for the Rhode Island casino seems to have a very tight relationship with the White House,” said Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.), who represents the area eyed for the casino project. “It’s sad. The consequence of this is going to be that the tribe that greeted the Pilgrims gets hurt once again by the U.S. government.”

The bill did, if only briefly, create some strange bedfellows between Trump and the all-Democratic Rhode Island delegation — whose members have worked against the Massachusetts casino plan for months.

“All I’m going to say is, I’m glad the bill was pulled from the floor today for a variety of reasons,” said Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.). “I don’t know the president’s interest or reasoning completely. I’m not going to comment on that.”

Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.), who spent much of Wednesday at a House Judiciary Committee hearing lambasting Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr, declined to comment on Schlapp’s potential influence on the president.

He pointed instead to the lobbying done by the Mashpee tribe’s foreign investment partners: “There’s been tremendous lobbying on behalf of a Malaysian hedge fund. I’m very concerned about the level of lobbying.”

[Washington Post]

Trump Rage-Tweets Fox & Friends Segment About ‘Russian Involvement’: ‘TREASONOUS HOAX!’

A Fox & Friends segment in the 7 a.m. ET hour drew President Donald Trump‘s ire on Tuesday — one focused in on what Fox’s Ainsley Earhardt termed “this Russia involvement” in the 2016 election.

In a pair of tweets, the President — chiming in three-and-a-half hours after the original segment aired — quoted Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade…and then added his own editorial commentary.

“Everyone wants to know who needs to be held accountable for this,’ Earhardt said. “Because it took up two years of our lives, basically, talking about Russia involvement. It proved no collusion. And people want to trace it back to find out how this all happened — how the investigation happened — and how Carter Pageended up being surveilled.”

After the quote, Trump weighed in by writing, “TREASONOUS HOAX!”

The President took some liberties and paraphrased the subsequent comment from Brian Kilmeade.

“And why Christopher Steele was so determined to get this information out before the election,” Kilmeade said. “This British spy!”

Notably, Trump added: “(this fake dossier.”

[Mediaite]

Trump demands Democrats investigate themselves for impeachable offenses in bonkers early morning tweet

President Donald Trump on Monday said Democrats need to stop talking about impeaching him — and then demanded that they launch investigations into themselves over their own purported “crimes.”

Reacting to comments about impeaching Trump made by Rep. Al Green (D-TX), the president insisted that House Democrats had no grounds to impeach him.

“You can’t impeach a president for creating the best economy in our country’s history,” the president wrote. “Also, there are “No High Crimes & Misdemeanors,” No Collusion, No Conspiracy, No Obstruction. ALL THE CRIMES ARE ON THE OTHER SIDE, and that’s what the Dems should be looking at, but they won’t.”

Even though Trump has claimed that special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference was a “total exoneration,” he has nonetheless bitterly complained about it and he said over the weekend that Mueller should not be allowed to testify before Congress about his work.

And contrary to the president’s assertion that the report found “no obstruction,” it actually outlined multiple instances that it said could constitute obstruction of justice, including the president ordering his White House counsel to fire Mueller and the president trying to pressure former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to limit the scope of Mueller’s probe.

[Raw Story]

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