Patterico's Pontifications

4/13/2018

President Trump Pardons Scooter Libby

Filed under: General — Dana @ 10:34 am



[guest post by Dana]

Here is the statement from the White House:

Today, President Donald J. Trump issued an Executive Grant of Clemency (Full Pardon) to I. “Scooter” Lewis Libby, former Chief of Staff to Vice President Richard Cheney, for convictions stemming from a 2007 trial. President George W. Bush commuted Mr. Libby’s sentence shortly after his conviction. Mr. Libby, nevertheless, paid a $250,000 fine, performed 400 hours of community service, and served two years of probation.

In 2015, one of the key witnesses against Mr. Libby recanted her testimony, stating publicly that she believes the prosecutor withheld relevant information from her during interviews that would have altered significantly what she said. The next year, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals unanimously reinstated Mr. Libby to the bar, reauthorizing him to practice law. The Court agreed with the District of Columbia Disciplinary Counsel, who stated that Mr. Libby had presented “credible evidence” in support of his innocence, including evidence that a key prosecution witness had “changed her recollection of the events in question.”

Before his conviction, Mr. Libby had rendered more than a decade of honorable service to the Nation as a public servant at the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the White House. His record since his conviction is similarly unblemished, and he continues to be held in high regard by his colleagues and peers.

In light of these facts, the President believes Mr. Libby is fully worthy of this pardon. “I don’t know Mr. Libby,” said President Trump, “but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly. Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life.”

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

305 Responses to “President Trump Pardons Scooter Libby”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (023079)

  2. you know who else leaked classified stuff to the media?

    womanish FBI slutboy Jim Comey!

    true fact it’s on the internet

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  3. Rosenstein has said in recent private conversations that history will prove he did the right thing by firing Comey in May 2017, claiming that the American people do not have all the facts about what led to his decision to write the memo that led to Comey’s dismissal, the sources said.

    whose fault is that, rosytwat?

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  4. I beg your pardon.
    Could you announce it in the Rose Garden?
    You know I really did lie,
    But only to Fitzgerald and the FBI.

    When you take, you gotta give,
    And the Shrub’s re-election had to live.
    When Armitrage went and blabbed it all,
    They picked me to take the fall.

    nk (dbc370)

  5. i think the actual proof that Scooter lied is very tenuous no?

    wasn’t it basically just that the jury took some dirty propaganda slut’s word over his?

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  6. Just kidding. Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. I’m happy for Libby regardless of Trump’s motives. Moreover, that whole Plame affair was a ridiculous circus with no purpose other than to dirty up Bush 43 in his re-election.

    BTW, did you know that he published a novel titled The Apprentice?

    nk (dbc370)

  7. On background, I asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson’s wife sending her husband to Niger. Libby replied, ‘Yeah, I’ve heard that too,’ or words to that effect. Like Rove, Libby never used Valerie Plame’s name or indicated that her status was covert, and he never told me that he had heard about Plame from other reporters, as some press accounts have indicated. – propaganda slut Matthew Cooper

    this is how the sleazy FBI gestapo ruin people’s lives

    they pick their target then they invent a crime

    they are very sick and corrupt

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  8. If AG Jeff Sessions was worthy of the responsibilities of his high office he’d man-up and fire Rod Rosenstine, Peter Strozk, and all the other slimy coconspirators still slithering around in the DoJ’s much too comfortable tall grass.

    Either that or submit his resignation. One or the other, and damn quick.

    ropelight (560bda)

  9. Sessions isn’t very engaged in his job it seems like he’s mostly there to protect and nurture the fascist fbi coup against the elected president

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  10. In 2015, one of the key witnesses against Mr. Libby recanted her testimony, stating publicly that she believes the prosecutor withheld relevant information from her during interviews that would have altered significantly what she said

    This is Judith Miller.

    She became uncertain as to whetgehr she had actually learned from Scooter Libby that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA,

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/04/18/judith_miller_recants_wheres_the_media_126289.html

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-false-evidence-against-scooter-libby-1428365673

    Ms. Miller’s new memoir recounts that after her conditions had been met and Mr. Fitzgerald asked the court to release her from jail in September 2005, she was summoned to testify before the grand jury. While Mr. Fitzgerald prepared her, she recalls, his pointed queries led her to believe that a four-word question regarding Joseph Wilson surrounded by parentheses in her notebook—“(wife works in Bureau?)”—proved that Mr. Libby had told her about Ms. Plame’s CIA employment in a June 23, 2003, conversation (well before Mr. Libby’s phone conversation with Russert). She so testified at trial in 2007.

    Three years later, Ms. Miller writes, she was reading Ms. Plame’s book, “Fair Game,” and was astonished to learn that while on overseas assignment for the CIA Ms. Plame “had worked at the State Department as cover.” This threw “a new light” on the June 2003 notebook jotting, Ms. Miller says, since the State Department has “bureaus,” while the CIA is organized into “divisions.”

    Ms. Miller, who had spoken to many State Department sources around the same time she spoke to Mr. Libby, says in her memoir that she then realized she must have begun her conversation with him wondering whether Mr. Wilson’s wife worked at the State Department. Ms. Miller also now understood that “If Libby, a seasoned bureaucrat, had been trying to plant her employer with me at our first meeting in June, he would not have used the word Bureau to describe where Plame worked.”

    The whole premise of the investigation was wrong anyway.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  11. No word from feckless Trump-basher Dubya Bush.

    random viking (6a54c2)

  12. Trump’s attorney pimp apparently “facilitated” a $1.6M payment on behalf of a big GOP fundraiser who knocked up a Playboy model, as well.

    The DoJ just confirmed that Cohen is the target of a criminal investigation.

    Dave (445e97)

  13. I’m guessing Dave was very impressed by Libby’s conviction.

    random viking (6a54c2)

  14. Reposting here, on-topic, my off-topic comment from earlier this morning regarding the Libby pardon:

    —–

    One of the things I think that George W. Bush got exactly, consistently right, from its beginning in 2003 through its end in 2007, was his handling of L’Affair Plame. He played it exactly by the book, he kept his mouth shut, he let the process play out — and when, finally, it all boiled down to the Libby prosecution, he let that go on for as long as he could before he made the decision to commute Libby’s sentence — and not to pardon him outright. As Bush wrote and said at the time, the commutation was a carefully considered balancing of competing considerations, which included, as of that moment, the fact that Libby had been duly convicted by a jury, sentenced by the trial judge, had his trial court motion for bail pending appeal denied, and had his appellate attempt to overturn that decision denied too; the commutation deliberately left in place the judgment of conviction, but spared Libby from further consequences, specifically imprisonment, beyond the very considerable destruction that had already been inflicted upon him and his family’s lives.

    Now the press is reporting that Trump’s making noises about pardoning Libby outright. Libby’s already put his life back together with the benefit of the commmutation. He’s applied for, and received, re-admittance to the D.C. Bar. Pardoning Libby now, when he doesn’t need the pardon for practical purpose — it’s not going to change anyone’s opinion about Libby either way, if they were paying close attention during his trial — appears not to be a valid use of the POTUS’ pardon discretion. To my knowledge, Libby hasn’t gone through the formal pardon application process; he hasn’t sought more than the commutation. So whatever this proposed pardon will be about, it won’t be about Scooter Libby.

    It will be about obstruction of justice; it will be about special prosecutors; and more than anything else, it will be about Donald J. Trump. It will be about Trump reminding Mueller and Rosenstein and every Congressional Republican, past or future, that Trump has a pardon pen and could, in theory, use it to pardon himself, at least for federal crimes.

    Giving Libby a pardon he hasn’t sought would be all about Donald J. Trump, in other words. And it would be further inferential evidence that Trump has something — something worse than payoffs to porn-stars or even Trump Tower housekeepers — to hide.

    —–

    I wrote at length about the Libby trial on my own blog, including my extreme disappointment that he didn’t take the stand to defend himself, even though by all accounts he is a brilliant, articulate, and persuasive lawyer, with no prior convictions or other reasons not to take the stand, and who could therefore have been his own best witness on the key questions of intent. The jury isn’t allowed to hold his failure to testify against him, but we outside observers aren’t bound by those rules. As I wrote in 2007:

    I still have a hard time imagining what Libby’s motive could have been for the deliberate lies that the jury found him to have made. They just don’t seem to be very smart lies, nor were they lies that could have accomplished very much even had they gone uncaught. And Libby himself is such a smart guy.

    ….

    I have to allow for the possibility that Scooter Libby originally told his lies for not-very-good, not-very-smart reasons too, even if they were reasons that seemed valid to him at the moment he told them. But then he got caught in the lies, and then he just didn’t have any very good answers for why he’d told them.

    That would certainly explain why he didn’t take the stand.

    Maybe Scooter Libby didn’t take the stand in his own defense because he’s a good man who, by the time of the trial, recognized that he’d made some very bad decisions for not-very-good reasons. Maybe Scooter Libby is a man who was willing to let his lawyers do their best, and who was willing to put the prosecution to the test of meeting its burden of proof, and who was hoping the jury might find a “reasonable doubt” even without hearing any testimony from him — but because he is indeed a good man, and a man who has spent now hundreds of hours searching his conscience, he just couldn’t bring himself to tell any more lies under oath, even if they might have improved his chances of acquittal.

    That’s frankly the best explanation for his not taking the stand that I can think of under these circumstances, and it’s not entirely unflattering to him. That’s about the only way I can make sense of all this, and I guess I hope it’s true.

    See also, from 2007 just after the verdict:

    Why Libby can still have been guilty of perjury even though no one was prosecuted or convicted for leaking about Plame. Patterico & DRJ feature prominently in this post.

    On prediction for Dubya’s Libby commutation, Beldar shoots — and he scores! This is me patting myself on the back for predicting, and even scripting with considerable accuracy, what Duyba would say when he commuted Libby’s sentence rather than pardoning him in full). As I wrote then: “I’m proud of the President. I think he did the right thing, and he did it at exactly the right time.”

    I don’t for believe Trump was motivated one iota by concern for Scooter Libby. This is all about whiny, immature, impulsive, and unfit President Donald J. Trump’s own potential criminal jeopardy, and using the pardon power for messaging in that political and legal fight is a new low for him in terms of demonstrating his own utter lack of integrity.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  15. A test pattern is so very TeeVee, eh Captain sir!

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  16. the good thing is how President Trump can hold up Libby’s experience as being emblematic of how the special counsels and their FBI gestapo will absolutely ruin the lives of people who did absolutely nothing wrong

    this is a pattern of behavior on behalf of Nazi Justice in america, and it needs to stop

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  17. The DoJ has long had very formal and detailed requirements for anyone seeking a presidential pardon.

    Libby didn’t apply. Trump completely ignored his own DoJ’s procedures (note that they were last updated on October 12, 2017, well into Trump’s presidency), because he’s an impulsive baby who doesn’t understand or care about the Rule of Law or anything but the immediate well-being of Donald J. Trump.

    Before these procedures were written, Ford likewise pardoned Nixon, without Nixon having made any formal application for a pardon. But that was at a time when the entire nation was still wracked with hot, fierce, and daily controversy over Watergate and Nixon’s resignation, and Ford properly took into account the need to issue the Nixon pardon for the good of the country, not for the good of Richard M. Nixon individually.

    By contrast, the nation is not now wracked with hot, fierce, and daily controversy over Scooter Libby’s conviction in 2007.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  18. any requirements or policies regarding pardons that have been formalized or detailed by the fascist DOJ were done so in its own self-interest to further its own fascist schemes and protect its own fascist prerogatives

    this is obvious to anyone who is willing to do the analysis

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  19. Former Vice President Dick Cheney praised President Trump’s decision on Friday to pardon his former top aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby, saying that Trump had “righted” a “wrongful conviction.”

    “Scooter Libby is one of the most capable, principled, and honorable men I have ever known,” Cheney said in a statement. “He is innocent, and he and his family have suffered for years because of his wrongful conviction.”

    “I am grateful today that President Trump righted this wrong by issuing a full pardon to Scooter, and I am thrilled for Scooter and his family.”

    classy

    his daughter is besties with Mr. Bolton i believe, and I bet it’s no coincidence this happened whilst Mr. Bolton was in the hizzy

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  20. Libby was originally sentenced to 30 months in prison and a $250,000 fine. He was ultimately spared jail time after former President George W. Bush commuted his sentence.

    so the commutation just applied to jail time

    it’s interesting how sleazy-ass Bush felt it important that his thug government go ahead and gank 250 large off Scooter

    not classy George

    but then you’re a Bush

    your whole family is trash

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  21. Trump completely ignored his own DoJ’s procedures (note that they were last updated on October 12, 2017, well into Trump’s presidency), because he’s an impulsive baby who doesn’t understand or care about the Rule of Law or anything but the immediate well-being of Donald J. Trump. the Constitution puts the President in charge of the DOJ, not the other way around.

    FIFY.

    Anon Y. Mous (6cc438)

  22. Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose CIA agent wife’s cover was leaked in 2003, blasted President Trump on Friday as “vile and despicable” after he pardoned I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

    love it!

    lol too funny

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  23. @16. this is a pattern of behavior on behalf of Nazi Justice in america, and it needs to stop

    Party on, Mr. Feet: expect our Captain to honor der Fuehrer’s birthday by firing Rosenstein on Friday, April 20.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  24. make he could just be laterally promoted that would be fine as long as we can then get someone in charge that’s not a nazi symp

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  25. 15 charges or less, Mr Beldar.

    Pinandpuller (f0aa6b)

  26. ugh that should be *maybe* he could just be laterally promoted

    sorry in a rush gotta do stuff outside before the rains come

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  27. Who cares except democrats and disgruntled conservative libertarian republicans who have lost control of republican party to populists.

    rondo (66108b)

  28. It’s weird that Nazi Trump came in the night like that for Scooter Libby.

    Zis ist highly irregular, mein Fuhrer.

    Pinandpuller (f0aa6b)

  29. The timing stinks to high heaven. I am pleased, nonetheless, for Libby.

    A lousy process crime ends with a lousy pardon. I can live with that symmetry.

    DJT is still a buffoon and all those not-nice things Beldar said. 🙂

    Ed from SFV (4f3559)

  30. Lawyer Cohen handles hush money payoffs to Playboy bunnies for the ‘family values’ GOP; Which lawyer handles the Penthouse Pets for the GOP?

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  31. So do you not Trump fans think John Hinkley is waiting by the phone?

    Pinandpuller (f0aa6b)

  32. it’s interesting how sleazy-ass Bush felt it important that his thug government go ahead and gank 250 large off Scooter

    Plus, he lost his law license and means to a livelihood for ten years. All the while, Bush lives on his pension.

    If the pardon was all about Trump, the sham commutation was all about Dubya.

    random viking (6a54c2)

  33. 17 republican running dogs of the free trade donor class and crooked hillary found out the hard way republican voters support trump over free trader con/lib scum. media vermin see trump poll numbers rise as the try to “rain” on trumps .

    rondo (66108b)

  34. 31.So do you not Trump fans think John Hinkley is waiting by the phone?

    Always. For Jodi to call; Foster granted.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  35. Neo-con artists are trying to slither back to gop after worshipping hilary. trumps hands them a crum.

    rondo (66108b)

  36. 35.Neo-con artists are trying to slither back to gop after worshipping hilary. trumps hands them a crum.

    Kristol didn’t get that memo.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  37. Trump’s attorney pimp apparently “facilitated” a $1.6M payment on behalf of a big GOP fundraiser who knocked up a Playboy model, as well.

    That guy looks like a fatter, more masculine, and better-coiffed version of Trump. It’s true what they say — a ten is a five who has five million dollars.

    nk (dbc370)

  38. @37. 2006: Trump on Daniels– and McDougal.

    It was a very good year…

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  39. @38. Who handles the Penthouse Pets– Ty Cobb?

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  40. CNN reports RNC accepts resignation of fundraiser who ‘knocked up’ Playboy model.

    Family value$; party girls.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  41. Playboy breasts aren’t for display purposes only?

    Pinandpuller (39aff8)

  42. If the absolute pardon power corrupted absolutely blame The Deep Framers.

    Pinandpuller (39aff8)

  43. Who handles the Penthouse Pets– Ty Cobb?

    He still holds the records for stealing second base, third base and home in one at-bat; and for stealing second base, third base, and home individually (on separate at-bats). Home 54 times.

    nk (dbc370)

  44. @40 Mr DCSCA

    Gucci Mane

    Pinandpuller (39aff8)

  45. Too bad Ty Cobb didn’t live long enough to be a spokesman for reverse mortgages.

    Pinandpuller (7e6c73)

  46. Fundraiser slides into Moneymaker and is thrown out at home.

    Pinandpuller (7e6c73)

  47. In 2015, one of the key witnesses against Mr. Libby recanted her testimony, stating publicly that she believes the prosecutor withheld relevant information from her during interviews that would have altered significantly what she said.

    Does the bolded part make sense to the assembled legal minds?

    Libby was convicted at a trial. Only what this witness (Judith Miller) said on the stand (not in interviews) would have been material to Libby’s conviction, and his counsel would have had the opportunity to cross-examine her and develop testimony about “relevant information” she was not aware of. No?

    It may well be that Libby was wrongly convicted, but blaming it on the prosecutors looks like a self-serving stretch by the White House. It sounds like Libby’s defense failed to identify and expose a major error of fact in the testimony of a key witness.

    Dave (01aa25)

  48. 31.So do you not Trump fans think John Hinkley is waiting by the phone?

    Always. For Jodi to call; Foster granted.

    DCSCA (797bc0) — 4/13/2018 @ 1:11 pm

    You can’t fix stupid. Or pardon away cra cra. Or commute a mental impediment. But enough about that old lesbian.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  49. Looks like Dave is still on an obsessive/compulsive chicken fvcking binge.

    Colonel Haiku (89ebb5)

  50. CNN reports RNC accepts resignation of fundraiser who ‘knocked up’ Playboy model.

    “Family value$; party girls.“

    Better they be unrestrained libertines with no moral compass, no guidelines, no restraint, like Democrats.

    Colonel Haiku (89ebb5)

  51. I worry that John Hinkley would be hired by CNN. Given his own time slot.

    Isn’t the whole point of treatment so that once he can tell the dif between dingo droppings and shinola then we get to shoot him?

    papertiger (c8116c)

  52. “The timing stinks to high heaven. I am pleased, nonetheless, for Libby.”

    The only things that stink about it is why it happened in the first place and why it took so long to right the wrong

    Colonel Haiku (89ebb5)

  53. I predict that as he leaves office Jerry Brown offers to pardon Roman Polanski.

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  54. Dave: It may well be that Libby was wrongly convicted, but blaming it on the prosecutors looks like a self-serving stretch by the White House.

    It’s okay for prosecutors to withhold relevant information as long as the defense fails to catch it.

    Just ask Ted Stevens.

    random viking (6a54c2)

  55. Holy crap on a cracker. Some Clinton appointee gave Hinkley a full pardon back in 2013.

    And by miraculous coinkidink Hinkley is living in his dead mother’s house in Virginia.

    Not only did the liberal [edit]stick pardon the would be king killer, in a one time only deal he somehow commuted the estate tax so as the assassin has a comfortable place to keep the rain off.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  56. I’m sorry, I missed the day when you principled conservatives objected to Hinkley’s being pardoned by a low level Clinton political appointee.

    Oh. No, I didn’t.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  57. I wonder if Obama gave Hinkley a medal of freedom on his way out the door?

    papertiger (c8116c)

  58. All of you complaining about Scooter Libby can stfu.

    Beldar. [jpg]

    Tell you this as a friend.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  59. mr papertiger should get a Pulitzer for internet searches.

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  60. I’m not complaining about this pardon. Presidents have broad powers to pardon and while there are some limits on the power, this seems like something Trump has authority to do.

    DRJ (15874d)

  61. Who hates trump. liberal democrats or libertarian conservative free trade no borders scum???

    rondo (66108b)

  62. I guess Dubya didn’t think he had the authority, or the decency, or the rocks.

    random viking (6a54c2)

  63. Breaking- McClatchy News Service reports Mueller has evidence Trump fixer Cohen was in Prague in 2016 confirming part of dossier.

    “Pardon me boy, is that McClatchy News a boo-boo…”

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  64. Clemency petitions are normally reviewed by the Justice Department, which investigates the case and seeks input from the federal prosecutor who brought the case before issuing a recommendation to the president. A government official told CNN that Bush did not consult with the Justice Department before rendering his decision.

    Of course, he doesn’t have to consult with anyone — but a failure to work within the usual process fuels the perception, which I share, that this was an extraordinary and unjustifiable act. Just because you have the raw power to do something doesn’t make it right. This wasn’t right.

    https://patterico.com/2007/07/02/bush-commutes-libbys-prison-sentence/

    BuDuh (ed757c)

  65. I wouldn’t put it past Trump to tell Hinckley that Mueller wants to lock up Jody Foster.

    nk (9651fb)

  66. I wouldn’t put it past Trump to tell Hinckley that Mueller wants to lock up Jody Foster.

    I shudder to think what Trump wants to do to her.

    Dave (01aa25)

  67. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity, papertiger. That means that he could be released from the booby hatch whenever the right psychiatrists said he was no longer a menace to society. And double jeopardy still applies. He could not be retried as a sane person.

    nk (9651fb)

  68. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity, papertiger.

    Would “not guilty by reason of insanity” be a valid defense against impeachment?

    If so, we may have a problem.

    Dave (01aa25)

  69. 25th Amendment. Heads we win, tails he loses.

    nk (9651fb)

  70. Double entendre not intended but inevitable.

    nk (9651fb)

  71. LA Times leaving LA Times building because they can’t afford to remain.

    http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-la-times-el-segundo-20180413-story.html

    Couldn’t happen to a more deserving group of folks.

    harkin (607a84)

  72. Hinkley hasn’t been tried the first time as a sane person.

    But let’s pretend like he did.

    The proper move, the thing resembling justice, upon completion of therapy and being given an okie dokie to be around others, would be to sentence John to big boys prison for life, the traditional punishment in such cases.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  73. Spanky makes the cover of Time again – congrats!

    Dave (01aa25)

  74. thank you harkin for the article i used to go to the old building it was the oddest place

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  75. Mr. Hinkley comes from good good people

    lovely family and they’ve stood by him it’s a lovely story really

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  76. The town’s name, in Spanish, means “The Second”; it was so named because it was the second Standard Oil refinery on the West Coast.

    eff me

    i lived in LA 15 years and never knew this

    nobody tells me ANYTHING

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  77. DRJ write (#61):

    I’m not complaining about this pardon. Presidents have broad powers to pardon and while there are some limits on the power, this seems like something Trump has authority to do.

    I don’t doubt, and don’t think anyone can doubt, that Trump has the constitutional authority.

    I further agree that there are substantial equities in favor of a full pardon — equities that were obvious also to George W. Bush, but that he thought insufficient to justify more than a commutation of sentence. I followed the trial closely in the press, read all the major motions and briefing on them, read the motion for new trial and motions for bail pending appeal. I genuinely don’t know that I’d have joined in the jury’s verdict, but I don’t think it was irrational or contrary to the evidence, and I think Libby got a reasonably fair trial. I think Judy Miller’s supposed recanting of her testimony is as silly as she’s been throughout this entire matter, which is very, very silly indeed. She spent weeks in jail against Libby’s own wishes because she would not honor his written waiver of any obligation to keep their communications secret under a non-existent “journalist’s privilege.” And I remain deeply troubled that Libby never defended himself on the record by taking the stand at trial, or explaining his unquestionably inaccurate statements that became the basis for his convictions.

    But this is nothing remotely like Bill Clinton selling pardons out of the back door of the White House on the eve of Dubya’s inauguration.

    Nevertheless: Contrary to the argument of Anon Y Mous above (#21), it’s a very, very bad idea of the POTUS to make pardons in this manner, to someone who hasn’t asked for it, for someone who hasn’t gone through the required paperwork and procedure to seek one, for someone whose circumstances haven’t changed either since the original commutation or the date of Trump’s election, much less this particular day a year and a quarter after Trump took office. If it’s a righteous pardon unconnected to Trump’s own political and legal peril, why didn’t Trump make it during his first month in office?

    Appearances matter. Because of the breadth of the constitutional pardon power, and the lack of any effective remedy short of impeachment to deal with their abuse, appearances matter a whole lot. The current DoJ rules are in place for very good reasons. And while the POTUS has constitutional power to override and ignore them, he has no good reason in this case for doing so.

    Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining, and don’t try to tell me this pardon was all, or even mostly, about doing justice to Scooter Libby. This is about Trump exercising bad judgment for worse reasons, even though it’s within his constitutional authority and benefits someone whom I consider generally sympathetic.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  78. Breaking- McClatchy News Service reports Mueller has evidence Trump fixer Cohen was in Prague in 2016 confirming part of dossier.

    herr mueller and his boys are leakier and stinkier than gonorrhea storm cellar that’s for sure

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  79. for someone who hasn’t gone through the required paperwork and procedure

    do you seriously not understand how inherently fascist this sounds

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  80. lol Mr. DCSCA i love the old school way that McClatchy story has that STORY CAN END HERE demarcation

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  81. Comey is “revenge driven” and “exactly the wrong person to ever have been appointed head of the FBI”, says Alan Dershowitz.

    Colonel Haiku (89ebb5)

  82. “Breaking- McClatchy News Service reports Mueller has evidence Trump fixer Cohen was in Prague in 2016 confirming part of dossier.

    If they can prove he was there it doesn’t even matter if collusion didnt happen. He said he had never been to Prague and that he was in the US all that August.

    It will also mean Trump is history.

    harkin (607a84)

  83. “I shudder to think what Trump wants to do to her.”

    Dave (01aa25) — 4/13/2018 @ 4:41 pm

    I bet you do.

    Colonel Haiku (89ebb5)

  84. yes Mr. harkin the smart money’s on the herr mueller and the fbi nazis

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  85. lol check out the cdc gonorrhea clipart

    gonorrhea omg so fun

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  86. Breaking- McClatchy News Service reports Mueller has evidence Trump fixer Cohen was in Prague in 2016 confirming part of dossier.

    Seems doubtful since Mueller punted on the investigation of Cohen that led to this week’s search warrants.

    If he was in Prague, I’m sure it was just to take in the lovely architecture, and not to “facilitate” anything with members of the Russian intelligence agencies who might have just happened to be there at the same time…

    Dave (01aa25)

  87. do you seriously not understand how inherently fascist this sounds

    Oh my, Mr. Feet. WSJ reports Cohen NDA template for RNC fundraiser/bunny payoff uses same names as as Trump/Stormy NDA. That’s not fascist; that’s lazy lawyering, Mr. Feet.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  88. @88. Dave, our Captain says somebody ate all the strawberries.

    Pass the popcorn, please.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  89. WSJ reports Cohen NDA template

    that mueller is certainly one leaky b*tch

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  90. The McClatchy article is quite interesting. It looks like the leaks about Prague come from congress, which is also investigating Cohen’s alleged meetings with Russian intelligence agents.

    Mr. Cohen has been a very naughty boy.

    Dave (01aa25)

  91. The Libby prosecution was absurd at the time, and has grown more ludicrous in indefensible as time marches on.

    Beldar, my esteemed friend, by eyes glossed over while attempting to read your comment. From what I was able to gather Fitzgerald’s decision to prosecute Libby for some supposed CIA leak, and Bush’s decision to only commute Libby’s sentence but not pardon him entirely, was somehow wise and well-considered.

    If so, you are getting all the important facts wrong. As is Jake Tapper. I don’t understand how Tapper has acquired a reputation as an impartial straight-shooter. Libby was never charged with revealing a NOC’s identity. He couldn’t have possibly blown her cover. For a couple of reasons.

    First of all, Plame’s cover was blown approximated a decade earlier. Who blew her cover? The CIA. For some inexplicable reason CIA information was contained in a State Department communique to the U.S. Interests section at the Swiss embassy in Havana. Cuban agents intercepted the communication. Moreover, the CIA knew the Cubans had acquired the information at the time.

    A word about who qualifies as a NOC, or non official cover, operative. A key component is that the government is taking affirmative steps to conceal the individual’s intelligence relationship with the USG.

    Hello! Telling the Swiss embassy in Havana is not how you do that. One might argue that it was the DoS’s mistake. First of all I’m not exactly sure who approved of the release of that information. In any case one would be wrong. The CIA telling State about Plame’s intel relationship with the USG is not how you affirmatively conceal an indiviual’s intel relationship with the USG. State doesn’t need that information. Plame herself told Joe Wilson, then a diplomat, about her work prior to some sexual frolic. But even as a senior diplomatic official he didn’t know until Plame told him. Which is fine, I suppose. If the NOC decides to blow their own cover to a bed partner I suppose it’s legal. But there’s no reason for the CIA to just tell that to State, if that’s what happened.

    It’s even worse if that isn’t what happened, and the CIA on its own decided to tell the Swiss. That’s gobsmackingly stupid.

    So anyway, the CIA knew in the early ’90s that they had told the Cubans that Plame worked for them. Which means they had told the entire world that Plame was officially under non-official cover working for the CIA, which is an oxymoron. So essentially Plame was on an extended tax-payer funded foreign vacation because there was no way she could gather intel. Except maybe when foreign counter-espionage agents were doubled up splitting a gut at how stupid the CIA is. Maybe then the outed non-spy spy might have gotten away with something.

    This is the CIA’s idea of trade craft. If anyone has any questions about why we are so bad at HUMINT, this is exhibit A.

    It gets even worse.

    After recalling Plame to the US in late ’90s, the CIA put her to work in charge of Iraqi WMD desk in Langley. She was a big fat zero at that job, too, but that’s beside the point. You know how one of the key components of being a NOC is that is that the government must take affirmative steps to conceal the NOC’s intel relationship with the USG? Yeah, having the agent commute from her Georgetown home to CIA HQ is not the way to do that, either.

    If the USG has publicly revealed the “NOC’s” intelligence relationship with the USG, it’s simply not a crime for anyone else to talk about it. Having Plame commute to CIA HQ is the very definition of revealing her relationship with the CIA.

    Even more preposterously than his predecessor who decided to pretend that Valerie Plame was still a NOC even after they had sent the Cubans a message in flashing neon that Plame was a CIA agent, Hayden publicly maintained that Plame was still a part time NOC, who after putting in a full week’s worth of work at CIA HQ in Langley VA, would go abroad on weekends as a NOC.

    Again, this is beyond stupid. This is just one reason I suggested that on his first day of work as CIA director Pompeo should show up at Langley in a bulldozer and destroy the building and then salt the earth so nothing ever grows there again. Then head over to foggy bottom and do the same to State. Both of those entities are an absolute menace to America’s national security. I have many more reasons, but as a Naval Intelligence Officer I have to take those reasons to the grave.

    Notice I said Hayden publicly maintained that Plame was still a NOC. Fitzgerald didn’t try that stunt in the court room. The judge would probably have leapt from the bench to physically b**** slap him if he had. Not only wasn’t the USG taking affirmative steps to conceal Plame’s relationship with the CIA, then commuting directly from home to office as if no foreign operatives are stationed in the US under honest to goodness, no s***, effective non-official cover to look for precisely that (in addition to knowing her true identity they now knew her address, home and work phone numbers, a license plate number). She was outside the window where her identity could even semi-seriously have been classified by any outsiders. Unconscionably, Fitzgerald had the audacity to argue at sentencing that Libby should be treated harshly because he had revealed a covert agent’s identity. The CIA even submitted a briefing to the court saying the same thing. Arguing that Libby should be sentenced for a crime that Fitzgerald could not, under any circumstances, have proven in court.

    The people within the CIA who had the nee to know already knew her identity had been compromised. And it was the people within the CIA who had broken the law about identifying the identities of their own NOCs.

    The fact that Valerie Plame was a CIA employee was the worst kept secret in Washington. I wouldn’t be shocked if she made the rounds of the Georgetown cocktail party circuit wearing her CIA work badge/ID. She probably wore it into Starbucks on her way to work each morning.

    Of course, we also know that Libby wasn’t even the source Bob Novak used when he wrote his article about her that prompted the investigation into the non-leak leak.

    There is simply no way to maintain the fiction that Libby committed any crime at all. Including the notion he lied to investigators. Andrew McCabe, an FBI agent, is arguably through his attorneys admitting he lied through his teeth to the IG’s investigators (or more accurately “made statements to delay questioning until counsel could be present” but those statements aren’t allowed to include lies and an FBI agent knows that). But there’s no way to prove that Libby actually lied. At worst he recalled things differently than other witnesses.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  92. Nevertheless: Contrary to the argument of Anon Y Mous above (#21), it’s a very, very bad idea of the POTUS to make pardons in this manner, to someone who hasn’t asked for it, for someone who hasn’t gone through the required paperwork and procedure to seek one, for someone whose circumstances haven’t changed either since the original commutation or the date of Trump’s election, much less this particular day a year and a quarter after Trump took office. If it’s a righteous pardon unconnected to Trump’s own political and legal peril, why didn’t Trump make it during his first month in office?

    It’s not a bad idea for the DOJ to have all those processes and procedures in place. All those people working there should have guidelines on how they should be doing their job. But, the purpose of those processes, procedures, and guidelines are to provide direction to those who are subordinate to POTUS. They are not there to restrict POTUS’s decision making process. Or, at least they shouldn’t be. If any DOJ hack thought they had leeway to bind the hands of POTUS, then they misunderstand their own role in our republic.

    If Trump killed two birds with one stone: righting an injustice while at the same time sending a shot across Mueller’s bow, letting him know that if he gets it into his head that he has no checks on his power, DJT has some pretty useful tools at his disposal to limit how far afield he will let Mueller go. Hopefully, Tillis and company are paying attention as well, as they contemplate an unconstitutional attempt to check the constitutional powers that belong to POTUS.

    Anon Y. Mous (6cc438)

  93. That’s not fascist; that’s lazy lawyering, Mr. Feet.

    The deluxe hooker payoff package with custom names costs extra.

    Remember this was pro bono work.

    Dave (01aa25)

  94. beautifully said Mr. Mous

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  95. Trump to address nation at 9 PM EDT on Syria.

    Use the usual broad-tipped marker, Captain sir.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  96. I’d never before noticed how former Schumer spokeshole Chris Hahn is the model for Zippy the Pinhead…

    Trump statement at 9PM eastern re: Syria.

    Colonel Haiku (89ebb5)

  97. damn right he got the broad tip

    ugh i can’t believe we’re gonna do missile sprinkles on a phonied-up chemical gas attack

    that’s so gay

    and expensive

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  98. The New Moon on Sunday, April 15, 2018 at 28°- Aries aligns with Uranus, Captain sir. This means the New Moon April 2018 astrology is perfect for making changes in your life.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  99. @99. Should blast his poll numbers up 5%-7%, Mr. Feet.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  100. While I was writing my epic tale of just another example of CIA incompetence, Ace put up a post regarding the same subject.

    http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=374807

    Jake Tapper Falsely Claims Scooter Libby “Leaked” Noted Anti-Semite Conspiracy Theorist Valerie Plame’s Name to Press; Refuses to Correct

    It’s worth a read on its own merits. But he notes one of the main points I covered.

    (Oh, and Fitzpatrick couldn’t prove that Valerie Plame’s status was covert, either. She was, as many on the right said, a known, overt analyst of the CIA. Not any kind of behind-the-lines superspy. She did what no covert spy would do, every day: She drove her car right into CIA headquarters at Langley.)

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  101. Should blast his poll numbers up 5%-7%, Mr. Feet.

    i can live with that

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  102. No passport stamp. No airline record. Bingo.

    “An ‘I heart the Czech Republic’ ashtray on Cohen’s desk!”

    Curses!

    papertiger (c8116c)

  103. US, Great Britain, and France launch attack on Syria, major explosions reported in Damascus.

    ropelight (3a5206)

  104. Walrus Gumbo on the job five days and already waging war.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  105. “We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” Trump said.

    this could go on for awhile since the whole chemical gas attack thing was a hoax

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  106. It was disappointing if Bush’s commuted the sentence as a political favor and/or went against the jury’s verdict because conservatives expected (or reasonably hoped) that Bush shared their agenda. But conservatives understand that Trump has his own agenda.

    DRJ (15874d)

  107. I remember begging for a stamp on my U.S. passport when I traveled to an EU country one time. I wanted a record of my date of entry, NOYB why. I couldn’t get one. “We just don’t do it, sir.” Another time, the border guard didn’t even open it. I put it down in front of him closed and he just pushed it back. I looked at him quizzically, and he said “Bye-bye”.

    nk (9651fb)

  108. @103. i can live with that

    Not if you’re living on the east side of Damascus, Mr. Feet.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  109. “We will try to make it better but it is a troubled place,” Trump said. “The US will be a partner and a friend. But the fate of the region lies in the hands of its own people.”

    love this

    it’s a slap aimed right at coward-ass navyboi john mccain’s stupid face

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  110. i’m in Chicago Mr. DCSCA

    how many times i gotta say

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  111. Dog wagged for the day, Mr. Feet.

    Pass the strawberries!

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  112. Maddow was in near tears instantly spinning the wag the dog theory, Mr. Feet. Send her some flowers.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  113. oh that’s interesting Mr. nk who knew

    i never go anywhere except america

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  114. the wag the dog thing doesn’t work after food stamp and pre-cancer John McCain destabilized Libya and flooded europe with hordes of child rapers

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  115. US, Great Britain, and France launch attack on Syria, major explosions reported in Damascus.

    Can somebody else post the obligatory links to Trump in 2013 raging at Obama not to do exactly what he’s just done? (I’m on mobile)

    Dave (2dc885)

  116. Trump to address nation at 9 PM EDT on Syria

    Donald or Ivanka?

    Dave (2dc885)

  117. i hope it’s Donald

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  118. true story you guys

    ever since i heard about HUGE BLASTS IN DAMASCUS i haven’t thought of Stormy and her fungused-up storm cellar not one time swear to god

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  119. @122. ever since i heard about HUGE BLASTS IN DAMASCUS i haven’t thought of Stormy and her fungused-up storm cellar not one time swear to god

    Our Captain can be quite the douche when he has to be, eh, Mr. Feet.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  120. Tedious BarcaLounger smarmcakes…

    Colonel Haiku (89ebb5)

  121. Can somebody else post the obligatory links to Trump in 2013 raging at Obama not to do exactly what he’s just done? (I’m on mobile)
    Dave (2dc885) — 4/13/2018 @ 6:30 pm

    Back in 2013 when private citizen Trump had access to all the intel President Obama had access to?

    Color me not shocked that President Donald J. Trump is behaving differently than realtor/reality star Donald J. Trump may have led you believe he would if he were President.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  122. well played Mr. DCSCA

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  123. @ Steve57: Thanks for the kind words. I’m sorry your eyes glossed over. The fact that there was no crime committed by anyone, including Scooter Libby, in the disclosure of Plame’s CIA history is not determinative of whether Libby lied to the FBI during the investigation thereof, nor as to whether he obstructed justice, because neither of those two process crimes requires an underlying offense. There was only a requirement that the lies be on matters that were “material” to the investigation, regardless of the fact that the investigation never resulted in any one being indicted for leaking.

    Adam Schiff is confused about this. Tapper is confused. I assure you, my friend, that I am very much not confused about any of the relevant facts, including any in your very long comment — not one jot of which I take issue with, except for your mistaken premise that Libby could only have been guilty of lying to the FBI or obstructing justice if, indeed, he or someone else committed a crime in revealing Plame’s CIA connection. I wrote many, many blog posts on this exact sort of confusion, trying then as now to explain it to people who find it impossible to believe. Our host did too.

    You can still refuse to believe it. But don’t think I’ve got my facts wrong or that I’ve forgotten them, please, for you’d be mistaken in that.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  124. I shudder to think what Trump wants to do to her.

    Dave (01aa25) — 4/13/2018 @ 4:41 pm

    Do you think it involves a pinball machine?

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  125. …the New Moon April 2018 astrology is perfect for making changes in your life. [In Bed]

    DCSCA (797bc0) — 4/13/2018 @ 6:04 pm

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  126. @ Anon Y Mous (#94): You approve of a POTUS using the pardon power to send messages to his political and legal opponent.

    I think that’s repugnant to the Constitution and to the dignity of the office.

    But we both agree Trump did it for selfish reasons relating to Donald J. Trump. You just think that’s peachy, and I don’t.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  127. that pinball machine scene reminds me of my “rum and diet coke” phase

    what was that even about I just wanna gag now in retrospect

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  128. Jesus forgave us all and I’m pretty sure he had his own agenda

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  129. Former Russian Admiral says that Russian sub could sink the USS Donald Cook, the guided missile destroyer likely in the attack. https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/695876/ww3-news-syria-war-russian-navy-uss-donald-cook-torpedo-attack

    I’m sure this will be quickly followed by Russia torpedoing the Trump presidency by releasing documents, etc showing that Trump colluded with Russian, Cohen visited Prague to talk to Russians, etc, etc.

    pete (a65bac)

  130. @98 Colonel Haiku

    Symone Sanders, a CNN political commentator and former press secretary for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was reportedly detained by police after an outburst Thursday morning at LaGuardia Airport.

    Sanders, 28, was in line at the security checkpoint when TSA agents asked her to step out of line, PIX 11 reported. Sanders reportedly started to curse “in front of patrons and young children.”

    She was accused of disorderly conduct and given a summons, according to PIX 11.
    Fox

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  131. Gotta hand it to Trump, though, able to enlist France and Russia in his “wag the dog” strike. Who says he can’t build international coalitions.

    pete (a65bac)

  132. *opponents, plural, I meant in #130.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  133. This is France’s war. Hollande sucked in Obama and I’m disappointed that Trump allowed Macaroon (sic) to suck him in.

    nk (9651fb)

  134. Symone Sanders has very prominent breast appendages not unlike Stormy Daniels just darker (cause she’s black)

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  135. we have to do missile sprinkles Mr. nk to punish the CNN fake chemical gas strike hoax

    it’s the Bush Doctrine on the cheap

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  136. Good grief, I can’t believe I said that. Like as if anything Trump does is below my expectations.

    nk (9651fb)

  137. On the Fox sidebar an interesting story…probation for life? Sounds like a Chris Elliot Fox comedy. Would you lawyers call this the State of Colorado selling the Williams Brothers short on the futures market:

    A family in Colorado is outraged after two men, who were accused of gang-raping a 13-year-old girl with their brothers and cousins, were only sentenced to probation.

    Tommy Williams, 20, and Clarence Williams, 19, were each sentenced on Tuesday to a minimum of 10 years of sex offender intensive supervised probation, with a maximum of life on probation, KKTV reported.

    The men are two of six suspects accused of sexually assaulting the young teen in December 2016 inside of the Stonebrook Terrace apartment complex in Colorado Springs.

    The victim’s grandfather was shocked at the sentencing, telling the news station: “There was six of them and they gang-raped my granddaughter.”

    The group of suspects — some of whom are reportedly related as cousins or brothers and identified as Jacolby Williams, Tyron Williams, James Williams, and a juvenile, in addition to Tommy and Clarence — were with the girl on Dec. 19, according to The Gazette.

    Fox

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  138. Colorado Springs is a dark place drive straight on to Pueblo

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  139. I’m sure this will be quickly followed by Russia torpedoing the Trump presidency by releasing documents, etc showing that Trump colluded with Russian, Cohen visited Prague to talk to Russians, etc, etc.

    (tin-foil hat on)

    Unless this is all just an arranged charade to preserve appearances and distract attention from Trump’s increasingly obvious guilt.

    What are a few hundred dead Syrians when weighed against Donald Trump’s approval rating?

    (tin-foil hat off)

    “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?” – President Donald Trump

    Dave (2dc885)

  140. that pinball machine scene reminds me of my “rum and diet coke” phase

    what was that even about I just wanna gag now in retrospect

    happyfeet (28a91b) — 4/13/2018 @ 6:56 pm

    Poor self-esteem.

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  141. ffs is the hat on or off

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  142. Beldar, the only place I depart company with you is that I don’t believe Libby lied to investigators. He says he committed an error of memory and I don’t have any reason to doubt him.

    I know full well he could be prosecute for process crimes where there is no underlying crime. Looking objectively at the evidence I don’t believe he did even that. It was a political prosecution pure and simple. His lawyers told Judith Miller on more than one occasion that the prosecutor offered to drop all the charges against Libby if he would deliver Cheney.

    This of course assumes that Libby had the goods to deliver Cheney. Deliver him how, and for what? As Alan Dershowitz has noted, prosecutors have the tools to not only compel witnesses to sing, but also to compose. As in, if they want a witness’ testimony on a certain matter they can turn the screws until provides the testimony. And certain prosecutors don’t care it that testimony is true or not, as long as it works.

    Andrew Weissmann, falls into that category. So does Fitzgerald or Fitzpatrick or whatever. My take on the case against Libby is that it never should have seen the inside of a court room. I am convinced it falls into the category of a prosecutor attempting to turn the screws that wasn’t working, so he finally had to go all the way and prosecute Libby. And that the conviction was unjustified. I am not faulting the jury. They believed the prosecutors story. I don’t and didn’t even then, but it’s what they had to go on at the time.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  143. Did you all read all the way through the McClatchy article? This Mr. Cohen sounds like exactly the kind of person RICO was intended for.

    nk (9651fb)

  144. President Trump hadn’t even issued his pardon of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby when the Democratic Party foghorns started suggesting he was doing it for reasons they see as nefarious.

    plus also Mr. Beldar

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  145. I wonder if Hinkley’s fractured .22 left some lead behind to rot poor RR’s brain?

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  146. Did you all read all the way through the McClatchy article? This Mr. Cohen sounds like exactly the kind of person RICO was intended for.

    I can’t wait to see Spanky’s tweet when the Feds seize Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago.

    Dave (2dc885)

  147. Colorado Springs is a dark place drive straight on to Pueblo

    happyfeet (28a91b) — 4/13/2018 @ 7:08 pm

    Did you tour the National Government Pamphlet Museum?

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  148. crap now i have to go back

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  149. I can’t wait to see Spanky’s tweet when the Feds seize Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago.

    Dave (2dc885) — 4/13/2018 @ 7:16 pm

    So that’s Sessions’ master plan?

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  150. Never mind who it is who wrote this tweet. Is it the tweet of someone who is compos mentis?

    DOJ just issued the McCabe report – which is a total disaster. He LIED! LIED! LIED! McCabe was totally controlled by Comey – McCabe is Comey!! No collusion, all made up by this den of thieves and lowlifes!

    nk (9651fb)

  151. Back in 2013 when private citizen Trump had access to all the intel President Obama had access to?

    As if President Trump reads his intelligence briefings…

    Good one!

    Dave (2dc885)

  152. ooh he spelled thieves right

    god i love this man

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  153. crap now i have to go back

    happyfeet (28a91b) — 4/13/2018 @ 7:21 pm

    I actually toured Focus on the Family when I was down there for a three day weekend. They showed everybody the bullet hole high on the wall from when that dude went nuts.

    The really weird thing is security followed me everywhere I went. I even heard them talking on their radios. “He’s over here.” Strange, huh?

    I’ve got nothing but love from Chick Fil A though.

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  154. oh that’s interesting i was just there at night

    i missed the exit for Hampton Inn

    but i lived

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  155. @ Steve57, who wrote:

    Beldar, the only place I depart company with you is that I don’t believe Libby lied to investigators. He says he committed an error of memory and I don’t have any reason to doubt him.

    That’s what his lawyers have claimed.

    He didn’t take the stand to tell that to the jury. If he had, and they’d believed him, they’d had to have acquitted: His intent — to lie or to obstruct — was the key element of the crimes of which he was convicted. He’s the only source in the universe for direct evidence on that point. The prosecution had nothing but circumstantial evidence of his intent, and really really lousy theories to explain why he could have been motivated to make these particular misstatements.

    The reason most criminal defendants do not waive their Fifth Amendment rights and take the stand in criminal trials is because upon doing so, the prosecution will be permitted to introduce all sorts of evidence to destroy the defendant’s credibility that previously (before he took the stand) was legally irrelevant and inadmissible. But Scooter Libby had no “rap sheet” to explain.

    Another reason not to take the stand is if your witness is inarticulate or easily confused. By acclamation of all his friends and enemies, Libby is a gifted, compelling public speaker with substantial courtroom experience. He probably was the very best lawyer in that courtroom, including the judge.

    If he lacked criminal intent, if this really was just an innocent failure in memory, I can think of no reason in the world for him not to take the stand. He is, in fact, the paradigmatic, textbook example of a defendant who absolutely, positively should have waived his Fifth Amendment rights to take the stand at trial!

    But he didn’t take the stand.

    There was some critically important and still-entirely-secret reason for that — and we know it wasn’t because he’d be impeached with a rap sheet, and it wasn’t that he was too scared or would’ve made a bad witness.

    My theory is that yes, he did indeed knowingly lie, for some reason that seemed compelling to him at the time but that in hindsight now seem trivial, stupid, and unfortunately devastatingly consequential — because you’re right, the whole claim about Plame being outed was bogus-bogus-BOGUS from beginning to end, and he hadn’t been the leaker.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  156. lying to the Nazi FBI isn’t something people should be punished for

    it’s like lying to Jeff Bezos or Anderson Cooper

    no points off

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  157. The really weird thing is security followed me everywhere I went. I even heard them talking on their radios. “He’s over here.” Strange, huh?

    I’ve got nothing but love from Chick Fil A though.

    Pinandpuller (de5034) — 4/13/2018 @ 7:31 pm

    Was it the crazed look or the large wet spot near your groin on yer Levis, PandP? Just kidding, bro’…

    Colonel Haiku (89ebb5)

  158. Prediction:

    The U.S. Attorney for SDNY will indeed indict Trump lawyer Michael Cohen on multiple felony counts, probably including some that have nothing whatsoever to do with Trump. They’ll make their best effort to get him to roll over and incriminate Trump on something, but Cohen will stand on the Fifth and refuse any plea deal. Then, on some of the issues relating to Trump, they’ll bestow immunity on him, depriving him of any Fifth Amendment objection. He’ll continue to refuse, at which point he’ll do time for contempt in addition to whatever time he may face on the counts unrelated to Trump.

    We’ll see if Michael Cohen has the same balls that Susan McDougal has. She, of course, rotted in jail for criminal contempt after refusing to testify about Whitewater & Bubba after being given immunity — until Bubba sprung her with a presidential pardon.

    Can you see why I insist that there’s not a particle of difference between the Clintons and Trump? They’re peas in a pod, utterly corrupt, utterly self-indulgent, utterly contemptuous of the idea that they’re subject to any law. And the world has taught them so far, mostly, that they’re right about that.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  159. Chick Fil A is where you go and the girl says “have a (two syllable) blessed day”

    but also they have poppy seed dressing and chicken biscuits and those super-handy moist-wipes

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  160. There is one more reason, Beldar. Bad Miranda or bad Katz or some other violation of the defendant’s Constitutional rights which, under the exclusionary rule, would prevent the government from using the illegally obtained evidence in their case in chief but not for impeachment of his testimony should he testify.

    nk (9651fb)

  161. But we both agree Trump did it for selfish reasons relating to Donald J. Trump. You just think that’s peachy, and I don’t.

    Mueller was put in place as part of a conspiracy to overturn the election of our president. I expect our duly elected president to fight back at the attempted coup. He is actually being measured in his actions. Instead of pardoning Flynn or Cohen, which would probably be viewed as more provocative, he pardons Libby and let’s the plotters read between the lines.

    Any president who would sit back and passively allow these unAmerican schemers run him out of office has no place in there in the first place. There’s nothing selfish about his actions. #MAGA

    Anon Y. Mous (6cc438)

  162. the Nazi FBI weren’t leading the attack on the Clintons

    the Nazi slutboy FBI actually worked to undermine the case against Clintons

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  163. Mr. Mous again for the second time tonight I admire your clarity and perspicacity thank you

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  164. this could go on for awhile since the whole chemical gas attack thing was a hoax

    I don’t know if it’s a hoax, but it sure does seem fishy that shortly after Trump suggests he’s getting ready to pull us out, the chemical attack occurs. One would think that seeing as the last time that occurred, DJT did the missile thing, that Syria, Iran and Russia would hold off on anything provocative until after we were out the door. Makes me wonder if all the false flag talk makes more sense logically.

    Anon Y. Mous (6cc438)

  165. Thank you, Mr. Feet.

    Anon Y. Mous (6cc438)

  166. Thank you, nk (#164), that hadn’t occurred to me but surely sounds correct. But none of that was a reason for Libby to decline to take the stand, was it? I don’t know of any evidence the prosecution tried, but was prevented, from introducing, or that had been suppressed pre-trial, that would have been effective as impeachment.

    He’s a brilliant communicator with a life story of professional excellence, public service, involvement in his community and family — I just can’t think of anyone who more clearly should have been his own star witness.

    Dubya put out a statement today that he’s happy for Scooter and his family, and I don’t disagree with that. I’m glad he didn’t have to do time, and I’m sorry that he became such a punching bag for the Left. Now he has a pardon to go along with the commutation; he’d gotten his voting rights back and his law license restored; but morons like Adam Schiff and, yes, Jake Needs-a-Twitter-Editor Tapper are again lying about him, describing him as a “convicted leaker,” which would be defamatory if he weren’t a public figure.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  167. I don’t know if it’s a hoax, but it sure does seem fishy that shortly after Trump suggests he’s getting ready to pull us out, the chemical attack occurs.

    and then BAM tumor-riddled poop-stain McCain’s johnny-on-the-spot with a press release

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  168. Mueller was put in place as part of a conspiracy to overturn the election of our president.

    So the conspirators used some kind of Jedi mind-trick to get Trump to fire Comey, which made appointment of a special counsel inevitable, and they also managed to get him to nominate the instrument of his own destruction in Rosenstein, who was confirmed only a matter of days before the firing?

    Who was it, exactly, that manipulated the President into launching this coup against himself, while making it look for all the world like he was acting on his?

    Was it the Deeeeeeeeeeeeeep Staaaaaaaaaaaaaate?

    Dave (445e97)

  169. Vanna hates you

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  170. @ Anon Y Mous, who wrote (#165):

    Any president who would sit back and passively allow these unAmerican schemers run him out of office has no place in there in the first place.

    Trump and Putin would both surely agree with this statement.

    Me, I still believe in all that stuff about preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution of the United States. It and the laws and regulations created under its authority prescribe certain processes, and they must be followed because no man is above the law, regardless of how well suited you might think he is if he believes himself to be above the law.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  171. if all the false flag talk makes more sense logically

    And who is it, exactly, in the US military that is so determined to keep tiny force of 2000 GI’s in Syria that they committed a war crime?

    Wait! I know!

    It was the Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep Staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate again!

    Dave (445e97)

  172. Was it the crazed look or the large wet spot near your groin on yer Levis, PandP? Just kidding, bro’…

    Colonel Haiku (89ebb5) — 4/13/2018 @ 7:45 pm

    They probably would have followed Mark Zuckerberg too.

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  173. any needledick FBI fascist what’s done Lisa Page up the butt in the fbi break room on a wednesday afternoon can tell you the FBI is the number one (#1) place you can count on to hold people accountable to the law

    this is why Andrew McCabe is in jail for doing lies on the FBI

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  174. Just for you, happyfeet:

    I applaud the President for taking military action against the Assad regime for its latest use of chemical weapons, and for signaling his resolve to do so again if these heinous attacks continue. I am grateful to our British and French allies for joining us in this action.
    I hope these strikes impose meaningful costs on Assad. The message to Assad must be that the cost of using chemical weapons is worse than any perceived benefit, that the United States and our allies have the will and capability to continue imposing those costs, and that Iran and Russia will ultimately be unsuccessful in protecting Assad from our punitive response.

    To succeed in the long run, we need a comprehensive strategy for Syria and the entire region. The President needs to lay out our goals, not just with regard to ISIS, but also the ongoing conflict in Syria and malign Russian and Iranian influence in the region. Airstrikes disconnected from a broader strategy may be necessary, but they alone will not achieve U.S. objectives in the Middle East.
    – Senator John McCain

    Dave (445e97)

  175. Can you see why I insist that there’s not a particle of difference between the Clintons and Trump? They’re peas in a pod, utterly corrupt, utterly self-indulgent, utterly contemptuous of the idea that they’re subject to any law. And the world has taught them so far, mostly, that they’re right about that.

    Beldar (fa637a) — 4/13/2018 @ 7:50 pm

    When they buy lawyers, they stay bought.

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  176. John McCain didn’t write that cause he’s a drooling opioid addict now that will never again be seen in public

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  177. Me, I still believe in all that stuff about preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution of the United States. It and the laws and regulations created under its authority prescribe certain processes, and they must be followed because no man is above the law, regardless of how well suited you might think he is if he believes himself to be above the law.

    Trump has followed the constitution and the law. The president is not bound by regulations. He is in charge of the executive branch. The people and agencies under his command cannot make regulations to tell him what to do. The power flows in the opposite direction.

    Anon Y. Mous (6cc438)

  178. Is McCain dictating these statements from his Palpatine Cosplay?

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  179. I suppose a HI judge could issue an injunction on Libby’s pardon, eh?

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  180. between droolish yet enthusiastic motorboating sessions with meghan

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  181. @ nk (#154): That tweet started off pretty well: The IG Report just crucified McCabe.

    It did so in large part upon the resolution of a credibility dispute — a straight-up, critically important swearing match, on which both swearers swore repeatedly on multiple occasions — between McCabe and Jim Comey. The IG’s team believes Comey and does not believe McCabe.

    The notion that the report proves that “McCabe is Comey” is impossibly twisted, ridiculous nonsense, indeed the exact opposite of what the report purports to prove.

    Trump gets an F- for reading comprehension. He gets an F- for impulse control.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  182. that answer works for both questions

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  183. He remains, always, not only his own worst enemy, but his own most effective enemy.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  184. oh good lord america hostess twinkies all up in it

    if womanish Jim Comey’s highest purpose was for to safeguard the brand and legacy of the FBI

    would he truly actually be doing his unrinating euro hooker slash trump has small hands media tour all over stephanopoulos

    srsly?

    this is his way of safeguarding the credibility of the Nazi FBI?

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  185. Did you all read all the way through the McClatchy article? This Mr. Cohen sounds like exactly the kind of person RICO was intended for.

    nk (9651fb) — 4/13/2018 @ 7:11 pm

    Yes, that’s what creative writers Peter Stone And Greg Gordon who wrote the McClatchey article want you to think.

    One of the sources said congressional investigators have “a high level of interest” in in Cohen’s European travel, with their doubts fueled by what they deem to be weak documentation Cohen has provided about his whereabouts around the time the Prague meeting was supposed to have occurred.

    Cohen has said he was only in New York and briefly in Los Angeles during August, when the meeting may have occurred, though the sources said it also could have been held in early September.

    That “weak documentation” includes eye witnesses. He visited the USC campus. While he was there he visited with the baseball team, and USC baseball team personnel confirmed this. Which probably explains why the allegation has elided into “early September.” Because Cohen’s accusers know Cohen was where he said he was in August. And the Steele dossier only mentions August, nothing about September. So while this is a desperate attempt to take a second bite of apple and confirm at least part of dossier, moving the meeting to September undermines the dossier because it confirms Steele’s Russian sources didn’t know what they were talking about.

    Moreover, government officials killed the Cohen story a year ago when they told CNN (yeah, I know) that it was a different Michael Cohen who was in Prague at the time Steele places Trump’s lawyer there.

    https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2017/01/11/lol-it-was-a-different-michael-cohen-that-was-in-prague/

    The dossier alleges that Cohen, two Russians and several Eastern European hackers met at the Prague office of a Russian government-backed social and cultural organization, Rossotrudnichestvo. The location was selected to provide an alternative explanation in case the rendezvous was exposed, according to Steele’s Kremlin sources, cultivated during 20 years of spying on Russia.

    …Citing information from an unnamed “Kremlin insider,” Steele’s dossier says the Prague meeting agenda also included discussion “in cryptic language for security reasons,” of ways to “sweep it all under the carpet and make sure no connection could be fully established or proven.”

    Wow. All that planning went into plausible deniability should Cohen’s meeting with Russians in Prague should be exposed, so that “no connection could be fully established or proven,” and Cohen apparently didn’t get the memo. Instead of using the cover the Russians so thoughtfully provided him, Cohen just flatly denies ever being in Prague. Wasn’t he in on the planning?

    Oh, and I bolded part of the quote because it’s especially laughable. Steele was sued for libel in the UK. It turns out that “superspy” Steele is not the spy he preens to the press as having been (violating the agreement he had with the FBI, which terminated him as a source). How much less of a spy was “superspy” Steele (who it turns out was really a desk jockey like most analysts working at intel agencies)? He doesn’t actually have any Kremlin sources, he told the London court when he was sued for defamation by Gubarev, a
    Russian businessman who is mentioned in Steele’s dossier. He had to go through intermediaries who have Kremlin sources. Or, err, had other third parties who knew other third parties who knew additional third parties who claimed to know people who had Kremlin sources. In fact, Steele told the court he had no way of knowing if there was any truth to any of these allegations. I haven’t been able to find out how the outcome of the case but since English defamation law requires the defendant prove the truth of any defamatory statements, and Steele couldn’t and didn’t argue that any statements in his dossier were true, I can’t see how he didn’t lose.

    Instead Steele argued a form of incompetence. He described the information in his dossier as unverified “Raw intelligence” of “limited value.” He said it was only good for “further research” In fact, Steele even told the court that’s why he passed his dossier to the FBI. He said since he didn’t have the resources to vet the information (among the unvetted information, he admitted, is the intel regarding Cohen’s supposed visit to Prague). He told the court he never intended the information be made public, and claims to have told Fusion GPS not to make it public, and gave it to the FBI so they could verify the information. Not, heavens to Betsy, use the information in a FISA warrant application.

    And here’s McClatchy resurrecting the idea that Steele his own damned self has Kremlin sources, a claim that Steele had to flatly deny when he was under oath.

    Moreover, if Mueller had evidence that Cohen did in fact travel to Prague “confirming part of the dossier” he never would have handed the case over to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Duh, Hello! if Mueller had such evidence, that goes to the very heart of his investigation. You remember, don’t you? He’s supposed to be investigating “collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russians. McClatchy says has exactly such evidence. And Mueller…

    punts.

    The McClatchy article is a joke. I enjoy how the authors of this piece of fiction try to cover themselves when no such “confirmation” comes out the SDNY’s search on Cohen’s office, home, hotel room, and storage facility. The confirmation that Mueller so desperately seeks may be privileged. Except, evidence of a crime is exactly the kind of lawyer-client information that isn’t covered by the privilege. So the authors’ attempt at explaining away why we may not see any of the information they say exists falls flat. We won’t see any such information because it doesn’t exist.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  186. oopers i mean urinating hookers not unrinating hookers

    we’ll be talking about unrinating hookers next semester

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  187. I have always thought that Libby was USED by someone, possibly Cheney, who made some patriotic case for not giving truthful answers, then left him slowly twisting in the wind. Taking the stand would have brought out that person’s name, and Libby didn’t want to have that happen.

    This pardon is overdue, and someone else should have taken the rap.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  188. there was no rap

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  189. @ Anon Y Mous, who wrote (#181):

    The president is not bound by regulations. He is in charge of the executive branch. The people and agencies under his command cannot make regulations to tell him what to do. The power flows in the opposite direction.

    I agree with this, as a statement of the unitary executive doctrine.

    What this ignores is the actual difference between you & me: You approve of Trump using all that power for himself, to strike back at those who are using the mechanisms the law prescribes to investigate matters like obstruction of justice, instead of to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and the nation.

    The unitary executive theory doesn’t mean we have a strong-man government. And the Rule of Law constrains the unitary executive just as it constrains us all. I disapprove of those who use the powers granted them temporarily, as servants of a public trust, to excuse them from scrutiny regarding their own compliance or noncompliance with the law. I disapprove of Trump.

    ***

    Thank you, however, for arguing your position without engaging in ad hominem. I commend you for it, while still disagreeing with you on the merits.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  190. Trump has followed the constitution and the law. The president is not bound by regulations. He is in charge of the executive branch. The people and agencies under his command cannot make regulations to tell him what to do. The power flows in the opposite direction.

    That is wrong on so many levels. It’s true about the pardon power, but it’s not true about most of the other things the President oversees (including whether to allow transsexuals in the armed forces — look up “raise and support armies”). The various government departments are creations of Congress and their authority is defined by statute, and by authority delegated to them by Congress to make regulations governing their conduct (which rulemaking again must be as prescribed by Congress). The President is their boss, but the authority he can exercise through a particular department is only that authority which Congress has given the department, and how he exercises must be in the manner authorized by Congress.

    nk (9651fb)

  191. how he exercises *it*

    nk (9651fb)

  192. He remains, always, not only his own worst enemy, but his own most effective enemy.

    Beldar (fa637a) — 4/13/2018 @ 8:30 pm

    Some controversial historians point out that Hitler did indeed kill Hitler. So he had that going for him.

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  193. well for sure we can all agree that using police state tactics and the Nazi FBI gestapo to take down a president is wrong

    we coulda done this on food stamp (drug addict son of a nasty stormy-daniels-takes-the-pacific mama and an alcoholic marxist daddeh)

    we coulda done this on loser-ass george w. bush and his sleazy vehicular manslaughter poopslut laura

    we coulda done this on brain-damaged reagan and his shallow slutty and irredeemable wife nancy

    using the mueller standard of culpability we have no democracy

    only the state-approved FBI nazi reich

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  194. @ Kevin M (#191): I can’t conceive of a way that Cheney or anyone else could have benefited from the misstatements Libby could have made. I can’t think of any reason why anyone else would have wanted to manipulate him, or guilt-trip him, or patriotically inspire him, into saying those particular things.

    I can, however, imagine that through a well-intentioned and loyalty-driven lapse in short-term judgment, Libby momentarily and probably mistakenly thought, for some reason still obscure to us all, that he’d be helping Cheney, or minimizing Cheney’s risk, or something along those lines. In furtherance of that mistaken or confused or impossible or unnecessary goal, he told what he thought was an innocent and inconsequential lie. Later, when he discovered his mistake or his judgment otherwise cleared, he couldn’t bring himself to repeat it on the witness stand once more, nor to claim that it was the result of a memory lapse.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  195. I think it was more complicated, Beldar.

    DRJ (15874d)

  196. Cohen was in LA killing David Hogg’s college admissions.

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  197. Before get too far along the “Wag the Dog” idea, it should be noted that a 1997 movie, actually called “Wag the Dog”, was described as follows:

    Shortly before an election, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to fabricate a war in order to cover up a Presidential sex scandal.

    The war is in the Balkans. The very next year, Bill Clinton went to war in the Balkans DURING the impeachment trial. The connection wasn’t lost on anyone but ardent Democrats.

    Using that as a yardstick, this is Meh!

    Kevin M (752a26)

  198. Especially since the defense included showing Libby was an incredibly overworked and forgetful guy.

    DRJ (15874d)

  199. Beldar,

    Assuming of course it really was Armitage who leaked to Novak.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  200. What this ignores is the actual difference between you & me: You approve of Trump using all that power for himself, to strike back at those who are using the mechanisms the law prescribes to investigate matters like obstruction of justice, instead of to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and the nation.
    […]

    I disapprove of Trump.

    And there’s the crux of it. These people – Comey, McCabe, Page, the Ohrs, Strzok, and many more – were involved in an actual conspiracy, first to affect the outcome of our presidential election, and when it didn’t go their way, to change the result. It remains to be seen, but Obama and Clinton must have also been a part of it.

    Trump is not acting out of selfishness; he is acting to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and the nation.

    I honestly cannot understand those who profess to believe in our constitution and are then so blinded by their hatred of Trump that they are willing to ignore and even excuse this actual conspiracy that has been going on in our capitol.

    Anon Y. Mous (6cc438)

  201. I always thought Libby was the designated fall guy, too. Whether as part of a conspiracy to keep Armitage from being identified as the leaker until after the election with stonewalling, obfuscation and outright lies? It’s the likeliest explanation.

    nk (9651fb)

  202. But in any event, Libby’s INTENT was not malicious. He thought he was just falling on his sword. We will never know the degree to which his belief was valid.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  203. nk wrote (#194):

    The various government departments are creations of Congress and their authority is defined by statute, and by authority delegated to them by Congress to make regulations governing their conduct (which rulemaking again must be as prescribed by Congress). The President is their boss, but the authority he can exercise through a particular department is only that authority which Congress has given the department, and how he exercises must be in the manner authorized by Congress.

    All true, and not at all inconsistent with the unitary executive doctrine: The Executive Branch executes the law, but the Legislative Branch makes the laws, and the POTUS’ primacy within the Executive Branch doesn’t empower him to defy the law.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  204. One also wonders why Rosemary Woods never served time for her clumsy clumsy lies.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  205. It’s true about the pardon power, but it’s not true about most of the other things the President oversees (including whether to allow transsexuals in the armed forces — look up “raise and support armies”).

    I just looked it up. There’s not one thing in there about trannies. Somehow, under your reading of the constitution, when Obama appoints generals, they are allowed to decide to let trannies in for the first time in the history of our nation, but when generals under Trump’s command reverses that ruling, they are violating the constitution. At least that is the ruling from the judiciary, for now. It remains to be seen whether that is the last word.

    Anon Y. Mous (6cc438)

  206. Pretty sure that Congress cannot pass a law that prevents the President from firing a cabinet officer. That’s been decided twice, the first time 19-35.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  207. general mattis likes his boys in panties

    end of discussion

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  208. The full OIG report on McCabe is here.

    Interesting tidbit:

    On October 27, 2016 at 10:00 a.m., Comey held a meeting with the Clinton E-mail Investigation team to discuss obtaining a search warrant for a set of Clinton related e-mails the FBI had discovered on a laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner, and taking additional steps in the Clinton E-mail Investigation. Special Counsel attended the meeting. McCabe was out of town, but joined the meeting via conference call. Shortly after the meeting began, the then-FBI General Counsel (“FBI-GC”) suggested, and Comey agreed, that McCabe should leave the call. Comey told us that he asked McCabe to drop off the call, and McCabe was “very unhappy about it.” Special Counsel also left the meeting.

    The report is long, and I haven’t finished it, but in the parts I’ve read, it appears McCabe was untruthful several times, including in his reports to Comey, and that, far from being in some kind of secret cabal together, Comey’s testimony was a key piece of the case against McCabe. Contrary to Trump’s tweets (which as usual have no connection to the truth), there is nothing in the report (or the part I’ve read) that reflects negatively on Comey.

    However, it also appears that McCabe had pushed back strongly against pressure from the Assistant Deputy AG to put the Clinton Foundation investigation on the back burner until after the election. Apparently in revenge for McCabe’s refusal to “play ball” and protect Clinton, the Deputy AG then leaked to the WSJ claiming McCabe had ordered a stand-down, which was the exact opposite of what had actually transpired.

    Dave (445e97)

  209. i love how the one thing we all have in common is we’re not yammering about syria

    what a waste of ordinance

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  210. There’s not one thing in that same Constitution about judges writing laws or amending the Constitution, and yet they do.

    I do think that Congress has the power to decide if the armed forces include transsexuals. Even if the 14th Amendment suggests that civil society has to accept such persons equally, the armed forces remain a special category.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  211. @ DRJ (#199): Thanks for that link, which I hadn’t seen before and found to be fascinating reading — but not convincing.

    The jury heard audio tapes of Libby being cross-examined by Fitzgerald before the grand jury. Byron York’s article suggests that the defense team thought they didn’t need to call Libby live because it would have merely been cumulative of what the jury had already heard.

    But that’s preposterous. The reason the defense wants the defendant to testify is so that the jury can hear and see, before their own eyes and ears, the defendant speaking to them when he’s on direct exam. And you don’t want to limit that direct exam to that which a hostile questioner has asked about.

    That the recorded testimony was long, and therefore assuredly confusing and boring — how could it not be, with only one side asking questions, and that at a stage long before trial preparations were completed, a prosecution presented, or any other witnesses presented to the trial jury — is all the more reason to put him on the stand, live, in a way that can’t possibly be confusing and boring.

    If that was really their only justification for not calling him, it was a spectacularly bad judgment, an inexcusable one: Every trial lawyer knows that the jury wants to hear from the defendant when he’s looking them in the eye. They could have done a case-winning direct exam in forty-five minutes, and it would have been more important than all the other evidence in the trial put together.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  212. @194

    nk (9651fb) — 4/13/2018 @ 8:43 pm

    Well said, nk.

    Dave (445e97)

  213. Pretty sure that Congress cannot pass a law that prevents the President from firing a cabinet officer. That’s been decided twice, the first time 19-35.

    Yes, the Constitution is clear that the President is the Chief Executive. Congress can create all the federal jobs it wants, but the boss of bosses is the President. But can Trump send the Justice Department to fight in Syria and bring the Army to Washington to enforce the laws of the United States?

    nk (9651fb)

  214. well it’s good the Nazi FBI convicted Scooter and destroyed his family over nothing

    it was good practice for Trump

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  215. bring the Army to Washington to enforce the laws of the United States

    the Army lol

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  216. the US Army = does this tat make my ass look fat?

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  217. @ 189 Just to confirm your point about the dates, this is what the dossier said: “Speaking to a compatriot and friend in October 2016, a Kremlin insider provided further details of a reported clandestine meeting/s between Republican Presidential candidate Donald TRUMP’s lawyer Michael Cohen and Kremlin representatives in August, 2016.”

    In a futher passage, it states: “We reported previously, in our Company Intelligence Report 2016/135 of 19 October, 2016 from the same source that COHEN met officials from the PA legal department clandestinely in a EU country in August, 2016.”

    https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984-Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.html

    pete (a65bac)

  218. Just so you know, happyfeet, I am still reading your comments but when I get the urge to answer in a way I will regret later, I just hit the Blocking Script button making them disappear. I think this is best.

    nk (9651fb)

  219. i love you more than beans

    we all have to feel away through this difficult period of NAZI siege

    hey let’s be swing kids

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  220. UGH away = our way

    i hate typing

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  221. ok but for reals

    is anyone picking up on a great disturbance in the force we can attribute to vengeance on syria?

    i just found out tyler posey and the pug-faced girl from pretty little liars did a “horror” movie

    who would find this a recipe for horror?

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  222. And, Buzzfeed looked at Cohen’s passport and the only date showing him entering an EU country before August, 2016 was on July 9, 2016. https://www.buzzfeed.com/anthonycormier/trumps-lawyer-showed-you-the-cover-of-his-passport-heres?utm_term=.tozEENEWYA#.ivQ4484arD Per Buzzfeed, “Cohen denied having a second passport. “This is my only one,” he said.”

    pete (a65bac)

  223. President Trump pledges to support states’ rights to legal marijuana, in a blow to Attorney General Sessions. Yes, it’s good to see a POTUS who coordinates so very closely and smoothly and well with his own hand-picked cabinet secretaries. The indispensable man! The all-purpose genius!

    The chaos factory.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  224. Mr. pete if the Nazi FBI wanna get you they will

    they. will.

    that’s why Mr. President Trump is invoking the Libby “matter”

    so people understand what a joke the failmerican DOJ is

    useless jeffy sessions isn’t even in charge of it

    whiny-assed pre-transition slutgirl rod rosytwat’s in charge, and he says

    “whatever you say herr mueller”

    it’s supposed to be erotic but it’s just weird

    like any number of david lynch movies

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  225. Reading the McCabe report, it is striking that the allegedly corrupt FBI aggressively investigated a single leak in October 2016 until early 2018, with multiple investigators interviewing (often under oath) dozens of people, collecting text, phone and email records, and eventually building what looks like a pretty air-tight case against McCabe. As the investigation progressed, it was conducted by several different offices within the FBI, any one of which could have spiked it if they were more interested in protecting “one of their own” than in getting at the truth.

    The thoroughness of the investigation, which comes through clearly in the report, is really a testament to the integrity of the people who conducted it.

    Dave (445e97)

  226. Trump’s America

    An Oklahoma mother who married her daughter after the pair “hit it off” has been sentenced to two years in prison.

    Patricia Ann Spann, 45, pleaded guilty to the felony offence of incest and admitted wedding her biological daughter, Misty Velvet Dawn Spann, 26.

    The mother lost custody of her children and reunited with her daughter in 2014.

    The two married in March 2016 after same-sex marriage became legal in the state.

    Investigators later discovered Patricia Ann Spann had previously wed her son.

    Her son, who was 18 years old at the time, annulled the marriage on incest charges in 2010 after tying the knot with his mother in 2008, according to the Oklahoman.

    The married mother and daughter were discovered by the Department of Human Services during a child welfare check-up.

    According to the Oklahoman, Misty Spann also had the marriage annulled in October last year after arguing she had been fraudulently induced into it.

    She said her mother had lied about consulting “three separate attorneys who advised there would be no problems with the marriage”, reports the newspaper.

    BBC

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  227. US Customs and Border Protection has Cohen’s travels in and out of the country at their fingertips. Literally. A dozen strokes on a computer keyboard. And I don’t think the US Attorney needs a warrant to get it.

    nk (9651fb)

  228. @ 215 Speaking as a former DDA, it was a rare occasion that a defense attorney put his client on the stand at trial. Why? Cross-examination. It’s a great way for a DDA to win a case, by getting to cross the defendant and shore up holes in your case, have the defendant say something that “opened the door” to bringing in witnesses/testimony/evidence kept out by the Judge in in open doors to bring in other evidence the court ruled in in limine motions was not to be brought up.

    pete (a65bac)

  229. personally i love it how Mr. Trump is throwing the spotlight on marijuana in lieu of these silly missile strikes on syria

    those are all on panty-boy mattis and doddering drooling barfing poopstain mccain

    but oklahoma?

    oklahoma’s a wonderful place to visit but pro tip: don’t stay there and do lesbian incest all up in it

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  230. Woops, double typing. Last post should have ended “bringing in witnesses/testimony/evidence kept out by the Judge in in limine motions.”

    pete (a65bac)

  231. sometimes i feel like we’re talking past each other

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  232. The two married in March 2016 after same-sex marriage became legal in the state.

    Oh no, it was another obama set up.

    If you are married to two of your kids at the same time does the incest or bigamy have seniority?

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  233. pretty sure incest is the tie-breaker

    have you seen michelle obama’s mom?

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  234. As for McCabe, he was just dumb. He used multiple other FBI staff to do the leak in a “quasi-official” way, but didn’t own up to it afterward. He was authorized to make disclosures to the press, but not in the manner, or for the reasons, that he did in this case. He was trying to correct a lie somebody else had told about him, and his judgment failed him.

    And it appears that everybody else involved told the truth, consistently, from beginning to end.

    Dave (445e97)

  235. @ pete (#232): Did you read my prior comments? Yes, as I acknowledged to begin with, it’s rare to see defendants take the stand because almost all of them are vulnerable to such impeachment.

    The whole point I was trying to make is that Scooter Libby is the most conspicuous possible counterexample, the defendant who has no vulnerabilities on cross.

    The jury could’ve acquitted on an “honest mistake” theory, if he’d made any effort to persuade them right there in the courtroom, based on his personal demeanor in combination with everything else they’d seen and heard about him.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  236. US Customs and Border Protection has Cohen’s travels in and out of the country at their fingertips. Literally. A dozen strokes on a computer keyboard. And I don’t think the US Attorney needs a warrant to get it.

    Only if he traveled legally using his own passport.

    He could have been provided with a false/stolen/forged passport to use for the trip. The Russians do that sort of thing routinely, as the ten sleeper agents caught in 2010 demonstrated.

    He could have flown “under the radar”, as it were, on a private plane. Throw in an unrecorded land crossing into Canada/Mexico and anything is possible.

    Dave (445e97)

  237. omg.

    when incest goes bad

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  238. @239 Every witness is vulnerable on cross-exam, both in what they say and how the jury judges their demeanor. A lot also depends on the skill of the prosecutor and defense attorney how it shakes out in front of a jury, first on cross and then on re-direct. And, as any trial lawyer will tell you, juries often make decisions on credibility based on the oddest things or things neither the prosecution or defense ever thought were significant.

    pete (a65bac)

  239. @ 241 That’s the ticket—the false passport used on the private plane that took off after an unrecorded land crossing into Mexico or Canada!!! Wowser!!!

    pete (a65bac)

  240. i’ve never felt like i wasn’t just passing through North Carolina

    but I never been up the coast

    the mountains and the coast are so different there in every way

    i’m a mountain guy

    but someday i wanna do the whole coast at least up to delaware

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  241. @ Dave (#229): I had exactly the same reaction.

    However, I’d give $5 for an annotated version with all the names were named instead of just identifying individuals by job titles. The abbreviated job titles and other acronyms make the report painful to read.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  242. He could’ve used a Star Trek era teleporter, or the Galileo.

    random viking (6a54c2)

  243. Re: Syria

    It’s a pleasant surprise to see the French show some backbone. This Macron guy may be the first French leader since de Gaulle who isn’t a total weasel.

    As such, I doubt he’ll last long…

    Dave (445e97)

  244. Motive, means and opportunity. We have him dead to rights, Dave.

    nk (9651fb)

  245. I’m joking.

    nk (9651fb)

  246. Cohen might’ve gotten a hold of Felix’s magic bag or walked into a book called “Czech Republic” like Gumby.

    random viking (6a54c2)

  247. Hot Rod Rosenstein better be working through the weekend getting those memos ready for Goodlatte, Nunes and Gowdy.

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  248. Cohen might have a twin brother. They might have been separated at birth, but still retain the weird reading each other’s thoughts twin power.

    So while Trump’s Michael Cohen was in L. A. watching a college baseball game, Putin’s Mikhail Fyodorovich Cohen was having a meeting at the Russian welfare office in Prague.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  249. It appears the DoJ official (referred to as “PADAG” in the report) who tried to put the Clinton Foundation investigation on hold for the election was Matt Axelrod.

    He was a political appointee, and resigned with Sally Yates.

    Dave (445e97)

  250. Cohen could have recreated the Gene Wilder blackface scene and walked into the Czech Republic with African refugees

    Silver Streak Ghetto Pass

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  251. Conclusion: we need a big, beautiful wall to keep Trump’s attorneys from sneaking out of the country to “facilitate” sale of the White House to Vladimir Putin.

    Dave (445e97)

  252. But seriously, you guys got me.

    Nobody could possibly get in or out of the United States without following the proper Customs and Immigration formalities.

    Ever.

    Dave (445e97)

  253. @ 257 Yep, you got us Dave, the secret trip on a private jet avoiding customs and landing under the radar in Prague. Yessir, one slick operative there–the CIA should hire him. Wait, what if he IS THE CIA??

    pete (a65bac)

  254. OK, maybe penniless, illiterate Mexicans can do it, but a rich lawyer with SVR contacts, no way.

    Dave (445e97)

  255. NM Rod, articles of impeachment have been drafted.

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  256. Nobody could possibly get in or out of the United States without following the proper Customs and Immigration formalities.

    Ever.

    unless they used a horse trailer pulled by an F-250 near Campo, California. Not to worry. Governor Brown has called up the guard to plug that gap in the future.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  257. Clarification to what I posted earlier–although every “detailed” report by Steele claimed Cohen’s trip was in August, 2016, on the page 34 is suddenly changes to “Cohen was accompanied to Prague by three colleagues and the timing of their visit was either in the last week of August or the first week of September.” (page 34). We know it wasn’t the last week of August–must have been the first week of September that “Cohen, party of 4” slipped into Prague.

    pete (a65bac)

  258. Gee, for a bunch of morons and clods, these Trump dudes are damn sophisticated!!

    random viking (6a54c2)

  259. It’s that secret jet fleet Trump had. No wonder he was shocked at the price of the new Air Force One—his custom/passport check evading, cross Atlantic plane fleet flying out of unmarked and unpaved airfields was purchased for half the cost.

    pete (a65bac)

  260. Yep, you got us Dave, the secret trip on a private jet avoiding customs and landing under the radar in Prague.

    He could have landed anywhere in the Schengen area and crossed into the Czech Republic as easily as we move between states.

    How about this: two identical private jets. One takes off from a Schengen airport with a flight plan sending it to another. The second jet from the US/Canada/Mexico crosses paths with it in the air somewhere over Europe, and completes the first jet’s flight plan. Intra-European flights require no immigration controls. The first jet veers off to an SVR airstrip in Russia, where they are expecting it, and simply disappears.

    Easy peasy, although I suspect a trip to Canada + fake passport would be even easier. That’s how many of the Russian sleeper agents entered the US, and it works just as well in the other direction.

    Dave (445e97)

  261. Gee, for a bunch of morons and clods, these Trump dudes are damn sophisticated!

    Except the Russians were in charge.

    Dave (445e97)

  262. Thanks for the independent verification, pete. Again, I don’t see how Mueller has supposedly confirmed that at least part of dossier is true if, as the McClatchy article claims, the Prague meeting supposedly may have taken place in September. The parts of the dossier you quoted also confirms another thing that undermines the McClatchy piece. The Kremlin source was not “Steele’s Kremlin sources, cultivated during 20 years of spying on Russia.” Steele’s source was “a compatriot and friend” who in turn supposedly had a Kremlin source. Which means this falls into the category of hearsay. In other words, Steele was trafficking in unverified, unverifiable gossip.

    We have some laugh-out-loud comedy gold in Christopher Steele. His dossier presents his findings as if he received them carved in stone on Mt. Sinai. But when sued for defamation and taken to court in London he had to retreat from the 100% certainty he had taken in his dossier and in his representations to the press. There was no hedging then. In court he had to say that his findings weren’t at all reliable. The dossier was simply a collection of bits of “raw intelligence” that were “unverified.” He and Furion GPS had a sacred pact that Fusion would not any part of his work public. While he was forced to admit that he had personally briefed major press organizations, he claimed that those briefings “off the record.” He told the court that he understood “off the record” to mean that the reporters he briefed knew that the information he was providing was “to be used for the purpose of further research but would not be published or attributed.” Yet while Fusion GPS promiscuously disclosed his work whenever they damn well pleased and as the news organizations published his briefings just as soon as they could after he briefed them, Steele kept right on briefing news organizations that also would promptly publish them.

    I certainly hope that the attorneys for the plaintiff, Aleksej Gubarev, brought that little factoid to the court’s attention.

    Which now brings us to the FBI. Months after Steele had testified in a London court that he did not believe the claims he made

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  263. Your desperation is showing, Dave. But, you are keeping me entertained.

    pete (a65bac)

  264. Geez, I accidentally submitted the comment before it was ripe. Ah well, it probably better to break this thing up anyway.

    Now we turn to the FBI to mine some more comedy gold. Months after Steele testified in a London court that he didn’t even trust the reliability of his own dossier, the FBI claims it based their FISA warrant application on his dossier because of Steele’s reputation within the Bureau for reliability (!?!?).

    The FBI is one of the 17 members of the vaunted US Intelligence Community. What sort of intel agency doesn’t know that a) it’s reliable source is getting sued for defamation and b) that under oath he’s saying his information isn’t reliable and c) his own dossier makes it clear that he isn’t the source in any case.

    I would think any of those things would have cause the FBI to question the reliability of Steele’s information as well as the reliability of Steele himself. Definitely the fact that the FBI had already fired him as a “consultant” because he had violated the terms of their agreement, which stipulated that Steele would not talk to the press. So they were using his work to get FISA warrants based, they say, on Steele’s record of reliability after they had already fired him for being unreliable. Again, WTFO!?!?

    Stand by for this story to keep evolving. Next some outfit will claim that Cohen actually had the meeting with the Russians in October. After all, Cohen had already told congressional investigators he visited England in October. Perhaps he jetted down to Germany in the back seat of an RAF Tornado, then slipped across the border.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  265. Speaking of RAF Tornado’s that were used in the attack tonight—waiting for the accusations that Putin actually told Trump to strike Syria tonight to distract from the headlines of this week regarding Michael Cohen, with part of that proof being Trump didn’t strike until the Russians had a chance to get their personnel and ships out of the way. Oh, and the Russians didn’t shoot down the American and British jets, which they could have with their SAM 400 missile system because it was all part of the pre-arranged plan.

    pete (a65bac)

  266. pooperhead and Dana

    President Trump doesn’t need to distract from “the headlines”

    the cnn jake tapper fake news propaganda slut “headlines” are a discordant clown show

    the dicklick fagtrash cnnboys and the lizardmamas on msnbc just don’t understand this yet

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  267. here we go

    this is where we are

    and it’s quite nicely removed from anything we used to think of as media bias:

    Trapped In The White House: Many Trump Aides Are Too “Toxic” To Get Jobs

    this is what i’m not neutral about

    this is what i recognize as fascism

    it’s the terror of knowing

    what this whirl is about

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  268. I was just reading about people who may or may not deserve pardons and I ran into something interesting about a father and son (they didn’t marry each other) named Gordon and Yorivon Kahl. Now, I’m not going to link anything because they are controversial figures. It is interesting that the FBI has a history of firing off hundreds or thousands of rounds and killing dogs and burning down houses. And perhaps not identifying themselves. If you believe the sources.

    But that’s none of my business…

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  269. OK the Kahl family +1 was stopped at a roadblock and a shootout occurred. usmarshals.gov calls it an ‘ambush’ by the Kahls. I’m not sure ambushes work that way. Gordon Kahl was killed in Arkansas. Shot in the head with .41 cal. The guy who shot him exited and other agents shot the house up and it caught fire for 2 hours. Sounds a lot like Chris Dorner with some Bundys thrown in for good measure.

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  270. I remember this movie now:

    Oscar-winner Rod Steiger has played a lot of right-wingers, from Benito Mussolini to Rudolf Hess, and his role as fanatical tax-evader Gordon Kahl in “In the Line of Duty: Manhunt in the Dakotas“ adds another memorable characterization to his gallery of monstrous rogues.

    The movie, airing Sunday on NBC (8 p.m., WMAQ-Ch. 5), dramatizes the true story of a North Dakota farmer who gunned down two federal marshals sent to arrest him for violating probation. Previously, Kahl had served a one-year prison term for refusing to pay income taxes.

    Manhunt

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  271. OK the tear gas likely set the house on fire. That makes more sense. Add that little item to FBI procedure book. Check.

    Pinandpuller (de5034)

  272. Speaking of RAF Tornado’s that were used in the attack tonight—waiting for the accusations that Putin actually told Trump to strike Syria tonight to distract from the headlines of this week regarding Michael Cohen, with part of that proof being Trump didn’t strike until the Russians had a chance to get their personnel and ships out of the way. Oh, and the Russians didn’t shoot down the American and British jets, which they could have with their SAM 400 missile system because it was all part of the pre-arranged plan.

    That’s pretty much how it all went down, pete. Except the distract from Michael Cohen part. The West does not want to escalate by killing Russians and Putin does not want to escalate by killing Americans, Frenchmen or Brits. So the Russians got out of the way while we dropped a hundred million dollars’ worth of smart bombs on the Syrian countryside and honor is now deemed satisfied.

    nk (9651fb)

  273. Pinandpuller @ 273, 275. #FakeNews from 1983? Posse Comitatus is not an alternative spelling for something Trump would be interested in. They were a bunch of nutcases, something like the Sovereign Citizens, who killed some peace officers sent out to arrest them, one by hiding in wait and springing out shooting. I haven’t seen the movie you mention, but I’m not surprised that Hollywood would lionize them. It’s done that with any number of scumbags, from Jesse James to Jeffrey Dahmer (yes, there’s a sympathetic Jeffrey Dahmer movie).

    nk (9651fb)

  274. Now, here’s something that’s funny on a couple of levels. China has developed, and is using, facial recognition technology that can pick out one Chinese wanted man out of a crowd of 60,000. You may snicker if you are so inclined. Human rights groups are concerned … I’m not making this up … about “the ethical ramifications” of China’s use of such technology. You may guffaw, now.

    nk (9651fb)

  275. RIP Milos Forman (whose filming of Amadeus in Prague in 1983-84 was a noteworthy milestone toward the autonomous Czech Republic)

    urbanleftbehind (bb5d4e)

  276. Why is Cadet Bonespurs lying about the success of the strikes on Syria, when the attack was practically a total failure?

    Russia claims that 71 of the 105 missiles fired at Syria were intercepted.

    Since Russia said it, it must be true and our own Deeeeeeeeeeeeep Staaaaaaaaaaate military/intelligence people are lying, right?

    Syrian armed forces said in a statement, however, that the country’s defense systems “intercepted most of the missiles, but some hit targets including the Research Center in Barzeh,” a suburb of Damascus.

    Russian Army Colonel Gen. Sergey Rudskoy put a number to the claim, telling reporters that 71 of the cruise missiles were intercepted by Syria’s air defense systems.

    “It proves high efficiency of the Syrian armament and professional skills of the Syrian servicemen trained by the Russian specialists,” Rudskoy said at a Ministry of Defense media briefing.

    Dave (445e97)

  277. 105 x $2 million = $210 million. I stand corrected.

    nk (9651fb)

  278. Dave does a great Tokyo Rose impersonation.

    random viking (1c5d74)

  279. RIP – Art Bell – the aliens took him out.

    harkin (607a84)

  280. Happyfeet – try the Kona Coast great beaches and stunning views of Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa and the Kahala range.

    mg (9e54f8)

  281. 284.Dave does a great Tokyo Rose impersonation.
    random viking (1c5d74) — 4/14/2018 @ 9:32 am


    Why are you saying “impersonation”? He has gone so apesh!t crazy about Trump (or whatever idiotic name du jour he’s using) he has joined the enemy. Is there a name for that?

    Rev.Hoagie (1b0402)

  282. Yes… “certifiable”…

    Colonel Haiku (89ebb5)

  283. He’s ballsdeep in Russian Collusion l…

    Colonel Haiku (89ebb5)

  284. Me too:

    “Hey, Tomahawk! Whire you get brown up in Syria, arr F-35s back home have sex with your girrfriend.”

    nk (9651fb)

  285. “Mueller’s job is to obscure the abuses of the US surveillance apparatus that occurred under the Obama administration.”

    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/

    Colonel Haiku (89ebb5)

  286. “When Comey was asked by Stephanopoulos whether or not he thought President Trump should know about the origins of the salacious and unverified dossier, the former FBI Director simply replied “I don’t know the answer to that.”

    “Did you tell him that the Steele dossier had been financed by his political opponents?” asks ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos.

    “No. I didn’t,” Comey responded.

    “But did he have a right to know that?” continued Stephanopoulos.”

    “That it had been financed by his political opponents? I don’t know the answer to that,” Comey said.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-13/comey-failed-tell-trump-hillary-paid-dossier

    — –
    Think he would have told Madame Pantsuit had situation been reversed?

    harkin (607a84)

  287. Here’s an interesting alternative idea to firing Herr Mueller:

    The President should fire Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, and Special Counsel Mueller, and take a deep, deep look into the functioning of the DOJ and the FBI. There will be a political uproar; the Dems and their media acolytes will scream about obstruction and impeachment. Yeah, yeah. They’re doing that, anyhow, so let’s get this Mueller monstrosity over and done with. Either that or begin naming Special Counsels right and left: one for Hillary Clinton; one for Loretta Lynch; one for Eric Holder; one for James Comey; one for Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and her Pakistani gang; one for Chuck Schumer; one for Nancy Pelosi; one for Governor Brown; and, of course, why not name one to investigate Bob Mueller, himself?

    the Bas (99ba6b)

  288. Telling the truth did nothing to serve Comey’s needs. This man was uniquely unsuited for the job he was appointed to.

    Colonel Haiku (89ebb5)

  289. Tear these Entrenched Politicized Bureaucrats and their flunkies a new one, the Bas…

    Colonel Haiku (89ebb5)

  290. I wish he would do that, the Bas, but Trump has already said he opposes prosecuting Hillary.

    DRJ (15874d)

  291. Dave does a great Tokyo Rose impersonation.

    Can you really not understand when you are being mocked?

    Dave (445e97)

  292. R.I.P. – Art Bell

    Liked his coffee in a cup and saucer.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  293. Trump has already said he opposes prosecuting Hillary.

    For reasons no less cynical than his pardon of Libby.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  294. Trump calls Comey a “Leaker and a Liar”.

    We should all be able to acknowledge that Trump’s verifiable lies outnumber Comey’s alleged lies by somewhere in excess of 1000 to 1.

    noel (b4d580)

  295. ‘Lee Smith explains that, too. “[B]y using the justice system as a political weapon to attack the enemies of the country’s elite, Robert Mueller and his supporters in both parties are confirming what many Americans already believe. That in spite of all the fine rhetoric, we are not all equal under one law. There is in fact a privileged class, a ruling class that sees its own interests as identical with the public good, and never pays a price for its failures, its abuses, and its crimes.’

    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/294146/

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  296. Shorter noel: “I stand with Comey.”

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  297. 302.Shorter noel: “I stand with Comey.”


    And Karl.

    Rev.Hoagie (1b0402)

  298. Both sides have liars. It isn’t good to have the biggest, best liar.

    DRJ (15874d)

  299. Prince was thrown into the middle of Russiagate after an Apr 3 2017 /Washington Post/ story reported his meeting with the Russian banker. But how did anyone know about the meeting? After the story came out, Prince said he was shown “specific evidence” by sources from the intelligence community that the information was swept up in the collection of electronic communications and his identity was unmasked. The US official or officials who gave his name to the /Post/ broke the law when they leaked classified intelligence. “Unless /The Washington Post/ has somehow miraculously recruited the bartender of a hotel in the Seychelles,” Prince told the House Intelligence Committee in Dec, “the only way that’s happening is through SIGINT [signals intelligence].”

    attorneys and other rancid social climbers applaud these fascist tactics and civil rights abuses now

    but ultimately it’s their own offices what are now much more easily raided

    and it’s themselves what have their sticky snotty fingers in all the most provocative of pies

    happyfeet (28a91b)


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