Drug Infested Dens

Grand Jury Time:  Special Counsel Mueller quietly impaneled a Washington DC Grand Jury a few weeks ago for the Russian probe.  Issues related to Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn had been in front of a Virginia court so the move to a Washington, DC venue makes it likely that Mueller has escalated his investigation and is now focusing on additional targets some of whom are named Trump. When asked about this, Ty Cobb, Trump’s newest lawyer said that he welcomed the news “to the extent it suggests that it may accelerate the resolution of Mr. Mueller’s work.”  What he was really thinking was something along the lines of OMG, this is really happening.  Jay Sekulow, Trump’s other legal spokesmen, the one who lies most of the time, said “with respect to the impaneling of the grand jury, we have no reason to believe that the president is under investigation here.” Another little white lie from the legal prevaricator.  Mueller recently added Greg Andres,  a former top Justice Department official who previously oversaw the criminal division of the US attorney’s office in Brooklyn to his team.  One of Andres’ colleagues said that guys like him don’t leave private practice “willy-nilly,” the fact that he joined the team is an indication that something bigly is there.  In case Trump is still thinking of stopping the whole process by replacing Attorney General Sessions so that he can fire Mueller, a few Republican and Democratic Senators on the Judiciary Committee have introduced legislation that would make it difficult for any dismissal to take effect and though the Senators have finally gone home for their August vacation the Senate remains technically open for “pro-forma” sessions making it impossible for Trump to replace AG Sessions with a recess appointment.  Unfortunately, the House Judiciary Committee is not interested in cooperating with their Senate colleagues, they are still busy investigating Hillary Clinton and Obama’s AG Loretta Lynch.   

Follow the Money:  CNN reports that Federal investigators are hot on the Trump money trail.  The FBI is reviewing records related to the Trump organization, Trump, his family members including Don Jr and campaign associates, checking out shell companies, buyers of Trump branded real estate, and tenants going back more than six years.  In anticipation of pushback, investigators are buying extra liability insurance in case they become targets of lawsuits initiated by the seriously panicked Trumpsters who have a reputation for being particularly litigious.  

West Virginia Again:  For some reason, the guy who thinks that the White House is a dump wants to live there for two full terms so he returned to West Virginia last night for a campaign rally.   It may seem early for the 2020 campaign, but Trump who hates paying lawyers needs his campaign committee to raise lots of money to cover his ever increasing legal bills.  Trump won West Virginia with 67% of the vote in 2016 making it one of his happy places which explains why he keeps going back. Earlier in the day he signaled that he would be making a big announcement during his visit.  Anyone hoping he was throwing in the towel was severely disappointed.  He called the Russia investigation a hoax, “just an excuse for the greatest loss in history” that is trying to “cheat you out of the future and leadership that you want.”  To prove his point, he asked the crowd if there were any Russians lurking in the bleachers before revving his fans into a frenzy by calling for the investigation of Hillary’s 30,000 emails. Trump stuck to the teleprompter for most of the speech, using more polysyllabic words than usual, an indication that the diatribe had been written by the charming Stephen Miller, the anti-immigrant whisperer.  Towards the end he made the promised big announcement:  West Virginia’s Democratic Governor who was a Republican before he became a Democrat has decided to become a Republican again because even if Trump is falling in the polls, in West Virginia he is still the man.

Leaked Transcripts:  General Kelly who is doing his best to impose military rigor at the White House hasn’t managed to squelch all the leaks yet. Given the number of people who’ve been bounced out of the White House over the past few weeks the leak battle is facing a particularly tough insurgency, which may explain how the Washington Post managed to get hold of transcripts of Trump’s January phone calls with Mexico’s President Pena Nieto and Australia’s Prime Minister Turnbull.  We already knew that Trump’s calls with both leaders were a little testy but the details are so crazy that they would be funny if only he wasn’t the president.   In his conversation with Pena Nieto, Trump acknowledged that there were more important issues to discuss than his much promised wall, but said that from his standpoint it was the most important political issue and he begged Pena Nieto to stop saying that Mexico wouldn’t pay for it because “the press is going to go with that and I cannot live with that.”  He also said that he had to stop the Mexican drug lords from sending drugs to the US, especially New Hampshire, that “drug infested den” that he won, except that he didn’t win New Hampshire and probably never will now that everyone there knows what he really thinks about the Granite State.  His call with Mexico was far friendlier than his call with Prime Minister Turnbull.  He argued with Turnbull over the 1250 refugees that Obama promised the US would take in, questioning how he, the “world’s greatest person” could know that they weren’t future marathon bombers lamenting that he had no choice but to honor Obama’s “disgusting deal,” even though the “stupid deal” would make him “look terrible.” He ended the call with one of our best allies by saying “I have been making these calls all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day.”  “Putin was a pleasant call.  This is ridiculous.”  Oh that Putin, he is such a charmer.