Deflect and Deny

Alternative Facts: The theme of the week was deflection and denial.  It was Hillary Clinton, the woman who is not president, who gave our uranium away to the Russians, who colluded with Putin on the opposition report that resulted in the infamous “ Steele Dossier” and who is responsible for North Korea, Iran, the harassment scandals and the last flu epidemic.  And, if you read the released Kennedy papers very carefully you will probably find out that she, together with Ted Cruz’s dad and Lee Harvey Oswald, was involved in the JFK assassination plot.  Diverting attention to Hillary, provides Republicans with some cover as they start to wind down some of the activities of their investigative committees and question Special Counsel Mueller’s budget.  Of course Trump was in on the action too.  He started Friday by tweeting  “It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump. Was collusion with HC!” As to all those accusations about harassment, Sarah Huckabee Sanders reiterated that "Yeah, we've been clear on that from the beginning, and the president's spoken on it," those sixteen women who've accused Trump of harassment are all lying, all of them.  

Real Facts:  Although the women accusing Trump of sexual harassment stand by their statements, there’s not much new to report on that front, so far Teflon Don has escaped the consequences raining down on countless other prominent harassers.  However, things are percolating on the Russian front and the news for Trump and his cronies is not so good.  Because everything happens on Fridays, last evening CNN reported that Mueller filed criminal charges in the Washington DC Federal Court against someone implicated in the Russian probe.  Since the indictment is sealed, the target or targets are not yet publicly disclosed, but whoever he, she or they are, they are likely to be picked up on Monday.  The smart money is on Paul Manafort or Michael Flynn, but at this point that is just an educated guess, it could also be someone who could help Mueller “turn” Manafort or Flynn.  A few other things also came to light on Friday.  The Fusion GPS firm responsible for the Steele Dossier, was first retained by the Conservative Washington Free Beacon website, which hired the Fusion firm to provide research on multiple Republican candidates in the 2016 primaries.  Paul Singer a billionaire GOP donor provides financial support to the website. The Beacon’s acknowledged involvement puts to rest accusations that there never was a Republican funder for any part of Fusion GPS’s investigation.  More connections between Rebekah Mercer, the very rightwing billionaire Steve Bannon supporter, and the hacked DNC and John Podesta emails was also revealed. She apparently requested that Cambridge Analytica, the data management firm that she helped fund and that was employed to assist with Trump’s campaign efforts, allocate resources to making the purloined emails more searchable so that they could be more effectively weaponized.  Then there’s Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Don Jr, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, allegedly to discuss only Russia adoptions.  It turns out that, despite her assertions that she was acting independently of the Kremlin, the talking points memo she brought with her to the meeting had been crafted together with Putin’s prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika.  The memo contained unverified information accusing the Ziff Brothers, major real investors who were also Hillary supporters, of investing in a Russian fund to avoid taxes.  The fund was managed by Bill Browder, the man responsible for the Magitsky Act that Putin hates so much so the accusation was as much about attacking Browder’s reputation as about accusing Hillary of accepting money from “shady” investors.  In any case, though the meeting remains very problematic for Don Jr and his cohorts, Donny didn’t think the accusations were all that useful, probably because it would be hard for Trumps, given their track record, to throw stones at other real estate investors seeking to avoid taxes.  Lastly, Dana Boente, a 33 year veteran of the Department of Justice, resigned yesterday.  Boente, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was very senior in the Justice Department hierarchy and at various time had stepped up to a number of senior “acting” positions when others had been fired.  He’s the guy who temporarily replaced Sally Yates as Acting Attorney General before Attorney General Sessions was confirmed and Rod Rosenstein was put in place as Deputy Attorney General. To the extent that Rosenstein is ever forced out or resigns under pressure to do something unethical, Boente would have been in line to supervise Mueller.  Just days before he resigned, Boente,  who was juggling two positions since he was also serving as the acting attorney for national security, told associates that he was looking forward to returning full time to his post at the Eastern District. His unexpected resignation raises some interesting questions:  Was he fired?  Did he step down because he is being called as a witness against Trump in the Comey firing?  Was he asked to do something that he found ethically untenable?  Hmmm.

The INS Tales:  Earlier in the week the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services conspired to block a young woman’s reproductive rights.  Now they’ve moved on to trying to deport a ten year old girl with cerebral palsy.  The young girl, who has been in the country for years, was on her way for much needed surgery when INS agents stalked her car.  They allowed the surgery to proceed but stood guard outside her room to make sure that she didn’t stage a daring escape.  Now they are holding her in limbo, refusing to return her to her relatives.  Her parents, who are in the US illegally are in hiding, but the family members who took her to the hospital and who are trying to get her back are being prevented from taking her into their care.  Remember when Trump said that his focus was the deportation of dangerous felons.  That was then, now he’s protecting us from ten year old impaired little girls.  Feeling safer?