Fire, Fury and Comb Overs

Fire and Fury:  Yesterday, following the release of an excerpt from Michael Wolff’s soon to be published explosive new book chronicling the Trump team and its “campaign miracle”  there was plenty of fire and fury inside the Trump White House.  On the record, everyone in Trump’s circle is claiming that the book’s revealing descriptions of life in casa Trump are exaggerated, misleading and, in many cases made-up fantasies, this despite the fact that Wolff was warmly welcomed into the White House and was allowed to roam the halls for months, while he interviewed anyone and everyone on the team, including Trump.  In all, the industrious Wolff conducted 200 interviews.  Many spoke off the record, however former White House strategist Steve Bannon felt little need to hide behind a curtain of anonymity and let loose with a lot of really cutting and damaging remarks.  Pretty much everyone spoken with agrees that Trump’s election victory was a surprise, even to Trump and especially to Melania who cried once the results were in, by the way someone managed to slip in that the not so happy couple do not share the same White House bedroom. Former security advisor Michael Flynn was so sure that Trump would lose that he justified accepting $45,000 for one of his Russian escapades because he figured no one would care after the election especially since it wasn’t like he was going to have a role on President Hillary’s team.  Many describe Trump as ignorant, possibly illiterate, and disinterested in upping his intellectual game.  Few are all that impressed with Ivanka’s intellect either, nevertheless she harbors delusions of being the country’s first female president and did provide Wolff with a great explanation for Trump’s coif, something to do with a scalp reduction, a comb over and impatiently applied dye.  Bannon characterized Trump Jr’s Trump Tower meeting with the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya as “treasonous,” going on to say that it’s unbelievable that Donny Jr, Manafort and Kushner could be so stupid as to participate in the first place added that at the very least they should have had some of their own lawyers present. He also asserts that Trump senior had to know about the meeting, and claims that the disreputable Russians actually got to meet Trump during a flyby to his Trump Tower office.  The book also reveals that Mark Corallo, who had been the spokesperson for Trump’s legal team, left the White House because of his belief that the misleading description of the Russian meeting, the one concocted by Trump and dictated to Hope Hicks on Air Force One, was so intentionally inaccurate that it represented an intent to obstruct justice. Trump, who reportedly eats McDonalds all the time because he believes those burgers and fries are less likely to be poisoned than anything prepared specially for him, is fairly freaked out by the content of the Wolff book and is furious with Bannon who he now says  "has nothing to do with me or my presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind."  Last night, Trump’s lawyers sent Bannon a cease and desist order demanding that he “refrain from making disparaging comments against the president and his family,” claiming that his remarks were a breach of the non-disclosure agreement that he had signed upon joining the Trump campaign team, something that should have been considered before Trump agreed to give Wolff unfettered access to the White House and its staff.  For his part Bannon was relatively quiet during most of the day but last night responded to a question about his “insights” on his Breitbart Sirius XM radio show by expressing unqualified support for Trump saying "The president of the United States is a great man. You know I support him, day in and day out, whether going through the country giving the Trump miracle speech or on the show or on the website." That ship may have sailed, at least for Bannon.

Fraudulent Commissions:  Late yesterday, with most attention focused on the Wolff excerpts, the White House announced that it was disbanding its Commission on Voter Fraud.  Trump reiterated his belief that there is still plenty of evidence of voter fraud, but blamed the dissolution of the commission on the lack of cooperation from those fraud invested Democratic states and their litigious tendencies.  He’s passing the responsibility for cleaning up the election rolls on to the Department of Home Land Security, to be added to its growing list of responsibilities right after terrorism prevention, border guarding and preventing Russian interference during the next election cycle. One White House official admitted that the commission was unable to operate as structured under the Federal Advisory Committee Act because that law mandates a degree of transparency, kind of an admission that the commission and its leader Kris Kobach had been trying to come up with a voter suppression plan without anyone watching.  Though it hasn’t been officially disbanded, while the rest of us were off celebrating the holidays, the Trump administration fired the remaining members of the HIV/AIDs Advisory Council.  Its not clear that any new members will ever be appointed possibly because Mike Pence, who seems to direct Trump’s views on issues related to health care and sexuality isn’t all that comfortable with the subject.

The Nunes Chronicles:  Late yesterday FBI Director Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein were seen entering House Speaker Ryan’s office.  Apparently they were there to discuss the increasingly hostile actions against the Mueller investigation by certain House members led by the nefarious Representative Devon Nunes.  Though Rosenstein left smiling, Nunes declared victory,  claiming that an agreement was reached for him to get his hands on all of the documents that he wants to see related to the Russian probe, especially information related to the so-called Steele Dossier. Nunes has been known to prevaricate so its not clear what was really agreed to during the meeting but if Nunes is correct about Ryan agreeing to all of his demands, it would not be a good thing for team Mueller or the integrity of the investigation.  Sometime campaign manager Paul Manafort and his lawyers are also going after Mueller.  Yesterday they filed a lawsuit challenging his authority, claiming that “The investigation of Mr. Manafort is completely unmoored from the Special Counsel’s original jurisdiction to investigate any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated” with the Trump campaign because it partially focuses on Manafort’s earlier not so legal activities in the Ukraine.  Legal experts have characterized the lawsuit as frivolous but still it’s another unneeded distraction that feeds the many anti-Muellerites who are looking for any and all reasons to stop his investigation.