Family Bonds?

Trump Grudges:  Yesterday Trump went to Fort Drum, NY  to formally sign the John S McCain National Defense Authorization Act which was specifically named after the ailing Senator to honor him for his years of service to the country.  During his speech Trump thanked a lot of people, including the “dedicated members of Congress” especially Martha McSally who is running to replace another one of his least favorite people, Arizona’s retiring Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona.  Notably, Trump, who Iraq war veteran Senator Tammy Duckworth famously called Cadet Bone Spurs for his multiple Viet Nam era draft deferments, failed to thank or even acknowledge McCain, going so far as to delete McCain’s name whenever he mentioned the act. He did manage to get one McCain reference in when he once again brought up his disappointment at failing to be able to repeal the dreaded Obamacare, blaming his failure on “that guy” who toppled his plans with his thumbs down on the Senate floor at 2 AM, a not so veiled reference to McCain.  Proving once again that he’s no better, VP Pence, who actually is a friend of McCain’s,  also avoided speaking McCain’s name.  For his part, McCain released a statement thanking his colleagues in Congress for honoring him and saying that he was “humbled” that they designated the bill in his name. He didn’t mention Trump.  While he had no words for McCain, Trump shared lots of his thoughts about that “lowlife” Omarosa.  He called her wacky and deranged, while denying that he had ever said that “horrible and disgusting” word that she had attributed to him.  Late last night, he tweeted  that Mark Burnett, the producer of the Apprentice, had called to reassure him that, contrary to Omarosa’s assertions, none of the hidden outtakes from the Apprentice, the ones that probably show Trump doing a lot of things he’d rather we didn’t see or hear, include any use of the “N word.” It’s not clear that Burnett really called Trump, nor is it clear that he never used the “horrible” word, but at least for now Burnett continues to sit on the Apprentice tapes.  Omarosa continued her book tour and talked about a few more of her hidden tapes.  To that end she brought along a tape of a conversation that she had with Trump right after she was dismissed by Chief of Staff Kelly, on that call Trump expresses unconvincing shock about her firing.  Omarosa asserts that she has many more tapes including one or more with Javanka.  The White House spent the day attacking her though Trump defended hiring her in the first place, saying that though she was never really qualified, she had one great trait, she was into flattery, she thought he was great, or at least she said that a lot before she was fired.  Former lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen, the other former Trump team member who was into taping his boss, weighed in too on Trump’s side, claiming he’d never heard him use the “N word.”  Trump’s day struck a brighter note when the FBI announced that counter intelligence agent Peter Strzok had been fired.  Strzok, who criticized Trump and a plethora of other politicians during his tweet flirting with his one time girl friend Lisa Page, was fired for those texts putting a sorry end to what had been a distinguished twenty year career with the FBI.  His lawyer asserts that the dismissal was a shocker, that Strzok had expected a demotion and suspension, the outcome that had been recommended internally by the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility, and blamed Strzok’s dismissal on political pressure from the White House, an assertion that is totally believable given Trump’s celebratory tweet “Agent Peter Strzok was just fired from the FBI - finally. The list of bad players in the FBI & DOJ gets longer & longer. Based on the fact that Strzok was in charge of the Witch Hunt, will it be dropped? It is a total Hoax. No Collusion, No Obstruction - I just fight back!”   In addition to celebrating Strzok’s dismissal and dissing Omarosa and McCain, Trump also threw his own son further under the bus yesterday.  He did that while once revising the ever changing story of what happened during the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russian lawyer/spy Natalia Veselnitskaya.  Specifically he told the Washington Post that Don Jr “has received notoriety for a brief meeting, that many politicians would have taken, but most importantly, and to the best of my knowledge, nothing happened after the meeting concluded.”   Once upon a time that meeting didn’t happen, then it was just about adoptions, now he is more or less acknowledging that Don Jr went into it with the expectation that he was going to get dirt on Hillary and since its highly unlikely that Trump would have used the words “to the best of my knowledge” on his own, it looks like his statement to the Washington Post was lawyer approved, possibly part of a strategy to shift all blame to Don Jr, while at the same time claiming that his crime wasn’t all that bigly.   

Mueller Time:  Yesterday, after an official from Federal Savings Bank, the Chicago institution that inappropriately lent former campaign manager Paul Manafort $16.5 million, testified more about how Manfort misled the bank to obtain the loans and how the loans were authorized by the bank’s CEO because he hoped to receive a senior position in the Trump administration in exchange, Mueller’s prosecutors rested their case.  To the extent that they have a case to present, the ball is now in Defense Attorney’s hands.  Also on the Mueller front, another Federal Judge, this one appointed by none other than Trump himself, ruled that Mueller’s appointment is legitimate and that he has the right to go after Concord Management and Consulting,  the Russian company owned by Evgeny Prigozhin, one of Putin’s oligarchs.  Concord had funded a propaganda campaign during the 2016 presidential election.    

Family Feud:  Yesterday, Politico published an essay by Trump’s anti-immigrant aide Stephen Miller’s uncle, David Glosser. In the essay, Glosser details the hypocrisy of Miller’s anti-immigrant stance, pointing out that the extended Miller family was a beneficiary of the liberal immigration rules in force during the early 1900s.  He goes on to point out that though they were poorly educated and spoke no English,  they also benefited extensively from chain migration.  The Millers aren’t the only family airing their family dispute.  Bobby Goodlatte, the son of Congressman Bob Goodlatte, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who is also an ardent supporter of Trump and who has been doing his best to go after the FBI and Rob Rosenstein for going after Trump while failing to adequately investigate Hilary Clinton, announced yesterday that he and his friends are contributing as much as they can to the campaign of Democrat Jennifer Lewis who is running for the Virginia seat being vacated by the senior Goodlatte who is retiring from the House at the end of this session.  The junior Goodlatte slammed his father tweeting “I’m deeply embarrassed that Peter Strzok’s career was ruined by my father’s political grandstanding. That committee hearing was a low point for Congress.”  He went on to thank Strzok for his service, calling him a great patriot.  Nice.