Pathetic Porcine Puppet

Spycraft:  We’ve known for some time that Attorney General Barr is fully in Trump’s camp.  He made that clear in June 2018 when he auditioned for the Attorney General position by sending a lengthy, unsolicited memo that detailed his expansive view of presidential power to the White House while Jeff Sessions was still holding on to the Attorney General spot.  In that letter Barr argued that Trump couldn’t obstruct justice because as president he has the right to fire anyone he wants for any reason he wants.  Given Barr’s view it really shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise that when Special Counsel Mueller concluded that he couldn’t or wasn’t willing to make the final decision on whether or not Trump had obstructed justice during the many times he tried to upend the Russia investigation, he stepped in and made the decision that Trump hadn’t done anything wrong and then broadcasted it far and wide while sitting on the full text of the Mueller report that he is currently having redacted.  Yesterday during his second day of testimony, this time in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Barr repeated much of what he had said on Tuesday during his House testimony, he refused to answer any questions about the substance of the Mueller report saying that everyone would have to wait for the release of the redacted version, something that is still scheduled for next week. Though little he said was new or all that satisfactory to anyone who hoped to see the full report, he did clarify that he does not plan to remove information concerning derogatory information about any public office holders including Trump and that he would work to share some of the “sensitive” redacted information with the appropriate members of Congress.  Then, as Speaker Pelosi subsequently said, he went “off the rails,” bigly confirming that he was forming a team to review the origins of the Trump-Russia probe because “I think spying did occur” and “spying on a political campaign is a big thing.” He compared that alleged spying on the Trump campaign to the kind of thing that the FBI did during the Viet Nam war when it spied on anti-war activists. He admitted that he had seen no evidence that any “unpredicated” spying had taken place, but by then it was too late, his remarks had gone viral, feeding the already insane Trump/Fox conspiracy machine.  Trump, who was already back to referring to the Mueller investigation as an illegal action, a coup undertaken by “dirty cops” committing “treason” could not have been any happier, in Barr he finally has his Roy Cohn.  Others were far less impressed by Barr’s performance. Senator Warner, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee defended the Russian probe saying that given all that was going on the FBI would have been skewered if it hadn’t initiated its investigation.  Harvard Law professor Lawrence Tribe was even critical, he tweeted that Barr’s testimony was “utterly jaw-dropping – to the point where I had to listen three times to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.  How Barr whom I once worked with and respected, can look himself in the mirror or sleep at night is beyond me.”  He added that “Barr has no shame. He’s become a caricature of a lawyer and a miserable excuse for a public servant.  A pathetic porcine puppet for a peurile president.”  Tribe’s description was spot on and his alliteration was pretty good too.  Senate Minority Leader Schumer tweeted that “AG Barr must retract his statement immediately or produce some evidence to back it up.  Perpetrating conspiracy theories is beneath the office of the Attorney General.”  It’s unlikly that Barr will back off of anything, conspiracy theories are currency in the Trump universe. Besides, he seems to be enjoying his new role and fits in all too well with his fellow Trumpkins.  Which is a good thing for him, though not for the rest of us.  Last night Secretary Treasury Mnuchin, another one of those pathetic puppets who puts self preservation and Trump loyalty above country  replied to the House’s request, the request that went to the IRS not him, for the release of Trump’s tax returns by saying that in light of “serious issues about whether the request is proper” he needs more time to consult with who else,  Attorney General Barr and his Justice Department.  Don’t expect to see those tax returns anytime soon.

The Southern District:  The Wall Street Journal reports that investigators from the Southern District of New York collected far more evidence about those campaign related hush payments made to Trump’s playmate and adult film star girlfriends than was previously known.  During the course of their investigation they interviewed former Communications Director Hope Hicks and Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller and they also obtained a revealing tape of a conversation between former Trump lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen and the lawyer who at that time was representing the two women.  For now Trump, also known as Individual Number 1,  is safe because of the Justice Department’s policy of not indicting sitting presidents, but this case could still come back to bite him at some point in the future, particularly if the Democrats get their act together enough to unseat him in 2020.  While Trump may be sitting pretty for now, his friend David Pecker, the owner of the National Enquirer tabloid that sat on the stories related to Trump’s illicit relationships is apparently facing some difficulties.  Yesterday the Washington Post reported that Anthony Melchiorre, whose hedge fund Chatham Asset Management holds an 80 percent stake in America Media Inc, the National Enquirer’s parent company, is forcing the sale of the company, in part because of his distate for the tabloid’s tactics.  It’s kind of hard to believe that Melchiorre wasn’t aware that the National Enquirer engaged in scuzzy journalism back when he made his initial investment but the company’s role as Trump’s secret keeper and cheerleader combined with its role in the efforts to humiliate Washington Post/Amazon head Jeff Bezos with sexting pictures might be something that he doesn’t want to be  associated with anymore, especially given that American Media also loses money.  It’s not clear who will get Pecker’s secret safe, the one that holds all of the other stories that he “caught and killed” when the company changes hands.  It’s also not clear that Trump will ever suffer any conseqeunces related to the dubious tax schemes that he and his siblings employed to increase the value of their holdings and to grease the transfer of their father’s estate into their hands but apparently his sister already has.  The New York Times reports that in order to put an end to an investigation into whether she violated judicial conduct rules by participating in fraudulent tax schemes with her siblings, Trump’s sister Judge Maryanne Trump Barry quietly retired from the Federal Appellate Court where she served in February just days after she was notified that the investigation had begun. Because the investigation was related to her position, it ceased with her retirement.

Still More:  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested this morning by UK authorities at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London after Ecuador withdrew his asylum protection for “repeatedly violating international conventions and protocol.” In laymen’s terms, after six years of habitation he had overstayed his welcome. It was accidentally revealed last year that Assange who played a role in the 2016 election interference and who was also involved in the publication of thousands of secret US government documents was secretly indicted by the Justice Department.  He could  now find himself extradited here to face those charges. Brexit has been delayed again, the new deadline is October 31, an eerily appropriate date.  Science nerds and anyone who likes to watch moon landings should tune in to their TVs and/or the Internet between 3 and 4 pm NY Time.  That’s when Israel’s unmanned Beresheet moon lander is scheduled to make its historic landing on the moon’s surface.  Assuming all goes according to plan Israel will join the US, Russia and China, becoming only the fourth nation to ever land on the moon.