Today, Darren Samuelsohn of Politico provides us with yet another article about how people in the White House are freaked out and worried that everyone they talk to is wearing a wire. There are a lot of silly things in this piece, including the dubious idea that no one can ever be surreptitiously recorded if they have a lawyer. Find me a mob boss who doesn’t have a lawyer.
But the main problem is with something that goes completely unstated. Yes, it would certainly be unnerving to go to work each day wondering if any of your conversations are being listened to by federal law enforcement officers. I get that, and I think you get that, too. But it wouldn’t make you paranoid for your own safety unless you’re in the habit of having incriminating conversations with your friends and colleagues at work.
Both [the Flynn and Papadapoulos] cases raise the possibility that other current or former colleagues have also flipped sides — and they’re prompting anxiety that those people could be wearing wires to secretly tape record conversations.
“Everyone is paranoid,” said a person close to Trump’s White House. “Everyone thinks they’re being recorded.”
If we’re talking about Paulie Walnuts having a conversation at that bar in the Bada Bing, then I can see how a wiretap aimed at one crime might uncover another. But, is the White House the criminal equivalent of a mobbed up Jersey strip joint?
White House attorneys and private counsel representing both current and former Trump aides told Politico they immediately checked in with their clients once they learned about Mueller’s plea agreements with Papadopoulos and Flynn, asking whether they’d had any communications with their former colleagues that could have been secretly recorded and reminding them to diligently avoid conversations with anyone except their lawyer related to the Russia investigation.
“They’re probably sh—ing bricks,” said an attorney who represents a senior Trump aide caught up in the Russia investigation. “How can you not?”
Again, I get that the lawyers have a job to do. But why would so many people in the White House be “shitting bricks” that they may have been or could be recorded in the future? Even discussions of the Russia investigation shouldn’t be problematic unless something was said that the Special Counsel might want to introduce in court.
Now, I can see how someone might be totally innocent but still worried that they might get summoned to speak with a grand jury and then incur legal fees, but how likely is that to happen if they haven’t said something that the investigators find very interesting?
To me, this so-called paranoia is just evidence of the widespread consciousness of guilt and culpability inside the White House.
And it ain’t paranoia if you’re really being investigated.
It seems we are seeing a process with all the hallmarks of a RICO investigation. Thank goodness a generation of prosecutors have had practice at this. When you come for the king you had better not miss; one chance for democracy and the rule of law. Otherwise, the abyss.
Paulie Walnuts – LOL. There remains the small outstanding of issue of State Capture still unaddressed.
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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42231806
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capture
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Why yes, yes it is. Goons top to bottom.
Holy shit! Is that even legal?
I guess we’ll see.
There was never a time when these career criminals could bear a serious federal investigation into their financial activities. It’s just a sea of felonies because, like mobsters they just totally ignore the law and concentrate on getting away with everything. But, as one police captain explained to me many years ago, their chances of catching any criminal are proportional to how much investigative effort they can put into pinning down all their felonies.
“If it’s murder, there’s just a lot more people trying to find you.” He said.
That explains all the trouble Trump is in. He’s used to never being accountable and never having to bother with following rules or laws. He can do what he wants. Who’s going to stop him? And he carried that attitude right into the White House. And it infected all his advisors, most of whom were criminals to begin with.
Now we have a serious federal prosecutor going after the entire criminal administration, and the GOP hasn’t wrapped their minds around this yet. I don’t know if they can. In their universe Democrats, liberals and all the women and minorities they hate, hate Trump, so Trump must be good.
That explanation just won’t cut it when all the testimony is in.
I’m thinking this might turn out like the Watergate in that Mike Pence will first be forced to resign his position, before Trump is forced out. Trump may of course hang on until 2020 and defy everybody, but the rest of them are all going to Club Fed unless he pardons them. And that will probably include darling Ivanka.
The ultimate fantasy desiderata of your last paragraph is for the Dems to retake the House amid the forcing out of Pence and then Trump, leading to President Pelosi.
Oh, the massed ranks of exploding heads that would erupt across this nation….
Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?
I still think the final nail in the coffin will be handed over by Melania. Its obvious from the non-verbal cues that she is close to not being able to stand Trump. She’s been around long enough to know where the bodies are buried.
If Trump goes down so does Barron’s fortune. and the only person she cares for is herself and Barron.
Melanina … Slovene for “singing canary”.
Agnew had nothing to do with Watergate. He was forced to resign because of a criminal indictment of bribery and tax fraud in early 1973 dating back to his MD days. Agnew was always a crook but he wasn’t a Watergate villain.
In unrelated news, McConnell screwed up writing the Senate tax bill so severely he imposed both a 20% corporate tax rate and a 20% AMT, eliminating every possible corporate deduction. So there’s no way the house just passes the Senate bill straight through, meaning many more chances to build opposition and impose roadblocks.
In that article is a little nugget that supports my theory that Ryan was planning to rubber-stamp this thing: “Previously, it looked as though Paul Ryan had enough votes in the House to pass the Senate bill as is.”
Ryan’s fantasy was to buy that lemon, sight unseen. Fortunately, given the way that the Senate Bill was drafted (seriously, handwritten notes in the margins?), there were bound to be glaring errors.
As I’ve said several times before, McConnell is the most incompetent and hyper-partisan Senate Majority Leader in the modern history of the Senate.
For most of them that have spent their careers in a constant state of spin, this may be a whole new experience to think first with no sign of a safety net.
If you can remember, the first thing Kelly did was shut the door to the oval office. The door was open and people like McFarland were in there hearing stuff and repeated it. There are more McFarlands and they do have a reason to be paranoid.
“… the widespread consciousness of guilt and culpability inside the White House.”
Well that’s something new, anyway.
The source of paranoia may not be only what the staff have said in unguarded moments. It could also be the felonies they have known about and not reported.
As I remember, the White House was “renovated” in August to suit Dump’s taste I guess. This would have been an ideal opportunity for NSA operatives, posing as construction workers to plant all kinds of listening devices throughout the White House. This is what the KGB did when the US built its new embassy back in the 1980s (they ended up tearing the whole thing down and starting over).
Likely, yes.
Consciousness of guilt and culpability about multiple things, possibly many multiple things. After all, Mueller now has access to Trump’s bank account records now — off of evidence from an obstruction of justice case.
For the Flynn-scoffers, John Deane didn’t do much and in the end did not draw as heavy jail time as others because he cooperated with the investigation and prosecution.
Flynn has gotten the serious reward pledge but not the total reward for cooperation.
There is a long way yet to go, and Russia might be buried in the midst so much other lawbreaking that like a burglary, it is forgotten amidst the other charges.