John Dowd quit as the president’s lead attorney, and that’s another blow to Trump’s credibility.
Trump has repeatedly attacked reports of disarray within his legal team as inaccurate. “The Failing New York Times purposely wrote a false story stating that I am unhappy with my legal team on the Russia case and am going to add another lawyer to help out,” he said in a March 11 tweet. “I am VERY happy with my lawyers, John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow.”
The president hired [former U.S. attorney Joe] diGenova eight days later, and Dowd is now off the team.
A similar thing happened with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who was assured he was safe in his position right up until he was fired in a tweet.
People should have figured out long ago that the president’s word is worth nothing, but unfortunately a lot of people still believe him when he accuses of the media of reporting “fake news” that shortly thereafter proves to be completely accurate.
I don’t think Dowd was doing a good job as the president’s attorney so I don’t necessarily think this is a bad development for Trump, but it probably does signal that things are about to take a turn. And I very much doubt that this will be a turn for the better.
If I had to guess, Trump has insisted on his innocence to his attorneys which led them to develop a strategy of cooperation with the investigation on the theory that he’d rather be exonerated sooner rather than later and not risk obstructing justice when it’s unnecessary. The problem is that he is not innocent and Mueller’s probe did not wrap up by Thanksgiving or Christmas or the New Year as Trump promised it would.
Instead, the investigation is getting into the business activities of both the Trump and Kushner families and is threatening to put the lot of them in jail. Even poor Donald Junior and Ivanka are up to their necks in trouble at this point, and I think the president is realizing that the legal strategy he’s been using is a disaster.
His only chance now is to find a way to stop it, but that won’t be easy to do and it won’t come without creating a massive convulsion across the land.
So, I predict things are about to get uglier than we have ever seen them, and I’m including Watergate in my comparison.
The best lawyers have already said no to joining Trump’s team, they seem to all want more family time, and so now we watch the march of the Fox punditry class filling the legal void.
Trump is demonstrating the old adage of the ‘man who chooses himself for a client is a fool’ by now declaring he wants to be interviewed by Mueller today. I’m not sure even Mueller or his team are prepared for the fool who will sit across from them in an interview. Much like Joe Biden felt debating Sarah Palin, it’s not as easy as some may think.
I find it interesting that the ‘dark state’ that seems to have been tested and initiated into the conversation by Bannon’s Cambridge Analytica is more in play now as Fox’s pundit lawyer and Trump both are trying to conjure up an appearance by the Dark State. Of course, in a closed door appearance where Trump’s base is not allowed the credibility will not play well. Yet he persists.
“People should have figured out long ago that the president’s word is worth nothing,…” Booman in this post
Everything I’ve hoped to see drive a stake into the heart of Trump’s presidency has failed. The more pressure Mueller and his team put on Trump and his family, the angrier and more volitile Trump will get, and he will find a way, legal or not, to stop Mueller.
It seems that there could be a perfect storm of elements that miraculously merge to create somethng Trump can’t weasle out of. Like pending lawsuits from states about emoluments, mixed with legal accusations from Stormy Daniels and other women he has tried to silence, and then throw in the Russian investigation.
Rats aplenty have already jumped the USS Trump, so maybe there will be a point at which he is so toxic that suddenly he’s out of replacements for all the people he’s fired. Please let that be soon!
The only reason USS Trump is floating, with new rats being flown in daily, is that 85% approval among Republicans.
As long as he still controls that reprogrammable fascist meatbag following that gives networks good TV ratings….we’re looking at eight years of this shit.
The only thing that I think would break him is if something happened to Ivanka and his handler did seem to send a message in England last week about what happens to assets (and their daughters) who become liabilities.
“It seems that there could be a perfect storm of elements that miraculously merge to create somethng Trump can’t weasle out of.”
My hunch is heart attack or stroke…
Jonathan Chait published an article titled “Dershowitz’s Audition to be Trump’s Lawyer Not Going Well”
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/03/dershowitzs-audition-to-be-trumps-lawyer-not-going-well
.html
Would not surprise me if Dershowitz chose to blow whatever remaining shards of credibility he may have with imbeciles who don’t pay attention to what he says on Donald Trump. I mean, that’s very much his trajectory and it has been for many years now.
I believe Martin’s right that we’re on the cusp of our biggest constitutional crisis — larger than Watergate. And it’s also worth noting that the only reason the GOP didn’t obstruct that investigation was they lacked the power to do so.
It’s only we the voters who can save us from ourselves. The framers drafted things in a way that made issues like this essentially political problems. Of course they didn’t exactly design a democracy. The Senate at least was supposed to be in adult hands. A constitutional crisis may illustrate why Socrates, Plate and Aristotle considered democracy inherently corrupt, inefficient and unworkable.
Pretty sure the senate would be worse than it is if current legislatures picked senators.
The only thing democracy actually has going for it are stable transfers of power. Thats a pretty big lift with positive consequences, but its not everything.
Breaking: McMaster out, Bolton in.
Holy shit
Holy shit!
That is a holy shit. As if China tariffs weren’t enough.
Chris Mathews started off ranting about Bolton,a neocon who only wants war. And bonus points for ripping up the Iran deal.
Oh no.
We are so (even more) screwed.
Crap crap crap.
Boy am I glad we managed to keep Killary out of office. Just imagine who she would have appointed NSA.
Somehow, Dowd quitting is now sort of irrelevant.
We can only hope that Trump rides the first nuke down, a la Slim Pickens.
The only thing I’ve got going is that Colorado will be one of the first hit anyway.
They say not to look at the blast…
Just look at the bones in your hand made suddenly visible as you wave existence goodbye.
Paging Marie, Oui, Brodie:
`Lone DNC Hacker’ Revealed as Russian Intelligence Officer
“A couple of Russians hacked emails. Who the fuck cares about that?” says area man who wrote stories directly from information from Guccifer, who also says he wasn’t influenced by Russian interference.
Prepare for gale-force wind gusts from frantic hand-waving.
“This is not proof but more anonymous sources. Meanwhile, did you see that Saudi Arabia said that Jared Kushner is in their pocket? That’s the real collusion. How do we know this? Anonymous sources. But ones that confirm my priors.”
Has anyone checked on Glenn Greenwald? I’m worried about him…
He has the fucking nerve to be tweeting about John Bolton. The man will never admit wrong about anything. Ever. He should be ashamed to ever show his face. Instead, he’ll be joining fellow propagandists:
If we live that long…
Christ, what an asshole.
Used to read him all the time but quit years ago.
Amazing to me that Jill Stein hasn’t drawn more attention. She was, after all, in Moscow at the same dining table as Flynn and Putin. Always struck me as part of a strategy to draw votes from Hillary and she either fell for it or knew about it.
Way back in 2008 I heard her on the radio discussing Obama. The disdain dripping from her tone told me all I needed to know about her, and subsequent events have confirmed my judgment.
I’m sure you are as disgusted as I am about that poster.
But I was convinced when this came out.
Who the hell flies all the way to Russia for a dinner? To sit with Putin? I’ll tell you……someone getting paid.
Every single person who voted for her was speaking Russian when they went in their polling place. Even those from `safe’ (how quaint…nobody is safe, anywhere) states.
.
My thoughts exactly.
“Instead, the investigation is getting into the business activities of both the Trump and Kushner families and is threatening to put the lot of them in jail.”
Color me skeptical, BooMan. Nixon pardoned. No penalty for torturers or wall street thieves. Oh, sure, a few Scooter Libbys, H.R. Haldemans and Parma Bros may hear the door slammed. The Royal Trumps with support of 40 percent of the populace? I’ll gladly eat my hat if that happens – and bloody well enjoy it too!
There are two different ships sailing right now. One is the big federal ship that is the Mueller investigation. That may result in indictments against Trump for Obstruction of Justice and money laundering, the latter related to a charge of conspiracy against the US. The GOP Congress will ignore all the charges and do nothing, of course. And Trump then preemptively pardons Jared of any pending federal charges (I doubt he cares about the others).
So, the most likely scenario is that in 2020, Trump declines to run again, assuming we aren’t all dead by then, because he is completely mentally/physically incapacitated by then or the GOP wants nothing more to do with him.
Come 2021, the other ship, the good ship NY AG Schneiderman brings a raft of state charges against Trump, Jared, possibly Ivanka and Dumbass, Jr.: money laundering, wire fraud, racketeering, tax evasion, etc. etc. and in short order they are all wearing orange jump suits in Sing-Sing.
‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
I sincerely hope you are right!!! Big time!!!
But here’s another, more likely scenario, in my view. Through the political back channels and cocktail party nudges, leading centrist corporate party Democrats pull as many strings as possible to convince the AG in NY, or anywhere else, that it just isn’t worth it. If you do this, kiss your judgeship potential goodbye! We have to look forward, not backward, because if we look forward we are politicizing politics and who among us doesn’t have a few skeletons in their closet and every administration will be met with criminal challenges and the Republic will either explode, or worse, Washington will no longer be the convivial place where you can debate all day long and have a beer with R-Hayseed after hours, and where little rolled up bills sing nice kid’s songs on the Capitol steps.
Again, I hope you are right. GWB started a plainly illegal war of aggression in Iraq, and booted up a nice torture campaign to go along with it, crimes much more significant, in human costs, than those of this loathsome orange fool. Since Ford pardoned Nixon, protecting each other has been the rule.
This is why the GOP passed the budget. Got to get out of DC as the donald is going to do something very stupid to grab the media attention from the anti gun demonstrations.
Like threaten to veto the omnibus bill, eliminating all the extra money for military spending that the Rs got? Shut down government?