IG Report Shows The FBI Had Legitimate Reasons to Open Its Investigation of The Trump Campaign - But Toady Barr Tries To Deny It

Trump's pet toad, William Barr, just felt he had to chime in on the IG report released by David Horowitz, absolving the FBI of any nefarious motives in the investigation of Trump and his campaign in 2016

"Barr's intrusion shows the Justice Department is utterly compromised. Functioning as a political tool for Trump, Giuliani and Sean Hannity."  Chris Hayes last night, on All In.

A Justice Department inspector general’s report examining the FBI’s investigation of President Trump’s 2016 campaign rebutted conservatives’ accusations that top FBI officials were driven by political bias to illegally spy on Trump advisers. The IG Report released yesterday also found broad and “serious performance failures” requiring major changes, which Director Chris Wray has vowed to correct.

The 434-page report issued by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded the FBI had an “authorized purpose” when it initiated its investigation, known as Crossfire Hurricane, into the Trump campaign. In doing so, Horowitz implicitly rejected GOP assertions that the case was launched out of political animus, or that the FBI broke its own rules on using informants.

It asserted, though, that as the probe went on, FBI officials repeatedly decided to emphasize damaging information they heard about Trump associates, and play down exculpatory evidence they found. The bureau promptly indicated it would implement dozens of corrective measures in response to Horowitz’s report and that disciplinary action remains a possibility.   Trump, not surprisingly,  called the report’s findings “far worse than anything I would have imagined.”    In another one of his deranged stupors he barked:

“This was an overthrow of government.  This was an attempted overthrow and a lot of people were in on it and they got caught, they got caught red-handed.”

Thereby again conflating himself with the government.  But lest we be led down the path of insanity like Dotard, let's bear in mind the person actually investigated out in the open back then was Hillary. Indeed, then FBI director James Comey's repeated interjections and  announcements of progress in the FBI email investigation likely cost her the election.  Trump paved the way for his own investigation by firing Comey, after the then FBI Director refused to swear loyalty to the orange maggot.  As I wrote in my May 10, 2017 post:

"A combination of factors alerted Trump's reptilian brain stem it had to act and fast. The easiest response - which killed the most "birds" with one stone-  would be firing Comey. That would amount to an instant act of decapitation, not only of Comey but the FBI's investigation into the Trump-Russkie ties.  Using the ruse of Comey's mishandling of the Hillary email server also would come off - to a dumb media - of casting the Donald as a latter day changeling. Who now would strike down Hillary's tormentor and give Trump "brownie points" in so doing.

The problem, as The Financial Times' Edward Luce has pointed out, is it makes zero sense. In Luce's words:

'Mr. Trump is asking the US public to believe he 'terminated and removed'  the FBI director for having treated Mrs. Clinton unfairly. This was the same opponent whom Mr. Trump said should be locked up for mishandling her emails."

The Trump investigation, meanwhile, remained in the shadows. It only really saw the light of day when Bob Mueller began his own investigation leading to the Mueller report. The appointment of Mueller as special prosecutor  was only triggered when Trump stupidly fired Comey.  This was after he refused to carry out the Don's orders.  As Chris Hayes put it last night, regarding Barr's worthless conspiracy claptrap to do with the FBI:

"The obvious problem with this theory is that it makes no sense. Remember this, during the campaign the only investigation that became public was the one regarding Hillary Clinton, which arguably lost her the election. But the FBI was investigating Trump at the very same time. No one uttered a word about it. If they were so desperate to bring Trump down you'd think someone would have said something.  They didn't. So the whole conspiracy theory doesn't even hold together."

In other words, all Barr has to base his objections on are recycled hot air and assorted brain farts from the psycho conspiracy babblers, i.e. from 8chan, Infowars, QAon and the like.

The report also seemed to open a rift inside the Justice Department.  But this is what happens when one sector or division is committed to paranoid fabrications and the other to justice and adherence to reality. 

Embodying lies, mischief, disinformation and fake news, Attorney General William P. Barr went all out for an encore performance of his whitewashing stunt back in April.  When he sprung his little "summary " of the Mueller report to convey  a specious "exoneration" of  Trump.  (Which then immediately encouraged Trump to seek the Ukraine  extortion- paving the way for the articles of impeachment to be announced today.)

This time, Toad Barr disagreed with one of the inspector general’s key conclusions, saying the FBI launched an investigation of a presidential campaign “on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken. It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory.” 

Also, basically concurring with this fulsome baloney was Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, who Barr handpicked to conduct an investigation parallel to that of Horowitz.  In other words, he needed a parallel reality  performing puppet and Durham provided it.   Durham said in a statement:

 “Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”

This, of course, is total codswallop. How do we KNOW this? We have foreign intercepts of meetings of Trump cronies, e.g. Carter Page, with Russian  (GRU) agents.  It was these intercepts and related documents - including  FISA warrants- that Devin Nunes threatened to release 2 years ago , to expose a supposed "FBI-DOJ conspiracy".   

In fact the FBI's's involvement was totally called for given the U.S. had to enter the picture with its own FISA warrants, surveillance, etc.  after foreign  intercepts were received from the UK, Germany, the Netherlands. Not to do so would have violated agreements with foreign intel sources, assets. 

Former FBI special agent Frank Figliuzzi was so disturbed by Durham's premature interjections into the IG report he had this to say (last night on 'All In'):

"John Durham, by coming out with this statement in the middle of his own investigation, has violated DOJ policy by commenting on other investigations absent a compelling public interest. And I am hard pressed to find a compelling public interest for a DOJ employee to disagree with their own Inspector General. Unless the timing isn't working for them. 

In other words, Horowitz came out with this good finding for the FBI and it doesn't work for  Barr's own report and its timing. So Barr needs to ride this out toward the election. To keep the public hanging, and thinking something wrong is going to get found."

Yet more reasons that Barr himself needs to be impeached and removed from his office which may well be politicized beyond repair.  So much so that we understand many DOJ employees are pining for the days with ol' Jeff Sessions in charge.

See Also:

The Trump Administration | Donald Trump | Russia | Ukraine

The Justice Department Report on Russia Probe Origins Is Actually a Damning Indictment of Trump in the Ukraine Scandal

And:

Attorney General William Barr publicly challenged the watchdog report, defending President Trump.

And:

• Barr does it again! 

Fiona Hill Schools Russian-Bought Reepos To Disdain Daffy Ukraine Conspiracy Crap - But Will These Imps Comply?

"What we’re actually witnessing is a test of the depths to which the Republican Party will sink. How much corruption, how much collusion with foreign powers and betrayal of the national interest will that party’s elected representatives stand for?  And the result of that test seems increasingly clear: There is no bottom. The inquiry hasn’t found a smoking gun; it has found what amounts to a smoking battery of artillery. Yet almost no partisan Republicans have turned on Trump and his high-crimes-and-misdemeanors collaborators. Why not?

The G.O.P. is now a thoroughly corrupt party. Trump is a symptom, not the disease, and our democracy will remain under dire threat even if and when he’s gone."  

Paul Krugman,  NY Times, 'Trump and his Corrupt Old Party'

It doesn't get much better than it did yesterday morning in the House Impeachment hearings.  There, in dramatic testimony, British-born Fiona Hill, openly attacked a debunked conspiracy theory used by Republicans (like Devin Nunes)   to defend  the criminal Trump against allegations that he sought to bribe Ukraine for his own political gain.

Dr. Hill  let it be known by one and all that Republicans loyal to Trump must stop pushing the “fictional narrative that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential election "   because it plays into Vladimir Putin’s hands. Indeed, she noted pointedly while staring at Nunes that it was a whole cloth fabrication of the Russian security services.

Make no mistake Dr. Hill's opening statement alone provided perhaps the most striking moment in the House of Representatives’ intelligence committee’s inquiry: A respected, no nonsense official on the biggest possible stage,  accusing Republican House Intelligence Committee members of boosting Russian propaganda efforts to undermine American democracy. As Dr. Hill,  who until July was the national security council’s director for European and Russian affairs. put it:

“Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country – and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did," 

Adding:

"This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”

This conspiracy theory, embraced by Trump and amplified by conservative media like FOX,  claims that Ukraine, rather than Russia, meddled in the last election.  These Reeptards contend that Ukraine was complicit in the 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and that computer records were fabricated in order to cast blame on Russia. A key talking point was  that a tech company called CrowdStrike, a security firm hired by the DNC, detected the hack.  However, Crowdstrike then worked in cahoots with the DNC and Hillary Clinton to cover it all up in order to make it look like Russia was really helping Trump.

No, folks, you cannot make up this batshit crazy baloney.

According to a rough transcript of the July 25th phone call with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Trump said: 

“I would like to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike. I guess you have one of your wealthy people. The server, they say Ukraine has it.”

It was this investigation, along with one into  Burisma - a gas company with ties to Joe Biden’s son Hunter -   that Trump and his personal hack Giuliani, pressed for relentlessly.  This was in exchange for the release of nearly $400m in military aid  to Ukraine– the classic, unvarnished quid pro quo.

During the impeachment hearings, Republicans have made frequent references to alleged election meddling by Ukraine, without offering evidence. On the opening day, Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the committee, said “indications of Ukrainian election meddling” had troubled Trump.

Hill, the co-author of the book Mr Putin: Operative in the Kremlin, warned in forensic and measured terms that such rumor-mongering only empowers the Russian president who, as intelligence agencies and Congress concluded, systematically attacked America’s democratic institutions in 2016 and is already plotting do so again next year.

"The impact of the successful 2016 Russian campaign remains evident today,” she said, wearing black and speaking in an accent from north-east England. “Our nation is being torn apart. Truth is questioned. Our highly professional and expert career foreign service is being undermined. U.S. support for Ukraine – which continues to face armed Russian aggression – has been politicized.”

She added: 

“Right now, Russia’s security services and their proxies have geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election. We are running out of time to stop them. In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.”

Doubts over the legitimacy of a U.S. election result, she said, are:  “exactly what the Russian government was hoping for. They would pit one side of our electorate against the other.”

The remarks echoed a public warning by former special counsel Robert Mueller, whose investigation demonstrated concerted efforts by Russia in the 2016 election to hurt Democrat Hillary Clinton and help Trump. It also came one day after Putin himself told an event in Moscow: “Thank God, no one is accusing us of interfering in the US elections any more. Now they’re accusing Ukraine.”

When the text of Fiona Hill’s opening statement was released, it was rebuffed by the traitor Nunes, who circulated a specious copy of a 2018  GOP congressional report on Russian meddling. He insisted in his opening remarks that Democrats had dissented from that report’s findings. But hold strain.  Those "findings" were based on tying the FBI, James Comey and the Steele dossier into undermining Trump, see e.g.

• Kim Strassel - Unable To See The "Conspiracy Theor...

So we behold merely another permutation of the Russian conspiracy codswallop that Dr. Hill had exposed.  Meantime, Adam Schiff, the Dem Intel committee chairman, welcomed  Dr. Hill’s intervention and said he shared her concerns.  Especially in view of how the top Reepo clowns had used the specious conspiracy mumbo-jumbo to try to hammer witnesses and attack their credibility.

Daniel Goldman, the Democratic counsel, asked if Trump had ignored the advice of his experts on the Ukraine conspiracy theory and instead taken the word of Giuliani. Dr. Hill replied: “That appears to be the case, yes.”

Recall  that Rudy "Nosferatu" Giuliani  -the  schizoid personality vampire disruptor -

was put front and centre of the Ukraine scandal on Wednesday by Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the EU. That remained the case on Thursday.  Dr. Hill acidly observed, after recognizing a two track approach to Ukraine:

"He was being involved in a domestic political errand, and we were involved in national security foreign policy."

 That one dynamite  sentence undercut the spurious arguments of the Republicans.  Dr. Hill then reiterated earlier evidence, given behind closed doors, that John Bolton, the former national security adviser, had related to her how Giuliani was like "a hand grenade" about to blow up and that Bolton added: "I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up."

It remains to be seen whether Fiona Hill's testimony (or any other) will have any remote effect on the millions of Trumpkins throughout the land who still buy into the "Dems did it to Trump"  balderdash.  I refer to delirious dingbats like this loser  (Steve  Gehrke) part of whose Denver Post letter- from November 20-   I reproduce below :

Is there any hope for this kool aid - slurping  moron?   Not bloody likely.  He isn't even remotely aware that Mueller not only defined a conspiracy in the case of an indictment filed against 12 GRU agents in 2018, but made it public, E.g.   

[Read the indictment here.]

Mueller  also - if you read part one of his report-  makes it clear Trump was involved in this  conspiracy.  As Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe elegantly summed up earlier this year ('Last Word' with Lawrence O'Donnell):

"What we have here is a situation where the Mueller report shows without any doubt that a hostile foreign power attacked the United States in this (2016) election.  That Donald Trump welcomed that attack, benefited from it and then - the last couple of years - tried to cover it up every possible way. "

Even more explicit is the take from Mimi Rocah, former federal prosecutor, appearing January 25th on 'All In':

"There's just so many facts in this indictment about the coordination of the Trump campaign with Wikileaks, through Roger Stone. Remember that GRU indictment - if you go back to that- one of the objects of the conspiracy is not just hacking but hacking and disseminating.  You can't look at them alone, you have to go back to everything we know, the Trump Tower meeting, the calling out by Trump to Russia (to grab Hillary's emails)...there's just so many other things."

A de facto conspiracy by any other name.

The incredible ignorance  and brainwashing (by too much FOX watching) explains the problem of those like Gehrke who think Dems are "smearing" the orange ape occupying the Oval office when they brand him the criminal that he clearly is.   Smearing him?  He's lucky no one's hanging him yet!   Even FOX legal specialist Judge Andrew Naplitano observed not long after the infamous transcript appeared, that "in the olden  days Trump would be hung, drawn and quartered".    As Adam Schiff made clear at the conclusion of the hearings yesterday: 

 "I can tell you why I can resist no more and it comes down to timing.  It came down to the fact that the day after Bob Mueller testified, that Donald Trump invited Russia again to interfere in our elections. The day after that! Donald Trump is back on the phone asking another nation to involve itself in another U.S. election. That says to me this president believes he is above the law."

And the Russian connection?  Fiona Hill made that clear in her excoriation of the Republicans' attachment to the "Crowdstrike" conspiracy bilge.  In addition we can reference the words of former acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger ('All In' Monday night):

  

"The president excuses Russia and therefore invites their further participation.  What 2016 is about - this reference to investigating 2016 -  is trying to hold the Russians harmless by blaming the Ukrainians for what happened.   And that is telling Vladiir Putiin, 'we've really got y0ur back. We're not going to try to sanction you we're even going to point the finger at somebody else.'

In other words we have Trump committing conspiracy as well as other crimes in spades.  There is no need to "look for crimes" there are dozens smashing us in the face.  The truth is that Trump is unfit for office -  an "anti-President" in Prof. Tribe's words.  Last night on MSNBC Prof. Tribe even laid out the basis for specific articles of impeachment based on evidence from first hand witnesses. Those articles include the following high crimes and misdemeanors:

"Bribery, extortion, the usurpation of congress' power of the purse, the abuse of his office and violation of his oath. On top of that is his unprecedented erection of a stone wall in which he directs everybody connected to the White House and State Department not to testify, not to comply with subpoenas.  That amounts to contempt of congress - a far more sweeping  violation of separation of powers than even Richard Nixon was guilty of, cited in impeachment article 3."

Hence, a stone criminal who's already committed numerous impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors - from flouting the Emoluments clause, to multiple 'pay for play' schemes, to violation of federal financing laws, to collaboration with foreign powers (Russia, Ukraine)  to advance his own personal election chances.  The most recent crime was on full display live during last Friday's impeachment hearing when he openly threatened witness Marie Yovonavitch, e.g.

Julia Ioffe, on 'All In' last night, best summed up the predicament of this country now with half its citizens mind-fucked by false news, misinformation and outright propaganda: 


"What we're seeing is two parts of the population are living in parallel information universes only one of which is true. That also exists in Russia and now we have that happening here."

Adding that: "as the scandal started brewing and continuing through the hearings,  the people trapped in the right wing media kept harping that 'Oh they never got over the Russia hoax' and they kept on about the Steele dossier.  It's like those conspiracy theories never went away.  It's like Devin Nunes asking 'Hi, witness, have you heard of conspiracy theory 72 B.?  That stuff is all from the Mueller era and it's been baked in."

Clearly the Denver Post letter writer is one of those trapped in Nunes'  and the Reeptards' pseudo-conspiracy twaddle which Fiona Hill so forcefully skewered.

Sadly, the trumpeting of false news and narratives isn't only on FOX.  The mainstream media outside FOX is now also giving validation to disinfo and propaganda. Exhibit One was CBS this morning featuring former RNC chief Reince Priebus as the guest, commenting on the hearing yesterday. Priebus, as expected, spun the trope there was "no direct evidence" given Trump never said the specific "magic" words ('I hereby order you to do a quid pro quo' for me!') to any of the witnesses. The questions then asked by the 3 CBS hosts were all softball types, so Reince could laugh his way out of it, leaving the CBS trio sucking air.

The question is "Why would any serious news outfit feature a political hack and clown like Priebus to discuss impeachment, rather than a learned professor like Lawrence Tribe? " 

If the country is going to survive this crisis, we need more savvy and critically thinking citizens else we shall not "keep" this Republic.  As Benjamin Franklin once told a woman who asked him what kind of government we had: "A Republic...if you can keep it."

Right now that Republic is on the line.

See also:

Joe Conason

Article Tools E-mail | Print Comments (1)

Donald Trump | Impeachment | Republicans

Fiona Hill Shamed Every Public Official Still Aiding Trump’s Obstruction

And:

• Impeachment witness knocks smirk off Rep. Jordan’s face: ‘It was obvious' what Trump wanted 

And:

• 
  
• Nicolle Wallace: 'It's gonna take a dead Russian hooker' for Republicans to wake up 

And:

Donald Trump

Trump’s Removal Can’t Wait for Impeachment

by Paul Street | November 22, 2019 - 7:09am | permalink

— from Truthdig

And:

The frenzy of flattery around Trump is reaching new extremes

Seriously? Bill Maher Disses Dems For Refusing To Appease FOX News With Presidential Debate

Before dealing with comedian Bill Maher's MJ-induced brain fart from Friday night (that the Democrats are wimps for not agreeing to a FOX News televised debate), blabbing:

"Last week, the Democrats made a terrible decision when they announced that they had turned down Fox News."

 Let us try to agree to what ought to be an unremarkable proposition: FOX News is the modern day epitome of yellow journalism. Indeed, the modern incarnation of PRAVDA - the former Soviet state propaganda arm - its one mission to brainwash Soviet citizens to believe they never had it so good.

Obama, for his part, didn't hold back saying that those who watch FOX news are "living on a different planet from those who get their information from other sources." Of course, any sane and educated person who watches FOX News- even for five minutes - would see that remark is spot on.   The complete remark made was:

"One of the biggest challenges we have to our democracy is the degree to which we don’t share a common baseline of facts.  If you watch Fox News, you are living on a different planet than you are if you are listening to NPR.'"

I  have posted on this bifurcation of news- information sources for some time, warning it creates two distinct national perspectives  and no nation can last for long if it contains two populations accepting widely divergent realities. I have also singled out FOX News as the biggest culprit in gutting the febrile and already gullible brains of a segment of the populace,  dividing our nation more with each passing month.  FOX's role in deforming and debasing perceptions was first exposed thirteen years ago when surveys disclosed how many FOX viewers actually believed the codswallop that al Qaeda was part of Saddam's Iraqi forces.  Nearly all who believed this to be true (67 percent) were FOX News viewers. This compared to 22 percent who obtained their news from CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS.   

Another endlessly recited FOX News lie (in 2011) had been spuriously questioning  Obama's birth certificate and attacking the legitimacy of his citizenship and hence right to be President.  This slander was fueled by Donald Trump putting in his two cents, including referring to Obama's step-grandmother and  repeatedly claiming Obama was born in Kenya. Not mentioned, and doubtless inciting too much fact for Fox zombies, was that this was debunked in 2008. 

We also know that since Trump's ascension to power FOX has literally become state TV, otherwise known as FOX Pravda, or simply "Trump TV".  The reason is they are shameless in their pandering to Trump, humping his most rancid,  unhinged conspiracy theories and his scattered generic delusions.  The imps responsible range from Laura Ingraham - who dumped on one of the Parkland Survivors (David Hogg) -  to the insufferable trio of dingbats known as Fox and Friends who humped other nonsense, to Sean Hannity, and the odious, bow-tied twerp Tucker Carlson.  

 In effect with the possible exceptions of Chris Wallace (son of esteemed CBS newsman Mike Wallace) and Shepherd Smith, there are NO truly qualified or serious journalists in the ranks of the network.    Even if we were to grant that only members of this elite duo be allowed to ask the candidates questions, there is no assurance that a cockeyed order wouldn't emanate from on high (Murdoch) that "gotcha" or CT inanities be tossed out to cause one or more to stumble, which would then be inflated in Murdoch's Wall Street Journal. Or on FOX News.

So knowing all this, why on Earth would a political party trying to unseat the most odious, most reviled president in history-   in fact almost certainly a traitor-   agree to do presidential debates on such a biased venue?  Especially one for which, let's face it, Trump literally takes his marching orders.   It would literally be political suicide, and crush any hopes for a Dem victory given how Rupert Murdoch (irrespective of the crew delivering the questions) would ensure they are rigged, devastatingly stacked, or trip- wired to cripple the Dems.  

Do I really, really need to remind blog readers of the devastating question asked in 1988 to then Dem candidate Mike Dukakis (by Bernard Shaw), i.e.

''if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?" 

 See the question asked live and in person at link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9_pRmRlzY4


Make no mistake that the questions the FOX panel would come up with - at the orders and behest of Rupert Murdoch - would make Shaw's question look like a verbal party favor.  One possibility I toss out there, knowing how FOX has played into wacky conspiracy claptrap:

"If  newly uncovered FBI  surveillance  were to show Hillary Clinton ran a child sex slave ring in 2016, would you be prepared to have hearings on her actions now? If not, why not?"

Or, more likely:

"If  Christopher Steele had been found to have made the infamous "pee tape" how soon would you hold hearings and order him to appear? Would you demand a new Mueller probe?"

Ah, 'batshit crazy' you say.  No way! Well, don't be surprised because if the Dems were stupid enough to allow themselves to be captives to FOX anything could happen.  The point is, FOX would be playing for its deranged base who would then spread all manner of insolence and BS on their social media, including:  4chan, Infowars, Gateway Pundit,  Reddit and related enclaves of web trolldom.  

It is all very easy for comedian Bill Maher to make sport about this refusal to appear on FOX as he did in his Friday night Real Time show, but this is deadly serious business.  This is about this nation's future, and whether we have four more intolerable years of Trump - from which we may never recover - or start anew to gain respect in the world and mend our own civil divisions. Or at least begin to.

But all yucks aside,  the biggest insult to his viewers' intelligence was comparing assorted Repukes (like former Reps. Jack Kingston (GA) and Dana Rohrbacher (CA))  going on his show and sharing their views, with Dem candidates going on FOX for a presidential debate.

Excuse me, Maher, but that's comparing chalk and cheese, apples and oranges. At worst Kingston  - if he spouts Reepo rubbish - will get some boos from the Real Time audience of 200 or so. The Dems- if they get a horrific rigged question (like Bernard Shaw hurled at Dukakis), could be made to look as clueless and hopeless as Dukakis did, and have their presidential ambitions just as easily shattered.  Worse, Trump given endless time to respond with his own brand of putdowns and tweets- endlessly broadcast in FOX "cinemascope" in the aftermath. Oh, and on an continuous loop!  

"But ya know they could prepare for it!"

Yeah, maybe they could. But maybe the question might be so far out of left field, so outlandish,  they'd never see it coming or have any inkling how to respond and not be eaten alive in the media, i.e. "If JFK were still alive today would you prosecute him for his sex crimes?"


Perhaps the most toxic fallout would be the very act of dignifying all that FOX represents, validating it via sheer presence. Not to mention,  in the process, enabling the further spread of FOX's vile, irrational beliefs and memes - including many that have already been exposed as false. Those include the phony "Uranium One"  gambit, and HRC conspiring with the FBI and Christopher Steele to go after poor Donnie Dotard.

One can certainly understand a jive turkey and hack like Lance Morrow jumping on this FOX News debate bandwagon- but one expects a more discriminating intellect and take from Bill Maher. Even on a 'New Rules' segment.

In the case of Morrow, his recent op-ed ('Shocked By Bad Journalism? Please, WSJ,  March 13, p. A15) confirmed for me he scribbles most of this dreck while on MJ candy eaten with Ripple.  How else explain writing such twaddle as:

"The Democrats consider FOX a propaganda arm of the Trump administration, but they have their own propaganda arms"

This besotted nincompoop then goes on to actually cite CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post and New York Times  In other words, the few remaining repositories of actual news and facts in a nation now flooded by FOX's fake news,  Dotard's 9,000 lies and whackjob conspiracy ideations from the likes of QAnon, Info Wars and Breitbart.com. 

Morrow, who's become a suck up to right wing spiels and tropes since TIME tossed him overboard, then scrawled:

"It will be fatal the Democrats' chances in 2020 ...if they won't' tolerate points of view that differ from progressive orthodoxy'

Hardly!  It will rather be fatal if the Dems show up to remotely confer dignity on FOX and its distorted orbit of disinformation, misinformation and hyping outlandish conspiracy bunkum such as the FBI - James Comey "conspiracy" to bring down Trump, or related gibberish. In short, there is absolutely no upside, zero, for the Dem candidates to show up for a FOX debate, while there are umpteen downsides.  Even Morrow, tool that he is,  concedes "True, Sean Hannity whispers in Trump's ear".

And also that Hannity's whispers often translate to Trump actions and reckless tweets that affect the rest of us.  But to assert "there is historical precedence" for such behavior shows how out on a limb (in terms of sane opinion) Morrow is. I mean to even remotely think, far less write, that the Hannity -Trump relationship is on a par of that between JFK and the Washington Post's Ben Bradlee is not only deluded but demented.  I can assure Morrow  (whose weed -Ripple combo seems to have left his brain up his ass), that at no time did JFK ever allow Bradlee to dictate national policy to him, such as Trump allows Hannity, i.e. on immigration, guns etc. 

The difference is that Kennedy was his own man, and possessed the intellect, confidence and courage to make his own decisions  not a puppet to let others (like a Hannity or Putin) do it for him.

Morrow does try to assure us that "FOX employs many credible journalists" and names Chris Wallace and Brett Baier among them.  But again, a couple is not "many" and even if these "credible" ones were allowed to ask debate questions, there is no guarantee - as I noted earlier - good ol' Rupert wouldn't have final say on what's actually asked.

No, the conclusion is that going on FOX for a presidential debate would be a massive self-inflicted error of stupendous proportions.  There is nothing to be gained, and way too much to be lose.  Oh, and little in the way of recouping the losses!