Re-Election? The Only Thing Traitor Trump Merits After Yesterday Is The Hangman's Noose!

Treason: def. Giving aid and comfort to one's enemy or a hostile force

""Trump's press conference was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump's comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican patriots where are you???" - former CIA Chief John O. Brennan

"This was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory. No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant."  Sen. John McCain, yesterday

The cognitive dissonance, on a mental Richter scale of maybe '10', arrived after I had read an article in The Denver Post that Donald Trump had amassed a "$90 million re-election fund".  Then there was the staged press conference with Putin in Helsinki, when all of the latter's  KGB tradecraft was on display. From arriving more than 30 minutes late, keeping Dotard chomping at the bit, to his decidedly low key demeanor in contrast to Trump's excitation.  Putin, as all could agree, "owned the room" by virtue of his savvy psych tricks, while Trump "looked like a slave boy with an electrified dog collar on his neck set to go off" if he veered too much from the planned script agreed upon in their secret meet.

By the end of this travesty, this sickening spectacle, there was only national humiliation via the most blatant and pronounced act of treason ever witnessed in American history.  Surpassing Benedict Arnold's - because this was committed by the highest executive in the land-  and one who should presumably know better than allowing himself to be a useful idiot for an adversary (not a "competitor").  A day and time, to quote one guest on Maddow last night, for which every person witnessing it will remember exactly where he was, what he was doing, as in the case of the JFK assassination and 9/11.    Think I'm exaggerating? Then see what historian Michael Beschloss stated while on Maddow yesterday evening, e.g.

"We are living in a national emergency. We may not have known it twenty-four hours ago. We do now. You know, I have been studying and writing about U.S. Presidents since I was twenty years old. I never thought I would live to say this, but this is a president who now has demonstrated that he deserves suspicion as acting on behalf of another country over his own."

 See e.g.  Michael Beschloss: “We are Living an a National Emergency” - Daily Kos

So nope, no hysteria here - none  - just an objective assessment  following a  disgraceful  press conference in which a sitting president - in front of millions of global viewers -  tossed his entire country under the bus, asserting "America is foolish".  Even brown nosing fool Newt Gingrich admonished Trump that this was "the worst mistake of your presidency".  But  in its entirety, that press conference should sink any remote chance of Trump's re-election once and for all. If he deserves anything it is the hangman's noose - from the tallest tree in the Beltway-   after that public display of treason that will live in infamy,  rivaling Pearl Harbor in betrayal and treachery.

As if that wasn't bad enough, we've learned in the wake of that Drumpf performance of a covert agent, Maria Butina, seeking to arrange a secret backchannel with the Repukes to expedite a Russkie- Republican coalition via the NRA by 2020.  This, of course, defines collusion of the highest order.
See e.g.

Russia-NRA Arrest:
This Is as Close as
It Gets to Collusion

As Maddow put it, "we have never had to confront a problem like this one before, and we have to get this right"

Of course, "getting it right" will mean disinfecting the government of all Republican controlling influence by 2020, including Drumpf. - who publicly took sides with Russia and Putin against his own country yesterday. Granted, we may never get to see the sorry traitor bitch indicted and hung, or shot before a firing squad, but we ought to see his name forever defiled and retired from any annals of historical decency and honor.  His name should now be, like Benedict Arnold's, formally ensconced in the shit pile of American history's foulest dregs.

 We all knew, those of us with sense and IQ over room temperature, this was going to be bad,  but it's exceeded all our worst expectations.  The Traitor occupying the nation's highest office managed to cross new and vastly more grievous thresholds of treachery and treason as he betrayed his country and actually bragged about doing so.

Some - mainly his diehard followers and certain centrist Milquetoasts - are squeamish or averse to using the "T" word, but after Monday's disgusting performance they shouldn't be. And I would go so far as to question their real patriotic bona fides if they refuse to call a spade a spade. The time for nicey nice is over. As Michael Beschloss put it, we have a national emergency. If you're going to provide cover for Trump - like Devin Nunes has - or make excuses, then you are a traitor too.

What's aroused the ire of so many to start using the T- word?

For starters, Trump not only downplayed (if not doubted)  Russia's 2016  election interference actions, but regularly volunteered defenses for Putin and repeatedly blamed both sides for the strained relationship.  It reminded many of the Chalottesville debacle last year, after which he referred to "many fine people on both sides"- thereby conflating Neo-Nazis and racists (who ran over and killed a protester, Heather Heyer) with anti-fascist protesters. In the latter case, many of those Antifa activists helped rescue innocents from the batons and bats of the renegades trying to play T-ball with their heads,  but then were on the receiving end.e.g.



Indeed, asked whether he blamed Russia for that strained relationship, Trump immediately reverted to the kind of both-sides rhetoric he employed after Charlottesville and admitted: "Yes, I believe both countries are to blame".

In other words, this guy lacks any moral compass. He is totally incapable of  parsing evil actors from good or neutral ones and only awards "winner" points if the subject kowtows to his ego or somehow charms him.  This, of course, is the master trick of former KGB agent Vlad, who played Dotard like a one note harp.  The saddest aspect is the dummy never realized he was being played, but then likely didn't care anyway.  Even before leaving for Helsinki, while still in London standing next to Therese May, the rat blabbed-  after learning 2 days earlier of the Mueller indictments:

"I think I have a very good relationship with President Putin.  I think we're being hurt very badly by this witch hunt, I would call it the rigged witch hunt. You know,  in the United States we have this pure stupidity but it makes it very hard to do something with Russia"

This led Mother Jones journalist David Corn to remark:

"Throughout the campaign, and while the attack was going on, Donald Trump and his lieutenants were saying it's not happening. Even when he was briefed by U.S. intelligence he came out and said, 'nope, nothing happening, could be a 400 pound guy, we don't know that it's Russia Well now we know it's Russia. Now we know while they were doing this he was providing cover., he was covering up what they were doing."

In other words, Trump - aka "the Donald" - is effectively a Russian intelligence asset and blatant actor on Putin's behalf, to undermine the U.S. national security interests. This is by way of enabling meddling in our elections to propel Trump to power and act as said agent on Putin's behalf.  Trump's just complete chummy chum happy meet merely confirmed Corn's suspicions that our President is indeed a "Manchurian candidate".

While ninnies may recoil at this appellation, as well as "traitor", let's make it easy for their  febrile brains to grasp: Rather than defend America against those who would threaten it, he attacked his own citizens and institutions while hailing the leader of a hostile power.  Indeed, he literally bent his butt over for this hostile power in a shameless and debased way.   In the words of Sen. John McCain - alert enough to comment even after undergoing treatment for brain cancer:

“No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant.  Not only did President Trump fail to speak the truth about an adversary; but speaking for America to the world, our president failed to defend all that makes us who we are—a republic of free people dedicated to the cause of liberty at home and abroad.”

Process those words carefully, because they are not rendered lightly or frivolously. At each stage of the farce yesterday we beheld more and more evidence we are in a national emergency, to use the words of historian Michael Beschloss.  

Challenged to condemn Russia’s actions and warn Putin against future interference, Trump spun into a recitation of counterclaims and conspiracy theories about supposedly missing computer servers and Clinton’s emails.  This is the tried and true behavior of an owned (i.e. Kompromat) asset or a willing traitor.

Former CIA director John Brennan, who was among the first to warn that Russia was waging a campaign to help Trump, said in a posting on his Twitter account that Dotard's “press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors.’ It was nothing short of treasonous.”  Brennan's term, not mine, but I absolutely concur.

Daniel Coats, the intelligence chief whom Trump treated as no more credible than Putin, issued a statement Monday saying that the nation’s spy agencies “have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling . . . and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy.”

  But the most outstanding evidence for a traitor or Manchurian candidate inevitably resides in his overt reaction to the specter of potential prosecution.  Thus, the scorn Trump heaped on U.S. spy agencies - while mind boggling  - was exceeded  by the attack he launched on Mueller whose probe he called a “disgrace” and a “disaster for our country.” He was speaking of an investigation that has racked up indictments and guilty pleas against some of the top advisers to Trump during his campaign and presidency — as well as leveling charges against 26 Russians, including military intelligence officers, for their alleged role in hacking Democratic computer.

In the words of David Laufman, a former chief of the Justice Department’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section who had helped lead the Russia probe:

“The repeated accusation that the special counsel’s investigation is a ‘witch hunt’ is belied not only by the integrity and professionalism of the special counsel and his staff, but by their demonstrable and formidable accomplishments to date,  And to have lodged such an accusation on foreign soil, standing alongside the very individual believed to have sanctioned the 2016 assault on our electoral process, is a betrayal of the law enforcement and intelligence communities on whom we all depend to protect the national security of the United States".

Or, to quote Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, this is a "national security crisis"   National security crisis, national emergency. What the hell are we going to do about it?   Things have now far surpassed the Dotard gaming era, as Dr. Jeffrey Sachs explained this morning, and his comments on 'Morning Joe' again suggest a 25th amendment solution, e.g.:

"Trump the man is unstable, showing very deep signs of personality disorders.  Many experts I've spoken to believe he is evidencing dementia. What is alarming about all this is the extent to which our nation has become  a one -person game, because congress doesn't do anything but enable.  The Republican side needs to see right now this is not a partisan game. He is putting our entire nation at risk. 

We have a one person wrecking ball right now that is going to destroy global trade through his individual ignorance and whims. We have a one person wrecking ball who is undermining every alliance and the publics abroad are stunned....they want nothing to do with our country. Trump is breaking our alliances, endangering our security, endangering our economy and he's psychologically, absolutely unfit for office.

And, for god's sakes, by enabling this, the Republicans in congress must understand they are putting the entire country in jeopardy"

Strong words, but it is doubtful the Repukes will let go of this toxic toad, given how many "conquests" they fancy he can still deliver for them. Hence, since invoking the 25th amendment requires their cooperation, that remedy is off the table.

But let's continue with Trump's treason spectacle from yesterday's press conference, which Russian media is now proclaiming as "fabulous" and "better than super".

They'd especially have to rejoice after Trump made clear that he saw the consensus position of U.S. spy services as offset by Putin’s persistent denials, counterclaims clouded by too much ambiguity for the American president to make a judgment.  In other words he's become Putin's public defender and cover imp, saying:

“I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,"

Extremely strong in his denial?  Well, only to a lapdog slave with a collar on his neck, set to deliver shocks if the mutt is uncooperative. Trump also seemed to nod approvingly as Putin disputed American claims against Russia. “Who is to be believed and . . . who’s not to be believed,” Putin said, a line that closely tracked Trump’s position.

At one point, Putin seemed to be mocking the United States — offering to help American investigators pursue their theories about Russian culpability, while imposing a condition that he knew the United States would never abide- going after Bill Browder who is almost single- handedly responsible for getting the  Magnitsky Act passed..   The fact Trump, by effectively agreeing with Putin's proposal,  would see Browder in equally malign terms to the indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers shows he has the moral -ethical discrimination of a slug.   

The preceding in concert meets the standard for what David Corn terms "providing cover" for our enemies.  In other words not only giving them aid and comfort but actively siding with them against his own people and country. In other words, treason.

Former CIA Assistant Director John McLaughlin has said in the wake of yesterday's abomination to the nation that "we need an intervention".  He went on to confide false hope that the Republicans will now find patriotic honor and do this. But don't hold your breath. The Republicans will ride their toxic traitor so long as they believe he can deliver goodies, even at the risk of destroying the country.  (Let's also grasp - as former CIA chief John Brennan observed, every word Trump spoke in his private meet with Putin has been "memorialized on tape", so it can be used against him in the future.)

The only source for any viable intervention will have to be the intelligence community itself, Trump's prime whipping boys. I am ok with whatever means they use because as my Revolutionary War ancestors would put it, the welfare of the nation comes before the welfare of one derelict traitor.

Make no mistake, things will not get any better! So long as Republicans stand by and enable this turd, he will remain Putin's puppet, doing his master's bidding:


Update:  Asshole. traitor and  mutant mutt Trump has now tried to walk back his remarks but that is laughable - given this shitwad lies with each breath.  Now trying to claim he "really" meant to say was:  "I don't see any reason why  it wouldn't  be Russia."  Failing to process that his use of a double negative translates to the same meaning as his original!

What does he take us for? Low IQ morons like his base? (Quoting one from nightly news: "Man, it was jus Trump bein' Trump!")

The House quislings, we also understand, are trying to make a case to impeach Rod Rosenstein by the end of the month. Needless to say, ALL of these enabling traitors need to be hung, drawn and quartered then burned up in a massive pyre if they seek to protect a traitor in so disgusting a fashion.

Footnote:

It was incomprehensible this morning to behold radically different headlines in The Denver Post and The Wall Street Journal.   While The Post headline correctly read:

'Trump Embraces Putin, Doubts U.S. Agencies'

The Journal had this dubious and deplorable version:

'Trump Questions Russia Meddling'

Conveying the false notion that Dotard was an active and aggressive inquisitor - when he was really a passive lapdog, echoing his master's denials. Strangely, when one got to eh main text it essentially agreed with the Post's account, i.e .that (WSJ) Trump "questioned the U.S. intelligence conclusion that Moscow meddled in the 2016 U.S. election, a move that was a stunning alignment with an adversary."   So why the misleading headline? To save space? Not good enough.

See also:

He Doesn’t Read: Ex-US Ambassador to Russia Details Putin’s Strategic Advantage over Trump Ahead of 'Dangerous' Helsinki Summit

And:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/15/opinion/trump-russia-investigation-putin.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

Mueller's Probe Is NO "Sideshow" As William McGurn, Holman Jenkins And Other Rightie Hacks Will Soon Learn

Let's acknowledge that beneath their current misinformation campaign the toadies of the Right have their hair on fire. This is after  Special Counsel Bob Mueller's investigation has drawn first blood with indictments of Paul Manafort, and especially getting Georgie Papadopoulos to take a plea deal. Which means he will sing, or has sung  - a lot! So even as the assorted WSJ hacks try to diminish the import we know a lot more is to come so we'll see the associated weasels of the Trumpian empire falling like tenpins.  Despite this, the deranged Right is determined to try to marginalize Mueller's probe and insist the "real one" is that by the GOP House punk and fabulist,  Devin Nunes,  who I've already lambasted in earlier posts, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/03/devin-nunes-exposed-as-bannons-punk-and.html

And:  http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/03/devin-nunes-leaks-classified-info.html


Among the toadies pushing Nunes' baloney - based on a specious conspiracy theory surrounding the Steele dossier and an alleged  Clinton connection to a uranium deal -  is the WSJ's William McGurn ('Bob Mueller's sideshow, Oct. 31, p. A15).   McGurn, seemingly in full possession of his faculties, writes:

"It is worth noting that the charges (against Manafort and Gates) serious as they may be, have little to do with what Mr. Mueller was supposed to be investigating when he was named special prosecutor, to wit: 'the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 election'"

How to say this? McGurn has clearly missed the "elephant" in the charges room, namely George Papadopoulos who did attempt to make direct contact with the Russkies over HRC emails, and has pleaded guilty to charges of lying to the  FBI about his operations.  It is also clearly Papadopoulos who will bring the heat - via the information he's already given - on Paul Manafort and his buddy Gates

This also undermines the WSJ editorial ('The Manafort Indictment') appearing on the same day with the subtext 'Mueller's charges relate to money laundering cash from the Ukraine', with which the Right's scribes and dandies can comfort themselves - until Papadopoulos turns state's evidence on his compadres.

The WSJ editorial - unlike McGurn - at least acknowledges Trump campaign policy advisor Papadopoulos lied to the FBI in early 2017 about his "interaction with foreign nationals whom he understood to have connections with senior Russian government officials"    Adding:

"The plea suggests Russians might have been attempting to supply the Trump campaign with opposition research on Hillary Clinton, but Mr. Mueller provides no evidence this happened"

Missing the point that Mueller doesn't really have to "provide" evidence. Papadopoulos already hung himself out to dry by acknowledging his INTENT to meet with those presumed to have connections with Russian officials.   Whether they really were (which still remains to be determined) or not is immaterial.  As I  pointed out before (by analogy),  a wife who hires a pretender hit man to off her hubby - and who then absconds with her cash - is still guilty of conspiracy to commit homicide. It makes no difference that the guy she hired wasn't a genuine hit man, or that he never fulfilled his end of the deal.

Trump, a.k.a Dotard, is just as off kilter as McGurn and Co.  So no surprise that shortly after Manafort  sashayed into an F.B.I. office to face criminal charges on Monday, Trump took to Twitter to dismiss their relevance via the textual burpoid: “There is NO COLLUSION!”

You wish, sonny. (Insiders at the WH have reported him flying into a rage at Mueller, and even screaming at the walls and acting like the two year old terror we know lives inside the 71-year old flabby body.)

Even as this miscreant's message went out to 41 million brainwashed followers, news emerged that the authorities were unsealing another case that described how a young foreign policy adviser spent months seeking to connect Mr. Trump’s campaign with Russians offering “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.

The first charges filed by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, did not implicate Mr. Trump but collectively amounted to a political body blow to a president who has spent months insisting that Mr. Mueller’s investigation was nothing more than a “witch hunt” based on a “hoax” invented by Democrats and the news media.

The indictment of Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, suggested that the president’s top lieutenant for part of last year was a highly paid agent for pro-Russian foreign interests. And the guilty plea extracted from George Papadopoulos, the foreign policy adviser, confirmed the second known attempt by Trump’s team to tap Moscow for damaging information on Mrs. Clinton, coming months before his son Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer for the same purpose.

The Right's hysteria about the Fusion GPS oppo research was exposed once it was learned the original firm that hired them was The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news site. The WSJ editorial noted it was funded by big GOP donor Paul Singer.

Singer then was merely part of the old Repub order that respected norms and traditions and abhorred the possibility of  a two bit Queens real estate chiseler and lowlife like Trump  becoming  President. So he and the Beacon wanted "oppo" research on him. That is the hard fact.  Once Trump won the nomination, the research was continued by Democrats and HRC. So what?. That proves nothing more than Fusion GPS is a firm that is happy to be employed by either side. 

If you want, call them a bipartisan oppo research outfit. But don't call them conspirators or "sleazy operators" as the WSJ editorial writers did.  No, they weren't sleazy even for hiring Christopher  Steele (for $168,000 not "$12 million" as Dotard belched), because Steele was an independent investigator not a frickin' Russian agent or election interloper. There is simply no comparison.

As former McCain campaign advisor Steve Schmidt had put it on Chris Hayes' two nights ago, had he received offers from a Russian to dig dirt on McCain's opponent  (Obama)  he'd have RUN - not walked - to the FBI to report it. He argued that the GOP blind spot about this is truly terrifying - as if they regard Russian oppo no different from other (domestic) versions.  But this speaks to the "malignant normality" Trump has ushered in, as suggested by the psychiatrists who contributed to the book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.

The psychiatrists' worry is that Trump's presence in the highest office is enabling "malignant normality" or more specifically, deranged and untoward behavior and standards to become normalized. The seeming acceptance of  an adversary nation's oppo -  or ranking it like the Fusion GPS oppo via the Steele Dossier-  is an example. In reality, there is simply no analogy, no comparison.  We're talking chalk and cheese.

Steele, as I've written before, is no clown or stooge or  likely to be "fooled"  as Kimberly Strassel claimed (WSJ, 'The Fusion Collusion').  According to one Financial Times account (Feb. 16) , Steele was the "UK intelligence expert on Russia".  It is, therefore, highly unlikely he'd be 'fooled" by any kind of false intel or disinformation as Strsassel seems to believe.  James Nixey, the head of Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia program, informed the AP that sections of the dossier document created by Steele "read exactly as reports from the secret services".

The point is there was not a damned thing sinister or wrong about Hillary's campaign hiring Fusion GPS or Fusion recruiting Chris Steele to dig up material on a lowlife vermin who would soon control the nuclear codes - IF he became president. Every day since then we've seen how wise the DNC decision was-  never mind it didn't work out - mainly because Trump and his campaign had more Russians working for him, including hacking into state election centers, and pouring propaganda into Twitter and Facebook - reaching up to 126 m by one count..

McGurn (ibid.) makes much ado about the Steele dossier which he claims "the same people who pushed it have now lost all interest in it" which is flat out horse pockey. The Senate Committee especially is trying to get Mr. Steele to testify and to elaborate aspects of his document. Steele, for very good reasons, is concerned for his life.

McGurn also tries to pump up Devin Nunes' real sideshow "investigation"  asking: "What has Mr. Nunes' committee  found?  Turns out that in the Obama years, especially in 2016, officials made many requests to unmaks the identities of Americans, including Trump campaign officials who were caught up in foreign surveillance."

Devin Nunes - still a forlorn clueless punk and conspiracy fabulist.

Which I've posted on before, i.e. with these unmaskings authorized by Susan Rice. McGurn appears not to be aware that when Americans are swept up in surveillance of foreign officials by intelligence agencies, their identities are supposed to be obscured, but they can be revealed for national security reasons, and intelligence officials say it is a regular occurrence.

Former CIA Assistant Director John McLaughlin, interviewed April 4th, pointed out:

"Susan Rice was merely doing her job. Occasionally these reports refer to foreigners contacting Americans about something so the national security adviser has the option of asking the FBI, or the National Security Agency if it can be justified to let her know who those people are- and often to protect them. Sometimes you want to go to an American and say, 'you should know who you've been I contact with'.   This is done quietly and not spread around the government, And people that make decisions for unmasking someone have a very high bar for doing it, it isn't done casually,  So I think she was basically just doing her job as she should have been doing it."

If Trump campaign officials - like George Papadopoulos and Paul Manafort were busy making contacts with the Russkies we know they'd be surveilled. Indeed, we already know Manafort, Donald Jr. along with Jared Kushner was  meeting (on June 9, 2016) with Natalia Veselnitskaya  - a Russian who offered dirt on Hillary.  For sure all of these clowns - I am talking about the Americans - would have been duly unmasked. Given the Trumpites were meeting with a rep from an adversarial state Ms. Rice would be derelict in duty if she didn't authorize unmasking of these reprobates..

Holman Jenkins, in his latest claptrap yesterday  ('Trump and the Russia Racket', WSJ, p. A13)  tried to dismiss the import of Don Jr.'s. exclamation "I love it!" when offered Russkie oppo by writing:

"Don Jr. ...stands out as the one person from whom better shouldn't have been expected."

Tough shit! He said it, and it counts, as Bob Mueller will soon show. Portraying Don Jr. as an incompetent dunce will not save him or the other Trumpites at the meeting!

 Little Holman also tried to dismiss the import of Papadopoulos by asserting "his name appeared on a  throwaway list of campaign advisers" . This merely compounds Jenkins' delusionary wishful thinking based on successive marginalization attempts of the principals. But the kicker was this demonstrable lack of insight:

"Notice the particulars of his case actually belie the theory of meaningful Trump-Russia collusion"

Jenkins can believe this balderdash if he wants but the reality is a lot more serious, and Papadopoulos serves as the ultimate human skeleton key to unlocking the lips of the rest of the Trump campaign cabal.

Jenkins, McGurn, Kim Strassel and other fake news imps can bawl and whine all they want about "no real evidence" or "no real connection to Trump or his campaign"  but the hammer has already fallen - including with the Mueller supplemental release showing Trump nominee (for Dept. of Agriculture) Sam Clovis was also in the collusion loop - exchanging info on Russian HRC email "goodies" with Papadopoulos.  So no one ought to be surprised that Clovis has since withdrawn his name from consideration for the USDA head, realizing his fat butt would soon be on Mueller's "skillet" after his communications with Georgie were disclosed.

The fact Papadopoulos had already cut a plea deal sends a warning shot over the bow of the other miscreants, including Manafort.  Former federal prosecutor Randall Eliason, a law professor at George Washington University, put it bluntly:

"The signal Mueller's sent to every other potential witness is pretty clear. Be like George, come in and cooperate and cut a deal. If you stonewall us you'll end up like Manafort."

Adding: "We'll see how strong they are when facing hard prison time"

The likes of Jenkins, McGurn, Strassell and their "no big deal" ilk are betting the Trumpkins will stay strong, lips zipped. But don't fall for it.

The beauty of a federal prosecutor - which the WSJ editorial nabobs think is unnecessary - is that he and his staff are not deterred or deflected by bullshit -like "Uranium One" conspiracy fluff, sinister Fusion GPS conjectures, the  "untrustworthiness"  of  the Steele Dossier or any other side  refuse. Nope, the Mueller staff are laser -focused on impending prosecutions,  overturning new pages, new evidence and finding new laws broken, and new assholes to charge. This as they work their way toward the ultimate asshole, Trump, a.k.a. Donny Dotard.

I will put my money on Mueller and his crack team. But alas many Trumpkins and FAUX News regulars - mesmerized by all the fake "uranium one", Steele dossier, Fusion GPS conspiracy bunkum - may not see it that way. I guess they have money they can afford to lose big on losing bets.

We will see.

See also:

• Papadopoulos plea deal has opened up Jeff Sessions to perjury charges

Trump In Psycho Redux Tries To Link Susan Rice To His "Wiretaps"

Recall that exactly a month ago, the orange-haired baboon who sits in the Oval office  launched a series of tweets that began at 5.35am, scribbling in one : “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”

He followed up in the next half-hour with a string of deranged tweets claiming Obama had "defied a court rejection to tap his office", and invited a “good lawyer” to make a case against the alleged process.  Very swiftly, lawyer Ari Melber on MSNBC skewered Trump's psychotic delusions noting that if there was a wiretap it was more plausibly ORDERED by a judge on account of suspicion of criminal activity or collusion - possibly with a foreign power.  So in fact, Trump's tweets - as opposed to any victimization - could actually have been open admissions that he has something to be guilty about, if such wiretaps were actually FISA -warrant approved.

Melber's views were given major heft at the first and only televised meeting of the House Intelligence Committee  when FBI Director James Comey openly acknowledged before that the FBI was conducting an active investigation into the ties between the Trump campaign and Russians blew all Trumps' leak paranoid fantasies into a cocked hat.

Since then Trump and his devoted lackeys and trained monkeys - like Devin Nunes - have tried relentlessly to provide cover for the baboon -in -chief's insanity. Nunes, most notably and recently, acted in collusion with two 'dummy' sources (Michael Ellis and Ezra Cohen-Watnik)  to use ostensible "secret" documents that would shed light on Nunes' House investigation. In fact the documents were spurious, merely laundered, raw intel that Bannon and Cohen -Watnik massaged to make it look to dummy Devin as if he had something.

And like a trained monkey, Nunes obliged and played the role Bannon assigned him to a tee. In front of the press corps Nunes claimed he  "recently confirmed" that  "on numerous occasions the intelligence community had  incidentally collected info about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition."  

Of course, as that Nunes' trick has been exposed and shot down, Trump and his house of clowns had to find a new avenue to keep the spotlight off the Russian connection and collusion issue. So who to pick next? Why, the dignified former Obama national security adviser forced to wear a veritable crown of thorns during the Benghazi spectacle  - as Reepo lackeys rode their high horses to ever higher hypocrisy. (It was Republican budget cuts that sliced into embassy security around the world, including in Barbados).

Thus Trump asserted in a semi-coherent delusional state earlier today that he thought that the former national security adviser Susan E. Rice may have committed a crime by seeking the identities of Trump associates who were swept up in the surveillance of foreign officials by American spy agencies and that other Obama administration officials may also have been involved. The little stooge went on to blabber:

"I think it’s going to be the biggest story. It’s such an important story for our country and the world. It is one of the big stories of our time.”

Actually, you psycho dunce,, its a non-story. Merely another attempt at deflection to drive attention away from the core Russian hacking and collusion thread. Contrary to Trump's fulsome rubbish, current and former intelligence officials from both Republican and Democratic administrations have said that nothing they have seen led them to believe that Ms. Rice’s actions were unusual or unlawful. When Americans are swept up in surveillance of foreign officials by intelligence agencies, their identities are supposed to be obscured, but they can be revealed for national security reasons, and intelligence officials say it is a regular occurrence.

Former CIA Assistant Director John McLaughlin, interviewed last night, said:

"Susan Rice was merely doing her job. Occasionally these reports refer to foreigners contacting Americans about something so the national security adviser has the option of asking the FBI, or the National Security Agency if it can be justified to let her know who those people are- and often to protect them. Sometimes you want to go to an American and say, 'you should know who you've been I contact with'.   This is done quietly and not spread around the government, And people that make decisions for unmasking someone have a very high bar for doing it, it isn't done casually,  So I think she was basically just doing her job as she should have been doing it."

So again we see Trump's paranoia - without a whit of evidence - getting the better of him as he accused Ms. Rice of a "crime". Thus, no surprise that a spokeswoman for Ms. Rice, Erin Pelton, said in an email, “I’m not going to dignify the president’s ludicrous charge with a comment.”  As well she shouldn't, because we have run amok Reepos - like Rand Paul and Lindsey Graham- who have no sense or shame, and will make hay out of nothing. After all, look how they went after Ms. Rice in the Benghazi spectacle - when real security norms were transgressed - by the REEPOS! (Trey Gowdy inadvertently blowing the cover of a CIA source. With goons like these who needs enemies?)

In an interview on Tuesday with MSNBC, Ms. Rice said: “The allegation is that somehow the Obama administration officials utilized intelligence for political purposes. That’s absolutely false.”

The only one coming off as untrustworthy here is the baboon- in -chief, an asshole who has a history of promising to produce evidence to back up his unverified claims, and failing to do so.  Indeed, he didn't even make it clear what crime he was accusing Ms. Rice of committing. (As I noted earlier its legal and not unusual for a national security adviser to request the identities of Americans who are mentioned in intelligence reports.)

What we have then is a three ring circus, with the Orange Baboon the ringmaster, Devin 'Clouseau'  Nunes first clown, and the GOP 'wanna get Rice' assholes the junior clowns.  All of this done in an effort to launch a wild goose chase tangent to try to misdirect the intelligence committee investigation into the Russian ties to the Trumpies.. And in the process present laundered "evidence" that hey, Trump was really surveilled by that angry black man and former Prez Obama.

But in this light John McLaughlin's take is perhaps most spot on regarding Trump's original tweet:

"When he did that tweet I immediately called a friend and said 'we're going to have weeks and possibly months of turmoil for what was a foolish action.'  This has deepened the partisanship and made it much harder for this administration to do anything else it wants to do, such as health care and tax reform."

Bingo!  We can be sure if the past is any guide, this clown show and circus will continue, and the next proof will be if Susan Rice is actually called to testify in either one or both intel committees.


Update:   Some good news since yesterday's post. Bannon has been forced out of the National Security Council, most likely by Lt. Gen. McMaster putting his foot down. Don't believe the bull pocky that it was "just a realignment".. Yeah, right! And Area 51 aliens were behind it. Also, Devin Nunes stepped down from his Chairman position of the House Intel Committee, but not without blowing more smoke out of his ass. He claimed "leftwing activist groups with the Office of Congressional Ethics" forced him out. Which is the epitome of rank delusion and playing the victim card.  No, no one was to blame but the little Trump and Bannon pawn himself. But it is also interesting that the punk stepped down after Bannon was removed from the NSC. Connection? You bet!  Bannon overplayed his cards and both he and his pawn Nunes paid the price.