Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

In early December, President Trump, furious over news reports about a new round of subpoenas from the office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, told advisers in no uncertain terms that Mr. Mueller’s investigation had to be shut down.

The president’s anger was fueled by reports that the subpoenas were for obtaining information about his business dealings with Deutsche Bank, according to interviews with eight White House officials, people close to the president and others familiar with the episode. To Mr. Trump, the subpoenas suggested that Mr. Mueller had expanded the investigation in a way that crossed the “red line” he had set last year in an interview with The New York Times.

In the hours that followed Mr. Trump’s initial anger over the Deutsche Bank reports, his lawyers and advisers worked quickly to learn about the subpoenas, and ultimately were told by Mr. Mueller’s office that the reports were not accurate, leading the president to back down.

Mr. Trump’s quick conclusion that the erroneous news reports warranted firing Mr. Mueller is also an insight into Mr. Trump’s state of mind about the special counsel. Despite assurances from leading Republicans like Speaker Paul D. Ryan that the president has not thought about firing Mr. Mueller, the December episode was the second time Mr. Trump is now known to have considered taking that step. The other instance was in June, when the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, threatened to quit unless Mr. Trump stopped trying to get him to fire Mr. Mueller.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Why don’t we take a step back and contemplate what Americans, and the world, are witnessing?

Early Monday morning, F.B.I. agents raided the New York office, home and hotel room of the personal lawyer for the president of the United States. They seized evidence of possible federal crimes — including bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign finance violations related to payoffs made to women, including a porn actress, who say they had affairs with the president before he took office and were paid off and intimidated into silence.

That evening the president surrounded himself with the top American military officials and launched unbidden into a tirade against the top American law enforcement officials — officials of his own government — accusing them of “an attack on our country.”

Oh, also: The Times reported Monday evening that investigators were examining a $150,000 donation to the president’s personal foundation from a Ukrainian steel magnate, given during the American presidential campaign in exchange for a 20-minute video appearance.

Meanwhile, the president’s former campaign chairman is under indictment, and his former national security adviser has pleaded guilty to lying to investigators. His son-in-law and other associates are also under investigation.

This is your president, ladies and gentlemen. This is how Donald Trump does business, and these are the kinds of people he surrounds himself with.

Mr. Trump has spent his career in the company of developers and celebrities, and also of grifters, cons, sharks, goons and crooks. He cuts corners, he lies, he cheats, he brags about it, and for the most part, he’s gotten away with it, protected by threats of litigation, hush money and his own bravado.

Those methods may be proving to have their limits when they are applied from the Oval Office. Though Republican leaders in Congress still keep a cowardly silence, Mr. Trump now has real reason to be afraid. A raid on a lawyer’s office doesn’t happen every day; it means that multiple government officials, and a federal judge, had reason to believe they’d find evidence of a crime there and that they didn’t trust the lawyer not to destroy that evidence.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The country is entering a dangerous moment—the moment of actual confrontation between the president of the United States and those who would investigate him.

This moment has been deferred for months through a combination of strategies. The president’s lawyers convinced their client for a spell that the investigation would wrap up and clear him if he just cooperated. Investigators refrained from antagonizing the president; they did not leak disparaging material about him or those close to him. They framed their indictments narrowly so as not to suggest more than they were immediately prepared to allege. Even as they moved forward, investigators left room for the president and his defenders to put off any showdown.

The result was that, for months, a confrontation has loomed over American political culture, but has ripened slowly and, while in plain view, in a fashion that has permitted people to avert their gaze. Those who wanted to deny that the confrontation was coming at all could convince themselves that perhaps Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation would peter out; perhaps it would reveal only misconduct by expendable hangers-on in the president’s entourage; perhaps it would reveal only politically embarrassing conduct rather than conduct that required elements within the executive branch to lock horns over whether the special counsel would be meaningfully permitted to accuse the president.

On Monday, however, the space for such denial began to shrink markedly—and the time span for deferral of the confrontation has shrunk as well.

I will put this as bluntly as I know how: There is no way that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York would have sought or executed a search warrant against the president’s lawyer without overpowering evidence to support the action. The legal standard for such a search requires only probable cause that criminal activity is taking place. Under normal circumstances, which these are not, the prudential and policy factors counseling against such an action would be powerful.

...

The Justice Department simply would not take such an action lightly or without evidence that emphatically supports it. Add these prudential, legal and policy factors together and they cumulatively suggest that the evidence supporting the warrant application likely exceeds—probably by far—what is legally required.

Put another way, Cohen’s situation, and thus Trump’s situation, is grave.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

TrumPsychopath, TrumpIdiot, TrumParanoia, ...

 

[Michael Scally MD]

TrumPsychopath, TrumpIdiot, TrumParanoia, ...

Add, TrumpTard ... Admitting to Obstruction ...

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

TrumPsychopath, TrumpIdiot, TrumParanoia, ...

Add, TrumpTard ... Admitting to Obstruction ...

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

2013 August ...



Alex Mallin on Twitter

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The source said Comey's comments, in his first interview since being fired by President Trump last May, will generate headlines and "certainly add more meat to the charges swirling around Trump."

• In an ABC promo, Stephanopoulos says Comey compared Trump to a mob boss.

According to the source:

• The Comey interview left people in the room stunned — he told George things that he’s never said before.
• Some described the experience as surreal. The question will be how to fit it all into a one-hour show.
• Comey answered every question.
• If anyone wonders if Comey will go there, he goes there.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Both within an hour of each other ...

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

2013 August ...



Alex Mallin on Twitter

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Human beings have little inherent value to Trump. If he senses he will have to make a personal sacrifice, he will sacrifice the world instead.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

House Speaker Paul Ryan has told confidants that he will announce soon that he won't run for reelection in November, according to sources with knowledge of the conversations.

Why it matters: House Republicans were already in very tough spot for midterms, with many endangered members and the good chance that Democrats will win the majority.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Louisiana's decision to expand Medicaid in 2016 led to a $1.85 billion direct economic impact, according to an economic impact report released Tuesday (April 11).

The report called Medicaid Expansion and the Louisiana Economy was commissioned by the Louisiana Department of Health and prepared by Dr. Jim Richardson and the Public Administration Institute at Louisiana State University.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—In what some experts are calling an unprecedented use of military force, Donald J. Trump on Tuesday ordered four thousand National Guard troops to protect the midtown Manhattan offices of his accountant.

According to those familiar with the National Guard’s deployment, the troops will secure the corridors and elevator banks in the vicinity of the accounting firm that prepares Trump’s taxes.

The troops, whose mission is being called “Operation Safe Returns,” are expected to arrive on Wednesday, after making the two-thousand-mile journey from the Mexican border.

At the White House, Trump defended his decision to use the nation’s military to protect his accountant’s offices. “Yesterday our country was attacked,” he said. “Never again.”

Trump’s unilateral decision to invade Manhattan drew a muted response in diplomatic circles around the world, with many allies taking a cautious “wait and see” attitude.

In North Korea, Kim Jong Un said that he still planned to have a May summit with the U.S. President, “whoever that is by then.”

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Dana Boente, the FBI's general counsel who was in charge of the Russia investigation early in the Trump administration, has been asked to testify by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to a letter obtained by MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show."

The letter from Boente to Associate Deputy Attorney General Scott Schools is dated Jan. 2, when Boente was still acting head of the Justice Department's national security division. In the letter, Boente requests legal representation or reimbursement of his legal fees and says he doesn't believe that he is either a target or a subject of Mueller's inquiry.