Friday Talking Points (497) -- Guilty Pleasures

[ChrisWeigant]

We have to admit, we were torn when selecting this week's headline. The other candidate under consideration was: "Making Flippy Floppy," which of course was a Talking Heads song from the 1980s which contained the immortal line: "Our president's crazy / Did you hear what he said?" What with today's news of the Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organization flipping after being granted immunity, this did seem like the obvious choice, since it followed the news of Michael Cohen and David Pecker of the National Enquirer also flipping on Trump. Oh, and the news of those 30 hours of testimony already given by White House Counsel Don McGahn, as well. But in the end, we weighted the uncontained glee which liberals everywhere greeted the news of the sixteen guilty verdicts/pleas this week more heavily, and had to go with acknowledging these guilty pleasures. Because no guilty verdicts/pleas have caused this much pleasure on the left since Scooter Libby's fall from grace.

Within minutes of each other, two legal bombshells exploded in federal courts this Tuesday. Paul Manafort's jury returned and announced they had found him guilty on eight felony counts, and it was later revealed that they had voted 11-1 on the other 10 counts. Only one holdout refused to admit the solidity of the evidentiary trail on these counts, meaning Bob Mueller's team is quite likely to get a conviction on all of them if they retry Manafort (and do a better job of jury selection next time). But they may not even bother to, since Manafort's second federal trial is already teed up and ready to go. This will be a much more substantial case, legally. Manafort is already facing a possible 80 years in federal prison for the eight crimes he's been convicted of, so if Mueller wins more convictions against Manafort in the second trial he probably won't even need to bother retrying the 10 counts the jury hung on. One way or another, Paul Manafort is going to be spending many, many years behind federal bars -- unless, of course, Donald Trump pardons him.

Meanwhile, up in New York, Michael Cohen surprised everyone by appearing in front of a federal judge and pleading guilty to eight federal felonies of his own. Yep, Trump's fixer has officially flipped. His allocution was an even bigger bombshell for Trump, since Cohen flat-out accused the president of directing him to commit criminal acts. He didn't name Trump, but when an anonymous individual is described in court as: "who at that point had become the President of the United States," it's pretty obvious who is being talked about.

This is the most pleasing guilt of all, because now Trump can correctly be described as an "unindicted co-conspirator" -- a phrase not heard in relation to a president since Tricky Dick stalked the halls of the White House late at night, talking to the paintings. So rather than "Donald Trump" or "President Trump," every Democrat should immediately start using "Unindicted Co-Conspirator Trump" instead. It just has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Unindicted Co-Conspirator Trump will likely not pardon Cohen. Trump reportedly is annoyed at Cohen's disloyalty, as opposed to praising Manafort for staying strong and not flipping. Although it was revealed this week that Unindicted Co-Conspirator Trump has already spoken with his attorneys about the possibility of pardoning Manafort (they advised against it), so we'll have to see how this all plays out.

In other legal news in Trumpworld, the second member of Congress to endorse Trump's run for the presidency was indicted this week, following the news of the first guy to endorse him being indicted on other federal charges, a few weeks back. Nothing like draining that swamp, is there? Representative Duncan Hunter and his wife were charged this week with using his campaign funds as a personal bank account. They brazenly spent cash on themselves and then tried to cover it up by writing it off as charity money for (among others) wounded warriors. Nothing like the Republican Party "supporting the troops," eh? They spent money on an astonishing list of personal expenses, including vacations, makeup, clothes, and even their family's dental bills (which were written off as a charitable contribution to "Smiles For Life" -- you can't make this stuff up, folks).

Duncan Hunter, being a stand-up guy, took full responsibility. Heh. Just kidding. What he actually did was to immediately throw his wife under the bus. Here's his blame-dodging statement:

When I went away to Iraq in 2003, the first time, I gave {my wife} power of attorney. She handled my finances throughout my entire military career and that continued on when I got into Congress. She was also the campaign manager so whatever she did, that'll be looked at too, I'm sure, but I didn't do it.

Nothing like following the long Republican Party tradition of taking personal responsibility, is there? Stay classy, Congressman, stay classy!

In other revolting news, Unindicted Co-Conspirator Trump seemed to be having a bit of a problem with his love of white supremacists this week. First, the White House had to fire a Trump speechwriter for appearing at an event with a notorious white supremacist publisher. Then the very next day, top economic advisor Larry Kudlow had the same guy over for a birthday party. Kudlow, of course, hasn't been forced to resign, because he swears that he's been friends with the guy for years and years and had no idea what a racist he was. I guess this makes him eligible for the "Sergeant Schultz Head-In-The-Sand Award," or something.

There's no real mystery why Kudlow was allowed to keep his job, though -- in fact, the real mystery might be why the lowly speechwriter had to leave. Because by the end of the week, Unindicted Co-Conspirator Trump was tweeting out white supremacist conspiracy theories about South Africa -- incidentally, the first time Trump's ever used the word "Africa" in a tweet. Here's the reaction to the whole sordid story:

Former U.S. diplomats and South African leaders denounced Trump's declaration in a tweet late Wednesday that he had instructed {Mike Pompeo} to monitor the "large scale killing" of white farmers and the government's expropriations of their land. White-nationalist groups have for years spread false claims about the murder rates, assertions that have been widely debunked.... White nationalists in the United States and South Africa... hailed the president's remarks. David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, thanked Trump on Twitter and tweeted an image of a white woman holding a sign reading "Stop white genocide." Mike Peinovich, a far-right podcast host, called Trump's endorsement "very big" and said that "this is how we slowly chip away at the all-consuming anti-white discourse."

So, like we said, the real mystery is why anyone working at the White House would face firing for following Trump's lead on the subject of white supremacy. And as icing on the cake for Unindicted Co-Conspirator Trump's Twittering this week, he was busy tweeting his rage while his wife Melania was giving a speech on the evils of cyberbullying. If credibility can be less than zero, then that's where Melania's is on the subject of stopping cyberbullying from happening. It's like watching Jack The Ripper's wife speak on the subject of safety razors, at this point.

In election news, the Republicans finally officially won the special House election in Ohio, as the Democrat conceded the race after all the ballots were counted. They'll be facing each other again in November, however, so the second round is just beginning. Unindicted Co-Conspirator Trump's winning streak of endorsements in GOP primary elections came to an end this week, as his candidate (Foster Friess) lost his race for the nomination to be Wyoming's next governor. Amusingly enough, this happened on the same day Trump bragged to his fans in West Virginia that his endorsement moves the needle by "20, 30, 40, 50 points." He bragged he had longer coattails than Ronald Reagan, right before his candidate went down to defeat. That's ironic, but in the end this is bad news for Democrats, because Wyoming voters chose the sane candidate, making the November race almost impossible. Democrats might have had a chance against Friess, but likely will not against a solid Republican candidate.

One piece of good news from the campaign trail came today, as a Georgia county decided against the insane voter-suppression plan of closing seven of the county's nine polling locations for the general election. We wrote about this in last week's talking points (see: number 2), and we are glad to see that increasing national media attention on the story has pressured the county's leaders to do the right thing. It wasn't just external, either, voters within the county have been making their opposition to the blatant disenfranchisement plan known loud and clear all week long. For whatever reason, though, we're glad this monstrously wrong idea was nipped in the bud.

What else? Bernie Sanders is about to introduce a bill which would force companies like Amazon to fully reimburse the government for any welfare payments (food stamps, etc.) their workers receive. This is a giant step in the right direction, so we'll be watching to see exactly what the bill contains. If someone works full time, they should not have to rely on governmental help, and the only thing standing in the way of that happening is corporate greed, plain and simple. This seems like an issue tailor-made for Bernie.

And finally, we end on an amusing (if puzzling) note. Unindicted Co-Conspirator Trump held a rally this week in West Virginia, where he shared a story while attempting to explain why things couldn't always happen in the blink of an eye in Washington. He explained that, sometimes, "it's gotta gestate. The word 'gestate'... like when you're cooking a chicken. Time... time... turkey for Thanksgiving." He then went on to say his mother gestated a turkey in the oven for eight hours each and every Thanksgiving. Um, OK. But perhaps that word doesn't mean what you think it does? We're just sayin'....





Regular readers will find this no surprise, since we wrote extensively about this yesterday. This week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award goes to Senator Elizabeth Warren, for introducing a bill to reform the way lobbying happens in Washington. Her "Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act" would institute a lifetime ban on lobbying jobs for former federal elected or appointed officials. It would widen the requirements for who has to register as a lobbyist, force lawmakers to disclose every meeting they have with lobbyists, ban lobbyists from contributing to federal campaigns, ban Americans from lobbying for foreign governments, ban members of Congress and federal judges from trading any stocks while in office, and (for good measure) require all candidates for Congress or the White House to publicly disclose eight years of income tax to be eligible to run for office.

Whew! That's a whole lot of ethical reform wrapped up in one legislative package. Warren gave a speech to promote her new bill this week, where she laid out why she was moved to act: "Padlock the revolving door between big business and government. It's insane that we have to beg the president of the United States to put the American people ahead of his own business interests. Insane."

She's right. But as Warren herself also noted, the Trump administration is "not the cause of the rot," since it predated Trump coming to town by decades. Which is why she's attacking the rot directly, rather than just scoring political points off the Unindicted Co-Conspirator in Chief. We ended yesterday's article with:

But the rot Warren speaks of goes deep -- right down to the foundation. Sooner or later, that is going to spell disaster for those living above. Trump's (and his minions') legal problems aside, more and more congressmen are being caught in ethical lapses right now. Anti-corruption could be a big deal in the midterm elections (at least, if Democrats have anything to say about the matter). By introducing her bill now, Warren has given Democratic candidates across the country something solid to get behind. "I'm for Warren's anti-corruption bill" is all a candidate now needs to say to define their anti-corruption stance.

The political concept of "draining the swamp" wasn't invented by Trump, after all. It has long been a potent argument for the "out" party to make against the "in" party. "Look how corrupt they've gotten since they took power!" is, in fact, almost always an effective campaign slogan, given the fact that corruption is so regularly uncovered, no matter which party is in power. That speaks not to the corruptibility of either party, but to that rotten foundation the whole structure is built upon. Elizabeth Warren is proposing to attack that rot directly, which deserves a lot more attention than it so far has gotten.

To which we only have to add: "More power to her!" Rather than vague notions about "draining the swamp" (which any politician worth his or her salt can parrot meaninglessly), Warren has laid down quite a number of very concrete markers in her bill. Every Democrat worthy of the name should immediately begin voicing their support for this effort. The only way the public is going to demand such reforms is if they hear about them, after all. Warren's voice is a powerful one, but it can't be the only one.

While we wait to see which Democratic senators sign on as co-sponsors to Warren's bill, we have to applaud her for getting this particular ball rolling. Which is why she's easily the choice this week for the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award.

{Congratulate Senator Elizabeth Warren on her Senate contact page, to let her know you appreciate her efforts.}





Of course, not every Democrat can be expected to get on board, as some of them are awash in corporate money. Which brings us to this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week, which has to be awarded slightly retroactively.

In the background of the Trumpian news maelstrom, the Democratic National Committee has been meeting and deciding all kinds of things which will reverberate throughout the 2020 presidential election cycle. Some of these are good things (like the reforms that Bernie Sanders has been winning on the question of superdelegates and caucuses), but not all of them qualify as positive news.

Yesterday, protesters interrupted one of these official D.N.C. meetings to decry the decision by chairman Tom Perez to overturn an Obama-era ban on accepting money from oil companies and other fossil fuel companies (and their lobbyists). This decision was actually made a few weeks ago (which is why this is a slightly retroactive award), but we have to admit we were distracted at the time and didn't notice it.

Whenever it happened, though, it is deserving of the MDDOTW award for sending the wrong signal to the party's base. Perez tried to swear his allegiance to combatting climate change, but it's hard to credit that statement when the industry responsible is stuffing money in your pockets. This is now Exhibit A in the case Progressives have been making against Tom Perez from the beginning, really. When it comes down to brass tacks, Perez follows the money, obviously.

Which is why D.N.C. Chair Tom Perez is our Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week, even if it is technically a few weeks late. For shame, Tom, for shame. The Democratic Party is straining to chart a new course, but you just tacked back to the old way of doing things. The party is worse off because you did so.

{Contact Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez on his official contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions.}




Volume 497 (8/24/18)

Nothing but schadenfreude this week, from beginning to end. That's the kind of week it was, really. And, please remember, Bob Mueller is just getting started, folks. That's enough to bring a smile to any Democrat's face, this week.



Unindicted Co-Conspirator

As previously mentioned, this one really needs a big push by every Democrat interviewed on any television screen from now on.

"Sadly, we now have to resurrect a political and legal term not heard about a U.S. president since Richard Nixon left office. President Donald Trump has been accused -- under oath, in front of a federal judge -- of conspiring to commit felony crimes. Which means the only possible title for him now is Unindicted Co-Conspirator Trump. He doesn't even seem to realize the legal jeopardy that Michael Cohen's allocution put him in, as he proved in a Fox News interview this week. He insisted that the hush money payments didn't come from the campaign, they came from Trump personally. He's openly admitting committing election violations, in other words. Donald Trump has not been formally charged with anything yet, of course. Mueller's investigation is not done, nor will it be any time soon. Which means for the time being, the only correct thing to call the president is an unindicted co-conspirator. Tricky Dick would have been so proud!"



Flipping out

How many metaphors can be mixed? Let's see....

"Trump is really flipping out this week, and no surprise. Crony after crony of his seems to be flipping on him and singing like a birdie to the prosecutors. I guess you could say they're flipping the bird at Trump, eh? Here's Trump's reaction: 'I know all about flipping. For 30, 40 years I have been watching flippers. Everything is wonderful, and then they get 10 years in jail and the flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go. It almost ought to be outlawed.' The reason Trump is so flipping mad at this practice? There are more flip-flops against Trump in federal courts right now than dying flounders thrashing around on the deck of a fishing boat. Trump's personal fixer? Flipped like a burger on a hot grill. The publisher of the National Enquirer? Flipped like an NFL coin toss. The C.F.O. of the Trump Organization? That's gonna be Poseidon Adventure-level flipping, I'd bet. Everywhere you look, Trump henchmen and stooges are flipping like pancakes at a fire house's charity breakfast. No wonder Trump is flipping his lid!"



He went for coffee

The fun doesn't end with flipping, though.

"Alan Weisselberg is the Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organization. This means that every dollar Trump, Inc. spends goes through him. He knows more than any person alive what Trump has paid for over the years, and where Trump's money has come from. He's been with Trump forever -- he actually used to work for Trump's father, in fact. He knows where every body is buried and has the inventory of all the skeletons in Trump's gold-plated closet. And he was just granted immunity in exchange for his testimony. So far, Trump has tried to distance himself from everyone snared in the legal net up until now by minimizing their connection to him. His campaign manager? Barely knew him. His personal lawyer who has worked for him for over a decade? I think he ran some errands for me, or something. But it's pretty hard to spin his company's own C.F.O. into some sort of low-level lackey, isn't it? It wouldn't surprise me a bit to hear Trump claim: 'I thought that stood for Coffee Fetching Officer,' at this point. Good luck with that one, Donnie."



Guilty Guilty Guilty!

Obviously, a nod here to "Doonesbury" is appropriate, for that subheading.

"So let's see, we've now got two people very close to Trump who are guilty of 16 separate federal crimes. They split them down the middle, as Paul Manafort was found guilty of eight counts by a federal jury -- who voted 11-1 on ten other counts, it bears mentioning -- and Michael Cohen freely pleaded guilty to eight felonies of his own. That's a lot of criminal activity for such close confidants of Trump, wouldn't you say? But then, of course, this ball has just gotten rolling. Manafort faces his second trial in D.C. in the middle of next month, which could lead to multiple other guilty verdicts for him. And it doesn't even count all the other guilty pleas given by people like Michael Flynn, who long ago struck plea deals with Bob Mueller's team. Just to review, during Barack Obama's eight years in office, he had precisely zero high-ranking aides indicted. Zero guilty pleas, and zero guilty verdicts. So I guess the only thing left to ask is: has the swamp been drained yet, or what? How many other dozens of guilty verdicts will it take?"



The difference between federal and state charges

There's another big storm cloud on the horizon for Team Trump, as well.

"New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood has her work cut out for her, it seems. State-level investigations have now begun which are looking into possible criminal activity by the Trump Foundation, the Trump Organization, Michael Cohen, American Media (the National Enquirer publisher), as well as individual charges against senior executives of all these organizations. Any criminal activity which took place in New York and is covered by state law is fair game, to state the obvious. But what's not immediately apparent is why these possible crimes could in the end be more serious for Donald Trump than all the federal cases -- because U.S. presidents can only pardon federal lawbreaking. State-level crimes cannot be pardoned by anyone other than the state's governor. So I'll be watching Underwood carefully in the coming weeks, because any cases she brings might ultimately result in more jail time than all the federal guilty verdicts put together."



Wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot barge pole, sorry

This may be the most extraordinary thing said during a rather extraordinary week.

"Michael Cohen's lawyer has publicly stated that Cohen is not even interested in the possibility of a pardon from Unindicted Co-Conspirator Donald Trump. Unlike all the other players in this sordid rat's nest, Cohen doesn't want to be 'dirtied' by a pardon from this president. I have never heard such a jaw-dropping statement from anyone facing years of jail time, personally. Cohen would rather sit in jail than accept a pardon from the dirty hands of Trump -- just think about that for a second. It's a pretty stunning condemnation of the man who used to be Cohen's best client, after all. And, I suppose, if anyone knows how dirty Trump is, it would have to be Cohen, wouldn't it?"



Only the best people!

Finally, just for fun, here's an excerpt from the funniest thing we read all week. Alexandra Petri has outdone herself, writing about Trump's promise to hire "only the best people." In an almost-surreal bit of satire, Petri channels Trump's thoughts in a piece titled: "I'm Beginning To Suspect That These Were Not In Fact The Best People." The following paragraph we found to be the funniest, but you should really read the whole thing -- it's well worth the time spent!

I thought I had the best people, but I had a big plane filled with money, a bear that has wandered into a school by mistake, Zombie James Buchanan, a pair of Ivanka Trump pumps that want to speak to a manager, the hair of a televangelist, a Pixar villain whose origin story involved a tanning bed struck by lightning and an anthropomorphic liver. I had a scorpion asking for a ride across a river, an ominous forwarded email with a sad face drawn on it, a statue brought to life by the love of its sculptor but in a twist on the classic Pygmalion scenario it was a Confederate statue, a piece of toast on which sexist words appeared for no reason, a gallon container of snake oil in an expensive leather coat, everyone at a surf-side bar on a Thursday, a reality-TV contestant and Anthony Scaramucci.

Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
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