US Politics December 2018: ~very legal and very cool~

Wolfowitz? Cheney? Rumsfeld? Harriet Meyers? Gonzalez? Any members of the Bush family?

my alma mater had ashcroft speak there last month

awww

Christie declines the chief of staff role. His statement: pic.twitter.com/DiZb5r01z0

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) December 14, 2018

idk if making the college lecture circuit counts as "reinstated"

it's certainly not a position of power

xp

lol burn.

also

WH spokesman Gidley "said he expects a decision soon but also suggested Trump could decide to “extend” his current deal with John Kelly," per pool.

— Annie Karni (@anniekarni) December 14, 2018

loooooool at christie turning it down

internationally recognized indicator of "this is pathetic"

so...if christie 'turned it down', this officially means that he was more desirable for the role than newt or jared? OUCH

mooch for CoS!

And again deleting clarifying earlier post, right statement this time - Christie was not offered the job, took himself out of running. pic.twitter.com/hIRUyIcHwh

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) December 14, 2018

Shakey, the positions we were presented with were a Fox News talking head gig and/or 'writer' of right-wing historical fiction

John Yoo isn't either

so many family considerations for republicans this year, very odd timing

they have always been super pro-family tho

White House aides/advisers told us this morning that Christie was a leading contender for chief of staff. @PhilipRucker & I had just finished astory. And now Christie puts out statement saying he's declining. So that's how this week has gone.

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) December 14, 2018

well-oiled machine

the positions we were presented with were a Fox News talking head gig and/or 'writer' of right-wing historical fiction

no, this is not what was posted. what was posted was in direct reference to a "future in the public sector" (Fox News is not the public sector) and you literally said they would be "reinstated" just like "W's people", the direct implication being that a) Trump's cronies will have a future employed by a government entity and b) this has happened with Dubya's staff. The latter is just totally incorrect, the former remains to be seen but the outlook isn't good.

xp

it's the same lizards, different skin

Apologies for sharing my own tweet but

IF EVER THERE WAS THE DEFINITION OF *NOT* BREAKING NEWS. pic.twitter.com/GWScbzWDAC

— Ned Raggett (@NedRaggett) December 14, 2018

hahahaha

Entire floor at D.C. federal courthouse sealed off for mystery case:

https://www.ajc.com/news/national-govt--politics/entire-floor-federal-courthouse-sealed-off-for-mystery-case/JyerATnO5wL4gJKcS6nVJP/

Probably has to do with the new Avengers movie.

fingers crossed they're finally ready to indict crooked hillary

White House aides/advisers told us this morning that Christie was a leading contender for chief of staff. @PhilipRucker & I had just finished astory. And now Christie puts out statement saying he's declining. So that's how this week has gone.

i don't doubt that the trump white house is a chaotic confusing piece of shit, and i'm just totally speculating here, BUT

we don't know the identity of the anonymous "aides/advisers" who populate so many of these stories. we don't know how many there are, or what qualifies one as an official white house aide. but there is an incentive for people in the white house to refer to themselves as one, in terms of career building. there is also an incentive for "aides" to leak details to the press - it helps establish relationships that will probably benefit them later on in their career. so in the white house, you have an amorphous blob of "aides", some of whom are probably actually not that close to the decision-making (sorry alfred) process, who are eager for some reporter to listen to their version of events so that their status as "WH insider" can be codified.

on the other side, the press have corresponding motives for reaching out to people who are actually on the periphery of internal discussions and may have information that is out of date.

i don't doubt that the trump white house is a fucking mess, and all of the motives in play for leaking didn't seem to be such a problem for the obama's white house. it just seems like it's difficult to pinpoint when accounts of sudden reversals on key decisions from anonymous aides are real and when they're just a sign of one or more uninformed aides/reporters.

EXCLUSIVE: Russian agent Maria Butina claimed she had a "signed cooperation agreement" with the NRA https://t.co/nCjIGtNP5a via @MotherJones

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) December 14, 2018

"The NRA would not confirm whether or not it had entered into a cooperation agreement with Butina’s group. 'The NRA says it is not aware of any such agreement,' a spokesperson for the gun lobbying group said in an emailed statement." https://t.co/xheHMnhnI5

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) December 14, 2018

KM, totally: whoever told the WP that Christie was in the lead had some kind of agenda. but whatever their motivation, it's difficult to come up with a way a completely false story about the identity of the next COS comes close to publication without the whitehouse being incredibly messed up and badly run.

'The NRA says it is not aware of any such agreement,' a spokesperson for the gun lobbying group said

I love the grammatical distance at which the NRA spokesperson places the NRA's statement from themselves.

i'm sure W's people fill the Deep State.

really? you think Paul Wolfowitz is sorting mail at the DoD right or something?

we were talking about people in Trump and W's cabinet - Chief of Staff, etc. - not random low-level bureaucrats

xxxxxpost
I think people leak shit so Trump will see it on tv.

anyway, this subponae thing going on w Mueller has to be Trump, right? I can't imagine any other figure that would warrant this

xpost wut about Bolton

anyway, this subponae thing going on w Mueller has to be Trump, right? I can't imagine any other figure that would warrant this

Could be Kelly. Could be something else.

Problems, problems.

New: @NYDailyNews reports that the New Jersey Attorney General’s office is investigating Trump’s golf club in Bedminster for “widespread harassment and immigration fraud” https://t.co/S6UjeEBKnT

— Scott Stedman (@ScottMStedman) December 14, 2018

Also

While Paul Manafort was the subject of a federal criminal investigation, he advised the Trump Administration to publicly attack the FBI, to falsely allege that Ukraine colluded with the DNC, and to attack Hillary Clinton and the Steele dossier, per @vox.https://t.co/yQHM6wHEub

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) December 14, 2018

what was posted was in direct reference to a "future in the public sector" (Fox News is not the public sector) and you literally said they would be "reinstated" just like "W's people", the direct implication being that a) Trump's cronies will have a future employed by a government entity and b) this has happened with Dubya's staff. The latter is just totally incorrect, the former remains to be seen but the outlook isn't good.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiIsJnKgqDfAhVImuAKHZayC8QQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.com%2Fstory%2F2018%2F08%2F20%2Fbrett-kavanaugh-bill-clinton-explicit-questions-lewinsky-789599&psig=AOvVaw3SiAVbTzehtuQiy65JmZGn&ust=1544900911553121

Kavanaugh wasn't in Dubya's cabinet

(actually neither was Bolton, technically speaking)

Bolton obviously higher profile than Kavanaugh at the time due to the fact that he couldn't get Senate approval and barely lasted a year

I see W's "people" and Trump's "cronies" now it's just cabinet members ok

jfc scroll up and read the exchange, idk why yr so eager to carry water for Morbz ahistorical bullshit

you think Paul Wolfowitz is sorting mail at the DoD right or something?

― Οὖτις, Friday, December 14, 2018 6:58 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is better than he deserves tbh

Harriet Myers, mentioned earlier, had the same job as Kav

As with W's people, all but the most abject will be reinstated,

like, this has NOT fucking happened

ha i forgot about the steele dossier?!

Wrt the ongoing shakes/morbs argument itt, I misspoke when I wrote 'a future in the public sector' when what I actually meant was the broader 'a future where they are in any way in the public eye'.

Harriet Meiers WAS the White House Counsel. Kavanaugh was *hired* as an associate BY the White House Counsel (Gonzalez). These are not the same position.
why am I bothering.

xp

and then there was this FBI director who rounded up Muslims

to Old Lunch's post - well I can't argue with that if that's what you meant, since anyone involved with this administration will be notorious and thereby worth eyeballs in the future

xp

Like no one who accepts the CoS poison pill at this point can have any hope of subsequently being a public figure outside of the right-wing fringe-osphere.

right wing fringe-osphere is v lucrative, let's ask John Ashcroft how much his speaking fees are

the only reason I can imagine them sealing off an entire floor of a federal courthouse for grand jury testimony other than Trump would be some sort of high-profile Russian who doesn't want to get killed. something like that. and even then, I can't imagine they wouldn't have found a less conspicuous approach.

the cavalcade of trump criminality coming home to roost makes perfect sense. he has probably been operating in the gray area margins of rich people behavior for so long he doesn't even realize how many crimes he's committed.

Oh yeah, I don't at all mean to suggest that they'll be hurting for having sacrificed their humanity and very soul.