All Things Trump: the story continues...

[Tero]

More:Second, intimidate the career bureaucracy. On day one of his second term, Trump signs an executive order reinstating an innovation he calls Schedule F federal employment. This designation would effectively turn tens of thousands of civil servants who have a hand in shaping policy into at-will employees. He approved Schedule F in October of his final year in office, but he ran out of time to implement it and President Biden rescinded it.

Career civil servants have always been supervised by political appointees, and, within the boundaries of law and regulation, so they should be. Schedule F, however, gives Trump a new way to threaten bureaucrats with retaliation and termination if they resist or question him.

Bonus: cancel Fauci's pension.

[Tero]

Trump: Fascist Bureau of Investigation.

[Tero]

I'm reading Woodward's Fear book. Other than Trump there is a good description of politics, politicians and the White House. Almost all polticians and other leaders Trump tapped had no executive branch experience. Yet they all took the job. Even in the chaos of the Trump White House they dreamed of being more powerful than they previously were.

There were 4 chiefs of staff.

[Tero]

Ron Filipkowski
@RonFilipkowski
Not ONE Republican Member of Congress came out to support Trump’s deranged tweet that he should be declared the winner of the 2020 election and immediately reinstated as president. Not a single one.

[L'Emmerdeur]

The inane crowing about how the Mueller investigation 'exonerated' Trump will continue, despite facts to the contrary. No doubt we will hear again of the 'Russia hoax' when our hyperborean 'leftie' brother returns. However, the memo which former Attorney General Barr used when he made the 'exoneration' claim was released recently, and it shows a distinct lack of the legal rigor and neutral analysis that would justify Barr's claim.

One of the lawyers who was involved in drafting regulations for the position of special counsel describes how Barr played fast and loose to circumvent those regulations.

'What Bill Barr Did to Clear Trump Is Still a Danger'

The memo released last week by the Justice Department closing the book on the report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election is a frightening document. Critics have rightly focused on its substance, slipshod legal analysis and omission of damning facts.

But the process by which that memo, sent in March 2019, came to be is just as worrisome. Delivered to the attorney general at the time, Bill Barr, the memo was written by two political appointees in the Justice Department.

Mr. Barr used the memo to go around the special counsel regulations and to clear President Donald Trump of obstruction of justice. If left to fester, this decision will have pernicious consequences for investigations of future high-level wrongdoing.

...

The [special counsel] regulations were written with an untrustworthy president in mind, more so than the problem that Mr. Barr presented, which is an untrustworthy attorney general. Unlike presidents, attorneys general are confirmed by the Senate, with a 60-vote threshold — so we assumed they would be reasonably nonpartisan. And we also knew there was no way around the attorney general being the ultimate decider, because the Constitution requires the executive branch to control prosecutions.

We created the role of special counsel to fill a void — to concentrate in one person responsibility and ultimate blame so that investigations would not be covered up from the get-go and to give that person independence from political pressure.

It is outrageous that Mr. Barr acted so brazenly in the face of this framework. The point of requiring a special counsel was to provide for an independent determination of any potential criminal wrongdoing by Mr. Trump. But the political appointees in his Justice Department took what was the most important part of that inquiry — the decision of whether he committed crimes — and grabbed it for themselves. This was a fundamental betrayal of the special counsel guidelines not for some principle but because it protected their boss, Mr. Trump. It is the precise problem that the regulations were designed to avoid and why the regulations give the counsel “the full power and independent authority to exercise all investigative and prosecutorial functions of any United States attorney.”

[Tero]

At this point, he should be screwed.

[Svartalf]

I am Crumple and I approve of this message
If they fried idealists like the Rosenbergs, there's no way rump should walk, though he might be incited to dance the necktie jig.

[Tero]

[Tero]

Trumpfest without Trump going to Kentucky
https://twitter.com/kimguilfoyle/status ... 68/photo/1

[L'Emmerdeur]

The former president's passports were in his desk drawer with purloined classified documents. Found after his lawyer had signed a declaration that all classified documents had been returned. Seems pretty strong evidence that he personally had possession of the documents, and can't lay it all off on underlings.

'Trump's Seized Passports Kept in Same Desk Drawer as Classified Documents'

The Department of Justice said it seized Donald Trump's passports during a search of his Mar-a-Lago resort because the passports were kept in a desk drawer alongside classified documents.

In an August 30 court filing, the agency said the former president's claim the FBI agents had improperly taken three of his passports while looking for sensitive material removed from the White House at his Florida home is "incorrect."

The Department of Justice explained that the passports were seized by the FBI as they were held in a desk drawer in Trump's office which also included classified documents, and therefore within the scope of the search warrant and relevant to the investigation.

"The government seized the contents of a desk drawer that contained classified documents and governmental records commingled with other documents," prosecutors wrote.

[pErvinalia]

He had his passport ready with the documents for his trip to Putin's dacha.

[JimC]

He had his passport ready with the documents for his trip to Putin's dacha.

...golden showers available on every night!

[pErvinalia]

[rainbow]

He had his passport ready with the documents for his trip to Putin's dacha.

...golden showers available on every night!

Trickle down economics.

[Tero]

No you can't have your country back! not yet. Wait till ..oh...2025.

Meanwhile, Trump and his minions are threatening violence if things don’t go their way. “There literally will be riots in the street,” Senator Lindsey Graham told interviewers. Trump shared a clip of Graham’s interview on his beleaguered social media vehicle, Truth Social.

Said differently, the Republican party is in the process of losing its reputation for law, order and national security. On the right, the drumbeat for defunding the FBI grows louder. Beyond that, Republicans’ relationship to democracy grows more strained.

Larry Hogan, Maryland’s outgoing Republican governor, said as much the other day. In an interview with CBS, he acknowledged that authoritarianism had found a nesting place in what was once the party of Abraham Lincoln. “There’s no question we see some signs,” Hogan said.

It has been years in the making. Republican politicians have embraced Trump as strongman-lite. In a 2016 radio broadcast, Paul LePage, then governor of Maine, made Trump’s authoritarian streak a selling point. “Our constitution is not only broken,” LePage declared, “but we need a Donald Trump to show some authoritarian power in our country.” The Republican party knew who it was getting.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ar-lackeys