Using a location that conjures a war reference about remembering a slaughter is already a veiled message to extremists
Faced with a world without his Twitter account Trump appears to be reaching out to symbolism and and tacit messaging to continue to try and build anger and foment a civil war.
Texas officials were quoted as saying that they oppose Trump’s visit outright, citing the possibility that he would be citing more violence and that maskless fans could create a coronavirus surge, as has happened in relation to other Trump events.
By choosing Alamo, TX, “coincidentally”, for some kind of news conference, vaguely related to his unfinished and disastrous border wall, he is likely sending a message to the most violent and most extreme of his “army” of followers across the nation.
The Battle of the Alamo, which took place at the Alamo Mission (no where near Alamo, TX), a former Spanish religious outpost which had been converted to a makeshift fort, is a historic symbol of Texans’ resistance and their struggle for independence. The battle cry of “remember the Alamo” first became popular during the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848.
There is no sign that Trump is trying to reduce the potential for violence, more likely it’s the opposite
Further, they say that they will never stop or give up “because this is like 1776”. Apparently, Trump would like to add “Remember the Alamo” to this brain-worm controlled thought process. Interestingly, since Trump began his run for president stating that “Mexicans are Rapists”, using a symbol from the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848 has a kind of dual purpose – Mexicans are the enemy in his book, apparently, and so is the U.S. government.
Buried somehow in these references is the idea that somehow the “Patriots” in his “army” were “oppressed” by the U.S. Government (which he is the current “leader” of) and Mexico (by the racist belief that people are a threat simply due to their race & heritage) and they must therefore fight back and get revenge.
This kind of convoluted circular logic is typical of the propaganda that has, amazingly, led to thousands of radicalized Trump followers looking for blood and wishing for a second civil war. Since this brainwashing is not a simple thing to reverse, once various “Big Lies” are accepted as truth, the situation has the potential to get much worse before it gets better.
“Remember the Alamo” is literally a battle cry that means it is time to fight back. Trump is not likely staging his circus at that location by chance. Should the press and the 84+ million Americans that do not want Trump as a dictator stand up to this insanity? Should the press take off the kid gloves and clearly state what this subterfuge os clearly all about?
Has Trump learned anything? Or was it all Intentional.
Sara Gideon, the Maine House speaker is taking a jab at both Donald Trump and Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins. In a video put out by her campaign akin to that of the Lincoln Project, who retweeted this video, the video clip shows how Trump admitted he knew the severity of the pandemic and intentionally misled and downplayed the American public.
Unfortunately, she never stood up or even wavered from her blind loyalty. Her anti-impeachment rubber-stamp was historically myopic and she is now a prime target for removal on November 3rd. She is, make no mistake, a Trump follower and in no-way a lone voice of dissent within her party.
Trump lies do matter, as hundreds of thousands of people have already lost their lives to the pandemic, and many of those deaths could have been prevented.
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The President attacks widow of tech icon Steve Jobs
On Sunday morning, September 6, 2020, Donald Trump went to his Twitter to call out Apple co-founder Steve Job’s widow, Laurene Powell Jobs who has financial backing to the Atlantic magazine. On Thursday, The Atlantic published a story that reported Trump called American who had died in war both “losers” and “suckers”.
The initial tweet stated: “Steve Jobs would not be happy that his wife is wasting money he left her on a failing Radical Left Magazine that is run by a con man (Goldberg) and spews FAKE NEWS & HATE. Call her, write her, let her know how you feel!!!”
Check out tweet below:
Steve Jobs would not be happy that his wife is wasting money he left her on a failing Radical Left Magazine that is run by a con man (Goldberg) and spews FAKE NEWS & HATE. Call her, write her, let her know how you feel!!! https://t.co/wwuoP85bQE
This year political news has been non-stop and included the good, the bad and the very ugly. With a very real and consequential presidential election fast approaching, staying informed is key. Below we have curated a list of top ranking political books currently available in the market.
Click to Buy “Why We’re Polarized” and at the same time help Lynxotic and All Independent Local Bookstores
“The American political system–which includes everyone from voters to journalists to the president–is full of rational actors making rational decisions given the incentives they face,” writes political analyst Ezra Klein. “We are a collection of functional parts whose efforts combine into a dysfunctional whole.” In Why We’re Polarized, Klein reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics.
Over the past fifty years in America, our partisan identities have merged with our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities. These merged identities have attained a weight that is breaking much in our politics and tearing at the bonds that hold this country together.
Klein shows how and why American politics polarized around identity in the twentieth century, and what that polarization did to the way we see the world and one another. And he traces the feedback loops between polarized political identities and polarized political institutions that are driving our system toward crisis. This is a revelatory book that will change how you look at politics, and perhaps at yourself.
Click to Buy “Running Against The Devil” and at the same time help Lynxotic and All Independent Local Bookstores
As 2016 proved, Trump can’t win, but the Democrats can sure as hell lose. Only one thing can save Trump, and that’s a Democratic candidate who runs the race Trumpwants them to run instead of the campaign they must run to win in 2020. Wilson combines decades of national political experience and insight in his take-no-prisoners analysis, hammering Trump’s destructive and dangerous first term in a case-by-case takedown of the worst president in history and describing the terrifying prospect of four more years of Trump. Like no one else can, Wilson blows the lid off Trump’s 2020 Republican war machine, showing the exact strategies and tactics they’ll use against the Democratic nominee . . . and how the Democrats can avoid the catastrophe waiting for them if they fall into Trump’s trap.
Running Against the Devil is sharply funny, brutally honest, andinfused with Wilson’s biting commentary. It’s a vital indictment of Trump, a no-nonsense, no-holds-barred road map to saving America, and the guide to making Donald Trump a one-term president. The stakes are too high to do anything less.
Click to Buy “Bag Man” and at the same time help Lynxotic and All Independent Local Bookstores
The year was 1973, and Spiro T. Agnew, the former governor of Maryland, was Richard Nixon’s second-in-command. Long on firebrand rhetoric and short on political experience, Agnew had carried out a bribery and extortion ring in office for years, when–at the height of Watergate–three young federal prosecutors discovered his crimes and launched a mission to take him down before it was too late, before Nixon’s impending downfall elevated Agnew to the presidency. The self-described “counterpuncher” vice president did everything he could to bury their investigation: dismissing it as a “witch hunt,” riling up his partisan base, making the press the enemy, and, with a crumbling circle of loyalists, scheming to obstruct justice in order to survive.
In this blockbuster account, Rachel Maddow and Michael Yarvitz detail the investigation that exposed Agnew’s crimes, the attempts at a cover-up–which involved future president George H. W. Bush–and the backroom bargain that forced Agnew’s resignation but also spared him years in federal prison. Based on the award-winning hit podcast, Bag Manexpands and deepens the story of Spiro Agnew’s scandal and its lasting influence on our politics, our media, and our understanding of what it takes to confront a criminal in the White House.
Click to Buy “A Warning” and at the same time help Lynxotic and All Independent Local Bookstores
On September 5, 2018, the New York Times published a bombshell essay and took the rare step of granting its writer anonymity. Described only as “a senior official in the Trump administration,” the author provided eyewitness insight into White House chaos, administration instability, and the people working to keep Donald Trump’s reckless impulses in check. With the 2020 election on the horizon, Anonymous is speaking out once again. In this book, the original author pulls back the curtain even further, offering a first-of-its-kind look at the president and his record — a must-read before Election Day.
It will surprise and challenge both Democrats and Republicans, motivate them to consider how we judge our nation’s leaders, and illuminate the consequences of re-electing a commander in chief unfit for the role.
This book is a sobering assessment of the man in the Oval Office and a warning about something even more important — who we are as a people.
Click to Buy “The Nancy Pelosi Way” and at the same time help Lynxotic and All Independent Local Bookstores
In 2007, Nancy Pelosi became the highest-ranking elected female government official in US history when she started her tenure as Speaker of the House of Representatives. In January 2019, she began her third term as Speaker during a tumultuous time in American political history. Having represented San Francisco for thirty-two years, Pelosi has become well-known for her work to expand health care, lift up workers, protect the environment, promote human rights, and make progress for the American people regardless of the president in the White House or the party controlling Congress.
In The Nancy Pelosi Way, author and daughter of the Speaker Christine Pelosi takes a close look at how her mother went from homemaker to House Speaker to become the most powerful female politician in America and at the many important lessons from her actions and dialogue along the way. This book weaves substantive issues and Nancy Pelosi’s advice on politics, family, and friendship gleaned from her life from her childhood in Baltimore to her hands-on motherhood in San Francisco to her national leadership, to demonstrate how this mother of five and grandmother of nine achieved her success. This book serves as the perfect guide for anyone looking to enter public service or prosper as a leader in their own field.
Click to Buy “Trump and His Generals” and at the same time help Lynxotic and All Independent Local Bookstores
Trump and His Generals is New York Times-bestselling author Peter Bergen’s jaw-dropping intimate account of life inside that storm, foregrounding the experiences of the four generals whose relationships with Trump have done so much to define his presidency–McMaster, Kelly, Mattis and Flynn. From Iraq and Afghanistan to Syria and Iran, from Russia and China to North Korea and Islamist terrorism, Trump and His Generals is a brilliant reckoning with an American ship of state navigating a roiling sea of acute threats without a well-functioning rudder. Bergen is both an intrepid and exquisitely well-sourced journalist and a very wise head himself on national security issues, and the combination of intense human drama and trenchant big-picture analysis results in a gripping read that offers tremendous clarity on the complex landscape of America’s geopolitical place in the world. Clarity, unfortunately, is not the same thing as reassurance.
Click to Buy “Impeachment” and at the same time help Lynxotic and All Independent Local Bookstores
Impeachment is a double-edged sword. Though it was designed to check tyrants, Thomas Jefferson also called impeachment “the most formidable weapon for the purpose of a dominant faction that was ever contrived.” On the one hand, it nullifies the will of voters, the basic foundation of all representative democracies. On the other, its absence from the Constitution would leave the country vulnerable to despotic leadership. It is rarely used, and with good reason.
Only three times has a president’s conduct led to such political disarray as to warrant his potential removal from office, transforming a political crisis into a constitutional one. None has yet succeeded. Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 for failing to kowtow to congressional leaders–and, in a large sense, for failing to be Abraham Lincoln–yet survived his Senate trial. Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974 after the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment against him for lying, obstructing justice, and employing his executive power for personal and political gain. Bill Clinton had an affair with a White House intern, but in 1999 he faced trial in the Senate less for that prurient act than for lying under oath about it.
Click to Buy “Democracy in Chains” and at the same time help Lynxotic and All Independent Local Bookstores
Behind today’s headlines of billionaires taking over our government is a secretive political establishment with long, deep, and troubling roots. The capitalist radical right has been working not simply to change who rules, but to fundamentally alter the rules of democratic governance. But billionaires did not launch this movement; a white intellectual in the embattled Jim Crow South did. Democracy in Chains names its true architect—the Nobel Prize-winning political economist James McGill Buchanan—and dissects the operation he and his colleagues designed over six decades to alter every branch of government to disempower the majority. “Democracy in Chains leaves me with hope: Perhaps as books like MacLean’s continue to shine a light on important truths, Americans will begin to realize they need to pay more attention and not succumb to the cynical view that known liars make the best leaders.” —New York Times Book Review
Click to Buy “The Mueller Report” and at the same time help Lynxotic and All Independent Local Bookstores
The long-awaited Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election. An introduction by The Washington Post titled “A President, a Prosecutor, and the Protection of American Democracy”. A timeline of the major events of the Special Counsel’s investigation from May 2017, when Robert Mueller was appointed, to the report’s delivery. A guide to individuals involved, including in the Special Counsel’s Office, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Trump Campaign, the White House, the Trump legal defense team, and the Russians. Key documents in the Special Counsel’s investigation, including filings pertaining to General Michael T. Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Roger Stone, and the Russian internet operation in St. Petersburg. Each document is introduced and explained by Washington Post reporters.
One of the most urgent and important investigations ever conducted, the Mueller inquiry focuses on Donald Trump, his presidential campaign, and Russian interference in the 2016 election, and draws on the testimony of dozens of witnesses and the work of some of the country’s most seasoned prosecutors. The special counsel’s investigation looms as a turning point in American history. The Mueller Report is essential reading for all citizens concerned about the fate of the presidency and the future of our democracy.
Click to Buy “Fascism” and at the same time help Lynxotic and All Independent Local Bookstores
A Fascist, observes Madeleine Albright, “is someone who claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is utterly unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use violence and whatever other means are necessary to achieve the goals he or she might have.” A personal and urgent examination of Fascism in the twentieth century and how its legacy shapes today’s world, written by one of America’s most admired public servants, the first woman to serve as U.S. secretary of state. Fascism: A Warning is a book for our times that is relevant to all times. Written by someone who has not only studied history but helped to shape it, this call to arms teaches us the lessons we must understand and the questions we must answer if we are to save ourselves from repeating the tragic errors of the past.
Click to Buy “Blowout” and at the same time help Lynxotic and All Independent Local Bookstores
In 2010, the words “earthquake swarm” entered the lexicon in Oklahoma. That same year, a trove of Michael Jackson memorabilia–including his iconic crystal-encrusted white glove–was sold at auction for over $1 million to a guy who was, officially, just the lowly forestry minister of the tiny nation of Equatorial Guinea. And in 2014, Ukrainian revolutionaries raided the palace of their ousted president and found a zoo of peacocks, gilded toilets, and a floating restaurant modeled after a Spanish galleon. Unlikely as it might seem, there is a thread connecting these events, and Rachel Maddow follows it to its crooked source: the unimaginably lucrative and equally corrupting oil and gas industry. With her trademark black humor, Maddow takes us on a switchback journey around the globe, revealing the greed and incompetence of Big Oil and Gas along the way, and drawing a surprising conclusion about why the Russian government hacked the 2016 U.S. election. She deftly shows how Russia’s rich reserves of crude have, paradoxically, stunted its growth, forcing Putin to maintain his power by spreading Russia’s rot into its rivals, its neighbors, the West’s most important alliances, and the United States. Chevron, BP, and a host of other industry players get their star turn, most notably ExxonMobil and the deceptively well-behaved Rex Tillerson. The oil and gas industry has weakened democracies in developed and developing countries, fouled oceans and rivers, and propped up authoritarian thieves and killers. But being outraged at it is, according to Maddow, “like being indignant when a lion takes down and eats a gazelle. You can’t really blame the lion. It’s in her nature.”
Click to Buy “Our Revolution” and at the same time help Lynxotic and All Independent Local Bookstores
When Bernie Sanders began his race for the presidency, it was considered by the political establishment and the media to be a “fringe” campaign, something not to be taken seriously. After all, he was just an Independent senator from a small state with little name recognition. His campaign had no money, no political organization, and it was taking on the entire Democratic Party establishment.
In Our Revolution, Sanders shares his personal experiences from the campaign trail, recounting the details of his historic primary fight and the people who made it possible. And for the millions looking to continue the political revolution, he outlines a progressive economic, environmental, racial, and social justice agenda that will create jobs, raise wages, protect the environment, and provide health care for all–and ultimately transform our country and our world for the better. For him, the political revolution has just started. The campaign may be over, but the struggle goes on.
The Press Responds with Extreme Concern as Last Line of Public Defense Against Trump’s Lawlessness
Media reporters have frequently panned Donald Trump ever since he announced his presidential campaign way back in 2015, and oftentimes for good reason. While many in the public like to play coy, find loopholes, and forgive the controversial President for his past and present wrongs, the objective press have done their job from day one, covering the Trump campaign and administration in nonpartisan print, for the most part, mirroring the facts on the ground.
Want to know more about Putin’s Corrupt Rise to power? Click to buy “Blowout” and at the same time help Lynxotic and All Independent Local Bookstores
All throughout the sexual allegations, the Mueller Report debacle, tax evasion accusations, and more, Trump has managed to weasel his way out of facing consequences and the press has dutifully reported on each occasion with measured impartiality. Bending over backwards, as it were, even as he attacked with cries of “fake news” and even singled out individual reports for his ire.
By 2017 the word “lie” in describing the, well, lies of Trumps tweets and speeches became commonplace. There was little alternative language that would suffice.
Recently, however, ever since the Senate acquitted Trump during the impeachment trial, there has been a second change in the press’ language and a shift in the media zeitgeist.
Because all evidence pointed to Trump’s guilt in soliciting election interference from Ukraine, yet he still got off scot free, many reporters are taking on a new, quasi-apocalyptic tone. According to several journalists, academics, writers, and theorists, Trump’s recent acquittal is the final straw, placing the United States in an unprecedented state of post-law politics that demands a call-to-action.
In “How far will you go to save our democracy from Donald Trump?” in Daily Kos the spectre of Tump refusing to accept the outcome of an election he loses is explored:
So then what? What if Trump loses the election, refuses to leave, and the GOP doesn’t make him? Can you imagine a scenario where Trump loses the popular vote AND the Electoral College, yet is still in office after a 5-4 vote in the Supreme Court? What would you do in this case? I am seriously asking YOU: Then what?
Trump has the GOP in his back pocket it seems, as all Republican Senators except Utah’s Mitt Romney defended him at the impeachment. Afraid to side with Democrats or damage their political careers, Republicans are essentially making Trump untouchable, prioritizing politics over morals and placing the President above the law.
Due to Trump’s political record of successfully bypassing legal boundaries, reporters are starting to question where the buck stops. If Republicans won’t reprimand Trump even when the evidence is glaring, then how far is the he able to go? If the Senate and House will protect Trump at all odds, then checks and balances become futile and American Democracy gets deformed.
Even well known outlets such as Salon.com are weighing in at this critical juncture in a way that goes beyond any previous level of alarm – and, bear in mind, Salon has been publishing since 1994 and was named by Time magazine one of the Best Web Sites of 1996.
In the recent Salon.com article “This isn’t an election: It’s a civil war, and our side isn’t necessarily winning” the venerated digital media outlet’s Lucian K. Truscott IV did not mince words:
…Trump also learned from Roy Cohn that you can steal stuff in plain sight and get away with it if you just say “Fuck you” loudly and often enough. I think that’s what Trump is doing to the whole country. He’s saying, “Fuck you. I never believed in your democracy, I never believed in your capitalism, I never believed in your establishment, and look what I did! I got elected president! Fuck you! I’m going to take everything I want! I’m going to fly Air Force One anywhere I want, and I’m going to play golf more often than Arnie Palmer, and I’m going to bellow racism and lies at my rallies, and I’m going to jack up the Secret Service for rooms at my resorts, and I’m not going to pay a fucking cent and what are you going to do about it? I’m going to call Vladimir Putin on the phone and I’m going to get him to help me steal another election, and fuck you.”
That’s Trump’s philosophy in a nutshell: do whatever you want and say “Fuck you.” He’s getting away with it the same way he got away with stiffing contractors and welching on bank loans and going into bankruptcy and taking out more loans and when they come due saying “Fuck you.”
-LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He has covered stories such as Watergate, the Stonewall riots and wars in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels and several unsuccessful motion pictures. He has three children, lives on the East End of Long Island and spends his time Worrying About the State of Our Nation and madly scribbling in a so-far fruitless attempt to Make Things Better. He can be followed on Facebook at The Rabbit Hole and on Twitter @LucianKTruscott.
Many now fear a Trump dictatorship built from chaos and lawlessness. Especially with the 2020 Election on the horizon, Trump has been quipping about the prospect of never leaving office—something that is obviously illegal in America and more fit for a monarchy. He is likely just saying this to enliven his followers and ruffle the media’s feathers. However, democracies have crumbled many times in the past and Trump has defied the Constitution enough times already, so who’s to say he won’t do it again?
One of Trump’s former confidants, Michael Cohen, has suggested that Trump won’t leave. In his congressional testimony before heading to prison, Trump’s former attorney said, “Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, there will never be a peaceful transition of power.”
Likewise, with the high turnover of people within Trump’s cabinet, the media is picking up on yet another domineering trend in the current presidency—whenever someone even hints at betraying the Commander in Chief, he or she ends up fired.
This manifested itself most recently with Trump’s removal of Joseph Maguire form the Director of National Intelligence position. On February 13th, Maguire found evidence that Russia planned to interfere with the 2020 election and briefed his findings to the president. All this was part of Maguire’s job, but Trump threw an enraged fit in response and ended up kicking Maguire out for good.
Perhaps MSNBC reporter Rachel Maddow summarized the state of the nation best in saying “The dark days are not coming, the dark days are here.”
“This is not a warning. The dark days are not coming. The dark days are here, And so those of us who have imagined times like this for our country. You know, who might have thought that heroic thing for us to do as citizens if our country ever took these turns would be to sound the alarm, to articulate what’s wrong with the direction our country is taking and to warn people about where it’s heading.
For those of us who thought that would be the kind of heroism called for, we were wrong. Because at least now that’s no longer the form of heroism that we need. That time is past. These guys are not sneaking around trying to get away with stuff, and the heroism is catching them and telling people what they’re doing. They are proclaiming openly that the rules gone, they will do what they want, the government will be turned against you if you stand against this president. That is not a warning. That is where we are. And so what do we do?”
Waiting idly as Trump’s dangerous behavior and actions are framed as mere potential is no longer an option for the press. Reporters have an obligation to remain impartial, but they also have an obligation to tell the truth, and when America’s democracy is in jeopardy, the truth can often come off as more theatrical and incredible than any dodgy, downplayed professional omission ever could.
***If you want to know what he actually said, and you are interested in the future of the country, please read the full text here:
“Two years ago, the Acting Attorney General asked me to serve as Special Counsel, and he created the Special Counsel’s Office. The appointment order directed the office to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. This included investigating any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign.
I have not spoken publicly during our investigation. I am speaking today because our investigation is complete. The Attorney General has made the report on our investigation largely public. And we are formally closing the Special Counsel’s Office. As well, I am resigning from the Department of Justice and returning to private life.
I’ll make a few remarks about the results of our work. But beyond these few remarks, it is important that the office’s written work speak for itself.
Let me begin where the appointment order begins: and that is interference in the 2016 presidential election.
As alleged by the grand jury in an indictment, Russian intelligence officers who were part of the Russian military launched a concerted attack on our political system.
The indictment alleges that they used sophisticated cyber techniques to hack into computers and networks used by the Clinton campaign.
They stole private information, and then released that information through fake online identities and through the organization WikiLeaks. The releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate.
And at the same time, as the grand jury alleged in a separate indictment, a private Russian entity engaged in a social media operation where Russian citizens posed as Americans in order to interfere in the election. These indictments contain allegations.
And we are not commenting on the guilt or innocence of any specific defendant. Every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.
The indictments allege, and the other activities in our report describe, efforts to interfere in our political system. They needed to be investigated and understood.
That is among the reasons why the Department of Justice established our office. That is also a reason we investigated efforts to obstruct the investigation.
The matters we investigated were of paramount importance. It was critical for us to obtain full and accurate information from every person we questioned.
When a subject of an investigation obstructs that investigation or lies to investigators, it strikes at the core of the government’s effort to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable.
Let me say a word about the report.
The report has two parts addressing the two main issues we were asked to investigate. The first volume of the report details numerous efforts emanating from Russia to influence the election.
This volume includes a discussion of the Trump campaign’s response to this activity, as well as our conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy.
And in the second volume, the report describes the results and analysis of our obstruction of justice investigation involving the President.
The order appointing me Special Counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation. We conducted that investigation and we kept the office of the Acting Attorney General apprised of the progress of our work.
As set forth in our report, after that investigation, if we had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that.
We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the President did commit a crime.
The introduction to volume two of our report explains that decision. It explains that under long-standing Department policy, a President cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional.
Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that too is prohibited. The Special Counsel’s Office is part of the Department of Justice and, by regulation, it was bound by that Department policy.
Charging the President with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider.
The Department’s written opinion explaining the policy against charging a President makes several important points that further informed our handling of the obstruction investigation. Those points are summarized in our report.
And I will describe two of them:
First, the opinion explicitly permits the investigation of a sitting President because it is important to preserve evidence while memories are fresh and documents are available. Among other things, that evidence could be used if there were co-conspirators who could now be charged.
And second, the opinion says that the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting President of wrongdoing.
And beyond Department policy, we were guided by principles of fairness. It would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of an actual charge.
So that was the Justice Department policy and those were the principles under which we operated. From them we concluded that we would not reach a determination – one way or the other – about whether the President committed a crime.
That is the office’s final position and we will not comment on any other conclusions or hypotheticals about the President. We conducted an independent criminal investigation and reported the results to the Attorney General – as required by Department regulations. The Attorney General then concluded that it was appropriate to provide our report to Congress and the American people.
At one point in time I requested that certain portions of the report be released. The Attorney General preferred to make the entire report public all at once. We appreciate that the Attorney General made the report largely public. I do not question the Attorney General’s good faith in that decision.
I hope and expect this to be the only time that I will speak about this matter. I am making that decision myself – no one has told me whether I can or should testify or speak further about this matter. There has been discussion about an appearance before Congress.
Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. It contains our findings and analysis, and the reasons for the decisions we made. We chose those words carefully, and the work speaks for itself.
The report is my testimony. I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before Congress. In addition, access to our underlying work product is being decided in a process that does not involve our office.
So beyond what I have said here today and what is contained in our written work, I do not believe it is appropriate for me to speak further about the investigation or to comment on the actions of the Justice Department or Congress.
It is for that reason that I will not take questions here today.
Before I step away, I want to thank the attorneys, the FBI agents, the analysts, and the professional staff who helped us conduct this investigation in a fair and independent manner.
These individuals, who spent nearly two years with the Special Counsel’s Office, were of the highest integrity.
I will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments – that there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election.
That allegation deserves the attention of every American. Thank you”
Former Trump “Fixer” Michael Cohen testifies before Oversight Committee
photo D. Leeds / CBS
Michael Cohen (President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer) sat before a House Of Representatives committee on Wednesday. Cohen has also been referred to as Trump’s “fixer”. Today he served as an informer, and allowed us access behind the Trump scenes.
In an opening statement, Cohen minced no words, he characterized his former high profile client as “…a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat.’ He also proclaimed “Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great.”
“…a Racist. He is a Conman. He is a Cheat.’
Cohen arrived willing to talk, and was poised. He provided detailed documents, and even provided checks signed by President Trump. One of the most stunning documents was a manipulated record of President Trump’s assets. According to Cohen, this document was used to rank higher on a Forbes magazine net worth list. This same document was also used as a bid to buy the Buffalo NFL team the Bills. The document was orchestrated using inflated property value, by the square foot. On aside, he also explained how he coordinated rigging online polls for Trump.
photo D. Leeds / CBS
Mr. Cohen also explained how they secured a $130,000 hush money pay-off to Stephanie Clifford aka Stormy Daniels. Clifford signed a Non Disclosure Deal to keep an affair with President Trump private. Cohen also explained how the “Catch & Kill” technique works. Former lawyer, Cohen explained how he used the “Catch & Kill” maneuver to secure an exclusive “life story rights agreement” with Karen McDougal and then shelving the story. Cohen also explained how Trump hid his reimbursed payments. Cohen also took the opportunity to apologize to First Lady Melania Trump earlier in the hearing. Later, Cohen even recollected an incident where President Trump put Cohen on the phone to lie to The First Lady.
The hearing was the first comprised of a Democrat led House, with Rep. Elijah Cummings presiding. Cummings also stated “The days of this committee protecting the president at all costs are over. They’re over,”
“The days of this committee protecting the president at all costs are over. They’re over,”
Republican congress members were hostile, and aggressive. Ranking member Jim Jordan attacked Cohen’s credibility.
Cohen pleaded guilty last November for lying to congress, in their first meeting. His lies were allegedly done on behalf of the President, and to protect the Trump Organization.
