Steve Bannon And Newt Gingrich Here To Tell Idiot White House Lawyers Their Bidniss

Wonkers, have we mentioned that we think the president's lawyers are completely fucking incompetent? Because we're two days out from Mueller Monday, when Papadopoulos's surprise plea caught everyone with their pants down, and Trump's advisors are still struggling to disentangle their pink bits from their flies.

Trump's in-house Russia lawyers, John Dowd and Ty Cobb, have long held the position that this Russia stuff is just a big misunderstanding. Which we know because they got caught blabbing about it in front of a New York Times reporter at lunch.

Here's a photo of Ty Cobb & John Dowd casually & loudly discussing details of Russia investigation at @BLTSteakDC while I sat at next table. pic.twitter.com/RfX9JLJ0Te 

— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) September 18, 2017 

White House Counsel Don McGahn has been screaming for months that they need to assert executive privilege and try to shield White House communications from Mueller's team. But Cobb knows that his client is pure as the driven snow, and has even suggested that Trump and Mueller might want to sit down for a friendly chat to tie up any remaining loose ends in the investigation. Even yesterday Cobb told CNN, 

I have a high degree of confidence that the facts in this case dictate the course that we're on and have contributed to the special counsel's ability to move expeditiously -- and, ideally, to be in a position to reach a prompt resolution and conclusion.

 Whatever you say, Mustache Man. 

Meanwhile, Steve Bannon is hollering in the president's ear that Laurel and Hardy aren't up to the job. From The Daily Beast, 

Bannon advised Trump not to demote Dowd and Cobb, but to bring in new lawyers to work over them, in the hopes that fresh blood would bring an order and "ruthlessness" to Trump's legal team that Bannon sees as desperately incompetent.

We hate to agree with the editor of Dead Breitbart's Home of Two-Shirt Fascists, but the guy does have a point. Six months ago, Bannon told Trump to keep Comey in place and just let the howler monkey media do its thing. Instead he listened to Javanka and wound up committing some light obstruction of justice (ALLEGEDLY). Firing Mueller would be political suicide, but Bannon and the Murdoch boys will be more than happy to rev up the lie machine and undermine the investigation by turning a career civil servant into a uranium-snorting Saul Alinsky Deep Stater.

But Trump is A IDIOT, so he'll probably listen to his oligarch buddy from Newsmax. Take it away, WaPo! 

“I like Steve, but his advice is not always the most helpful,” said Christopher Ruddy, a Trump friend and the chief executive of Newsmax, a conservative media outlet. “In this case, whatever Steve says, the president should do the opposite.”

Rounding out the Trump braintrust, you have Newt Gingrich. Who is also not a lawyer, but is very sure that Robert Mueller must go directly to jail for entrapmenting those poor, innocent White House staffers. Per WaPo, 

“Mueller ought to be held accountable,” Gingrich said.

He ticked through a series of what he considers questionable moves by Mueller and his team, including their handling of former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, whom the government described in an indictment unsealed Monday as a “proactive cooperator.”

“Congress should look seriously at whether Mueller put a wire on this guy and sent him around to entrap people,” Gingrich said. “If that happened, Congress better see the full transcripts, not just the FBI’s edited versions. Congress should also ask why they’re raiding [former campaign chairman Paul] Manafort’s home at 5 a.m. for a white-collar crime from a few years ago.”

We are a lawyer, and we are pretty sure that a career prosecutor knows the difference between entrapment and getting someone to admit to prior bad acts on tape. There's also the minor point that Manafort's conviction rests on evidence found during that raid which Manafort had withheld during the investigation. But you do you, Newt.

And God only knows what Javanka are telling The Old Man to do. Pretty sure it involves Saturday Night Massacring Rod Rosenstein, if Kushner's prior wise counsel is any guide. Lucky thing the White House leaks like a sieve, so we'll probably find out before dinner. THIS IS ALL FINE.

[ CNN, / The Daily Beast / WaPo ]

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