Guess where I stuck that memo! Can you guess?
Look, we know that EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE here, and it's hard to focus on any one particular patch of flames. But the meetings yesterday where the White House put its jackboot on the DOJ's neck and forced it to roll over for Devin Fucking Nunes are really, really bad.
Republicans would like to pretend this is a normal part of their congressional oversight function. They are lying. And they do it with gusto! Here's Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisting that it was totally appropriate to exclude Democrats from the meeting, since they objected to the release of the information anyway.
To my knowledge, the Democrats have not requested that information. So I would refer you back to them on why they would consider themselves randomly invited to see something they’ve never asked to.
Why even does the minority party think it has any right to participate in our Democracy? How random!
Even some Republicans were like, Hmmm, maybe be a touch less obvious with the banana republic stuff, 'kay? So John Kelly was instructed to set up a second meeting with the Gang of Eight, because we've now given up all pretense that the White House is staying out of the Special Counsel investigation of the President's campaign.
SO NORMAL!
And just in case Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray fail to grasp that the President is making them an offer they can't refuse, the White House dispatched a couple of enforcers to clarify the point.
Ooops, wrong picture.
@tedbarrettcnn spots Flood entering the Senate for the Gang of Eight meeting. The WH attorney dealing with Russia probe attended both briefings today for at least part of the time, despite the WH saying this week no WH official would attend pic.twitter.com/4RUbGg7E6r
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 24, 2018
That's right, the White House Chief of Staff and the president's lawyer for the Russia investigation paid a friendly visit to remind the FBI that they hope it will cooperate fully with Devin Nunes and the rest of the Treason Squad.
Nice Justice Department you got there. Be a shame if anything were to happen to it.
There's a lot of fake outrage in DC. See, Glassofwatergate. See also, Kneelghazi.But this outrage is not fake.
For the record, the President’s Chief of Staff and his attorney in an ongoing criminal investigation into the President’s campaign have no business showing up to a classified intelligence briefing.
— Mark Warner (@MarkWarner) May 24, 2018
It is completely inappropriate for a lawyer representing a subject of the investigation to attend the congressional oversight meeting in which nonpublic information about the investigation was revealed. What possible legitimate purpose could his attendance have served? https://t.co/4TdMvPF5AZ
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) May 24, 2018
Call it norms, call it separation of powers, call it whatever you want. The president is breaking down every wall that protects our justice system and allows us to have a functioning democracy.
THIS SHIT IS REALLY BAD.
And just in case there was any doubt that Trump's legal team intends to use the confidential information gleaned from these meetings to fight the Mueller investigation, Rudy Giuliani is saying the quiet part out loud again. He told Politico that Trump's decision on whether to sit for an interview with Robert Mueller depends on “how the briefing went today and how much we learned from it."
More importantly, Giuliani alluded to the big prize Nunes and Gowdy are seeking in their quest to undermine the Russia investigation -- the original, confidential memo outlining the scope of enquiry.
I don’t want the guy’s identity. I don’t want classified information. What I need to know is, 'What’s the basis for their doing it?' Most important, 'What did the informant produce?'
Yeah, no shit! If there was anyone in DC who didn't know the guy's identity last week, they do now. What Rudy wants is just all of Robert Mueller's evidence, NBD. Just like any suspected criminal can walk into the police station and demand to see their files. (That was sarcasm, in case you wandered in here from Rupert Murdoch's home for Skeered White Peeple What Don't Read Good.) And Rudy wants the original scope memo, so he can make some bullshit argument about about how it's NO FAIR that Mueller found all those Russian bodies in the trunk, since the warrant only says he can look in the car and the car is not the trunk. Or whatever.
Weirdly enough, the Washington Post reports that nobody asked Rosenstein and Wray for the memo at the second, larger meeting yesterday.
Briefers from the Justice Department brought documents with them to the Gang of Eight meeting, but lawmakers did not ask to see them, two people briefed on the matter said. The people said Nunes said nothing at all at that meeting.
HUH. Had Devin already gotten copies in the earlier meeting and sent them by messenger-cow to the White House? Or did his ALLEGED Mad Cow Disease make him forget to do treasons? Is Rudy Giuliani shit out of luck?
We don't know! But we do know that this whole thing is a tragic disgrace. And you should be MAD AS HELL.
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