George Will says Pence has now displaced Trump as "worst person in government."

Conservative columnist and frequent Sunday morning TV talk show guest, George Will, has delivered a denunciation of Vice President Pence, using his [Will's] signature elevated vocabulary to heap scorn on the hapless Pence, not unlike William F. Buckley used to do.   Ordinary mortals, however, can ascertain that Will does not like the Veep.

He starts by referring to him as "oleaginous . . . with a talent for toadyism and appetite for obsequiousness."  He implies that Trump chose him as a running mate so that he [Pence] would "become America's most repulsive public figure," thereby sparing Trump that designation.

Pence has mastered the art of appearing to adore every utterance that comes from the president's mouth;  and he shows masterful facial control by never, ever appearing shocked, surprised, or even quizzical when Trump utters utter nonsense or blatant lies.  His expressions range from adoring to vapid.

Even champion spouse-adorer Nancy Reagen, while always gazing fondly on hubby in public, was known to get her way behind the scenes.   Pence seems to be just along for the ride -- until it's his turn -- and make no waves until them.

How many times has he said in public forums how "honored" he is to serve with President Trump?    How many times has he had to mop up for, give tortured explanations for, or otherwise come along behind the elephant with his pooper-scooper?  And how often have you shared my opinion that Mike Pence is the most fake-sincere, boringly-unbelievable politician working today?

These last three paragraphs are my words, not George Will's;   but I suspect he might agree.    Now back to what Will did say, beginning with Pence's staged football game walk-out:

"Pence and his retinue flew to Indiana for the purpose of walking out of an Indianapolis Colts football game, thereby demonstrating that football players kneeling during the national anthem are intolerable to someone of Pence's refined sense of right and wrong.   Which brings us to his Arizona salute last week to Joe Arpaio, who was sheriff of Maricopa County until in 2016 voters wearied of his act.

"Noting that Arpaio was in his Tempe audience [a rally for a local political candidate], Pence, oozing unctuousness from every pore, professed himself 'honored' by Arpaio's presence, and praised him as a tireless champion of . . . the rule of law.'   Arpaio, a grandstanding, camera-chasing bully and darling of the thuggish right, is also a criminal, convicted of contempt of court for ignoring a federal judge's order to desist from certain illegal law enforcement practices. . . .

[So how does Pence conclude that Arpiao is a "tireless champion of the rule of law," when he was convicted for ignoring a federal judge's order?]

". . . . [Pence's] pandering had no purpose beyond serving Pence's vocation, which is to ingratiate himself with his audience of the moment.   The audience for his praise of Arpaio was given to chanting "Build that wall!" and applauded Arpaio, who wears Trump's pardon like a boutonniere. . . .

"There will be negligible legislating by the next Congress, so ballots cast this November will be most important as validations or repudiations of the harmonizing voices of Trump, Pence, Arpaio and the like.   Trump is what he is, a floundering, inarticulate jumble of gnawing insecurities and not at all compensating vanities, which is pathetic.   Pence is what he has chosen to be, which is horrifying."

*     *     *

Thus bespoke George Will.   I've been thinking lately about all the cascading new revelations, daily, that could implicate Trump in serious financial crimes, as well as obstruction of justice.  While my appetite for impeachment is whetted, I also have misgivings.

Much as I want Trump ousted from the office he daily defames and diminishes, we should also consider what we would get instead.    On top of all the scorn George Will heaped on Pence's white toady head, Pence really isn't very bright, in my opinion.    And he was not a good governor -- and was perhaps saved from a re-election defeat by being chosen by Trump.   Do we want a President Pence?

Might we try to endure two more years of Trump -- and then vote them both out of office in 2020?   With at least a Democratic House, if not also the Senate, it wouldn't be as bad.   But . . .  I'm ambivalent.    Two and a half more years of the Orange Bandit?   I'm not sure our democracy would still be intact.

Ralph

More midweek news briefs

1.  Rudy Giuliani has been forced to resign from his New York law firm.   It was his remarks on Fox television about paying to silence people for his clients -- just like Michael Cohen did.  Rudy said he did that all the time for his clients, often without necessarily telling them about it first.   Apparently, Rudy's trying to fix Trump's problem got a little out of hand -- at least as far as his law firm felt.    They adamantly declined to have their firm associated with paying hush money.  Is there anyone who has been associated with Donald Trump who doesn't somehow become tainted?

2.  Don Blakenship is the former West Virginia coal mine owner who spent a year in prison for having ignored mine safety laws that resulted in 29 miners dying in an accident in his mine.  He was running for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate to take Joe Manchin's seat.   He ran as a Republican but a rabidly anti-Washington, anti-Mitch McConnell zealot.   His ads were despicably racist, and Blankenship came in third out of three running in the Republican primary.

3.   Senate hearings on the nomination of Gina Haspel to head the CIA have brought the torture question front and center, since Ms. Haspel played a big role in overseeing a secret site where 9/11 suspects were interrogated.   She says she would not bring back torture as Director, but she declined to call it immoral in answer to questions.    Later, Dick Cheney said he strongly supports reinstituting the enhanced interrogation program.   And a  guest on Fox Business News, Retired Lt. Gen Tom McInerney -- a noted conspiracy theorist and Obama birth-citizen denier -- claims that "It worked on John McCain. . . That's why they call him 'Songbird John.'"
     The host later apologized for not challenging that, saying that his control room was speaking in his ear at the time and he did not hear the remark.   There's no truth to that outrageous claim about McCain.   McCain was tortured as a POW -- and resisted.   In fact, when the enemy found out his uncle was a  high ranking naval officer, they said they would release him.   But he declined, saying that until all of his fellow prisoners were released, he would stay.

4.   The KKK member who fired a gun during the rally in Charlottesville has been convicted of improperly firing a gun into a crowd and could get up to 10 years in prison.

5.  President Trump is in danger of losing another cabinet secretary -- and not one of those (Pruitt, Zinke, DeVos) that we'd particularly like to see go.   Homeland Security Administrator Kirstjen Nielsen was upset enough by the president yelling at her during a cabinet meeting about not having secured the borders that she wrote a letter of resignation.   She has not yet given it to Trump, but she is said to be miserable in the job.    She gets the brunt of his wrath that people are still coming into the country illegally.    And Trump also feels some are balking at his order to separate children from their mothers at the border.   Homeland Security later put out a release saying that Sec. Nielsen had not written a resignation letter.

6.  President and Mrs. Trump were waiting at the air base at 2:00 am to meet Mike Pompao's plane bringing home the three Korean-American, naturalized citizens who have been held in a North Korean prison.  Kim Jong Un released them as part of the prelude to his meeting with Trump next month.
     All went well, with heartfelt exchanges of welcome and gratitude, and then the released men were leaving to be taken to Walter Reed Hospital for checkups.  And then, I suppose, Trump just couldn't contain it any longer.   As described by the New York Times reporter:  ". . . he turned back toward the floodlights.  'I think you probably broke the all-time in history television rating for 3 o'clock in the morning,' Mr. Trump said.  Minutes later, he boarded Marine One back to the White House."

     Ah, well . . . if only his self-centeredness and ratings fetish were the worst complaints we had about him.

Ralph

P.S.    Michael Hirschorn, Emmy Award winning television producer and commentator about the reality of celebrity personalities, was a guest to discuss the meaning of this Trumpism with Ari Melber on MSNBC.  He referred to the Trump administration in general as "malevolence tempered by incompetence."
     Perfect.

Midweek news briefs

1.  Trump pulls out of Iran deal:  The juxtaposition of Trump pulling the US out of the Iran nuclear agreement -- at the same time he is about to negotiate an agreement with North Korea to give up their nuclear program  -- is just too neat by half not to jump to the conclusion that they are related, at least in Trump's mind.   Trump has been relentless in denigrating any achievement by Obama -- and, where possible, actually destroying anything that he accomplished.
     So he pulls out of the Iran deal, which has so far been doing exactly what it was designed to do, as certified on 11 successive reporting periods by the International Atomic Energy Agency that does inspections.   And at the same time, Trump begins negotiations to forge a nuclear agreement with North Korea.
     Let's give Trump some credit -- along with Kim Jong-un, and especially South Korea's Moon Jae-in.   The latter two deserve most of the credit so far for bringing us to the table.   At least Trump has not scuttled it.  And now, with dreams of a Nobel Peace Prize dancing in his head -- maybe he really will follow through.
      Back to the juxtaposition:   Obama was given a Nobel Peach Prize -- not for the Iran deal;  it came before that, and it was admittedly given to him as encouragement of what everyone believed would be his stance toward world peace.  But, in Trump's mind, it's more primitive.   "Obama got one;   I want mine."  Personally, I would not favor giving Trump a peace prize when he's just scuttled peace in another part of the world, even if he does make peace with North Korea.

2.   Kim released three American citizens:   As Trump was making his televised announcement about withdrawing from the Iran deal, Secretary of State Mike Pompao was on a plane to North Korea to meet with Kim Jong-un, reportedly to negotiate further the details of the summit meeting.   The real purpose, as revealed the next morning, was that Kim had agreed to release the three American citizens being held in prison there.   They are expected to land, along with Pompao, at Andrews Air Base about 2:00 am on Thursday;  and Trump says he will be there to meet them.
     Even in a moment that could deservedly be triumphant for him, however, Trump could not resist embellishing it with a lie involving Obama.    He said that Obama had done nothing to get these three men released, and now he (Trump) has accomplished it.   The TRUE  FACT is that two of the three men were captured by the North Koreans only after Trump was president.  And yet he blames Obama for doing nothing to gain their release.

3.   Here's a question to ponder:   What if Robert Mueller presents irrefutable evidence of real criminal behavior (pay to play, money laundering, collusion with Russians -- the circle is tightening) at the same time that Trump has just made a nuclear deal with North Korea.     Talk about juxtaposition!!   Will that insure him against impeachment?

4.  Cohen in big trouble;  maybe Trump too:  Evidence is mounting -- lots of good journalistic reporting into Michael Cohen -- that may implicate Trump as well.   It seems that the LLC company, Essential Consultants, LLC, that Cohen has said he set up to make the payment to Stormy Daniels, was actually a more general fund. 

     The following allegations all come from what appears to have been a leak of Michael Cohen's bank records;  no source has yet been identified, but it appears to be authentic.   According to this, a total of over four million dollars flowed in and out of that account from corporations having business before the Trump administration.    For example, more than half a million came from investment firm Columbus Nova, a New York firm controlled by a Russian oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg, who has close ties to Vladimir Putin.   By routing it through the New York firm, which I believe is managed by a relative of Vekselberg, it may not technically be considered to have come from a foreign national -- even though it's probably true that the money originated with Vekselberg himself.
      Some of the following corporations have acknowledged their payments to the LLC and attempted to explain what they were paying for.   AT&T made four monthly payments of $50,000 each.   They say it was for consultation "to provide insights into the new administration" (AT&T's merger with Time Warner awaits approval by the Justice Department;  however, it's also true the payments ended shortly after the FCC voted to end net neutrality).   Another large amount, reportedly $1.2 million came from Novartis, an international pharmaceutical company, which has acknowledged that it had a one-year contract with Michael Cohen for consultation on healthcare policy matters.   Novartis also said that, after Trump's election, Cohen contacted them offering access to the president through him.
     So far, we have little evidence of where money from that account went.   We know $130,000 went to Stormy Daniels;   another payment was hush-money to the mistress of a friend of Trump's who was highly involved in fund-raising for the inauguration and for the RNC.

      But all the rest?    Who consulted, if at all?   Cohen was not listed as a lobbyist;  he was not known as a consultant of any kind.   What he had was access to the president.   It may not quite fill the definition of "pay to play," --- but it comes damn close.
      And what about the Russian oligarch with close ties to Putin?   What did he get for his contribution?    We know he attended the inauguration and had a priority seat.   We also know that on another trip to the U.S. in his private plane, he was stopped by border patrol, his digital devices were searched.   And we also know that he has been interviewed by Mueller's team.
     This is only the tip of the iceberg in the Cohen-Trump story.

And that's only some of what's on the front pages. 

Ralph

Trump presents dishonest case against the Iran deal

President Trump followed through on his promise to pull the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear agreement, which was carefully negotiated over years with Iran -- and a coalition of the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia.

In his short speech announcing it, Trumpj gave no coherent rationale that was based on the realities of the agreement -- rather, he gave dishonest claims about things that were not covered in the negotiated agreement.   Here are some thoughts about all this, in no particular order.

1.  I'd wager that the prime motivator for Trump is that the agreement was one of the most important legacy items of the Obama presidency.   Trump can't stand not to undo everything Obama did, starting with the Affordable Health Care Act.

2.  The Iran deal was intentionally limited to their nuclear program -- and the sanctions we and our allies put on them to pressure the Iranians.   Intentionally left out -- because Iran would never have come to the table if we included them -- were their sponsoring of terrorist groups and actions, their aggressive military actions, their treatment of their own people etc. 
    But now Trump cites those things as though they were in the agreement and Iran's continuation of them is evidence of their cheating.  That is false and dishonest to use as an argument.  Yes, they are still doing those things, but they were not part of the nuclear agreement.  Either Trump doesn't even understand the agreement, or he is being willfully dishonest.

3.  The always arrogant Trump hardly even mentioned our allies in this agreement.  He spoke as though it were a bilateral agreement between Iran and the U.S.   In fact, some Iranians are saying they might continue the terms of the agreement -- minus the U.S. -- and hope the U.S. comes back around (translation:  maybe Trump will be gone soon).

4.  Let's  remember that it was the United States that was instrumental in covertly over-throwing the democratically elected, socialist government of Iran and Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh in 1953 -- and put the Shah back in power until his death and the takeover of the clerics.   We don't exactly own the high ground here,

5.   Trump claims that Iran has cheated on the deal (not true to any significant degree according to the International Atomic Energy Agency that does aggressive inspections).  Trump also denigrates the IAEA falsely claiming that there is a deal between them and Iran that let's Iran get away with hiding stuff -- the  "evidence" that Netantyahu trotted out is not new and proves nothing of the sort.

6.   What will be the political effect in Iran?   President Rouhani is leader of the more moderate political wing, but also someone who is adept at getting along with the conservative clerics in power.   Rouhani was the champion of getting the nuclear agreement;  in effect his reputation depends on its success.   Trump's action will undermine his authority and reputation.  That is not good.   

7.  What will be the effect on the U.S. and on Trump's credibility?   Except for Trunp's base, for whom he can do nothing better than carry through on the rough  claims he made during the campaign.    For everyone else, including our international allies and our foes -- both he and the U.S. will lose credibility.  How can your trust us as a negotiating partner, whether in political treaties or trade agreements, when we just walk away from something as important as the Iran nuclear agreement?

8.   It's another giant step away from the United States being a leader of the free world.    When all our allies tried to talk Trump out of doing this, when many of his own staff tried to talk him out of it -- and he refused to take their advice -- that is not leadership in the modern world.   That is simply being obstreperous.

9.  And how will this affect Trump's position weeks before he goes into negotiations with North Korea's Kim Jong-un?   Kim is a shrewd observer, it seems.  He's been taking notes on how Trump operates.    He knows by now how to play him.   It does not bode well for that nuclear agreement being a lasting success.   Kim is making all the concessions at this point.   [Note:  Wednesday morning. Kim has released the three American citizens being held in North Korea prisons;  Mike Pompao is bringing them home.]  Is Kim really playing it straight and wants to put his past behind and become a modern economic nation?  Or, given his past crimes like assassinations of relatives to ensure his power, is this simply playing Trump with flattery until he gets what he wants -- and then reneges on the nukes?

10.  We know that Trump now has a National Security Adviser (John Bolton) and a Secretary of State (Mike Pompao) who oppose the Iran deal.   What I don't know is what they think is going to come of this action.    Will the other allies and Iran just continue on as though we just 'dropped out'?   Will they try to renegotiate?  Will we?    What would motivate Iran to do so at this point?
[Note:  Wednesday morning.   John Bolton says that "Iran is pushing us toward war."    We pull out of the agreement, and it's they pushing toward war?]

11.  Let's be clear about what's happening here.   The U.S. is about to violate the agreement which, if they so choose, could give Iran the rationalization to declare the agreement dead -- and start their nuclear program again.    From the rhetoric coming out of Iran, it sounds like they may not want to do that, at this point.   But they could logically.   But it's true.   Trump has said that Iran was cheating, but no one in an official inspection capacity has said so.   But it is absolutely a fact that we have violated the treaty by withdrawing.   Journalist Nick Kristoff said on tv today that what Trump did was not just a violation of the agreement, "it was vandalism."  Because what he is doing is an attack on the very structure of the thing itself.

12.  Ryan Cooper, writing about this in "The Week" concluded with this:

"At any rate, all this should put the hawks' carping into context. The real core of the Iran deal has virtually nothing to do with what the country was doing 15 years ago — . . .  what really matters is what Iran is doing now, and on that score the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have consistently reported that Iran is living up to its end of the bargain. They are keeping their nuclear programs and facilities within the deal's limits, and allowing inspectors the extensive access needed to confirm this fact. 

"Ultimately, proving a negative is very difficult, but the IAEA staff come as close as one could realistically get. Moreover . . .  the quickest way to get Iran to restart a crash nuclear weapons program would be to unilaterally abrogate the deal, allowing them to kick out the inspectors and do whatever they want.

"The IAEA is full of professional nuclear physicists, diplomats, and security experts. It is the most credible voice in the world on nuclear security questions — and at a minimum, it's surely not in the pocket of the Iranian government. The people on the other side of the debate are either bloodthirsty neocons who never saw a war of aggression they didn't like, or the Israeli government and its apologists. What they want is an end to Iran as a regional power, and to make the United States shoulder the burden. Let us decline the invitation."

Ralph

As Trump said to the NRA convention . . .

One of the garbled lines in Trump's speech to the recent NRA convention:

"Your second amendment rights are under siege;  but they will never, ever be under siege as long as I'm your president."

What???   Is he resigning?    Or just addled?

Trump's unethical use of the presidency to make money on his properties.

Walter Schaub, the former Director of the U. S. Office of Government Ethics, wrote this op-ed for the Washington Post.   It's titled:   "Mar-a-Lago Isn't 'The Winter White House.  It's Just an Embarrassing Cash Grab."

*     *     *

"The 'Southern White House' is a nearly perfect symbol of the Trump administration's ethical failings.  President Trump has on a number of occasions tweeted or spoken the phrase 'Southern White House' in reference to Mar-a-Lag0, his private club in Palm Beach, Fla.   Last month, for example, while sitting beside Japan's prime minister in front of a television crew at Mar-a-Lago, he proclaimed that the club is 'indeed' the Southern White House, boasting, 'And again, many, many people want to be here.  Many of the leaders want to be here.  They request specifically.'

"But there is no 'Southern White House.' . . .  Other presidents had nicknames for their homes away from Washington, but those were private residencies.   President George  W. Bush, for example, informally dubbed his private ranch in Texas the 'Western White House' and even met foreign officials there, but it was a relatively private retreat.   The ranch was a personal residence.  Bush was not implying a link to government, and he definitely was not selling membership privileges with respect to the unassuming four bedroom, single-story home on his ranch.

". . . In contrast to the homes of his predecessors, Trump's ostentatious club is a commercial enterprise . . .  The phrase 'Southern White House' is a transparent marketing pitch, connoting the availability of access to power for a price.   Interested parties -- be they captains of industry or agents of hostile foreign governments -- can buy insider access to a place the president frequents.   The initiation fee, which Trump doubled upon winning the election, is $200,000.   He may belong to the people now, but the club belongs to him.  Prospective purchasers can rest assured that their cash will still reach him. . . .

"The link between government and Trump's financial interests is anything but normal.  One popular definition holds that corruption is the misuse of entrusted authority for private gain.  We entrust our leaders with great power, and it is their responsibility not only to use that authority solely for our benefit but also to demonstrate that they are using it solely for our benefit.  Branding the president's for-profit club as government-linked demonstrates the opposite.

"Trump's supporters might remind us that he is exempt from the primary criminal conflict of interest statute . . . and most of the regulatory standards of conduct.  This is true, but past presidents understood that their exemption from ethics requirements was not a reward for attaining high office;  it was a practical necessity. . . .  A president simply cannot recuse from anything without shirking constitutional duties and depriving us of our chief executive official. . . .

"Past presidents knew, however, that it would be wrong to hold themselves to lower ethical standards than those to which they held their subordinates.  After all, the whole idea of government ethics is to ensure that power is used for the benefit of the people, and nobody in our government has more power than our president.   Accordingly, all past presidents who took office since enactment of the Ethics in Government Act in 1978 fulfilled the spirit of the primary conflict of interest law by either divesting their conflicting financial interests or establishing qualified blind or diversified trusts certified by the Office of Government Ethics.  They also adhered as closely as practicable to the standards of conduct, including the provisions on misuse of position.

"Trump, who once pledged to 'in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses,' failed to live up to this honorable tradition when he took office.   Since then he has applied himself vigorously to monetizing the presidency.  Making explicit the commingling of personal and public interests, the Trump Tower gift shop has been caught grotesquely hawking a Trump mug bearing the presidential seal, and the Trump Organization ordered tee markers with that seal for his golf courses.   Each of his trips to his properties is an advertisement, inasmuch as the media must follow him and that he never misses an opportunity for promotion.  Who could forget his recounting that his club was serving 'the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you've seen' while he was bombing Syria?

"I would say Trump is getting the kind of advertising money can't buy, but we taxpayers are paying tens of millions for him to spend almost a third of his days in office visiting his properties.   Some of the money goes into his pocket.  We learned last fall that the Secret Service had paid him over $150,000 in golf cart rental fees for the privilege of guarding his life while he golfs.  Last month, Public Citizen issued a report finding that Trump's businesses had billed $15.1 million to campaign, political committee and federal government sources since he first launched his presidential campaign.

"The spectacle of businesses, industry associations, politicians, political groups, charities and even countries spending on events at his properties suggests that they are using his businesses to ingratiate themselves with him.  Even if any have innocent motives, the appearance problem undermines government legitimacy all the same.  Trump certainly hasn't discouraged anyone looking to curry his favor.  . . . The White House doesn't decline meetings with visitors who stay in his nearby Washington hotel, and sightings of White House staffers at the hotel's bar are now commonplace.

"This profiteering sets a bad tone from the top.  It tells the 2.8 million civilian federal employees who work for him that the man at the top doesn't care about government ethics.   This departure from our government's norms creates a pressure that the government ethics program may not be able to withstand indefinitely, especially if Trump's successor engages in similar behavior.  We have already seen a trickle-down effect on his appointees, with two Cabinet officials ousted for ethics problems and accusations of unethical behavior against EPA   Administrator Scott Pruitt, as well as a growing list of scandals that seem to erupt weekly, sometimes daily, in this administration.  We should hope that his behavior is an aberration and that future Republican and Democratic administrations will restore the ethical norms of government.  In the meantime, the phrase 'Southern White House' is a symbol of corruption that should set alarm bells ringing."

*     *     *

These are the measured tones of an ethicist.   What Trump evokes in me, and it's hard to mute, are feelings of outrage and contempt.   Still, even in Schaub's restraint, I did note a "grotesque" creeping in.

Ralph

The White House Comedy Hour

Kellyanne Conway was on "State of the Union" yesterday morning.   When asked whether she thinks the White House has a credibility problem, she of course said "No, I don't."   But when confronted with the fact of all the president's lies, she flat-out said, "President Trump doesn't lie."   Of course, she has to say that;   but she doesn't have to keep such a job.

And then there was the opening sketch to Saturday Night Li,ve this weekend.   It's worth watching, so look for the clip online.    The whole crew is there, with Kate McKinnon doing another great impersonation, this time as Rudy Giuliani; Alec Baldwin as Trump, Ben Stiller as Michael Cohen, and others, including the surprise guest, the real Stormy Daniels, playing herself.

Russia's real purpose in the Trump Tower meeting

General Michael Hayden, former National Security Adviser, former head of the CIA, and former Director of National Security, has a new book out:  The Assault on Intelligence, which contains a very interesting insight into the July 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with Don Trump, Jr. and the Russians.

Hayden addresses the question:   what was in this for the Russians?   Of course, what we've heard mostly is that they were wanting to make an appeal to Trump that, if elected, he would get rid of the sanctions against Russia.

But this was still early in the general election campaign.   They were ostensibly offering dirt on Hillary Clinton -- and maybe what they had to offer was the hacked emails from the DNC and Clinton's campaign manager.

Hayden has something to add that makes sense.   He says that this was part of the Russian's effort to gain an asset in the Trump campaign, and the focus here was on Don, Jr.    The Russians' technique of gaining an asset (it's really the same as th any spy agency) is to identify someone who is in an advantageous position (Donn Jr. was), and then offer something he wants (the dirt of Hillary).   They had already identified both of these as present in Don Jr.   The next step is to gain some leverage over the person, something they could use as pressure to cooperate all the way up to outright blackmail (here it could have been some collusion in getting or illegally using the Clinton emails).

Another former CIA Director, John McLaughlin, agreed with this assessment.  He predicted that, in some future Russian book on how to recruit spy assets, this will be presented as a classical case study in recruiting assets.   He added that, if our news media had not reported this story, and thereby destroyed Don Jr.'s usefulness as an asset to them, history might have a very different story to tell about Russia and the Trump administration.

In other words, this recruitment of Don Jr. as a Russian asset was working -- and might still be working had the meeting not been exposed by journalists' reporting.  

Ralph

Giuliani, Trump, and shaping the story

OK, folks.  We have one more version of Trump's repayment of the $130,000 to Michael Cohen . . . a la Giuliani.   Rudy now says that, yes, Trump was making monthly payments to Cohen to cover lots of things, including taxes.   He may not have known that Cohen was using some of the money to pay off Stormy Daniels -- so when Trump said he didn't know, that was literally true.

Rudy now says that he (Rudy) maybe learned that from co-counsel, not from Trump himself.   So when it was finally explained to Trump, his response, according to Rudy, was:

"Oh, my goodness.   I guess that's what that was for."

Ya think?   Does that sound like the Donald J. Trump we know?   Finding this out, he says, "Oh, my goodness"?????     I don't think so.

If it weren't so entertaining -- and possibly digging the trap for Trump ever deeper -- I'd strongly advise Rudy Giuliani to just shut up . . . and advise Donald Trump to get rid of him as his lawyer . . . now, if not sooner.   Don't let him go on Fox News even one more time.

New York Times columnist Gail Collins, with her usual bit of snark, put it this way:
". . . .  O.K., Trump base, how does that hit you?  It's not surprising that you've pretty much ignored the sex scandal.  But do you want a president who thinks of himself as a member of the untouchable elite folks [as Rudy portrayed him 2 days ago] -- who've got their own faithful retainers trotting at their heels, tossing out money to make unpleasant things like cranky ex-lovers go away?"

Collins continues:  "Giuliani's ability to put his foot in his mouth is so spectacular, you kind of expect him to be recruited by Cirque du Soleil.   In a sit-down with Sean Hannity, he threatened to 'get on my charger and go right into their offices with a lance' if investigators 'go after Ivanka.'  [After offering the excuse that 'she's his daughter,' Rudy sealed his rationale with]  'She's a fine lady.'  Asked about her husband, Giuliani said that Jared Kushner was probably 'a fine man. . . . But men are, you know, disposable.'"

Collins then played the feminism card, railing at Rudy for suggesting that a senior adviser to the president should be let off the hook because of her gender.  And she suggested that, as she claims to be a feminist, Ivanka should volunteer immediately to testify for Mueller "to strike a blow for equality."

Collins nailed Rudy on his odious chauvinism.   But, beyond that, is this a top-level lawyer you want thinking and speaking on your behalf?   Rudy Giuliani may have been what New York needed in the post 9/11 period (though I'm not convinced), and he may one time have been a competent prosecutor when he headed the New York federal division that's now going after Michael Cohen.    But Rudy is now an aging has-been flak, best suited for his role as bumbling clown on the Fox network.   Just keep him far away from the White House.   Trump can create his own chaos, without Rudy's help.

Or . . . ?   Silly me?    Maybe this is all an act, part of the "Rudy and Donny Act," the purpose being to throw out so many stories, create so much chaos, that it then becomes impossible to ever sort it out.

Good thing Robert Mueller is on the case.

Ralph