Posts Tagged ‘MICHAEL COHEN’
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALBERT SPEER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DONALD TRUMP, ERICH VON MANSTEIN, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCE, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, JAMES COMEY, JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY, MAGINOT LINE, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROY COHN, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WORLD WAR 11
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 14, 2024 at 12:10 am
On January 27, 1944, Adolf Hitler convened a meeting of 100 of his military chiefs, including all the army group commanders of the Eastern front.
The war against the Soviet Union was going badly while the Americans and British were preparing to invade France. And Hitler believed he had the recipe for assuring victory: The Wehrmacht needed to be inoculated with the spirit of National Socialism.
At the end of his long-winded speech, he addressed this challenge to his generals:
“If the worse ever comes to the worst, and I am ever abandoned as Supreme Commander by my own people, I must still expect my entire officer corps to muster around me with daggers drawn—just as every field marshal or the commander of an army corps, division or regiment expects his subordinates to stand by him in the hour of crisis.”
Adolf Hitler
Sitting in the front row was Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, perhaps the most brilliant member of the German General Staff. It was Manstein who had designed the “Sickle Cut” attack on France in May, 1940.
Bypassing the much-vaunted Maginot Line, the Wehrmacht struck through Belgium, taking the French completely by surprise. As a result, it defeated France in six weeks—something Germany had been unable to do during the four years of World War 1.
Now, in a loud voice, Manstein proclaimed: “And so it will be, Mein Fuhrer!”
Hitler froze; it had been more than a decade since anyone had dared interrupt him. Then, trying to make the best of a bad moment, he continued: “Very well. If this is the case, it will be impossible for us to lose this war.”
Hitler hoped that Manstein had intended to reassure him of his loyalty. But Martin Bormann, his al-powerful secretary, told him that the generals had interpreted the outburst differently: That the worse would indeed come to the worst.
Erich von Manstein
And, which, in fact, happened.
As the Russian army closed in on his underground bunker in April, 1945, Hitler revealed his utter contempt for the Germans who had so blindly served him for 12 years.
“If the war is lost,” Hitler told his former architect and now Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer, “the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable.
“There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence.
“On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation.”
Just as Hitler demanded loyalty from his accomplices to infamy, so does Donald Trump.
Former FBI Director James Comey has had firsthand experience in attacking organized crime—and in spotting its leaders.
In his bestselling memoir, A Higher Loyalty, he writes:
“As I found myself thrust into the Trump orbit, I once again was having flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the mob. The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and the truth.”
James Comey
Validating Comey’s comparison of Trump to a mobster is the case of Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime attorney and fixer.
A longtime executive of the Trump Organization, Cohen told ABC news in 2011: “If somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn’t like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump’s benefit.”
In April 2018, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York began investigating Cohen. Charges reportedly included bank fraud, wire fraud and violations of campaign finance law.
Michael Cohen
By IowaPolitics.com (Trump executive Michael Cohen 012) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
On April 9, 2018, the FBI, executing a federal search warrant, raided Cohen’s office at the law firm of Squire Patton Boggs, as well as at his home and his hotel room in the Loews Regency Hotel in New York City.
Agents seized emails, tax and business records and recordings of phone conversations that Cohen had made.
Trump’s response: “Michael Cohen only handled a tiny, tiny fraction of my legal work.”
Thus Trump undermined the argument of Cohen’s lawyers that he was the President’s personal attorney—and therefore everything Cohen did was protected by attorney-client privilege.
Cohen, feeling abandoned and enraged, struck back: He “rolled over” on the man he had once boasted he would take a bullet for.
On August 23, on the Fox News program, “Fox and Friends,” Trump attacked Cohen for “flipping” on him:
“For 30, 40 years I’ve been watching flippers. Everything’s wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they—they flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go. It—it almost ought to be outlawed. It’s not fair.”
For Trump, as for Hitler, loyalty went only one way—from others to him. No one who served either man—no matter how loyally or how long—could be certain when he would be deemed disposable.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANDERSON COOPER, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GARY SCHULTZ, GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, HAMAS, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOUSE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, HUFFINGTON POST, ISRAEL, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JIM JORDAN, MARK COLEMAN, MATT GAETZ, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL COHEN, MIKE DISABATO, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICHARD STRAUSS, ROBERT S. MUELLER, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIAN SUBVERSION, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SEXUAL ABUSE, SLATE, SPECIAL COUNSEL, SPORTS, STEVE SCALISE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP, UPI, USA TODAY, WRESTLING
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 16, 2023 at 12:07 am
Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) became Speaker of the House of Representatives on January 7.
But there was a fatal catch: Desperate to become Speaker, he had agreed to let even a single lawmaker force a vote on his removal. This was a concession to about 20 holdouts.
On October 3, eight Right-wingers led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) forced that vote.
Kevin McCarthy
A scramble for the Speakership followed.
At first, Steve Scalise (R-LA) seemed to have the required number of votes—217.
But then he dropped out, admitting he couldn’t meet that requirement.
Next to jump into the ring: Jim Jordan (R-OH).
Jordan founded the House Freedom Caucus, which seeks to impose a Fascistic agenda on America.
Which makes him unacceptable to Republicans who want a Speaker who can break the Republican-induced House logjam. On October 13, more than 50 Republicans voted against supporting him.
Republicans’ failure to support a popular candidate has frozen the House while major international and domestic crises loom.
The most immediate: Israel’s war against Hamas, following the terrorist group’s horrific attacks that killed 1,300 Israelis on October 6.
Coming up: The November 17 shutdown of the federal government unless Congress agrees on a budget.
During and after Donald Trump’s Presidency, Jordan has defended his litany of demonstrated lies and documented criminality.
Appearing on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” on April 16, 2018, Jordan accused Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, of being a liar. He accused the Washington Post of lying. He asked Cooper if he had ever lied.
But, pressed by Cooper on whether he had ever heard Trump lie, Jordan replied: “I have not. I don’t know of it. Nothing comes to mind.”
Rep. Jim Jordan
Jordan pushed to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
Prior to the 2020 Presidential election, Jordan repeatedly claimed that Democrats would steal it. After Trump lost the election to Joe Biden, Jordan falsely charged that they had stolen it.
After the election, Jordan urged Trump not to concede, spread conspiracy theories, supported lawsuits attempting to disqualify the legitimate results and discussed plans to object to the 2020 election results on January 6, 2021.
In a message to CNN, Ryan Goodman, the editor of Just Security and a law professor at New York University, wrote: “Jordan’s appearances on right-wing and far right-wing news outlets and his social media account were a near constant drumbeat of disinformation up until January 6th.”
“Jim Jordan was deeply involved in Donald Trump’s antidemocratic efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” said Thomas Joscelyn, one of the authors of the final report from the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack at the United States Capitol.
“Jordan also helped organize congressional opposition to counting Biden’s certified electoral votes. None of Jordan’s efforts were rooted in legitimate objections. He simply sought to keep Donald Trump in power, contrary to the will of the American people.”
Even after the failed coup, 147 House and Senate Republicans voted to overturn the election. Jordan was one of them.
And Trump reciprocated. In his speech to his treasonous supporters on January 6, 2021, Trump called Jordan one of the “great ones” for his efforts.
Stormtrumpers trying to overturn the 2020 Presidential election
Meanwhile, Jordan is being haunted by a scandal of his own.
Jordan served as an assistant coach at Ohio State University (OSU) from 1987 to 1995. Several former OSU wrestlers claim Jordan ignored sexual abuse of students by the team’s doctor.
In April, 2018, OSU announced it was investigating charges that Richard Strauss had abused team wrestlers while he served as the team doctor from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. Strauss died in 2005.
Jordan claims he didn’t know about the abuse.
Yet several former wrestlers assert that they told Jordan about the abuse or remember Jordan being a part of conversations about the abuse.
“I considered Jim Jordan a friend,” Mike DiSabato, a former wrestler, told NBC. It was DiSabato’s allegations against Strauss that led OSU to open the investigation. “But at the end of the day, he is absolutely lying if he says he doesn’t know what was going on.”
In an email to Ohio State’s legal counsel, DiSabato wrote: “Strauss sexually assaulted male athletes in at least fifteen varsity sports during his employment at OSU from 1978 through 1998.”
“There’s no way unless he’s got dementia or something that he’s got no recollection of what was going on at Ohio State,” former Ultimate Fighting Championship world champion Mark Coleman told the Wall Street Journal about Jordan. “I have nothing but respect for this man, I love this man, but he knew as far as I’m concerned.”
Speaking with reporters in Ohio, Jordan offered a Sergeant Schultz “I know nothing” defense:
“We knew of no abuse, never heard of abuse. If we had, we would have reported it. If, in fact, there’s problems, we want justice for the people who were victims, obviously, and as I said, we are happy to talk with the folks who are doing the investigation. But the things they said about me just were flat-out not true.”
Thus, a President accused of multiple crimes finds himself defended by a man accused of ignoring the sexual abuse of young men.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARNOLD SCHWARTNEGGER, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BANDY X. LEE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICLA ACTION CONFERENCE (CPAC), CRAIG MALKIN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, FBI, FIRST AMENDMENT, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLETCHER KNEBEL, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), IVANKA TRUMP, JOHN T. GARNER, JOSEPH STALIN, KIM JONG-UN, LANCE DODES, LIBEL, MEDIA MATTERS, MERYL STREEP, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NARCISSISM, NBC NEWS, NEIL YOUNG, NEWSWEEK, NIGHT AT CAMP DAVID, NPR, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, OBAMACARE, PARANOIA, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PSYCHOSIS, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT S. MUELLER, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIOPATHY, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE MEDIA, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIRETAPPING, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 16, 2023 at 12:12 am
Donald Trump’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2, 2019 was an occasion for rejoicing among his supporters.
But for those who prize rationality and decency in a President, it was a dismaying and frightening experience.
For two hours, Trump gave free reign to his anger and egomania.
Among his unhinged commentaries:
“We have people in Congress that hate our country.”
If you don’t agree 100% with Trump on everything, you’re a traitor.
“He called me up. He said, ‘You’re a great President. You’re doing a great job.’ He said, ‘I just want to tell you you’re a great President and you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.'”
Trump attributed these remarks to California’s liberal governor, Gavin Newsom. On February 11, 2019, Newsom had announced he was withdrawing several hundred National Guardsmen from the state’s southern border with Mexico—defying Trump’s request for support from border states.
Donald Trump at CPAC
“You know if you remember my first major speech—you know the dishonest media they’ll say, ‘He didn’t get a standing ovation.’ You know why? Because everybody stood and nobody sat. They are the worst. They leave that out.”
Once again, he’s the persecuted victim of an unfair and totally unappreciative news media.
“And I love the First Amendment; nobody loves it better than me. Nobody. I mean, who use its more than I do? But the First Amendment gives all of us—it gives it to me, it gives it to you, it gives it to all Americans, the right to speak our minds freely. It gives you the right and me the right to criticize fake news and criticize it strongly.”
Trump has repeatedly called the nation’s free press “the enemy of the people”—a slander popularized by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. And while Trump brags about his usage of the First Amendment, he’s used Non-Disclosure agreements and threats of lawsuits to deny that right to others.
“For too long, we’ve traded away our jobs to other countries. So terrible.”
While this remark got rousing applause, he failed to mention that his own products are made overseas:
- Ties: Made in China
- Suits: Made in Indonesia
- Trump Vodka: Made in the Netherlands, and later in Germany
- Crystal glasses, decanters: Made in Slovenia
- And the clothing and accessories line of his daughter, Ivanka, is produced entirely in factories in Bangladesh, Indonesia and China.
“By the way, you folks are in here—this place is packed, there are lines that go back six blocks and I tell you that because you won’t read about it, OK.”
He’s obsessed with fear that the media won’t make him look popular.
“So we’re all part of this very historic movement, a movement the likes of which, actually, the world has never seen before. There’s never been anything like this. There’s been some movements, but there’s never been anything like this.”
Trump sees himself as the single greatest figure in history. So anything he’s involved with must be unprecedented.
“But I always say, Obamacare doesn’t work. And these same people two years ago and a year ago were complaining about Obamacare.”
In 2010, 48 million Americans lacked health insurance. By 2016, that number had been reduced to 28.6 million. So 20 million Americans now have access to medical care they previously couldn’t get.
“But we’re taking a firm, bold and decisive measure, we have to, to turn things around [with North Korea]. The era of empty talk is over, it’s over.”
- Trump had boasted that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un “fell in love.”
- On July 16, 2018, Trump attended a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. There he blamed American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA—instead of Putin for Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
“I’ll tell you what they [agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement] do, they came and endorsed me, ICE came and endorsed me. They never endorsed a presidential candidate before, they might not even be allowed to.”
Trump can’t stop boasting about how popular he is.
“These are hard-working, great, great Americans. These are unbelievable people who have not been treated fairly. Hillary called them deplorable. They’re not deplorable.”
On the contrary: “Deplorable” is exactly the word for those who vote their racism, ignorance, superstition and hatred of their fellow citizens.
A FINAL NOTE: Trump held himself up for adoration just three days after Michael Cohen, his longtime fixer:
- Damned him as a racist, a conman and a cheat.
- Revealed that Trump had cheated on his taxes and bought the silence of a porn “star” to prevent her revealing a 2006 tryst before the 2016 election.
- Estimated he had stiffed, on Trump’s behalf, hundreds of workers Trump owed money to.
And, only two days earlier, Trump had returned from a much-ballyhooed meeting in Vietnam with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. Trump hoped to get a Nobel Peace Prize by persuading Kim to give up his nuclear arsenal.
Instead, Trump got stiffed—and returned empty-handed.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARNOLD SCHWARTNEGGER, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BANDY X. LEE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICLA ACTION CONFERENCE (CPAC), CRAIG MALKIN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, FBI, FIRST AMENDMENT, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLETCHER KNEBEL, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), IVANKA TRUMP, JOHN T. GARNER, JOSEPH STALIN, KIM JONG-UN, LANCE DODES, LIBEL, MEDIA MATTERS, MERYL STREEP, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NARCISSISM, NBC NEWS, NEIL YOUNG, NEWSWEEK, NIGHT AT CAMP DAVID, NPR, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, OBAMACARE, PARANOIA, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PSYCHOSIS, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT S. MUELLER, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIOPATHY, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE MEDIA, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIRETAPPING, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 15, 2023 at 12:16 am
“Is this man simply crazy, or is he crazy like a fox?”
That was the question that Bandy X. Lee, an assistant clinical psychiatry professor at the Yale School of Medicine, wanted to answer about Donald J. Trump.
And she tried to do so as the editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.
“It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to notice that our president is mentally compromised,” she and colleague Judith Lewis Herman asserted in the book’s prologue.
According to Dr. Craig Malkin, a Lecturer in Psychology for Harvard Medical School and a licensed psychologist, Trump is a pathological narcissist:
“Pathological narcissism begins,” Malkin writes, “when people become so addicted to feeling special that, just like with any drug, they’ll do anything to get their ‘high,’ including lie, steal, cheat, betray and even hurt those closest to them.
“When they can’t let go of their need to be admired or recognized, they have to bend or invent a reality in which they remain special despite all messages to the contrary. In point of fact, they become dangerously psychotic. It’s just not always obvious until it’s too late.”
Lance Dodes, a retired psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, believes that Trump is a sociopath: “The failure of normal empathy is central to sociopathy, which is marked by an absence of guilt, intentional manipulation and controlling or even sadistically harming others for personal power or gratification.”
But an observer didn’t need to be a psychiatrist to feel frightened by Trump’s behavior at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on March 2, 2019.
For two hours, in National Harbor, Maryland, Trump delivered the longest address (so far) of his Presidency—and of any American President.
“You know, I’m totally off script right now,” Trump said early on. “This is how I got elected, by being off script.”
And from the moment he embraced an American flag as though he wanted to hump it, it was clear: He was “totally off script.”
“How many times did you hear, for months and months, ‘There is no way to 270?’ You know what that means, right? ‘There is no way to 270.'”
Once again, Trump revealed his obsession with his win in 2016—as if no one else had ever been elected President.
“If you tell a joke, if you’re sarcastic, if you’re having fun with the audience, if you’re on live television with millions of people and 25,000 people in an arena, and if you say something like, ‘Russia, please, if you can, get us Hillary Clinton’s emails. Please, Russia, please.'”
Here he was trying to “spin” his infamous invitation to hackers in Vladimir Putin’s Russia to intervene in an American Presidential election by obtaining the emails of his campaign rival.
Which they did that same day.
“So now we’re waiting for a report, and we’ll find out whether or not, and who we’re dealing with. We’re waiting for a report by people that weren’t elected.”
It didn’t matter to Trump that America’s foremost enemy—Russia—tried to influence a Presidential election. What mattered to him was that the report might end his Presidency.
“Those red hats—and white ones. The key is in the color. The key is what it says. ‘Make America Great Again’ is what it says. Right? Right?”
Color mattered. Words, ideas didn’t.
“Now, Robert Mueller never received a vote, and neither did the person that appointed him. And as you know, the attorney general says, ‘I’m going to recuse myself.'”
Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller and Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were career Justice Department officials. They weren’t voted into office.
Robert Meuller
“Number one, I’m in love, and you’re in love. We’re all in love together. There’s so much love in this room, it’s easy to talk. You can talk your heart out. You really could. There’s love in this room. You can talk your heart out. It’s easy. It’s easy. It’s easy.”
Trump apparently found it easy to fall in love—with Right-wing audiences and Communist dictators such as Kim Jong-Un.
“And from the day we came down the escalator, I really don’t believe we’ve had an empty seat at any arena, at any stadium. They did the same thing at our big inauguration speech. You take a look at those crowds.”
Once again, he must brag about how popular he is and how many people wanted to listen to him.
“A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people. And they are. They are the enemy of the people. Because they have no sources, they just make ’em up when there are none.”
By January 20, 2020, The Washington Post found that Trump had made “16,241 ‘false or misleading claims” in his first three years in office. He is in no position to talk about integrity.
“But we’re going to have regulation. It’s going to be really strong and really good and we’re going to protect our environment and we’re going to protect the safety of our people and our workers, OK?”
To “protect our environment,” Trump appointed Andrew R. Wheeler, a former coal company lobbyist, to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARNOLD SCHWARTNEGGER, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BANDY X. LEE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICLA ACTION CONFERENCE (CPAC), CRAIG MALKIN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, FBI, FIRST AMENDMENT, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLETCHER KNEBEL, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), IVANKA TRUMP, JOHN T. GARNER, JOSEPH STALIN, KIM JONG-UN, LANCE DODES, LIBEL, MEDIA MATTERS, MERYL STREEP, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NARCISSISM, NBC NEWS, NEIL YOUNG, NEWSWEEK, NIGHT AT CAMP DAVID, NPR, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, OBAMACARE, PARANOIA, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PSYCHOSIS, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT S. MUELLER, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIOPATHY, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE MEDIA, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIRETAPPING, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 14, 2023 at 12:05 am
“One man in the free world has the power to launch a nuclear war that might destroy civilization: the President of the United States. What if that man were mentally unbalanced?”
That is the premise of the 1965 novel, Night at Camp David, by Fletcher Knebel.
At the time of its release, its plot was considered so over-the-top as to be worthy of science fiction:
Iowa Democratic Senator Jim MacVeagh is summoned to Camp David, the Presidential retreat, by President Mark Hollenbach. MacVeagh is expected to become Hollenbach’s next Vice President. But he becomes alarmed that Hollenbach is clearly suffering from intense paranoia.
He wants to develop a closer relationship between the United States and Russia—while cutting ties with American allies in Europe. Moreover, Hollenbach believes the American news media are conspiring against him with his political enemies.
Only one person possesses evidence that Hollenbach is losing his grip on sanity—his mistress, Rita. Desperate to retain his power, Hollenbach orders the FBI to investigate both MacVeagh and Rita.
So why was a 53-year-old novel released in 2018? The answer lay in two words: Donald Trump.
In a November 30, 2018 review of Night at Camp David, Tom McCarthy, national affairs correspondent for the British newspaper, The Guardian, wrote:
“The current president has seen crowds where none exist, deployed troops to answer no threat, attacked national institutions – the military, the justice department, the judiciary, the vote, the rule of law, the press – tried to prosecute his political enemies, elevated bigots, oppressed minorities, praised despots while insulting global allies and wreaked diplomatic havoc from North Korea to Canada.
“He stays up half the night watching TV and tweeting about it, then wakes up early to tweet some more, in what must be the most remarkable public diary of insecurity, petty vindictiveness, duplicity and scattershot focus by a major head of state in history.”
From the beginning of his Presidency, Trump aroused fear—based not only of what he might do, but that he might be mentally unbalanced. Consider:
On March 4, 2017, in a series of unhinged tweets, he accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his Trump Tower phones prior to the election:
- “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
- “Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!”
- “I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!”
- “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”
A subsequent investigation by the Justice Department turned up no evidence to substantiate Trump’s foray into Presidential libel.
Donald Trump
Trump’s shoot-first-and-never-mind-the-consequences approach to life has been thoroughly documented.
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, he fired nearly 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions. The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among these targets were:
- His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton
- His fellow Republican Presidential candidates
- Actress Meryl Streep
- News organizations
- President Barack Obama
- Comedian John Oliver
- The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)
- Singer Neil Young
- The state of New Jersey
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
And during his first two weeks as President, Trump attacked 22 people, places and things on his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account.
Trump’s vindictiveness, his narcissism, his compulsive aggression, his complaints that his “enemies” in government and the press are trying to destroy him, have caused many to ask: Could the President of the United States be suffering from mental illness?
One who dared to answer this question was John D. Gartner, a practicing psychotherapist.
John D. Gartner
Gartner graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, received his Ph.D in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts, and served as a part-time assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School for 28 years.
During an interview by U.S. News & World Report (published on January 27, 2017), Gartner said: “Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president.”
Gartner said that Trump suffered from “malignant narcissism,” whose symptoms include:
- anti-social behavior
- sadism
- aggressiveness
- paranoia
- and grandiosity.
“We’ve seen enough public behavior by Donald Trump now that we can make this diagnosis indisputably,” said Gartner, who admitted he had not personally examined Trump.
More of that behavior was on full display on March 2, 2019 at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland.
For more than two hours, Trump delivered the longest speech (so far) of his Presidency to his fanatically Right-wing audience.
Facing a hostile Democratic House of Representatives and a potentially explosive report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Trump threw down the gauntlet.
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, ALVIN BRAGG, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CANADA, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS, CNN, COMMUNISTS, CONFEDERATES, CONSPIRING TO OBSTRUCT JUSTICE, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP JR., E. JEAN CARROLL, EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE, ERIC TRUMP, FASCISTS, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GREAT BRITAIN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, IVANKA TRUMP, JACK SMITH, JAMES COMEY, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOSEPH BIDEN, JUAN MERCHAN, Kamala Harris, KEN PAXTON, KIM JONG-UN, KU KLUX KLAN, MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, MAR-A-LAGO, MARXISTS, MARY TRUMP, MEDIA MATTERS, MERRICK GARLAND, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATO, NAZIS, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NORTH KOREA, NPR, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, PAM BONDI, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SLATE, STORMY DANIELS, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TREASON, TRUMP TOWER, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES AIR FORCE, UNITED STATES ARMY, UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATVES, UNITED STATES MARINES, UNITED STATES NAVY, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, XI JINPING
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 3, 2023 at 1:06 am
Commentators have long speculated on why millions of Americans remain fanatically committed to Donald Trump.
There has been far less speculation on why so many law enforcers have turned a blind eye to Trump’s decades of criminality, if not treason.
Among those guilty:
- The Justice Department did not indict Trump for the series of threats he made—directly and indirectly—against Republicans and Democrats throughout the 2016 Presidential campaign.
- The United States Secret Service did not charge him with threatening the life of Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: “Hillary [Clinton] wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
- The Justice Department did not prosecute Trump for treason, even though he solicited aid from Russia, a nation hostile to the United States. On July 27, 2016. Trump publicly invited “Russia”—i.e., Vladimir Putin—to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails: “I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
There are at least two reasons why Trump has been allowed to insult and even threaten prosecutors and judges without facing the punishment an ordinary citizen would:
Cowardice: They fear Trump will slander them by claiming he’s the victim of a “witch hunt” to remove him from the 2024 Presidential race.
And/or they fear physical attack from his legions of fanatical followers.
Awe of the Presidency: They fear their careers will be tainted by prosecuting or judging a man who won the votes of 70 million Americans.
There are, however, remedies for both cowardice and awe:
Cowardice: Prosecutors and judges should expect threats and slanders from Trump. This is how he has traditionally responded to attempts to hold him legally accountable.
If judges and prosecutors fear violence from Trump’s fanatical followers, they can easily obtain round-the-clock protection by local and/or federal law enforcement agencies.
Awe: Trump is no longer President. He no longer commands Presidential immunity nor the powers of that office—such as being able to cite “executive privilege” to prevent the release of documents or testimony.
His refusals to accept this reality should be bluntly ignored.
More importantly, as President, he:
- Took no action to protect Americans from the deadly COVID-19 virus;
- Constantly sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the United States;
- Attacked the independent judiciary and free press;
- Praised Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen;
- Fired FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump and turn the agency into Trump’s private police force;
- Used his position as President to further enrich himself in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution;
- Attacked and alienated America’s oldest democratic allies, such as Canada and Great Britain;
- Refused to accept the results of a legitimate Presidential election; and
- Incited a deadly attack on Congress so he could illegally remain in office.
Those are only some of the despicable actions he took while in office.
The Presidency has long held most Americans in awe. This is largely because the man (and it’s always been a man) who holds it is elected by all Americans, and not just those of a particular city or state.
And he alone has control of America’s enormous military—the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force—as well as a nuclear arsenal that can literally destroy all life on Earth.
Americans have long assumed that a victorious Presidential candidate has been blessed by God, and thus automatically commands a respect—if not reverence—denied to ordinary mortals.
But respect must be earned. And anyone guilty of even a small number of the crimes committed by Donald Trump long ago forfeited any right to such regard.
Once a President leaves office, he should be treated as any other American citizen—and held to the same standards as an ordinary citizen.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman and father of modern political science, has eloquently warned of the dangers of ignoring this truth:
…No well-ordered republic should ever cancel the crimes of its citizens by their merits. But having established rewards for good actions and penalties for evil ones, and having rewarded a citizen for conduct who afterwards commits a wrong, he should be chastised for that without regard to his previous merits. And a state that properly observes this principle will long enjoy its liberty, but if otherwise, it will speedily come to ruin.
For if a citizen who has rendered some eminent service to the state should add to the reputation and influence which he has thereby acquired the confident audacity of being able to commit any wrong without fear of punishment, he will in a little while become so insolent and overbearing as to put an end to all power of the law.
Putting an end to “all power of the law” and setting himself up as “The Law” is precisely what Donald Trump tried to do after losing the 2020 Presidential election—and is still trying to do.
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, ALVIN BRAGG, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CANADA, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS, CNN, COMMUNISTS, CONFEDERATES, CONSPIRING TO OBSTRUCT JUSTICE, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP JR., E. JEAN CARROLL, EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE, ERIC TRUMP, FASCISTS, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GREAT BRITAIN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, IVANKA TRUMP, JACK SMITH, JAMES COMEY, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOSEPH BIDEN, JUAN MERCHAN, Kamala Harris, KEN PAXTON, KIM JONG-UN, KU KLUX KLAN, MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, MAR-A-LAGO, MARXISTS, MARY TRUMP, MEDIA MATTERS, MERRICK GARLAND, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATO, NAZIS, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NORTH KOREA, NPR, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, PAM BONDI, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SLATE, STORMY DANIELS, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TREASON, TRUMP TOWER, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES AIR FORCE, UNITED STATES ARMY, UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATVES, UNITED STATES MARINES, UNITED STATES NAVY, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, XI JINPING
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 2, 2023 at 12:10 am
Donald Trump has lost the Presidential immunity shielding him from a wide range of civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution.
He now faces unprecedented challenges from a legal system that had long ignored his rampant criminality.
Thus, regaining that Presidential immunity is probably the biggest reason why he desperately wants to become President again.
Even though he no longer holds the Presidency, Trump has repeatedly acted as though he does. He has asserted “executive privilege” on behalf of former members of his administration to block their testimony before courts, grand juries and even the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith.
He has hidden behind layers of Secret Service protection while attacking Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and even New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over his arraignment in the Stormy Daniels case.
Juan Merchan
“The criminal is the district attorney because he illegally leaked massive amounts of grand jury information,” Trump told supporters at Mar-a-Lago. “For which he should be prosecuted, or at a minimum he should resign.”
As for Merchan: “I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter work[ed] for Kamala Harris.”
In Trump’s vocabulary, “Trump-hating” is the absolute worst sin/crime that can be committed.
Another man he has accused of being a “Trump hater” is Special Counsel Jack Smith, who’s also investigating Trump’s role in inciting his followers to attack Congress on January 6, 2021.
Jack Smith
The purpose of that attack: To stop the Electoral College vote count that would certify former Vice President Joseph Biden as the actual winner of the 2020 Presidential election.
In a July 4 post on his website, Truth Social, Trump falsely claimed:
“As my Poll numbers go higher & higher, the Communists, Marxists, & Fascists get more & more CRAZY with their ridiculous Indictments & Election Interference plans & plots, all controlled by an out of control, & very corrupt, DOJ/FBI. They have WEAPONIZED Law Enforcement in America at a level not seen before.”
Trump’s reference to “Communists, Marxists, & Fascists” as his enemies is particularly noteworthy.
He was, after all, the President who:
- Defended Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against findings by the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency that Russia had interfered in the 2020 Presidential election;
- Boasted that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un “fell in love” after an exchange of letters; and
- Praised Chinese strongman Xi Jinping for making himself “President-for-Life: “No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”
Given his subsequent efforts to remain in office despite losing the 2020 Presidential election, it’s clear that he had himself in mind when he “joked” about “giving that a shot some day.”
In his post, Trump continued: “Deranged Jack Smith, who is a sick puppet for A.G. Garland & Crooked Joe Biden, should be DEFUNDED & put out to rest. Republicans must get tough or the Dems will steal another Election. MAGA!”
By “A.G. Garland” Trump meant Attorney General Merrick Garland. By “put to rest,” he meant that his followers should assassinate Smith.
Despite all this, Trump’s millions of Right-wing followers remain fanatically loyal to him.
Why?
On August 30, 2017, an article in Salon examined why Donald Trump’s base supports him so fanatically: “Most Americans Strongly Dislike Trump, But the Angry Minority That Adores Him Controls Our Politics.”
It described these voters as representing about one-third of the Republican party:
“These are older and more conservative white people, for the most part, who believe he should not listen to other Republicans and should follow his own instincts….
“They like Trump’s coarse personality, and approve of the fact that he treats women like his personal playthings. They enjoy it when he expresses sympathy for neo-Nazis and neo-Confederate white supremacists.
Supporters giving the Nazi “Sieg Heil” salute to Trump
“They cheer when he declares his love for torture, tells the police to rough up suspects and vows to mandate the death penalty for certain crimes. (Which of course the president cannot do.)
“…This cohort of the Republican party didn’t vote for Trump because of his supposed policies on trade or his threat to withdraw from NATO. They voted for him because he said out loud what they were thinking. A petty, sophomoric, crude bully is apparently what they want as a leader.”
What is harder to explain is why so many law enforcers have turned a blind eye to Trump’s decades of criminality, if not treason. Among those who have:
- Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi personally solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump around the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates. After Bondi dropped the Trump University case against Trump, he wrote her a $25,000 check for her re-election campaign. The money came from the Donald J. Trump Foundation.
- Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton moved to muzzle a former state regulator who says he was ordered in 2010 to drop a fraud investigation into Trump University for political reasons. After the Texas case was dropped, Trump cut a $35,000 check to the gubernatorial campaign of then-attorney general and now Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, ALVIN BRAGG, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CANADA, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS, CNN, COMMUNISTS, CONFEDERATES, CONSPIRING TO OBSTRUCT JUSTICE, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP JR., E. JEAN CARROLL, EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE, ERIC TRUMP, FASCISTS, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GREAT BRITAIN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, IVANKA TRUMP, JACK SMITH, JAMES COMEY, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOSEPH BIDEN, JUAN MERCHAN, Kamala Harris, KEN PAXTON, KIM JONG-UN, KU KLUX KLAN, MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, MAR-A-LAGO, MARXISTS, MARY TRUMP, MEDIA MATTERS, MERRICK GARLAND, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATO, NAZIS, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NORTH KOREA, NPR, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, PAM BONDI, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SLATE, STORMY DANIELS, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TREASON, TRUMP TOWER, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES AIR FORCE, UNITED STATES ARMY, UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATVES, UNITED STATES MARINES, UNITED STATES NAVY, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, XI JINPING
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 1, 2023 at 12:05 am
On March 30, former President Donald Trump was indicted by a New York grand jury. He thus became the first current or former president to face criminal charges.
On April 1, CNN reported/editorialized: “Former President Donald Trump’s indictment….has thrust the nation into uncharted political, legal and historical waters, and raised a slew of questions about how the criminal case will unfold.
“The Manhattan district attorney’s office has been investigating Trump in connection with his alleged role in a hush money payment scheme and cover-up involving adult film star Stormy Daniels that dates to the 2016 presidential election.”
Trump has aggressively attacked Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg as pursuing a leftist agenda to prevent him from running for President in 2024.
“If they can do this to me,” he has thundered in countless fund-raising appeals to his Right-wing followers, “they can do this to you.”
Really? How many others have tried to illegally pay hush-money to a porn “actress” to silence her during a Presidential campaign?
Nor is that the end of Trump’s prosecutorial troubles.
On June 13, he became the first ex-President to be formally booked by the Justice Department on federal charges.
Seal of the Department of Justice
He’s now facing 37 felony charges based on his retaining and hiding classified government documents from authorities.
These charges include:
- Willfully retaining national defense information: Storing 31 classified documents at his estate at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida.
- Conspiring to obstruct justice: Conspiring to keep those documents from the grand jury.
- Withholding a document or a record: Misleading one of his attorneys by moving boxes of classified documents so the attorney could not find or introduce them to the grand jury.
- Concealing a document in a federal investigation: Hiding Trump’s possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago from the FBI and causing a false certificate to be submitted to the FBI.
- Scheme to conceal: Hiding his continued possession of documents from the FBI and the grand jury.
- False statements and representations: Causing another of his attorneys to make false statements to the FBI and grand jury about the search at Mar-a-Lago.
Donald Trump
Each charge carries a maximum fine of $250,000, with maximum prison sentences between five and 20 years.
According to Trump, facing 37 felony charges is “an honor because I’m doing it for you, I’m doing it for our country, to show how evil and sinister a place it has become. Make America great again! We’re not going to let them get away with it.”
In short: To save America, Trump has volunteered for this indictment. He isn’t the one who illegally removed and tried to retain almost 300 highly classified documents.
You did.
And he, like Jesus, is taking your sins upon himself.
Trump has repeatedly tried to make himself appear the victim of “a Democratic-led witch hunt.” But if politics has tainted the dispensing of justice in Trump’s case, it’s been on his behalf.
As President, he had immunity from criminal and civil lawsuits. He couldn’t be tried at local, state and federal levels.
And he had good reason to avoid facing trial at any level. He was facing at least five cases while he held office:
- The Manhattan District Attorney’s criminal case against the Trump Organization: For falsifying New York business records to conceal his hush money payoff to porn “star” Stormy Daniels for his extramarital tryst with her.
- The New York Attorney General’s civil investigation into the Trump Organization: For engaging in years of financial fraud to obtain a host of economic benefits.
- The E. Jean Carroll defamation lawsuit: For calling her a liar after she claimed he raped her in the 1990s.
- The Mary Trump lawsuit: For defrauding his niece out of millions of dollars.
- The Trump Tower lawsuit: Five people claim that Keith Schiller, the Trump Organization’s then chief of security, hit one of them on the head when they were protesting outside of the company’s Manhattan headquarters in 2015.
Since leaving the White House, Trump has seen additional cases pile up against him. Among these:
- The Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Trump’s efforts to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election.
- The Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Trump’s inciting an attack on Congress on January 6, 2021.
- The Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Trump’s illegally taking classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago estate and refusing to return them to the government.
- The House of Representatives’ January 6 lawsuit for trying to prevent Congress from certifying the Electoral College votes on January 6, 2021.
- The Eric Swalwell lawsuit by the California Representative for trying to block the Electoral College vote count.
- The Capitol Police January 6 lawsuits for emotional and physical injuries sustained by officers during the January 6, 2021 attack by Trump’s followers.
- The Michael Cohen lawsuit by Trump’s former attorney and fixer. He claims Trump retaliated against him after he said he was writing a tell-all about his years working for Trump.
- The Class Action lawsuit against the Trumps [Donald, Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric] and their business. This alleges that “the defendants used their brand name to defraud thousands of working-class individuals by promoting numerous businesses in exchange for ’secret payments.’”
Now his Presidential immunity is gone and he faces unprecedented challenges from a legal system that had long ignored his rampant criminality.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, ALVIN BRAGG, AP, BUZZFEED, CARLO GAMBINO, CARMINE GALANTE, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP JR., ESQUIRE, FACEBOOK, FBI, FRANK LOCASCIO, GAMBINO MAFIA FAMILY, GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE, IVANA TRUMP, JARED KUSHNER, LETITIA JAMES, LOUIS DIBONO, LOUIS MILITO, MAFIA, MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OLEG DERIPASKA, PAUL CASTELLANO, PAUL MANAFORT, POLITICO, Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, RAVENITE SOCIAL CLUB, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT DIBERNARDO, ROBERT MUELLER, SALON, SAMMY "THE BULL" GRAVANO, SEAN SPICER, SEATTLE TIMES, SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, SLATE, STORMY DANIELS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TRUMP ORGANIZATION, TRUMP TOWER, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIkTOR YANUKOVYCH, VINCENT "THE CHINS" GIGANTE, VLADIMIR PUTIN
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 2, 2023 at 12:06 am
Donald Trump shares more than a few striking similarities with John Gotti, who, for five years, ruled as the boss of the most powerful Mafia family in the United States: The Gambino Family.
Among those similarities: A complete lack of loyalty to anyone.
Donald Trump
Unknowingly speaking into an FBI electronic bug, Gotti charged that Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, his underboss, or second-in command, was too greedy. He also blamed him for the murders of three Mafiosi whom Gotti had ordered hit.
When Gravano learned of these slanders at a pretrial hearing, he agreed to testify against Gotti and other Mafiosi in exchange for a five-year prison sentence.
And just as Gotti’s disloyalty ultimately destroyed him, the same may prove true for Trump.
Consider the case of attorney Michael Cohen.
- An executive of the Trump Organization, Cohen acted as “Trump’s pit bull.” “If somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn’t like,” he told ABC News in 2011, “I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump’s benefit.”
- In 2015, a reporter for The Daily Beast asked Cohen about Ivana Trump’s charge (later recanted) that Trump had raped her while they were married. Cohen: “I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting.”
- In 2016, while Trump was running for President, Cohen acted as the go-between for a $130,000 hush-money payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels. The reason: To prevent her from revealing a 2006 tryst she had had with Trump.
Cohen wasn’t just Trump’s lawyer. He was his fixer, a man who made problems “go away” with threats and bribes. He knows many—if not most—of Trump’s darkest secrets.
In April 2018, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York began investigating Cohen. Charges included bank fraud, wire fraud and violations of campaign finance law.
Michael Cohen
By IowaPolitics.com (Trump executive Michael Cohen 012) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
On April 9, 2018, the FBI, executing a federal search warrant, raided Cohen’s office at the law firm of Squire Patton Boggs, as well as his home and his hotel room in the Loews Regency Hotel in New York City. Agents seized emails, tax and business records and recordings of phone conversations that Cohen had made.
Trump’s response: “Michael Cohen only handled a tiny, tiny fraction of my legal work.”
Thus Trump undermined the argument of Cohen’s lawyers that he was the President’s personal attorney—and therefore everything Cohen did was protected by attorney-client privilege.
An April 19, 2018 headline in Esquire magazine warned: “If the Water is Rising, Donald Trump Will Throw You Overboard.”
The article read in part:
“No matter how long or how intimately you’ve known Donald Trump, you’re one news cycle away from being tossed overboard….
“An old friend becomes a needy acquaintance; a campaign chairman becomes someone you got from the temp agency; a national security adviser becomes a ‘volunteer.’”
On August 21, 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges: five counts of tax evasion, one count of making false statements to a financial institution, one count of willfully causing an unlawful corporate contribution, and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution at the request of a candidate (Trump) for the “principal purpose of influencing [the] election.”
On December 12, 2018, Cohen was sentenced to three years in federal prison and ordered to pay a $50,000 fine after pleading guilty to tax evasion and campaign-finance violations. On February 26, 2019, he was disbarred from practicing law in New York by the New York Supreme Court.
Cohen reported to the federal prison near Otisville, New York, on May 6, 2019. But he was released from Otisville on July 24, 2020, due to concerns about the spreading COVID-19 virus. He would serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest.
Cohen has been quick to return Trump’s disloyalty. He has:
- Cooperated with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation of Trump’s hush money payoff to Stormy Daniels;
- Shared information with New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is investigating the Trump Organization for potential financial fraud; and
- Testified before the House Intelligence Committee, the House Oversight Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee.
He described Trump as a “racist,” a “con man”, and a “cheat.” Expressing remorse for what he had done for Trump, he accused him of:
- Reimbursing him for illegal hush money payments;
- Telling him to lie to Congress and the public about the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations; and
- Filing false financial statements with banks and insurance companies.
Trump is now facing multiple investigations at local, state and federal levels—any one of which could result in a felony conviction.
His approach when dealing with adversaries has always been bribery or intimidation. But when he meets an opponent who can’t be bought or bullied, he retreats into sulking and self-pitying rants.
Trump has survived investigations for years. And he may survive several—or all—of these.
But even if he escapes conviction, he will spend years—and huge sums of money—fighting off prosecutors and plaintiffs’ attorneys.
For a man in his mid-70s, that cannot be a happy prospect.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, ALVIN BRAGG, AP, BUZZFEED, CARLO GAMBINO, CARMINE GALANTE, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP JR., ESQUIRE, FACEBOOK, FBI, FRANK LOCASCIO, GAMBINO MAFIA FAMILY, GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE, IVANA TRUMP, JARED KUSHNER, LETITIA JAMES, LOUIS DIBONO, LOUIS MILITO, MAFIA, MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OLEG DERIPASKA, PAUL CASTELLANO, PAUL MANAFORT, POLITICO, Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, RAVENITE SOCIAL CLUB, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT DIBERNARDO, ROBERT MUELLER, SALON, SAMMY "THE BULL" GRAVANO, SEAN SPICER, SEATTLE TIMES, SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, SLATE, STORMY DANIELS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TRUMP ORGANIZATION, TRUMP TOWER, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIkTOR YANUKOVYCH, VINCENT "THE CHINS" GIGANTE, VLADIMIR PUTIN
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 1, 2023 at 2:00 am
On December 11, 1990, FBI agents and NYPD detectives raided the Ravenite Social Club in Manhattan.
They had arrest warrants for John Gotti, boss of the Gambino Mafia Family, and his two lieutenants: Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, his underboss, or second-in-command, and Frankie Locascio, his Consigliere, or adviser.
Gotti had become boss of the Gambino Family in December, 1985—by arranging the execution of its then-boss, Paul “Big Paul” Castellano, on December 16.
Since then, he had moved his headquarters from Queens to the Ravenite. And, like a king holding court, he had ordered all of his captains to report to him at the Ravenite once a week.
Word quickly reached the FBI—and agents in vans shot video as they staked out Prince Street.
Gotti had handed the FBI a mob organization chart.
FBI Seal
It was only a matter of time before the FBI’s Technical Surveillance Squad (TSS) breached the security of the Ravenite.
In 1989, the TSS planted a hidden microphone in an apartment above the Ravenite where Gotti held his secret meetings. Tape recorders were running when he bragged that he had ordered three murders—and was running a criminal enterprise: The Gambino Mafia Family.
When he wasn’t bragging, Gotti was badmouthing virtually everyone—past and present—in the Mafia: Paul Castellano, Carlo Gambino, Vincent “The Chins” Gigante. And, most fatally, his own underboss: Sammy “The Bull” Gravano.
John Gotti
On December 12, 1989, the electronic bug picked up the following conversation between Gotti and his Consigliere, or adviser, Frankie Locascio.
The subject: The murders of three former Gambino Family mobsters: Robert “Deebee” DiBernardo, Louis Milito and Louis DiBono.
DiBernardo had been murdered over Gravano’s objections. A fellow mobster had told Gotti that DiBernardo had made “subversive” comments behind Gotti’s back.
But that wasn’t the way Gotti told it.
GOTTI: “Deebee, did he ever talk subversive to you?”
LOCASCIO: “Never.”
GOTTI: “Never talked it to Angelo, never talked it to [Joseph Armone] either. I took Sammy’s word that he talked about me behind my back….I was in jail when I whacked him. I knew why it was being done. I done it anyway. I allowed it to be done anyway.”
Next Gotti focused on the murders of Louis Milito and Louis DiBono. Milito had been “whacked” for questioning Gotti’s judgment. And DiBono had been hit because he refused to answer a Gotti summons.
But Gotti was determined to lay the blame on Gravano. He claimed that both men had been killed because Gravano had asked for permission to remove his business partners.
Sammy “The Bull” Gravano
GOTTI: “Every time we get a partner that don’t agree with us, we kill him. [The] boss kills him. He kills him. He okays it. Says it’s all right, good.”
And there was more: Gotti accused Gravano of excessive greed—and hoarding money for himself at the expense of the Family.
GOTTI: “That’s Sammy….Every fucking time I turn around there’s a new company poppin’ up. Building. Consulting. Concrete. Where the hell did all these new companies come from? Where did five new companies come from?
“Paul [Castellano, the Gambino Family’s previous boss] sold the Family out for a fucking construction company. And that’s what Sammy’s doing now. Three, four guys will wind up with every fuckin’ thing. And the rest of the Family looks like waste.”
He accused Gravano of creating “a fuckin’ army inside an army,” adding: “You know what I’m saying, Frankie? I saw that shit and I don’t need that shit.”
Gotti’s effort to rewrite history soon came back to haunt him.
At a pretrial hearing following the arrests of Gotti, Gravano and Locascio, prosecutors played the FBI’s tapes of Gotti’s unintended confessions—including his badmouthing of Gravano.
Gravano suddenly realized that his future in the Mafia was nil.
Gravano, Gotti and Locascio were all facing life imprisonment as targets of RICO—the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act.
And if the Feds didn’t send him to prison, mob gunmen—sent by Gotti—would eventually get him. Gotti clearly planned to make him the fall guy—in court or in a coffin—for murders that Gotti himself had ordered.
Only John Gotti was shocked when Gravano agreed to testify against him—and other Mafiosi—in exchange for a five-year prison sentence.
Gravano, as Gotti’s second-in-command, had literally been at the seat of power for five years. He knew the secrets of the Gambino Family—and the other four Mafia families who ruled New York.
On April 2, 1992, a jury convicted Gotti of five murders, conspiracy to murder, loansharking, illegal gambling, obstruction of justice, bribery and tax evasion. He drew a life sentence, without possibility of parole.
Gotti was incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary at Marion, Illinois, in virtual solitary confinement. He died of throat cancer on June 10, 2002, at the age of 61.
Donald Trump resembles his fellow New Yorker, John Gotti, in more ways than he would like to admit: In his greed, arrogance, egomania, love of publicity and vindictiveness.
So far, he has survived his lifelong hubris. But he may not survive his lifelong dedication to “looking out for Number One.”
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALBERT SPEER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DONALD TRUMP, ERICH VON MANSTEIN, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCE, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, JAMES COMEY, JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY, MAGINOT LINE, MEDIA MATTERS, MICHAEL COHEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROY COHN, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WORLD WAR 11
HITLER AND TRUMP: YOU OWE ME LOYALTY; I OWE YOU NOTHING
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 14, 2024 at 12:10 amOn January 27, 1944, Adolf Hitler convened a meeting of 100 of his military chiefs, including all the army group commanders of the Eastern front.
The war against the Soviet Union was going badly while the Americans and British were preparing to invade France. And Hitler believed he had the recipe for assuring victory: The Wehrmacht needed to be inoculated with the spirit of National Socialism.
At the end of his long-winded speech, he addressed this challenge to his generals:
“If the worse ever comes to the worst, and I am ever abandoned as Supreme Commander by my own people, I must still expect my entire officer corps to muster around me with daggers drawn—just as every field marshal or the commander of an army corps, division or regiment expects his subordinates to stand by him in the hour of crisis.”
Adolf Hitler
Sitting in the front row was Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, perhaps the most brilliant member of the German General Staff. It was Manstein who had designed the “Sickle Cut” attack on France in May, 1940.
Bypassing the much-vaunted Maginot Line, the Wehrmacht struck through Belgium, taking the French completely by surprise. As a result, it defeated France in six weeks—something Germany had been unable to do during the four years of World War 1.
Now, in a loud voice, Manstein proclaimed: “And so it will be, Mein Fuhrer!”
Hitler froze; it had been more than a decade since anyone had dared interrupt him. Then, trying to make the best of a bad moment, he continued: “Very well. If this is the case, it will be impossible for us to lose this war.”
Hitler hoped that Manstein had intended to reassure him of his loyalty. But Martin Bormann, his al-powerful secretary, told him that the generals had interpreted the outburst differently: That the worse would indeed come to the worst.
Erich von Manstein
And, which, in fact, happened.
As the Russian army closed in on his underground bunker in April, 1945, Hitler revealed his utter contempt for the Germans who had so blindly served him for 12 years.
“If the war is lost,” Hitler told his former architect and now Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer, “the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable.
“There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence.
“On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation.”
Just as Hitler demanded loyalty from his accomplices to infamy, so does Donald Trump.
Former FBI Director James Comey has had firsthand experience in attacking organized crime—and in spotting its leaders.
In his bestselling memoir, A Higher Loyalty, he writes:
“As I found myself thrust into the Trump orbit, I once again was having flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the mob. The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and the truth.”
James Comey
Validating Comey’s comparison of Trump to a mobster is the case of Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime attorney and fixer.
A longtime executive of the Trump Organization, Cohen told ABC news in 2011: “If somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn’t like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump’s benefit.”
In April 2018, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York began investigating Cohen. Charges reportedly included bank fraud, wire fraud and violations of campaign finance law.
Michael Cohen
By IowaPolitics.com (Trump executive Michael Cohen 012) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
On April 9, 2018, the FBI, executing a federal search warrant, raided Cohen’s office at the law firm of Squire Patton Boggs, as well as at his home and his hotel room in the Loews Regency Hotel in New York City.
Agents seized emails, tax and business records and recordings of phone conversations that Cohen had made.
Trump’s response: “Michael Cohen only handled a tiny, tiny fraction of my legal work.”
Thus Trump undermined the argument of Cohen’s lawyers that he was the President’s personal attorney—and therefore everything Cohen did was protected by attorney-client privilege.
Cohen, feeling abandoned and enraged, struck back: He “rolled over” on the man he had once boasted he would take a bullet for.
On August 23, on the Fox News program, “Fox and Friends,” Trump attacked Cohen for “flipping” on him:
“For 30, 40 years I’ve been watching flippers. Everything’s wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they—they flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go. It—it almost ought to be outlawed. It’s not fair.”
For Trump, as for Hitler, loyalty went only one way—from others to him. No one who served either man—no matter how loyally or how long—could be certain when he would be deemed disposable.
Share this: