THESE ARE NOT MY PEOPLE
Donald Trump has dictator envy. Friday morning, riffing in an apparently impromptu interview with Fox News, he spoke admiringly of Kim Jong-un: “He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same."
Actually, Trump’s people already do that. There just aren’t as many of them as he’d like.
Conservative Rick Wilson has coined a new phrase: Axis of Assholes. It’s even got an acronym: CRANK – China, Russia, America, North Korea. That’s the company we’re keeping these days.
Meanwhile, Trump’s TV lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, is handing out ultimatums based on the FBI Inspector General’s 500-page report on James Comey’s handling of the Clinton email affair, which neither he nor Donald Trump has read.
Here’s how the LA Times characterized the FBI Inspector General’s report. “The report, released Thursday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz, said Comey acted improperly but was not motivated by political bias. It does not question his decision not to pursue a criminal case against Clinton. But it harshly criticized the FBI and Justice Department’s handling of the matter.” The Mueller investigation was not part of the IG’s report.
Nevertheless, Giuliani demanded that Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein terminate the Mueller probe and also jail FBI agent Peter Strzok within 24 hours.
From the perspective of other members of the Axis of Assholes, that’s pretty weak. Kim Jong-un would stage public executions for both Mueller and Strzok, and also have members of their families murdered. Vladimir Putin would probably have one of his agents slip some Polonium to Muller and Strzok. Maybe they’d survive, but the message would be clear. And Putin isn’t going to run out of Polonium.
Giuliani’s 24-hour deadline hasn’t expired yet, but Friday has already been eventful. Paul Manafort has been sent to jail for witness tampering while he awaits trial next month on conspiracy and money laundering charges. But Rudy tossed him a lifeline, saying that “When the whole thing is over, things might get cleaned up with some presidential pardons.”
For his part, Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that “Manafort has nothing to do with our campaign.” Well, except for being your campaign chairman for 144 days between March and August, 2016.
One interesting thing that the FBI IG report didn’t address: Rudy Giuliani told Fox News in 2016 that the FBI was investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails – before the FBI made the investigation public. How did Giuliani, as a private citizen, come by that information? Inquiring minds want to know