For the past six months, I get up every morning and wonder what fresh hell is going on with the Game of Trumps. So it was nice to spend this morning thinking about Game of Thrones and Euron Greyjoy and Arya kicking ass. But now it’s back to reality. On Friday, news broke that OH RIGHT Donald Trump Jr. lied about that meeting he had at Trump Tower with the Russian lawyer. As it turns out, there were some other people at the meeting, and if you think the meeting was just about the Russian adoption issue at this point, there’s no hope. At least one other person at the meeting was a Russian-American lobbyist who (GUESS WHAT) has deep ties to the Kremlin and Russian intelligence agencies. On the Sunday news shows, Emperor Bigly’s lawyer Jay Sekulow tried to explain away the controversy by lying:
One of President Trump’s lawyers, Jay Sekulow, has suggested that the U.S. Secret Service is to blame if Donald Trump Jr. was able to meet with anyone connected to the Russian government at a now-infamous meeting in the middle of last year’s presidential campaign — despite the fact that Trump Jr. wasn’t yet under the agency’s protection.
Last week, Trump Jr. admitted that he took the June 9, 2016 meeting in Trump Tower after being promised dirt on Hillary Clinton — dirt which he was told originated with the Russian government. But despite his admission, Trump Jr. and the White House have insisted that no one was trying to collude with Russia and nothing ultimately came of the meeting. Appearing on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, Sekulow additionally tried to downplay suspicions about who attended by reasoning that “If this was nefarious, why’d the Secret Service allow these people in?”
Responding to Sekulow’s comments, the Secret Service said on Sunday that Trump Jr. was not even under their protection at that point in the campaign, so they didn’t vet the meeting. “We would not have screened anyone he was meeting with at that time,” an agency spokesperson announced.
Sunday morning wasn’t the first time Sekulow threw shade at the Secret Service this weekend; he made similar comments Friday night on CNN during an interview with Anderson Cooper. Referring to one of the meeting’s attendees, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who was labeled a “Russian government lawyer” in the original meeting pitch to Trump Jr., Sekulow asked Cooper, “How in the world did the Secret Service allow her into a meeting at that point that took place with campaign officials if she was actually a government operative? Why would the Secret Service have allowed that?”
Sekulow also had a lot of dumb sh-t to say about how everyone gets opposition research and it was all completely legal and above-board. Also: the Trump campaign paid the $50,000 retainer for Don Jr.’s lawyer, which means that Don Jr.’s actions were part of the campaign apparatus and that there’s a straight line from Don Jr. to the campaign to Donald Trump. That didn’t stop Bigly from tweeting this weekend:
HillaryClinton can illegally get the questions to the Debate & delete 33,000 emails but my son Don is being scorned by the Fake News Media?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2017
With all of its phony unnamed sources & highly slanted & even fraudulent reporting, #Fake News is DISTORTING DEMOCRACY in our country!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2017
The ABC/Washington Post Poll, even though almost 40% is not bad at this time, was just about the most inaccurate poll around election time!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2017
That last tweet is a reference to Trump’s historically low poll numbers at the cusp of his six-month mark in office. True story: 40% is actually the highest approval rating he has in any poll. The rest of the polls have his approval rate hovering around 35%.
And finally, Shep Smith at Fox News has had enough. This is being called Shep’s “Walter Cronkite moment.”
Shep Smith: "The deception, Chris, is mind-boggling…why are we getting told all these lies?"
Chris Wallace: "I don't know what to say" pic.twitter.com/DQKOAC8a2o
— Leanne Naramore (@LeanneNaramore) July 14, 2017
Photos courtesy of WENN.
And the Secret Service issued a statement; which they don’t normally do saying NO, Trump Jr was not under our protection. so basically get another scapegoat. Trump and that Shady Attorney will throw anything and anyone against the wall to see what will stick. They are going in on Hillary because his Altright supporters want to hear that. So that is they are playing to. Their strategy is always.. but but but what about Hillary.
Throwing the various law enforcement agencies under the bus is not going to help them in a law enforcement investigation, just sayin’.
No kidding . First, Donnie Two Scoops insults the US intelligence agencies by saying he doesn’t believe their Russia findings and then his disgusting lying mouthpiece (who gives all lawyers a bad name) is throwing the Secret Service, those men and women are protecting the many Trumps, under the bus. Along with waging war with the MSM, these idiots are really doing themselves no favours. Bob Mueller is taking note. Drip, drip, drip……
@Chrissy, I’ve just had a horrible thought. What if all this drip, drip, drip amounts to … nothing?
Emperor Bigly has already threatened to campaign for re-election.
My father, who is a very intelligent man, just said “what about Hillary’s emails” and “Obama did the same thing” and “just because they accepted information from the Russians doesn’t mean they helped.” My mindfulness & yoga training is being tested. I want to punch something. I guess I’m just never going to talk to him about it again and see if he changes his tune when high-level government officials start being charged with conspiracy.
And if Chelsea Clinton had done what Don Jr. did what would he say then? Honest to god, the lack of patriotism from the GOP is mind blowing and totally depressing.
Shambles, that sucks. I saw my (conservative) parents this weekend and I couldn’t believe it when I overheard both my mom and my dad talking about what a liar Trump is as they were talking to other family members. I haven’t been able to talk to them about anything political since before the election. I know they dislike Trump but they also hated Hillary — I didn’t want to know how they voted. But their digs at Bigly yesterday gave me a bit of hope.
Plus the Secret Service is only concerned with the physical safety of the person it protects. Moral and legal safety is not their job.
THIS!! The job of the Secret service is the PHYSICAL protection of those in their charge. Which Don the baby con Jr wasn’t. It is NOT their job to protect them from themselves & their poor judgement.
Good point @jwoolman @Snappyfish. Can’t fathom how a security corps could veto the people the people whom they protect, would meet. Kudos for your excellent points.
So what if the subtle truth of the matter is not that the secret service vetted the meeting for Don Jr, but for DJT himself?
Cause you know he was there.
Yea they came out and denied it so he basically dug a bigger hole with this statement. What an idiot.
Communications students will be studying this for years to come. I’ve never seen the guilty party go to such lengths to keep a negative story alive. Their ineptitude is mind boggling.
Yes. I also wonder about psychologists and if they will be studying this escalation in flat out lying. I’m reminded of stories I’ve read about people who are frauds — one guy pretended to be a Rockefeller, one lady claimed to be a 9/11 survivor, one lady claimed to be an elite triathlete but cheated her way through races — these guys seem similar in that even when confronted with the truth they will not back down from their lies. It seems pathological.
This is just weird. Usually people who are accused of a crime just remains silent. The court of public opinion doesn’t win a case. It’s what happens inside the courtroom that does. He’s not the first dirty pol. A lot of them before him just don’t comment in public. Instead this clown and his minder (Sekulow) just double down on their false narrative leading to the impression of guilt.
“I am not a crook” comes to mind.
it seems that their lawyers are just as inept as they are.
Well I wouldn’t be surprised if the SS are so demoralized that they can’t concentrate and let the Big Diaper Baby wander out of their sight.
Okay, they’ve made enemies of the MSM, the Intelligence Community, the Secret Service, at least half the American voters, most nations other than Russia and Israel, and anyone with a brain or a heart. And they think this is a winning strategy? Dumbass-in-Chief.
Trump started trash talking the intelligence agencies before he even took office. And they have gone after him, hard. Now he is throwing the Secret Service under the bus?! Dude, these are the people that are supposed to take a bullet to save your life. He’s clearly insane.
If I was in charge of assigning those who protect them, I would give them the newbies – the ones with NO experience.
And they are very aware of what is going on around them. Leaks are a great way to fight back. Just saying.
Yes, it seems that it’s easier for them to destroy everyone and everything rather than admit they have no earthly idea what they are doing. Zero humility whatsoever.
Sekulow is a particularly vile Trump enabler. He’s been around forever, supporting right wing religious causes and legal cases. He has been a regular contributor on Pat Robertson’s CBN. That he would lie so shamelessly is no surprise.
Why hasn’t he been disbarred yet? He like the cartoon version of a shyster. Ugh.
Or he is the poster child for incompetent counsel. Remember Orangino and crew went to the big reputable firms prior to hiring this overbaked bacon but the big firms turned him down (probably because they know it wasn’t a winnable case and most likely because they know they cannot tamp down his twitter enthusiasm). So he ended up with an alum from Trump U to defend him.
I’m pretty sure if they are found guilty, they will file for a retrial on the basis of “ineffective counsel.”
NPR just now had a report on Sekulow, his radio show (where he asks for donations daily) and the (I think they said) two fundamentalist Christian organizations run mostly by his family members. He is a fraud. Financially, legally and also of course theologically, since his specialty is lying.
Perfect for trump. Like finds like.
Did they learn nothing from the Bush twins arrests for underage drinking while under Secret Service protection? Secret Service won’t stop you from doing something illegal and they won’t stop local law enforcement from doing its job if you do. And junior wasn’t under protection. If the Secret Service were anywhere near that meeting, it would have been because Trump himself attended.
As for the tweets, getting debate questions violates no laws. It may be unethical but it is not illegal.
There is actually no evidence that Hillary even saw those questions. They weren’t sent directly to her personal mail that only she would read. They went through others who would never forward most of it but just deal with it themselves. No response from Podesta or other recipients was included in the Wikileaks package as far as I know. Those leaks are very selective and do not include the whole conversation. As that renowned email expert Don Trump Jr pointed out, we have no control over what people SEND
These were for the primary debates. Hillary already was well prepared in those areas. The subject headings were so weird (announcing to everybody who saw the list of incoming mail in the office that the sender had debate questions in advance) and the text body was so weird (just verbatim quotes, no hi how are ya or just this topic might be discussed or anything halfway normal) that I suspect the Russians have a way to bypass the usual authentication tools and altered heading and body.
I think nobody actually bothered to send those emails along to Hillary, if the emails were even for real. The alleged sender probably had no proof one way or another (probably flushes her email with wild abandon) and was in a position of conflict of interest anyway so it’s not surprising that she parted company with CNN. If I were going to do something so unethical, I would make it very vague suggestions for debate prep and probably would do it in person or on a secure phone line. What rational person would actually dump the verbatim questions in an email going through office staff?!? Not needed and also such questions can change.
I easily delete 30,000 emails every few months, most without reading. Imagine how many of Hillary’s were “OK” and “Are we still on for dinner?”. Plus I think the FBI was able to recover those deleted emails (which had been examined by lawyers to make sure nothing needed archiving). Deleting just tells the computer that those spots on the hard disk can be overwritten with new data. This is why I was able to recover accidental deletions with recovery software back in ancient times, even weeks or months later. You would have to overwrite with random zeroes and ones two or three dozen times to prevent recovery of the original file by tools available today. In any case, the FBI didn’t seem at all worried about them so they were satisfied the deleted emails were just as she said.
Regarding the debate thing, I’ve always thought it was funny/sad that anyone would try to push the idea that Hillary needed inside info to hold her own in the debates. As if she couldn’t run circles around him on any topic in her sleep. Just more projection from the crippled-with-insecurity Trump.
Oh boy, whats trump ggling to do now that his news station is calling him out
Now that Faux News is finally having to admit that Trump is full of bullshit, maybe his supporters who only watch that channel will wake up to the truth
Nope. They’re just turning on Shep.
I suspect many Fox viewers have tuned out months ago and are watching RT now.
And Chelsea, once again, had to respond to the lying trump sh1tspreaders.
http://twitter.com/chelseaclinton/status/886199946726211584
As if Dump wouldn’t sell his kids off in a heartbeat. Well all except daughter-wife Ivanka.
He may as well have sold them. Forcing them to be a part of his mob group from a young age never gave them a chance. I also blame their mother Ivanna, who consigned them to his criminal enterprise long ago (don’t forget that Ivanna stated that she wanted him to run for president in the 1980s so that she could be the first lady–perhaps living vicariously through Ivanka now?). It’s notable that Tiffany seems not to be involved in this–her mother, Marla, doesn’t seem to have allowed him to get his hooks in Tiffany.
I’m not very familiar with the divorce cases, but I think Ivanna let Trump take the kids in exchange for letting her get out of the marriage/not dragging the divorce/and still letting her see the kids. I think she loves her kids (she was the only one taking care of them the Orange one never helped), and seems like the type not to rock the boat, because of them.
Marla was some sort of mistress (I’m not exactly sure if he cheated on Ivanna with her or), but I do know that he resented her for breaking up his marriage (as if he played no part 😒), and sent her and Tiffany to live on the other coast. I’m sure Tiff would love to get Daddy’s approval if she could, but she’s the black sheep of the family.
Oh yeah, donald cheated on ivana with marla. He took ivana on a ski vacation and also, secretly, brought marla on the same vacation. IIRC, the women met up and got into it.
And after their divorce, marla took tiffany and moved across country, not sent away.
DM has photos of bikini clad tiffany and marla on a yacht off the coast of somewhere(too lazy to look it up). If tiffany’s not careful, her father will take a sudden interest in her when he sees those photos. I doubt she wants his approval and for that I consider her the lucky one of the family. I feel for Barron-melania needs to get him away from Toxic Daddy.
Serious question, but I thought the Secret Service only provided protection to the spouses and underage children of the President? If they didn’t couldn’t someone as wealthy as trump afford to pay for security for his family?
They can provide security for adult children, but most adult children do not use the service. But not the trumps, who plan to milk the taxpayers for every penny their scumsucking selves can manage to extract.
Secret Service has protection in by protecting at any cost. That is was Cheetos Fascist is banking on.
A family can request coverage for additional family members. Trump did and it is costing us a fortune. He also uses private security people and they have had conflicts with the Secret Service
Trump must have a world of leg-breakers after him and his family, due a lifetime of cheating, lying and criminal deals. Not to mention that he knows Putin is a killer. Secret Service security for them all is a dream come true. And all at taxpayers expense! Infuriating.
The only amusing thing about the Trump situation is watching his enablers,surrogates,lawyers, family, etc. scrambling for excuses and then getting caught telling lies
@Beth
The most accurate description I’ve heard of these people on Twitter is the Trump Davidians. And now it’s all that goes through my head when I hear them spewing all the lies and excuses.
Every time someone from the Trump administration opens their mouths and speak I keep hearing that line from The Princess Bride in my head
“You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
Yes, campaigns use oppo research but none of those previous campaigns would have EVER, EVER taken any information from sources outside of the country. Any way they spin this they look like inept dumbasses that got played hard.
Dump is a loud angry, incompetent, delusional bully who keeps hiring people just like him, so no surprise he would hire yet another loud thug just like him. He and his team are drowning and instead of just coming out and admitting wrong doing and saving themselves from many federal charges, they are holed up in the WH just waiting for another shoe to drop.
Yes, like with this:
“HillaryClinton can illegally get the questions to the Debate”
It’s isn’t “illegal”, fool. Unethical on the sharer’s part, but not illegal.
“You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”. Love it!
What do Trumpsters think about their money being used to pay for a billionaires rich sons lawyer? No reason Trump shouldn’t use his own money just like there’s no reason he shouldn’t pay for his family vacations
They’re stupid. He is also trying to take their health coverage. But they think it will only affect the other guys; not them.
These tw*ts are quite happy to contribute to the trumps bottom line, so paying the lawyer? Big deal, to them.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/buying-ivanka-trump-fans-embrace-her-brand-as-a-political-statement/2017/07/13/062b6d2e-602b-11e7-a4f7-af34fc1d9d39_story.html?utm_term=.d10565825677
Thought I also read that they paid the lawyer about 2 weeks before all this came out to the public. So, did they know it was all going to hit the fan and so made sure Trump Jr had a lawyer waiting?
I’ve read some Trump supporters argue (in reference to Melania living in NY, his trips to Mar a Lago, and all the extra security that costs) with basically “He didn’t become a billionaire by throwing away money” or “It’s cunning financial planning”. I’m sure this attorney’s retainer will be justified the same way. FML
If Don Jr keeps getting in trouble, his dad will just have another campaign fundraiser at his hotel. Trump supporters will think he’s brilliant for knowing how to make money
if shep smith has so much journalistic integrity – he should leave fox.
I think there’s value in him being a reasonable voice at Fox. Also, he’s openly gay and that representation to a conservative audience is important too. I’m sure he gets plenty of hate messages. But he’s still plugging away. I can respect that.
Fox is an overall embarrassment though and spreads so much dis-information that I think it’s impacting the nation’s collective IQ. It’s that bad.
While Shep Smith has his moments, he really only shows this kind of “integrity” when the truth is Slapping every reasonable person in the face.
I’ve heard him referred to as the “canary in the coal mine” of Fox News and Conservative America when it comes to the scandals being reported on. I think it’s a pretty apt analogy.
I don’t know whether to laugh or be disgusted by the fact that rabid conservatives need the human version of a warning system for news that is. so. obvious.
Sekulow came off as ill tempered and irrational as baby fists. And he’s also a purveyor of lies, as seen by his Secret Service remark.
I’m going to heed Tom Brokaw’s advice in comparing Watergate and trump en famille’s selling our institutions and democracy for Russian cash. The investigation needs time and careful attention to a timeline and details to eventually understand the depths of baby fists’criminality.
They probably shouldn’t tick off the people protecting them. Seriously.
Nah, keep talking.😉😉
Idiots. All of them.
I’m so sick and tired of hearing Trump and his Strain crying about “Crooked Hillary and her emails” or the Clinton Foundation or whatever other rubbish they’re trying to use as a distraction. You’re the bloody POTUS. Stop acting like a child FFS.
And my comment to that is and always will be: Hillary is a private citizen. She is not an employee of the federal govt. She can do whatever the heck she wants at this point and it’s none of our business.
And of course Trump was shamelessly and illegally (really illegally) promoting and profiting off the US Open tournament at his Golf Course.
That drove me batty. Not one word about Jimmy Carter’s hospitalization (Trudeau tweeted about it) but endless tweets promoting his golf course. And he also took credit for the USS John Finn, which was ordered, built, launched, and christened during Obama’s two terms
Are we gonna talk about Trump’s comments about getting hit in the head by 60lb bags of drugs being hurtled over the border wall?? This is his perception of drug trafficking? He thinks drugs are just tossed over the wall?? And you can fix that alleged problem with…more wall???
That’s one of his most unhinged comments to date. No doubt he’s very stupid, getting senile or both.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/politics/wp/2017/07/14/good-news-for-border-residents-no-one-is-throwing-60-pound-bags-of-drugs-over-a-50-foot-wall/
I laughed at the thought of drugs being tossed over the border wall. He has no idea how drug trafficking works.
I’ve been reading about this for the past few days, and reading the comments has made me laugh so much and so hard that I cried and my shoulders ached.
Does he honestly think drug dealers will just hurl these sacks over the wall? Will someone throw the money over the wall to pay for the drugs? The dealers would have to be incredibly strong to throw these sacks up and over the big wall.
For a guy to have all these ridiculous thoughts, he must have been hit on the head with lots of 60 pound sacks over the years
OMG is he watching the Looney Tunes (pun not intended) or what? That’s something you would see in those cartoons. No they don’t throw drugs over a wall. Who on the US side would just sit and wait for that bag?
However, Looney Tunes is up to his mental comprehension so maybe?
Most recent Trump tweet: “Most politicians would have gone to a meeting like the one Don jr attended in order to get info on an opponent. That’s politics!”.
No, no they wouldn’t. And we are so gonna find out he was at the meeting, right?
Sigh…
Trump is always attributing his own unethical and illegal activities to other people. You can actually tell where to investigate next by watching what he claims others are doing.
Trump has no problem dealing with a foreign government to get elected, so he assumes every politician would do the same.
Bot and paid for.
@Rapunzel Of course Trump was in the meeting. It has already been confirmed he was in the building at the time of the meeting. Are we really supposed to believe he missed out on an opportunity to get dirt on Hillary. No way.
Trump should have gone to jail for running that fraud university and double-dealing on his charity. Both are crimes. But he pays off politicians (Christie and Pam Bondi to not investigate him) and only ends up paying a fine, when he is caught. He scammed a bunch of young people and ONLY has to pay a fine. That’s “rich people justice” these days! Any normal person would be going to jail. The person who put on that fraud concert is going to trial for that. If only his last name was Trump.
What putrid morals Trump ( and his cult following) have. Our country has gone mad….
Sadly, his attitude in this tweet rings true to Americans with no understanding of history, politics, ethics or the rule of law. It’s a cynical jab that makes a mark, due to the fact that sometimes people in leadership positions have done illegal things. But our political institution itself is not corrupt. Trump is trying to get everyone to think it is, so that when he is indicted for real crimes, these supporters will defend him.
He’s counting on this cynicism to destroy our Republic. Bannon is still in charge of the narrative here–Trump is just sticking to his script. They really believe they can weaponize cynicism and ignorance to institute an autocracy. They will not step down, because they are getting Putin’s help to hack our election system so they continue to just vote in GOP. It’s horrifying, and we have to stop it.
I did hear this young man on tv yesterday saying, we have to give our “leader” a chance, it been only six months. There were three young people, 2 female on the panel, two female and one male, one voted for trump, male, one for Hillary and one for Bernie. The two female right away corrected the young man that 45 is not our leader he’s our President. The guy acted as if he was brainwashed. He can’t see anything that 45 can do or did do to prevent him from voting for him again. It was sad to watch the blind trust in this conman and 🤥.
At the time of the meeting, the Secret Service would not have been protecting any of the Trump kids, only Senor Don himself. His lawyer referring to the Secret Service being involved seems to confirm that Cheeto supreme was involved in that meeting. We are still waiting for confirmation about one other person at this meeting, and it was likely Trump himself.
Trump supporters’ arguments against the Russia case mirror the narcissist’s prayer almost perfectly.
That didn’t happen.
And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.
And if it was, that’s not a big deal.
And if it is, that’s not my fault.
And if it was, I didn’t mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
Wow … that’s a brilliant description of Trump.
Trump learned never to take personal responsibility for anything gone wrong to such an extreme that he actually creates alternate realities to avoid being blamed for his mountain of ill-deeds. Trump needs a psychiatrist to find out why and a spine to admit his failures, as do his enablers for supporting this dangerous liar for president.
The press are missing the point. When the lawyer tried to blame the Secret Service, what he was really doing was confirming that Trump was at the meeting with the Russians. The Secret Service weren’t protecting Donald Jr, so that means that they were present at Trump Tower because they protecting Trump who was attending the meeting.
As long as the news keeps catering to Trump, they deserve to be called fake news. They need to stop attending the WH press briefings, doing exclusive interviews with Trump, and being complicit in Spicer, Sarah, and Kellyanne’s lies(When they lie, fact check them right then and there like Joy Reid did yesterday with one of the Trump supporters who was spreading fake news about Hilliary). The WH reporters spent a week whining about not having access to the briefings, when they should have been upset over the lies that Spicer and Sarah were spreading during the briefings.
Trumps poll numbers have always been in the lower 30s. Did you notice how once his poll numbers hit around 35%, they started using different polls that put his numbers in the upper 30s and 40s? The press is failing us. As for Trump’s base staying faithful, did anyone else consider that these “supporters” are really Russian bots? The press is catering to the problem. Trump won because of the interference of 3rd party and that 3rd party is still at work.
The press are also making matters worse. Instead of bragging about how these people support Trump, they need to ask them how their lives would change with the policies that Trump has implemented. Don’t just ask them if they support Trump because they are not going to publicly admit that their support has declined due the fact that they are too embarrassed to admit that they made a mistake. Just ask them about their health care , daycare programs they use, and work. Then ask them what happens if all that was all taken away. Then ask them how loyal they are to Trump.
Just the first of the payback for rigging the election for 45. CNN: Russia demands return of the compounds Obama seized. Who believes 45 will not start paying his master Putin for handing the election to him last November.
And Trump and Tillerson claimed that Trump didn’t talk about sanctions with Putin. The fact that Russia is demanding the return of the compounds and Trump is stalling the Russian Sanctions bill in the house is proof enough that Trump did talk about sanctions with Putin.
You just know that Trump’s going off at the Secret Service hierarchy for releasing a statement now, don’t you? I doubt there will be any more, unfortunately, but look out for a whistleblowers’ Twitter account from the SS soon, if there isn’t one already.