This afternoon during her MSNBC show Deadline: White House, Nicolle Wallace broke some interesting news when talking to Rachel Maddow. Specifically, Wallace reported that based on her sources at the Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General is still overseeing the Special Counsel’s investigation. She supported this by explaining that today’s plea agreement between the Special Counsel’s Office and Michael Cohen went through the same chain of approval that all of the previous plea agreements that the Special Counsel has agreed to, as well as all of his indictments. That chain of approval stops with Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein. Here’s the clip – the information pertaining to Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein still supervising the Special Counsel’s investigation begins around the 20 second mark:
"If Mueller is proceeding without being throttled, without being stymied and he’s proceeding at this kind of a pace… everything is aiming right at the President personally and that's got to be very unsettling for them" – @maddow on the Cohen news w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/kBsUC5oR4q
— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) November 29, 2018
This is very interesting.
Open thread!
Ben Cisco
Good.
This feels like kind of a big deal.
Steeplejack
Typo: Nicolle Wallace.
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: Fine, fine, we’ll spell it your way…
Yarrow
It’s all happening now. Going to be a roller coaster ride. Wonder whose turn it is tomorrow?
rikyrah
That is very interesting.
Platonailedit
I so want the totus’ ugly spawns to go down before he himself is jailed.
NotMax
Speculation leads to guessing that DOJ staff has concluded that so long as there is an open question legally as to the propriety of Whitaker in the top post absent Senate concurrence that the entire investigation could conceivably be attacked as irretrievably tainted if it moves totally under his direct purview, should he thereafter be forced to step aside.
Yarrow
@Platonailedit: They will. Traitor tots are in big trouble.
Platonailedit
@Yarrow: Traitor tots. Good one.
Yarrow
@Platonailedit: I wish I’d thought of it but I got it from someone ages ago. Love it, though. So fitting.
Gin & Tonic
@Steeplejack: Maybe he’s got a crush on Olivia D’Abo, like Corner Stone.
Patricia Kayden
And I see that some Rightwingers are furious that Trump is about to sign off on a bump stock ban.
Adam L Silverman
Ruh Roh!
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: LOL. Good to see this news finally breaking. Wonder if she gets to wear designer orange jumpsuits?
rikyrah
@Platonailedit:
I ? Traitor Tots too
feebog
This shit is like a fast and furious sequel. Can’t imagine how many shoes are going to drop tomorrow.
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s just science!
dmsilev
@Yarrow: It feels like we’re in a mashup of the endings of Fargo and Goodfellas. Except without the wood chipper, so far anyway.
Adam L Silverman
@Patricia Kayden: Let’s check in with the armed intelligentsia for comment…
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2018/11/daniel-zimmerman/cnn-trump-to-announce-bump-stock-ban-within-days/
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: Eric Trump was deemed to be too stupid to help?
rikyrah
Putin is not letting him quit the meeting.
” You best bring your azz to the meeting. ”
Not a request, from Vlad.
joel hanes
@Patricia Kayden:
some Rightwingers are furious that Trump is about to sign off on a bump stock ban
He will throw everyone under the bus on his way down.
Yarrow
@dmsilev: Kinda like this?
Adam L Silverman
Bless Kellyanne’s heart!
Steeplejack
@Gin & Tonic:
That arc on Criminal Intent is the best, Jerry. The best!
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Yep:
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: Well played.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
If Ivanka is officially a White House Senior Advisor with initial caps in her job title, is she not bound by White House staff rules that prohibit also working in the private sector?
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: Yes. I’m not sure there’s even a question about this.
joel hanes
@Adam L Silverman:
Let’s check in with the armed intelligentsia
Delicious. “If he breaks his promise, I’m not gonna vote in 2020.”
Not that I think that Trump will survive until 2020 to be the R candidate; this is the moment when the great wheel turns at a touch.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: And that doesn’t even begin to cover her Azerbaijan activities, let alone her treasonous activities with China.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: She should be, but they’ve basically dismantled the Ethics Counsel’s Office so who knows.
Jeffro
Here is the deal: Mueller has all of them…Trumpov, Jr, Ivanka, Jared, Stone…dead in his sights. He has. the. goods. Tax fraud. Conspiracy. Perjury. Obstruction. Bribery. Campaign Finance Fraud. And the Trump Org is going to go down under RICO, lock, stock, and barrel (along with a ton of other shady businesses that Deutsche Bank was working with – Trumpov ain’t the only one)
So he’ll drop it all – hundreds of charges against dozens of people. And then what do the few remaining non-implicated members of the GOP do? NOT act? Just sit there and call ALL of it “process crimes”? With this…thing…still sitting in the White House rage-tweeting away every day?
No way no how. Donnie’s already being revealed as the weakest of the weak, the dam is bursting. They will turn on him and his scuzzy crew and we’ll spend the next two years learning how they did it and who ran cover for them.
I think in the end he will try to blanket pardon himself and his kids, that’s how pathetic this is going to be. And then, regardless of where they hole up, he’ll just spiral into his NPD/dementia even further, all the way down. I once thought he’d end up at a classic police interrogation room table, spilling his guts about decades of money laundering in order to avoid forfeiting his last million and having his kids jailed. But now I’m not so sure…
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Don’t forget Panama. Also, Toronto. Or was that Vancouver?
Aleta
@Platonailedit: As long as she’s there he might as well ask about the deals Ivanka went after in Latvia and Azerbaijan, and about her encounter with Sater in Russia in 2006.
Platonailedit
If Putin openly confesses that he colluded with the totus thug to
flipsteal the 2016 elections, will the party of traitorous thugs call Putin a liar? They are so far up the totus thug’s ass that I bet they will.Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: The SNL parody of Eric seems pretty on the nose.
danielx
@dmsilev:
Eric Trump may not be all that dumb; it’s his brother whose name seems to be cropping up…over and over.
It may be just positive thinking on my part, but I think Trump is – fairly quickly – going to run up against the problem that a lot of people who work for the Justice Department take their oaths of office a lot more seriously than Trump takes his. Specifically, the part where they swear allegiance to the constitution, rather than to Donald John Trump.
Um…..maybe not.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: I’m not sure the GOP is going to do anything. As I’ve written here repeatedly:
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/11/gop-leadership-compromised-russian-money-trump-biographer/
Here’s the link to the whole AMA:
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/a1ip6e/im_craig_unger_journalist_and_nyt_bestselling/
Viva BrisVegas
Much of tropical Queensland is burning right now. Including rainforests that haven’t burnt since white settlement. This is a very unusually early and intense start to the fire season.
Not as bad as the recent Californian fires, but it shows that our fire season now overlaps with yours.
Previously it was possible for West Coast USA and East Coast Australia fire units to send men and equipment to each others aid because each had complementary quiet times.
Now it’s all one fire season on both continents.
The good news is that the next generation is stepping up. Large numbers of school students have gone on strike today in protest at the Federal Government’s inaction towards, or rather sabotaging, of efforts towards carbon reduction.
The other good news is that these conservative coal coddlers are in political disarray right now, with disastrous results in last weeks Victorian state election leading to resignations, defections and call for right wing purity purges.
Meanwhile our lame duck PM is off to the G20, desperately hoping for a face to face with his political hero, Donald Trump.
Back home the electorate waits for the next election, due in May, with baseball bat in hand.
Mandalay
@Steeplejack:
Typo: Assholle Wallace.
Marcopolo
Dunno if there is one of those futures betting markets where you can lay money on Nancy Pelosi becoming the first woman to become President but if there is then after today’s news the value of that bet went up a few cents.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: I could only get through a few comments, although
is implying that the NRA is too liberal for them?
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Who can keep track anymore?! So much treasoning for someone so young.
Adam L Silverman
@danielx:
They do.
Adam L Silverman
I love Infrastructure Week!
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
Introduce Trump to Putin? Is it believable that they hadn’t met before 2016?
pk
I think even Pence is somehow involved in this. It would be ironic and poetic if we end up with President Pelosi instead of President Hillary.
cain
@Adam L Silverman:
@Steeplejack: Fine, fine, we’ll spell it your way…
I’ve heard it said both ways.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Don’t even get me started on Tom DeLay. There is so much wrong there….
They are all compromised. All of them. So many traitors in the GOP.
Marcopolo
@Adam L Silverman: Or it could have been Mike Dense…checks notes…no, prob not.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: He has to wear prison garb, right?
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: Yes they are. The NRA was involved with/consulted on both the National Firearms Act in the 1930s and the Gun Control Act in the 1960s. This is, of course, pre Cincinnati Revolt NRA (1977) when the organization was taken over, via an internal coup, and pulled far to the right. The NRA is, however, incredibly risk averse, despite their PR on the subject, in regard to firearms legislation and litigation. The real heavy lifting is actually done by the 2nd Amendment Foundation (2AF or SAF). The 2AF are the folks that brought and won by the Heller and McDonald rulings. The NRA tried to sabotage both of the 2AF’s cases because they were worried the cases couldn’t be won.
Yarrow
@pk: Pence is up to his eyeballs in this whole thing. Manafort picked him. He headed the transition team. Supposed to be lots of dirt in the redacted emails from his time as Gov.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: good point
But it will only take one GOP Rep or Senator to admit that Majority Leader McConnell has been taking Russian Mob money for years.
Or a Mueller. A Mueller could also turn that up, too
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: I don’t know. Everyone around the President, and the President, have been all over the map over when the President first met Putin. I’ve seen, at least, four different versions just from the President himself.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Why yes, yes he does!
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: The one thing I am sure of is that Special Counsel Mueller’s counterintelligence and financial criminal enterprise investigators know where all the money came from and where it went to.
Mary G
It’s raining shoes today. If I wasn’t so lazy, I’d research every Serious Pundit that said that Russiagate was a big fat nothingburger and point and laugh on twitter.
Adam L Silverman
Chetan Murthy
@Mandalay: Yeah, no. She’s been pretty good since Shitler’s coup.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: So that’s why Florida has the lousiest gun laws in the country, because Marion Hammer was pushier than the national organization?
Chetan Murthy
@pk:
lamh36
@Yarrow: Was just thinking…there is no way Pence ain’t a big part of this.
But isn’t the focus Chump and his KLAN? Don’t know if, so far, Pence has been named dropped in much of any of the stuff that’s come out so far?
Or could it just be Chump is more get-able than Race Bannon (h/t rikyrah)?
Jackie
@Adam L Silverman: LOL!!! YES!
Mary G
@Yarrow: I luxuriate every time they show a current photo of Manafort without his flashy suits and hair dye. You know he must hate it.
Yarrow
@Mary G: Yes, yes. Let’s start with the fucking New York Times and their October 31, 2016 article: “Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia.”
Fuckers.
(No link because fuck them.)
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: Yep. From what I understand, LaPierre isn’t actually a gun guy. He’s a fundraiser and lobbyist. I’ve seen people who know him say he couldn’t shoot straight to save his life/couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. LaPierre is all about dollars and influence, that’s it. He plays a true believer because it gets him a multimillion dollar salary every year. Hammer is a true believer.
Bobby Thomson
@Platonailedit: no, they would just say that because the alternative was Killary {sic}, it was worth it.
Guaranteed.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Nicolle is a firecracker.
Yarrow
@lamh36: The focus initially was on Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign. The investigation has broadened as more information has been discovered. As I said above, Pence was well involved in the 2016 campaign and has his own Russian connections, despite keeping a low profile.
Bobby Thomson
@Adam L Silverman: there go my New Year’s plans.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: When Flynn’s sentencing comes up is when we’re going to start hearing about the Vice President’s role in all of this.
different-church-lady
@Bobby Thomson: Naw, just keep the horse here permanently.
Adam L Silverman
@Bobby Thomson: And a good time was had by all…
cain
@Platonailedit:
My hope is that he’ll release all the dirt he has on the Republican party. Now that his asset is about to get burned, he’ll probably try to create maximum chaos and destroy the rest of the party. I wouldn’t be surprised if some NYT people get caught up in it too as well as your usual Fox people.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: Rick Gates probably has all kinds of inconvenient information about Pence, since he worked on the transition with his after Chris Christie was jettisoned.
Mandalay
@Amir Khalid:
Even if she is, it’s not clear to me what crime she might have committed with respect to today’s news.
I’d love to see her in the slammer as much as anyone else, but it’s probably better if she is found guilty of something first.
rikyrah
@Adam L Silverman:
I believe that strongly.
Race Bannon is up to his eyeballs in this.
I also believe that he was stupid enough to lie to Bobby Three Sticks.
Yarrow
@cain: There will be people in all news organizations caught up in it. Democrats as well.
different-church-lady
@Yarrow: Shit, Mueller’s gonna have the entire country in jail before this is over…
Platonailedit
Fuck the ‘conservative’ oldies.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: Yep.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: Sim, Sim, Salabim!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Chetan Murthy
@cain:
I doubt it. The way to create maximum chaos is to ensure that the GrOPers are as empowered as possible, so they can fight All. The. Way. Down. At the moment you propose, if I were Putin, I’d be sending massive cash infusions by every covert channel possible. Massive. Cash. Infusions. Also ramping up all the social media influence operations. I’d be taking it all to “11”. B/c once the GrOPers are burnt and dead, the Dems are gonna come after Pootie-Poot — he needs to delay that day as long as possible.
Mandalay
@Platonailedit:
Of course Morrison knows very well that if they had protested on the weekend nobody would know anything about it. That would have been as effective as Colin Kaepernick kneeling in his kitchen every Tuesday morning.
Chetan Murthy
Don Lemon cracks up watching Manafort lie: https://www.rawstory.com/2018/11/gotta-play-one-time-cnns-don-lemon-cracks-watching-paul-manaforts-awkward-lies-russia/
clay
@Adam L Silverman: I can understand his/her confusion, poor thing. I mean, you’d never know Trump had business ties to Russia unless you listened to all the times he and his family bragged about all of their business ties to Russia!
fedupwithhypocrisy
@dmsilev: just bone saw
SRW1
@dmsilev:
Is that a question?
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
With all the financing he was getting all those years from the Russians, it seems unlikely their paths never crossed.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: At this point we won’t know until/unless the Special Counsel reports on it.
Mnemosyne
@Chetan Murthy:
I’m starting to suspect that a lot of the covert channels the Russians were using until 2016 have been quietly closed off. The NRA is suddenly pleading poverty after swimming in dough for the last decade and Republican candidates didn’t seem to have as much super PAC cash available to them in this election cycle. I can’t quote anything for sure, but it definitely seemed like the Republicans had less money this time around.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: I was thinking the icing on the cupcake today would have been learning the NRA offices had been raided by the feds.
But I can be patient. And not greedy.
It was lovely to learn of the Deutsche Bank raid before I’d finished my first cup of coffee. A good day, indeed. Bring on more, please.
Mnemosyne
@SRW1:
Eric is the family’s designated Scapegoat, so Golden Child Ivanka and aspiring Golden Child Don Jr. insisted on doing all of the important stuff themselves so Daddy would continue to love them.
If it had ever occurred to them that they might get caught, that’s when they would have put Eric in charge, at least nominally, so he could be the fall guy. But they weren’t even smart enough to do that.
Kelly
@Patricia Kayden: I cannot figure out how bump stocks were judged not a full auto in the first place. If I understand the mechanism correctly the rifle is moving your trigger finger for you. If the machine moves everything to fire a round it’s a machine gun.
Adam L Silverman
@Elizabelle: Butina is in plea negotiations with the US Attorney that indicted her.
Dman
WTF!?!?!?
Two million federal workers receive memo warning they can’t use the word ‘resist’ or discuss Trump impeachment at work
lollipopguild
@Mnemosyne: Get caught? Why would any of them think that they might get caught? Daddy has gotten away with a lifetime of criminal acts, so why would any of them get caught?
dmsilev
@Dman: Can they discuss the memo telling them not to discuss impeachment?
Aleta
@lamh36:
I like to think Pence was compromised with a money-making deal or fraudulent loan before they took him on. And when he went out of his way to announce that he refuses to be alone in a room with any woman … it did sound like one of those preventative lies.
cain
@Yarrow:
OH yeah, I’m sure Democrats are involved as well. Money has no party affiliation. It would be naive to think Democratic politicans haven’t been getting any smack. Russians will try to get in any way they can . Just happens that Republicans are easier marks.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@dmsilev: No, it’s like ‘Fight Club’.
cain
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, the NRA pleading poverty is pretty nuts. What the fuck do these people do with the money? I can never understand rich people.
Aleta
It’s pretty funny, the report from a ‘source’ that some WH staffers didn’t realize you can be indicted for lying to Congress. Hard to believe no one informed them (not).
NotMax
Uh oh. TCM, showing Z starting at 4 a.m. Eastern time. May have to channel surf elsewhere because even though have seen it probably around 100 times*, am constitutionally incapable of not watching it raptly through to the end yet again if so much as 10 seconds of the film is sighted, and have other stuff planned to get to tonight..
*It played for three months or so at the movie theater where I was working at the time.
Steeplejack
@cain:
Ha! I knew it would be that.
Mandalay
@Chetan Murthy:
Maybe so, but only because she is an opportunistic hack. She happily stuck the boot in on Democrats when Dubya was in power, and if Jeb! had become president she’d happily be doing it again right now.
I think she is amoral in the same way that virtually all Republicans in Congress are: she will readily adopt whatever positions happen to be most beneficial to herself.
dmsilev
NYT headline: “How a Lawyer, a Felon and a Russian General Chased a Moscow Trump Tower Deal”.
Spoiler alert: In a surprise twist ending, it turns out that all three protagonists were all actually Jared Kushner.
Steve in the ATL
@Mary G: I’ve been in Florida since Tuesday and I haven’t been shot once!
Glad I’m leaving tomorrow before the odds revert to the means. Or however you phrase that.
oatler.
@NotMax: It’s one of those prophetic films, like “The President’s Analyst”.
Chetan Murthy
Oh, this is interesting: https://youtu.be/EtVqsMzQ2yE?t=2565
Maddow interviewing Emily Jane Fox about whether Cohen has a wide-ranging cooperation agreement. Fox doesn’t believe he does. Which might explain how Cohen’s able to give up the goods on Shitler, without also giving up the goods on his Russian mob buddies (who would most likely revenge themselves in blood on Cohen & family). *Interesting*.
Mnemosyne
@cain:
The Chicago alderman whose office was raided today is nominally a Democrat but worked closely with Trump for years.
I think there will be some Democrats who get caught up in the net, but I think they will be much smaller fish than on the Republican side. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out that Israel was laundering donations to some Democrats on behalf of Russia without said Democrats knowing where the money originated, but that’s only a guess.
And I’ve said before that I’ve suspected for some time that a certain independent senator’s unexpectedly strong fundraising had at least some of its source in Russia, and that Tad Devine at a minimum was in on it. Even I would be able to figure out how to launder multiple donations of $27 that just happen to be too small to require reporting to the FEC.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Steeplejack:
I heard George Constanza’s voice in my head as I read that.
Amir Khalid
@Steve in the ATL:
I would say “before my luck runs out”. But unless someone is actually gunning for you, you probably have
nothinglittle to worry about.Achrachno
@Mandalay: Grudge much? She’s changed and is no longer a Republican. She’s better than most news/commentary hosts from a democratic POV — very hard hitting in a pleasant way. She laughs at things that T and his minions say in a spontaneous and infectious way. Hers is an approach that will bring people toward reason.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@cain:
I also think the GOP is more ideologically compatible with Putin’s regime. They’re far-right fascist white supremacists. But I repeat myself.
Steve in the ATL
@Amir Khalid: I’m a white man, which makes me pretty safe here, until they find out I’m a hardcore liberal…and a terrible golfer.
Redshift
@Chetan Murthy: Based on what I’ve heard on Preet Bharara’s podcast, I’d guess that he could be allowed that because to Mueller, he’s just a useful witness (mainly for laying traps for other clown car passengers) rather than a target.
If I recall correctly, he didn’t have a plea agreement with the NY prosecutors, he just pleaded guilty, which seemed odd. But if his overriding interest was in not being compelled to testify against everyone (Russian mobsters particularly), then it makes more sense.
Amir Khalid
@Dman #99
Your Rawstory link has captured the reply button.
Can the White House really forbid civil service staff to use a word that by itself has no partisan political meaning?
Millard Filmore
@different-church-lady:
“Illegal immigrant.”
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Steve in the ATL:
Being “Aryan” didn’t save the commies and social democrats in Germany during the 30s, so you have a point
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: If Tad Devine was in on it, it’s useful to have a look at who Tad Devine has worked for. Didn’t he work for Al Gore? There will be more than a few Democrats caught up in the investigation but at this point in time Republicans are by far a more fertile ground for Russia than Democrats are because of biases and beliefs (white supremacy, misogyny, Christianity, homophobia, etc.).
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Amir Khalid:
Personally, I don’t know. That would be governed by the Hatch Act. I don’t think it would be particularly enforceable.
frosty
@Chetan Murthy:
You probably meant Unlimited Corporate Cash*, right?
* Romney-era annoying troll.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: …and outside of the military there’s the pesky 1st Amendment.
joel hanes
@Achrachno:
Grudge much?
Damn straight. I’ve got an entire Arya’s list from the W years.
Steeplejack
@Bobby Thomson:
Okay, that was LOL funny. Kudos.
Tenar Arha
@Aleta: Whut? No seriously, whaaat? It’s not common to charge people, but the power exists. It’s the basis of more than a few movies even, so it’s not exactly a piece of hidden lore. I mean, why do they think there’s an oath before testifying in particular? Photographers even aim for that shot of that one pose, you know the one, hand raised, elbow bent, palm flat.
(TFW you wonder if you’re such a dork that you’re one of the fewer who notices stuff like this).
Tenar Arha
@Achrachno: I’m not interested in going into the details, but how do you think our major media ecosystem ended up being wired for Republicans? People like Nicolle Wallace & Joe Scarborough made careers there. It’s not the only reason that teh Sunday Showz have a majority of Republican operatives & guests on them all the time, but it’s one of the reasons.
We all should hold grudges just enough to remember that they’re not reliable allies who’ve had a change of heart but people who are horrified by Orange Julius’ vulgarity, and watch our backs accordingly.
ETA yes, I know it’s a dead thread
Mike Furlan
Nicolle Wallace, previously the “mouth of Sauron” for Cheney/Bush, is on MSNBC, so everybody is OK with that? Including secular saint Rachel Maddow. This, by itself is proof that this nation is too far gone to save.
We are Sodom and Gomorrah, where you cannot find even one righteous person.
Rob
@Adam L Silverman:
Not sure how else to get this to you Adam, but here’s a new Floriduh article for your semi-regular feature:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/woman-passes-gas-in-store-pulls-knife-on-offended-customer-police-1.4197317