300

The 1970s are back. 

“In the worldwide capital of leaks and anonymous dishing that is Washington, secrets can be almost impossible to keep.”

“But somehow over the past 19 months, the fact that America’s most famous investigative journalist was quietly chipping away at a book that delves into the dysfunctions of President Trump’s White House remained largely unknown. On Monday night, that veil of secrecy will be lifted when Simon & Schuster plans to announce that it will publish “Fear: Trump in the White House” by Bob Woodward on Sept. 11, according to a copy of the release obtained by The Washington Post.”

“A casual observer of American political news might be excused for thinking the 1970s never ended. Not only is Woodward publishing a Trump book, but Bernstein is also appearing regularly on American television screens after recently co-writing a scoopy piece for CNN that asserted Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen is willing to testify that Trump was aware in advance of a now-infamous meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Russians offering dirt of Hillary Clinton.”

“While working on the book, Woodward has kept a lower profile than usual, limiting cable news appearances and attempting to stay out of the public eye. Instead, the author has told friends, he’s gone back to some of the signature moves of his youthful reporting days.”

“Late at night, he’s been prone to show up at important people’s houses unannounced to ask for interviews. He’s told friends that it feels like a “rebirth.”

I  suspect many of us will  be waiting for Woodward’s book-coming out in September-with bated breath

UPDATE: That was six months ago and I still haven’t gotten the chance to read it yet-finishing this book and all… But while the MSM clearly holds Woodward in much higher opinion than Michael Wolff to say nothing of Omarosa, they all tell largely the same story regarding Trump’s Russia House.

Michael Wolff had a very interesting interview with Dean Baquet’s NY Times of all people after his latest Siege and he offered a pretty incisive critique of the MSM-Baquet and the Times being among the most flagrant offenders-and the way they have to negotiate with themselves regarding what they actually know for fact.

As for Carl Bernstein, he just said it so it’s now official:

There’s no question that Watergate 2.0 is worse than the original Watergate for a number of reasons, starting with the fact that this involves a hostile foreign power unlike the first Watergate. Although, as recently documented, Nixon did rig an election by colluding with a foreign power-Thieu’s South Vietnam in 1968, something which had been suspected for many years but only confirmed through clear direct evidence recently.

https://lastmenandovermen.com/2018/08/02/watergate-2-0-is-about-the-moral-and-intellectual-bankruptcy-of-the-modern-republican-party/

Watergate 2.0 is also worse because of our technological progress: the rise of the digital, cyber world has made the new Watergate much more effective than the original. The original Watergate burglary was a totally botched clown show-that it was botched is not a surprise as it’s objective was so sketchy-to this day no one is 100% clear on what the motivation of it was- it seems clear that Nixon wanted oppo on the DNC”s Larry O’Brien for both aggressive and defensive reasons. On the other hand the hacks of the DNC, DCCC, Podesta, Clinton aides, was extremely efficient and effective.

What Marx said certainly applies to Watergate 2.0: history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce or as John Oliver puts it Watergate 2.0 is stupid Watergate. 

As I’ve discussed previously, that there was Russian interference and possible collusion with the Trump campaign became clear and undeniable for me after the release of the DNC emails just before the convention forcing Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to resign the very morning of the first day. Like Malcom Nance says coincidences take a lot of planning. It was so optimal for someone trying to sabotage the Democrats that it became clear that was exactly what was going on.

Then again, Watergate 2.0 is also worse because Trump is much worse than Nixon-certainly intellectually, but arguably ethically. I don’t know that ethically is the right word as it’s hard to use the word ethics in the same sentence of old Tricky Dick but if nothing else, Nixon was an institutionalist who under stood that certain things weren’t done and there’s a way of doing things-even in obstructing justice and attacking your political enemies.

Or take Michael Cohen-aka Trump’s version of John Dean; ie, John Dean 2.0. It’s clear that John Dean 2.0 is of much lower quality both as a lawyer-Dean was a very competent lawyer whereas Cohen’s never been a real lawyer-and as a human being-while Dean certainly didn’t want to be left holding the bag you get the idea that he also realized what he’d done in Nixon’s service was wrong and felt some guilt about that.

FN: Though in fairness I thought Cohen’s Congressional testimony in March, 2019 was pretty compelling. Pretty sure he feels regret serving a three year sentence for crimes that benefitted Trump not himself while Trump  is free as a bird while being called ‘Mr. President.’

A major part of Nixon’s defense was demonizing John Dean as an amoral opportunist; this was something of a caricature, but it fits Cohen to a T.

There are, it’s true many symmetries between Watergate and Watergate 2.0 in terms of the cast of characters. Trump has his G. Gordon Liddy-Paul Manafort; his Howard E. Hunt-Michael Flynn; his own Rose Woods-Hope Hicks. On the other hand Trump like Nixon before him, has Roger Stone-Stone is the one constant.

Roger Stone at 19 was the youngest member of CREEP and the Watergate gang. He testified before the Watergate Committee and wasn’t charged mostly thanks to his young years. He may have been young but he didn’t have a bit part-he was the driver in delivering the Canucks letter that arguably won the election for Nixon; Nixon’s belief was that Ed Muskie was his biggest Democratic threat and the Canucks letter ended Muskie’s run. While Don Segretti wrote the letter, Stone was a clear co-conspirator in hand delivering it to the Manchester Union Leader-a paper run by someone with Nazi sympathies, we can add.

Even Trump has noticed the similarities between himself and Nixon-both during the campaign but also after he fired Comey. Of course, Nixon never fired the FBI Director-though he did totally compromise Patrick Gray in ordering him to destroy evidence which doomed his nomination.

But as to Bernstein’s concern-the system worked in Watergate-a few observations.

1. It didn’t work overnight-during the 1972 election, despite the tireless reporting of he and Woodward, few other journalists picked it up-the NY Times much like with Russia in 2016-was AWOL on Watergate until after the election-again very much like 2016 when they only started to take Russia seriously after the election.

The Watergate burglary occurred in June, 1972, and Nixon was forced to resign in August, 1974 so it took over two years-it wasn’t instantaneous.

Trump has been in office 19 months, so to avoid going longer than the  first Watergate, Trump would have to be forced out in the next 7 months. That probably won’t happen, I agree. Indeed, so long as he has a GOP Congress there to protect him and obstruct justice on his behalf, the illegitimate ‘President’ is safe.

UPDATE: That was predictable. But who could guessed that the Dem House leadership would also protect him with just as much determination as Paul Ryan?

When Trump said he could kill someone on 5th avenue and get away with it, this is certainly true for the Republican party; Giuliani took it a step further and argued that if Trump assassinated James Comey he could not be convicted-though he could be impeached. But I don’t know-if the Congress were Republican even then I’m not sure.

And that’s really the big difference between Watergate 2.0 and the original. Nixon always faced a Democratic Congress-that increased its ranks markedly in the 1972 election-despite his landslide win, Nixon had no coattails.

There has been a sense among some that the Republican party in Nixon’s time was better, that it wasn’t blindly partisan to the point of sociopathy as today’s GOP. This is the myth of Watergate bipartisanship. (Augment this with post on this myth, Mike).

True the parties were less ideologically coherent than they are today but, even so, this is the GOP that had-in the person of Nixon-rigged the 1968 election via foreign collusion. If someone had a time machine and could-God forbid change history a la Back to the Future-I’m not at all sure Nixon’s GOP would have done the right thing.

FN: To date there has never been an impeachment of a POTUS by his own party.

The GOP only broke with him very late in the Summer of 1974.

No doubt today’s GOP doesn’t even pay lip service to norms. But for us, it’s very simple. Either we have a Democratic Congress in 2019-or Trump’s treason is allowed to stand. He will be able to claim vindication, his GOP enablers will help him consolidate his illegitimate regime.

On the other hand, if the Democrats win-as they are favored to-things will become a nightmare scenario for Trump overnight. I don’t mean the Dems will impeach on the first day-that wouldn’t be responsible and the Dems are the responsible party. But they will reopen the Russia investigation and follow the facts where they lead. What should keep Trump up at night is this man getting subpoena power:

 

To say nothing of Jerrold Nadler and Adam Schiff. If we win a Dem Congress things are going to get as serious as a heart attack. 

REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS don’t agree on much these days, but perhaps the thing we hear the most from both on Capitol Hill is just how intense congressional investigations will get if the House or Senate flip.

FN: As it turns out things didn’t get all that intense in the first 7 months of Dem rule-until Mueller’s testimony. It’s arguable that at least Jerrold Nadler and his Judiciary Dems are intense now-though wether intense enough time will tell. I don’t know if Pelosi is being honest here or just throwing shade at Nadler but I do think he should have called Lewandowski out on contempt-and fines-on the spot.

ON THE LEGISLATIVE FRONT, it’s clear PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMPwill have to adjust to a new reality. But an equally important thing to think about is just how many subpoenas will be flying if Democrats have control of the House.

FOR EXAMPLE, take a look at this BuzzFeed story by Tarini Parti and Jeremy Singer-Vine. “Democratic Senators Want An Investigation Into Trump’s Air Force One Tours”

FOR RIGHT NOW, Democrats can ask for whatever investigation they want, but they won’t get a blessed thing. If Democrats take control of the House, they’ll have subpoena power, and they can drag whoever they want to the Capitol for an interview or hearing. It is, perhaps, the most powerful tool the majority has. Democrats can — and will — investigate everything from the president and his businesses down to agencies and how they operate.”

If the Dems take Congress, the first day Schiff reopens the House Intelligence Committee investigation, Devin Nunes and friend shutdown and Nadler does the same on the House Judiciary Committee. But there are literally far more other things to investigate Trump and his Russia White House than you could ever hope to touch on in one sit in:

Emoluments, the interment camps for the children of those seeking asylum, indeed the whole despicable zero tolerance policy-and Trump’s latest despicable absurdity: the ACLU should reunite the kids with their parents. While I don’t know about wether or not we should ‘abolish ICE’-this slogan is more a Trump/GOP talking point than anything else, you had a candidate in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who said this-and she won her race here in NY. This is not however, the official position of the Democratic party.

Which is not to necessarily say it should be abolished though it clearly needs to be radically reformed-if it proved itself not susceptible to reform then you might have to talk about abolishing it.

UPDATE: Things are getting serious as a heart attack as we have the Dem Congress and they’ve begun oversight this week.

FN: More on investigations…

UPDATE: Augment with Andrew Gillum post who also supports ‘abolishing ICE in its current form’

https://lastmenandovermen.com/2018/08/30/andrew-gillum-is-all-in-on-the-impeachment-train/

On the other hand, I don’t think we should rule out abolishing ICE-there is a case to be made that it’s outlived its usefulness. Certainly we can question its current placement as part of DHS rather than working with border control; what’s missing from the debate over ICE is any understanding that it’s not the border patrol agency. 

Say what you want about abolishing ICE but it’s not a call for ‘open borders’ as the alarmist canard Trump and his GOP friends want to invoke.

Reality is we survived as a country for 214 years before ICE was founded in 2003 and we could survive after it were gone-no there weren’t ‘open borders’ then and there wouldn’t be if ICE were ‘abolished.’

But wether or not we want to ‘abolish ICE’-I’d prefer to reserve judgment, we absolutely should and must investigate ICE. All the heads of the agency should be summoned to for a televised hearing and explain:

A.  Why do you have ICE agents saying they feel ‘liberated’ to deport as many brown people as they want?

B.  Why ICE was accused of making up evidence in court.?

C.  Why on the weekend after Trump initial-and disastrous-travel Muslim ban ICE continued to hold people at the Airport even after a court had put in an injunction against it, and why ICE arrogantly refused to speak to members of Congress who had questions about what was going on?

We have since learned through agency emails that Trump’s DHS had ordered ICE to block the Congressmen. 

These three questions are by no means comprehensive and there are many other topics we need hearings on.

1. Fema’s  failed Puerto Rico response. Trump had dismissed the terrible carnage of Hurricane Maria by claiming Katrina was ‘much worse’ and patting himself on the back for ‘only 16 dead’-now we learn this was off by a factor of 8000-the real number is nearly 3000.

For him to maliciously provide such misinformation it seems to me is an impeachable offense in itself.

2. Yes the tax returns

Still not clear if Richard Neal is going to get serious or continue to drag his feet?

UPDATE: Alas the answer has emerged-clearly drag his feet-Chapter A for more on Neal’s apparent failure to obtain the tax returns before the 2020 election.

3. Yes the fact that Trump’s senior aides have used-gasp, private emails. 

In truth, insecure communications is Trump’s stock and trade. He regularly speaks to foreign leaders on his Android that is totally insecure and he can often be heard speaking to foreign leaders loudly at Mar-a-lago so people can hear what he’s saying.

Find link of this Mike.

UPDATE: The latest bombshell is the whistleblower- complaintTrump and his Acting DNI head are trying to repress-of what Trump promised at least one foreign leader-one of the leaders Trump spoke to during this time was-Putin, naturally.

In any case, it’s from what we already know that Trump’s modus operandi is to prefer to hide his conversations with foreign leaders from everyone-including his own aides. Remember that time he ran against Hillary Clinton’s alleged penchant for secrecy?

4. You have the swampllike behavior of people like Steve Mnuchin, Ryan Zinke, Betsy DeVos.

We should investigate the private emails of Trump senior aides but we also need to investigate their private jets on the public’s dime.

5. How about the collusion between Trump and Sean Hannity on the slanderous Seth Rich conspiracy?

Ironically, a judge just dismissed the lawsuit by Rich’s parents under some pretty strange grounds: that they hadn’t proven that Fox intended to hurt them and that Rich is dead anyway(!) Wish I was kidding. I mean no one said they wanted to hurt Rich they didn’t care either way they just wanted a political talking point. So it’s ok to lie and slander as long as you can’t prove an intent to hurt with the slander?

All the more reason for Congress to hold hearings.

UPDATE: Congress has not held hearings on this or a 100 other things like Kavanaugh’s perjury and the new allegations against him.

6. Trump telling the Fed Chairman not to raise interest rates. That might not seem like such a big deal but if any POTUS prior to this illegitimate one were to do this, believe me, there’d be outrage. If Obama did it the GOP would draft impeachment articles by nightfall. You can add to this when Trump talked about job numbers before they were released.

UPDATE: The Street was unhappy with Jerome Powell’s one quarter rate cut the other day-evidently the Street expected 50 basis points. But personally what interests me is the question of why Powell did even a quarter? Was the primary factor pressure from Trump?

Indeed as Dahlia Lithwick argued this week post the new allegations against Kavanaugh-and of the FBI aka Trumpland’s-failure to adequately investigate the accusations against Kav-what this story also underscores is the extent that Trump has penetrated-and corrupted-our top law enforcement agencies-FBI, DOJ, Supreme Court-you have to add the IG office.

But has he also managed to corrupt the Fed? My argument is not wether or not it should have been a .25 rate cut, a .50 cut, or no cut just what Powell’s motivation in doing .25 was. If it was Trump’s tweets the Fed has been corrupted. As usual it’s not just about actions but intent.

Remember this is just a list of hearings-we’re not talking about impeachment-though holding enough of them may well get us there.

FN: I originally wrote this in early August 2018 and we’re now in later September 2019. At least according to Nadler and his Judiciary Dems they have now opened an impeachment inquiry-or ‘impeachment investigation’-Nadler says the two are one in the same.

OTOH Pelosi continues to quibble with its description stating you need a full floor vote. In the Spring we learned that Trump thanked Pelosi for not impeaching him. Now she’s further assisting him by shooting the Judiciary’s case in the foot-Nadler and Friends are arguing in federal court that this is an impeachment inquiry but she’s undermining it by saying actually it’s not it’s just a normal investigation. 

 

This list is necessarily far short of being comprehensive, There are so many others.

UPDATE: Indeed there are and so augment this post both with the GOP internal list that was recently published and the post about ‘Winter is coming.’

Did I do a chapter on the GOP’s internal list?

Once again this is simply the most important election of our life time.

Either we #MakeAmeriaLegitimateAgain or Trump consolidates his illegitimate reign.

UPDATE: America did indeed vote to become legitimate again and today is the first actual public Russia hearing in over two years.

UPDATE: For a long time that was still the only public hearing in two years-then Mueller testified in late July and Corey Lewandowski did last week. What was notable about Lewandowski was his utter contempt for the process-again don’t know if Pelosi was serious but don’t see why Nadler didn’t nail him on the spot.

Yes-I get it-the Dems always want to be ‘deliberative’ but at this point what is needed is a show of force.

Which is not to say that this hearing was a waste of time-the optics obsessed MSM claims it was-what else?-‘a disaster for the Democrats.’

Actually it was a very useful hearing were Lewandowki’s evident disrespect for Congress and the process substantiated the case for impeachment based on obstruction of justice. Nadler did point out that article two of the impeachment articles against Nixon was obstruction of justice. And Lewandowki’s outrageous performance-refusing to even confirm things in the Mueller Report along with Trump’s illegitimate demand that Lewandowski reveal their private conversations was a pretty clear illustration of obstruction.

While Mueller told us about Trump’s obstruction, Lewandowki’s churlish performance showed it.

While many of the early Dem questioners were too easily drawn down Lewandowski’s rabbit holes, some questioners stood out-notably Congressman Eric Swalwell-if we’d seen more of this on the trail maybe his campaign wouldn’t have ended before it really started.

Then it was time for the Dem House lawyer to question Lewandowski and it became clear why the GOP co-conspirators in the House were so alarmed at the prospect-arguing down every imaginable rabbit hole as to why it was somehow improper.

The difference in having a skilled lawyer question Lewandowski became immediately evident.

Lewandwoski for his part may well have perjured himself again-denying things he told Mueller.

FN: I originally wrote this in early August 2018 and we’re now in later September 2019. At least according to Nadler and his Judiciary Dems they have now opened an impeachment inquiry-or ‘impeachment investigation’-Nadler says the two are one in the same.

OTOH Pelosi continues to quibble with its description stating you need a full floor vote. In the Spring we learned that Trump thanked Pelosi for not impeaching him. Now she’s further assisting him by shooting the Judiciary’s case in the foot-Nadler and Friends are arguing in federal court that this is an impeachment inquiry but she’s undermining it by saying actually it’s not it’s just a normal investigation. 

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