The Old Gypsy Woman Sets a Personal Best
Trump lives out yet another old tweet, and this one stings
An Epic Petard-Hoisting
In the summer of 2015, when Hillary Clinton was credulously (and in my opinion, unconvincingly) claiming that she didn’t know it was a crime to keep classified information on a private email server, I couldn’t shake a simple thought — if I had done what she did, I would be in prison.
It’s not that hard to imagine. If I had been conducting State Department business (which I do, and did at the time) through an unsecured email server that was housing classified information, that I had installed myself, I would almost certainly have gone to federal prison. And if my defense was basically “aw shucks, I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to do that,” I would have been laughed all the way to Leavenworth.
But given Hillary Clinton’s status as both a cabinet secretary and candidate for president, she put the Department of Justice in basically an impossible position of having to decide between prosecuting a presidential candidate ahead of and/or during a campaign, or letting said candidate get away with rather egregious criminal behavior. The Department chose the latter. And all things considered, it’s hard to fault them because in order to justify such a prosecution they would have to be a million percent certain that the case was a slam dunk and wouldn’t be overturned even on appeal. That is an impossibly high bar, and the DOJ deciding against attempting to clear it was arguably the least bad option. (Again, I personally believe that it’s quite clear that Hillary Clinton was knowingly engaging in criminal behavior, her defense was obviously disingenuous, and she should have been prosecuted for it. But no one cares what I think.) Although the fact that she had her political career ended by a functionally illiterate buffoon from television is probably a fate worse than prison, so, karma is still a thing I guess.
Anyway, you might remember that Donald Trump made it sort of a central theme to his campaign. His supporters would chant things like “Lock her up!” at his rallies. It was a whole thing.
You may also remember that Donald Trump was apparently cursed by an old gypsy woman to live out all of his old tweets, and brother, this one may be a doozy:
We’re getting a clearer picture of the reason for the search of Donald Trump’s home earlier this week, and it’s, well, not great.
According to anonymous sources in the Washington Post, the documents in question pertained, somehow, to nuclear weapons. Now, it’s important to remember that this sort of anonymous sourcing could be wrong (as we came to find out from a Newsweek “exclusive” a couple of days ago that claimed that the FBI instigated the search without consulting the Attorney General. That [blessedly] turned out to be nonsense.)
In a somewhat unusual press conference yesterday, Attorney General Merrick Garland confirmed that he personally authorized the search and — brazenly calling Donald Trump’s bluff — said the Department was willing to unseal the warrant and itemized list of items taken unless Trump objected. [Trump has until 3:00 today to object, so by the time you read this — especially if I don’t hurry up and finish — we’ll know much more about the documents in question.] Donald Trump claimed in a statement that he doesn’t object to the DOJ unsealing the warrant, but if that’s the case he could have released it himself days ago, so stay tuned on that.
But if it’s true that Donald Trump had the kind of classified documents that would be a threat to national security — particularly about nuclear weapons — that would necessitate the service of a warrant, that’s pretty egregious. It’s also quite egregious if reports are true that the Department of Justice had reason to believe that Trump, through his attorneys, was being dishonest about which documents he had in his possession in an effort to keep documents he should not have that could impact national security.
Again, that is the sort of thing that if I, or any other government employee, had done, I would be in prison.
Pleading the Fizzif
I’ll admit, I don’t have a ton to write about today. And I really hate making these things one big rant about Donald Trump. But something I couldn’t pass up is the fact that Donald Trump pleaded the fifth while declining to answer questions in a civil deposition in New York on Wednesday.
It’s just a bit rich because, while most everyone knows that pleading the fifth isn’t actually an admission on guilt, you know who does seem to believe that? Donald Trump.
The guy spent years saying things like “Why would you plead the fifth if you’re not guilty?” and “You know who pleads the fifth? The mob.”
Now again, any serious person knows that pleading the fifth is not an admission of guilt. But Donald Trump is not a serious person, and given his previous statements, it’s entirely reasonable to believe that he is pleading the fifth because he believes himself to be guilty.
As with most of Donald Trump’s legal issues, it’s not that he’s some criminal mastermind or supervillain. The simple fact is that he is a man of middling intelligence, with low character, no scruples, and a crippling ego. It’s not a good combination. It’s usually a recipe for ending up in jail. Which, hey, there’s still time!
Occasional Trivia
Answer from last time:
Category: Ingredients
Clue: Cilantro and this other seasoning come from the same plant, but at different stages of its life cycle.
Coriander
Today’s clue:
Category: Geography
Clue: Myanmar and the Malay Peninsula are on the eastern edge of this bay.
Dispatches from the Homefront
This morning, my older daughter, seemingly unprompted and apropos of nothing, just rattled off all the days of the week. It was pretty impressive, given that she’s only been three since Tuesday. Maybe all that money we’re shoveling into pre-school is paying off, y’know? I’ll be sure to remind myself of that (as I mutter and rock back and forth) now that our younger daughter is starting preschool next week — especially since we’ll be in the dubious-but-not-uncommon club of paying more for childcare than we do for our mortgage.