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We’re seeing institutions start to waver as constraints to Trump’s impulses

By Philip Bump January 5 at 5:56 PM

Of the various revelations littered throughout the interview President Trump gave the New York Times last month at Mar-a-Lago, few were as sweeping in their implications as his comments about former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr.

“I will say this: Holder protected President Obama,” Trump said. “Totally protected him. When you look at the IRS scandal, when you look at the guns for whatever, when you look at all of the tremendous, ah, real problems they had, not made-up problems like Russian collusion, these were real problems. When you look at the things that they did, and Holder protected the president. And I have great respect for that, I’ll be honest, I have great respect for that.”

There are two important aspects to that. The first is that Trump clearly sees the job of attorney general as, in part, protecting the president from scrutiny and criminal investigation. (This is not part of the job.) The second and perhaps more important aspect is that Trump thinks that the Internal Revenue Service and gun-walking scandals were “real problems,” unlike the “made-up” investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

For those unfamiliar, the two issues mentioned by Trump relate to the IRS’s scrutiny of applications for nonprofit status from conservative groups and an effort by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to trace illegal gun sales by allowing certain sales to take place. Over the course of Barack Obama’s eight years in office, each was elevated to the position of Major Scandal by the conservative media (to the extent that each is mentioned in Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert’s infamous Hillary-Clinton-is-linked-to-Russia flowchart) — in part because of a general dearth of other, meatier Obama scandals to fixate on.

Often missing from conservative coverage of the issues was important bits of context, such as that the IRS also isolated nonconservative groups for additional scrutiny. Inspectors general from the IRS and Department of Justice identified shortcomings and errors exposed in each case and recommended changes. In neither case were the identified errors tied back to an action by Obama, much less a scandalous one.

Trump, an avid consumer of conservative media, doesn’t seem to have pored over those IG reports. Instead, he seems to have internalized a narrative that was common on Fox News during the Obama administration: The IRS and “Fast and Furious” scandals (as the gun-walking issue was known) were near-Watergate-level misdeeds by Obama and his team. That narrative depended on and fostered a central idea: that Obama was necessarily corrupt. Assume that and you readily accept the idea that there was a nefarious intent behind the incidents — or that the incidents were intentionally downplayed and covered up by the president and his cronies. That’s the heart of Trump’s argument.

This is essential context for Trump’s presidency broadly — but the week’s news in particular.

We learned a few things this week. We learned that, after Trump’s inauguration, the FBI revived an investigation into the Clinton Foundation, apparently looking at whether donations to the nonprofit were connected in any way to official actions by Clinton while she served as secretary of state.

We learned that the Justice Department may also be considering a new review of Clinton’s use of a private email server during that same period.

We learned that members of the Senate Judiciary Committee could, after months of investigation into the Russian meddling incident, recommend that the FBI investigate someone for criminal activity: the guy who compiled the infamous dossier of unconfirmed allegations about Trump-campaign collusion with the Russians in an effort to sway the election. In other words, two senior Senate Republicans are asking for an investigation of a Trump opponent, not anyone alleged to have aided the Russia effort.

We learned that Trump pushed hard for Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from the Justice Department’s investigations into Russian meddling — despite department attorneys making it clear to Sessions that a recusal was necessary. The rationale offered, according to the Times, was again that Sessions should work to protect Trump.

Each of these things fits into the view of presidential authority revealed in that Times interview.

The president no doubt believes, at least to some extent, that Clinton broke the law either with her email server or with the Clinton Foundation or both. Past presidents have deliberately avoided seeking prosecutions or investigations of their predecessors or political opponents (think: Obama declining to pursue the question of torture on assuming the presidency). In part, this is because of the bright line that’s drawn between the investigative powers of the Justice Department and the political desires of the person who ultimately runs it. But Trump, as he made clear to the Times, doesn’t see that line.

What’s more, Trump is a politician who is both keenly susceptible to flattery and insecure about his position. He is very aware of the fact that he only narrowly won election to the presidency, doing so despite losing the popular vote. Trump aggressively polices any idea that his victory was anything short of a demonstration of his own general aptitude at all things, and views the Russian-meddling investigations as efforts to show that he wouldn’t have won without Russian aid. It’s not clear what annoys him more: questions about whether he or people on his campaign might have criminally aided the Russian meddling efforts — or questions about the extent to which those efforts might have made the difference.

Trump also remains tightly entwined with the conservative media world that helped shape his political views. He — and much of his political base — believe in the inherent corruption of Obama and Clinton and embrace the sweeping conspiracy theories that erupt throughout the conservative media world with regularity. Of late, that’s meant embracing the idea that the dossier on Trump — which was indeed funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign — is a demonstration of collusion on the part of the Democrats with the Russian government (it isn’t) and a much more significant issue than any of the allegations the dossier contains.

Conservative media insistence on the importance of these issues trickles into the Republican base and puts pressure on other Republican politicians to similarly treat them as important. So we get the curious recommendation from Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) that dossier author Christopher Steele be investigated for having potentially lied to the FBI about disseminating information from the dossier to the media. As our Aaron Blake wrote, this is particularly odd because “Grassley and Graham are alleging that Steele may have lied using information the Justice Department already has and had shared with them.”

All of these specifics make sense within the constructed world of the Trump presidency. But we shouldn’t miss the forest for the trees. Trump’s view of his power and the power of the Department of Justice he leads is that this power can justifiably be leveled against his political opponents. This is in part because Trump fails to understand that the allegations he’s embracing are often specious (a diet heavy in Sean Hannity will do that to you). But it’s also in part because Trump came to office with the idea that he would wield influence at the White House as he did at Trump Tower: by fiat and without question.

It was expected that the delicate-if-uneven balance of power in Washington would help guide and temper Trump’s inclinations to target his political detractors, and it has, for the most part. This week, though, we saw a number of ways in which that balance is testing — and wavering.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/poli...m=.ea308fa0ba93


This article is pointing out a very scary trend and overreach of power! Trump is not a dictator, his fantasies are not based in reality, his childlike impulses and urges are not grounds for legal actions against opponents; yet we are seeing these things happen in real time right before our eyes! This is how men like Hitler and Stalin started removing opponents when ascending to dictator status...


Your feelings and opinions do not add up to facts.
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Crickets? really... smh


Your feelings and opinions do not add up to facts.
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When a president actually believes that it's the job of the Justice Department to protect the president from the law and prosecution, what's left to say?

But I'm sure someone will come along and try to deflect to another topic.


Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.

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Originally Posted By: PitDAWG
When a president actually believes that it's the job of the Justice Department to protect the president from the law and prosecution, what's left to say?

But I'm sure someone will come along and try to deflect to another topic.


Nope, cricket's...must have no deflection topic or "whatabout" to counter it.

The Imperial Wizard could have saved Trump but he refused to do so because his cover (hood) would be removed and he'd be exposed to the world.


Some day, following the example of the United States of America, there will be a United States of Europe.

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Originally Posted By: PerfectSpiral
Originally Posted By: PitDAWG
When a president actually believes that it's the job of the Justice Department to protect the president from the law and prosecution, what's left to say?

But I'm sure someone will come along and try to deflect to another topic.


Nope, cricket's...must have no deflection topic or "whatabout" to counter it.

The Imperial Wizard could have saved Trump but he refused to do so because his cover (hood) would be removed and he'd be exposed to the world.
Man, you are really on a roll today with "racist" stuff, huh? So is there a calendar you go by - Like is Racist Mondays, Rapist Tuesdays, etc? Just so we all know when your fake outrage is happening - care to provide ANY links while your at it? nah, never do.

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Originally Posted By: willitevachange
Originally Posted By: PerfectSpiral
Originally Posted By: PitDAWG
When a president actually believes that it's the job of the Justice Department to protect the president from the law and prosecution, what's left to say?

But I'm sure someone will come along and try to deflect to another topic.


Nope, cricket's...must have no deflection topic or "whatabout" to counter it.

The Imperial Wizard could have saved Trump but he refused to do so because his cover (hood) would be removed and he'd be exposed to the world.
So is there a calendar you go by


No calendar. It is Typical, Trump supporter's always get defensive about white hoods being removed from those who wear them.


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Yep, keep calling people racist and klan members, its a good look for you. Disgusting to people w/ actual class, but good for you.

Last edited by willitevachange; 01/08/18 11:31 AM.
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I must assume you think Sessions' take down, prosecution, and bankruptcy of the KKK in Alabama is just a cover for his desires to rule a white world?


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Originally Posted By: willitevachange
Yep, keep calling people racist and klan members, its a good look for you. Disgusting to people w/ actual class, but good for you.


Yeah I typically disgust those classy people who support racist's like Roy Moore, Trump, and Sessions.


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Originally Posted By: willitevachange
Originally Posted By: PerfectSpiral
Originally Posted By: PitDAWG
When a president actually believes that it's the job of the Justice Department to protect the president from the law and prosecution, what's left to say?

But I'm sure someone will come along and try to deflect to another topic.


Nope, cricket's...must have no deflection topic or "whatabout" to counter it.

The Imperial Wizard could have saved Trump but he refused to do so because his cover (hood) would be removed and he'd be exposed to the world.
Man, you are really on a roll today with "racist" stuff, huh? So is there a calendar you go by - Like is Racist Mondays, Rapist Tuesdays, etc? Just so we all know when your fake outrage is happening - care to provide ANY links while your at it? nah, never do.


rofl ...

Here’s my guesses on their schedule ...

Racist Monday ...
Homophobe Tuesday ...
Saul Alinsky Wednesday ...
Gay Bashers Thursdays ...
KKK Fridays ...
Piece of crap Saturday ...
Choose your insult Sunday ....

rofl ... that was good bro ...

THANK U ... thumbsup




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j/c

A lot of people tend to post comments that never address the articles or the actual history of these people. I wonder why that is?


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Quote:
I must assume you think Sessions' take down, prosecution, and bankruptcy of the KKK in Alabama is just a cover for his desires to rule a white world


Not his take down. But I know Fox News told you the Alt Right story.


Segregationist turned civil-rights activist and Southern Poverty Law Center founder Morris Dees was hatching a plan to go after the United Klans of America as a whole, by trying them to the killing and suing them in civil court. The UKA was involved in many of the most infamous racist crimes of the civil-rights era, from the beating of freedom riders, to the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, to the assassination of the civil-rights activist Viola Liuzzo.

The idea, Leamer wrote, was that Dees would accuse the UKA of having a mock military structure, meaning that the killing of Michael Donald was an act encouraged by the group’s leader Robert Shelton, making the UKA itself liable. Dees “did not intend to argue that Shelton was directly involved with the murder,” Leamer wrote. “Instead he would allege that the Imperial Wizard headed an organization with a military structure whose custom, practice, and policy was to advance the goal of white supremacy through violence.”

It was a risky legal theory, Leamer wrote––most of Dees’s colleagues at the SPLC didn’t think it would work, and the judge in the case was extraordinarily skeptical at the outset. But as Leamer and Hollars wrote, there were several factors that turned in Dees’s favor. The first was that Beulah Mae Donald, Michael Donald’s mother, who was represented by Thomas Figures’s brother Michael, agreed to allow the case to be filed in her name. Shelton’s attorney, John Mays, did not offer a defense, or seek a directed verdict from the judge. Dees skillfully played the Klan members against one another, obtaining internal UKA documents that would prove to be pivotal during the trial, and he exploited Mays’s failure to take the case seriously.

But the most powerful moment during the trial was the testimony of Tiger Knowles, who stoically recited his role in the murder, apologized to Beulah Mae Donald, and implicated the Klan as an organization in Donald’s death, imploring the jury to find the UKA liable.

“I do hope you decide a judgment against me and everyone else involved. And whatever it is, it may make a hardship,” Knowles told the court. “But I hope you decide on it. Because you people need to understand that this can’t happen.”

The jury returned a $7 million verdict that bankrupted the organization, leaving one of the most dangerous iterations of the KKK fatally weakened. In 1994, Shelton told the Associated Press that ''The Klan is my belief, my religion. But it won't work anymore. The Klan is gone. Forever.''

Richard Cohen, the legal director of the SPLC, and one of the attorneys representing the Donald family, said that “in addition to helping to develop the evidence in the criminal investigation that we used, Sessions’s office was helpful in arranging for an FBI agent to testify for us at the civil trial.”

It was however, the civil case pursued by the SPLC, not the prosecution of Henry Hays, that “broke the Klan in the heart of dixie.” Hays was not the head of the KKK in Alabama, and he was prosecuted by state authorities, not the U.S. attorney’s office. And according to Sessions’s former subordinate Thomas Figures, that prosecution would never have occurred had Sessions had his way.

Figures was later charged with attempting to bribe a witness in a drug case. He was acquitted, and went on to serve as a municipal judge. His supporters argued that the charge was retaliation for his testimony against Sessions, who said he had recused himself from the case. Asked by the New York Times about the allegation, Sessions said "I'm sorry people see it that way. It is a matter I would like to see behind me, and I'm sorry to see it come up again."

Complete Story.... here..https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/sessions-kkk-case/512600/


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Originally Posted By: DiamDawg
Originally Posted By: willitevachange
Originally Posted By: PerfectSpiral
Originally Posted By: PitDAWG
When a president actually believes that it's the job of the Justice Department to protect the president from the law and prosecution, what's left to say?

But I'm sure someone will come along and try to deflect to another topic.


Nope, cricket's...must have no deflection topic or "whatabout" to counter it.

The Imperial Wizard could have saved Trump but he refused to do so because his cover (hood) would be removed and he'd be exposed to the world.
Man, you are really on a roll today with "racist" stuff, huh? So is there a calendar you go by - Like is Racist Mondays, Rapist Tuesdays, etc? Just so we all know when your fake outrage is happening - care to provide ANY links while your at it? nah, never do.


rofl ...

Here’s my guesses on their schedule ...

Racist Monday ...
Homophobe Tuesday ...
Saul Alinsky Wednesday ...
Gay Bashers Thursdays ...
KKK Fridays ...
Piece of crap Saturday ...
Choose your insult Sunday ....

rofl ... that was good bro ...

THANK U ... thumbsup


Basically a whataboutism, typical.


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Originally Posted By: PitDAWG
j/c

A lot of people tend to post comments that never address the articles or the actual history of these people. I wonder why that is?


I guess if the topic in the article is either to complex for you to comprehend or you have no response that fits your agenda then you say something to attack a liberal and defend a deplorable.


Your feelings and opinions do not add up to facts.
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Originally Posted By: OldColdDawg
Originally Posted By: PitDAWG
j/c

A lot of people tend to post comments that never address the articles or the actual history of these people. I wonder why that is?


I guess if the topic in the article is either to complex for you to comprehend or you have no response that fits your agenda then you say something like your a racist, bigot, homophobe, etc..


Fixed it for you.

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Originally Posted By: willitevachange
Originally Posted By: OldColdDawg
Originally Posted By: PitDAWG
j/c

A lot of people tend to post comments that never address the articles or the actual history of these people. I wonder why that is?


I guess if the topic in the article is either to complex for you to comprehend or you have no response that fits your agenda then you say something like your a racist, bigot, homophobe, etc..


Fixed it for you.


You: I support this guy with a long history of racism, who has been fined nearly half a dozen times for trying to segregate blacks in his business practices

Others: That's racist

You: Painting with a broad brush, I see

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Originally Posted By: PDF
Originally Posted By: willitevachange
Originally Posted By: OldColdDawg
Originally Posted By: PitDAWG
j/c

A lot of people tend to post comments that never address the articles or the actual history of these people. I wonder why that is?


I guess if the topic in the article is either to complex for you to comprehend or you have no response that fits your agenda then you say something like your a racist, bigot, homophobe, etc..


Fixed it for you.




You: I support this guy with a long history of racism, who has been fined nearly half a dozen times for trying to segregate blacks in his business practices

Others: That's racist

You: Painting with a broad brush, I see


I'll bet Trump hires a lot more Black people than you do. Unless you run a hell of a business out of Mom's basement.

DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus We’re seeing institutions start to waver as constraints to Trump’s impulses

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