Tag: GOP now the cult of Trump

Psychoanalyst breaks down Trump’s ‘God complex’ — and our dangerous collective addiction to his unhinged behavior

AlterNet logoDonald Trump is living breathing proof of the truism that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Such an outcome is made even more dangerous when the person in question has shown himself to be mentally unwell.

Two weeks ago, the Republican Party crowned Donald Trump a de facto king and dictator through his show trial and “acquittal” in the U.S. Senate. Trump and his regime’s enforcers, agents, sycophants and other minions have taken that travesty as permission to launch a full-on assault on the rule of law, the Constitution, democracy and the American people.

Trump is now committing more of the same crimes for which he was impeached. Trump is now so extremely emboldened that he abuses his power in plain sight with the full knowledge that very little if anything can be done to stop him.  Continue reading.

Top NSC official may be moved after “Anonymous” rumor fallout

Axios logoTop Trump administration officials are in discussions to reassign deputy national security adviser Victoria Coates to the Department of Energy from the National Security Council, per two sources familiar with the planning.

Why it matters: Coates’ working relationship with National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, who elevated her to the deputy role only months ago, has strained amid an effort by some people inside the administration to tag her as “Anonymous” — a charge she has vehemently denied to colleagues.

  • Coates could take on a senior role under Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette, the former deputy secretary who was elevated to lead the department in December after Rick Perry’s departure.
  • A decision on such a personnel move has not been finalized and discussions could still fall apart, one source tells Axios.
  • “We do not comment on personnel matters,” National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot told Axios. Coates declined comment. Continue reading.

Senate braces for fight over impeachment whistleblower testimony

The Hill logoSenators are reviving the fight over the whistleblower complaint at the center of the months-long impeachment effort against President Trump.

With Trump’s trial in the rearview mirror, the Senate Intelligence Committee is quietly shifting its attention back to its investigation into the complaint process after hitting pause on the inquiry as the impeachment effort consumed Washington.

The probe will force senators to decide if, and how, they speak with the whistleblower — a controversial call that could test the bipartisan reputation the Intelligence panel has maintained even amid deeply partisan fights in Congress.  Continue reading.

Right-Wing Outlets Use McCabe Case To Urge Stone Pardon

Right-wing media immediately seized on the announcement that former deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe will not face criminal charges to generate outrage and push for President Donald Trump to pardon his longtime adviser Roger Stone.

Prosecutors announced that they are not pursuing criminal charges against McCabe in a letter on February 14. The investigation began in 2018 after a referral from the Justice Department inspector general, Michael Horowitz, who alleged that McCabe misled investigators about a media leak. The new announcement from prosecutors indicates that the case against McCabe has been closed.

Right-wing media have called for months for Trump to pardon his longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone, who was convicted in federal court on seven charges, including lying to Congress and witness tampering. In particular, right-wing media have ramped up calls for Trump to pardon Stone as the Department of Justice and Stone’s attorneys submitted their recommendations to the court for his sentencing, which will be on February 20. Trump has already granted clemency or pardons to controversial right-wing figures during his term, including Joe Arpaio and Dinesh D’Souza, and the president said on February 12 that he won’t rule out a pardon for Stone. Continue reading.

Republicans ready to look past Trump’s brash intervention in Roger Stone case

Washington Post logoCongressional Republicans showed little sign Wednesday that they would move to check President Trump’s brash public intervention in the federal prosecution of a former campaign confidant, leaving Democrats largely alone to fume about the evaporation of another norm of American governance.

Trump this week publicly decried a Justice Department sentencing recommendation for political operative Roger Stone, then congratulated Attorney General William P. Barr in an early-morning tweet Wednesday for “taking charge” and overruling it — creating at least the appearance that the long-standing taboo against overt political influence on prosecutorial matters had been obliterated.

But what ensued on Capitol Hill on Wednesday appeared to be less of a break-the-glass moment of crisis and more of a recurring episode in a three-year-old soap opera: While Democrats were aghast, members of the president’s party either expressed mild dismay or excused Trump’s tampering entirely. Continue reading.

Trump seeks to bend the executive branch as part of impeachment vendetta

Washington Post logoPresident Trump is testing the rule of law one week after his acquittal in his Senate impeachment trial, seeking to bend the executive branch into an instrument for his personal and political vendetta against perceived enemies.

And Trump — simmering with rage, fixated on exacting revenge against those he feels betrayed him and insulated by a compliant Republican Party — is increasingly comfortable doing so to the point of feeling untouchable, according to the president’s advisers and allies.

In the span of 48 hours this week, the president has sought to protect his friends and punish his foes, even at the risk of compromising the Justice Department’s independence and integrity — a stance that his defenders see as entirely justified. Continue reading.

Conservative judge stands up to Trump and slams AG Barr in ‘jaw-dropping opinion’

AlterNet logoDemocrats and Never Trump conservatives have been highly critical of U.S. Attorney General William Barr as well as Republicans in Congress for becoming loyal servants of President Donald Trump and doing his bidding at every turn. But law professor and former federal prosecutor Kimberly Wehle, in a February 12 op-ed for Politico, asserts that there is one conservative in the judiciary who clearly doesn’t consider himself a Trump servant: Judge Frank H. Easterbrook of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Wehle opens her op-ed by lamenting that it was painfully evident how much Trump has “defanged Congress’ oversight authority” when “the Senate acquitted the president of obstruction” during his impeachment trial. But Easterbrook, Wehle quickly adds, is “one conservative judge isn’t willing to let the executive branch steal power from his branch of government.”

n a “jaw-dropping opinion issued by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals,” Wehle asserts, Easterbrook “rebuked Attorney General William Barr for declaring in a letter that the court’s decision in an immigration case was ‘incorrect’ and thus, dispensable.”  Continue reading.

Former federal prosecutor: ‘No one is safe’ if Trump can use DOJ to ‘prosecute’ his enemies and reward his ‘inner circle’

AlterNet logoSome of the conservative Republican senators who are often described as “moderates” and voted to acquit President Donald Trump on two articles of impeachment — including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — claimed that the experience of going through an impeachment trial would inspire Trump to be more careful going forward. They were wrong: Trump set off yet another scandal when the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) dramatically reversed its sentencing guidelines on veteran GOP operative Roger Stone following an angry tweet from the president. Someone who once worked in the DOJ as a federal prosecutor, University of Alabama law professor Joyce White Vance, addresses the Stone scandal in a February 12 op-ed for Time Magazine — and stresses that Trump is becoming even more of a threat to the rule of law.

“If a president can interfere in the way professional prosecutors conduct prosecutions, enforcing allegiance to him and stifling dissent, we no longer have a system of justice,” Vance warns. “No one is safe. Ultimately, a president could prosecute people he wants to jail and prevent prosecutions or lengthy sentences for his allies.”

On Monday, February 10, the DOJ released a sentencing memo recommending a prison sentence of seven to nine years for Stone. But the following day, after Trump’s angry tweet, the DOJ released a new sentencing memo urging a much more lenient sentence. This, according to Vance, is “such a sharp departure from the norms that it has caused anger and, in many corners, a sense of sorrow and grief among current and former prosecutors over what is happening at the Department (of Justice).” Continue reading.

GOP senators say Trump shouldn’t weigh in on pending sentences

The Hill logoSome Republican senators said on Wednesday that President Trump shouldn’t weigh in on pending sentences after he publicly criticized an initial recommendation from the Department of Justice (DOJ) in the case of Roger Stone.

The comments come as senators are facing an onslaught of questions over DOJ’s decision to lower its sentencing recommendation for Stone, a Trump associate, overriding front-line prosecutors.

“I don’t like this chain of events where you have a … proceeding, a sentencing, a recommended sentence, the president weighs in and all of the sudden Justice comes back, says ‘change the deal.’ I think most people would look at that and say ‘hmm, that just doesn’t look right.’ And I think they’re right,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told reporters. Continue reading.

 

GOP duo moves ahead with Biden investigation

The Hill logoA pair of influential GOP Senate chairmen are plowing ahead with a wide-ranging probe related to the Bidens and Ukraine, sparking a new round of tensions..

With the months-long impeachment fight in the rearview mirror, Republicans are hoping to speed up their investigation, which has included document requests related to work done by former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden for Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), one of the two GOP chairmen involved in the investigation, said he hoped the end of the impeachment trial would break the “logjam” on their requests for information. Continue reading.