Below is my column in the Hill on claims by former Deputy Special Counsel Andrew Weissmann that the recent pardons by President Donald Trump reinforce a possible obstruction of justice case against him. We have previously discussed how Weissmann has proven critics correct in their description of his animosity and bias toward Trump. For my part, his book and recent statements reinforce the view of an abusive prosecutor, particularly in his untethered view of obstruction. Indeed, Weissmann seems intent on making the best case for Trump to grant himself a self-pardon. He is calling for prosecutors to use grand juries to pursue Trump and others in an unrelenting campaign based on unfounded legal theories.
Here is the column:
In the debate over pardons, some Democrats seem to be making the case for Donald Trump and against themselves. Consider Andrew Weissmann. After the recent pardons, he declared that Trump effectively proved the case for an obstruction charge against himself and called on prosecutors to summon those who were pardoned into grand juries with the threat of later perjury charges. It was unfounded and dubious. It was also vintage Weissmann, who made the case against himself as someone who shows bias against Trump that overwhelms all other considerations.
If Trump wants a rationale to pardon himself, he can look no further than Weissmann, who was appointed as a top aide to special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump and numerous Republicans denounced him as a donor to Barack Obama, and he was said to have attended the election night party for Hilliary Clinton in 2016. My objection was not to his affiliations but to his history, which included extreme interpretations that were ultimately rejected by courts. Weissmann was responsible for the overextension of an obstruction provision in a jury instruction that led the Supreme Court to reverse the conviction in the Arthur Andersen case in 2005.
Weissmann is now a MSNBC analyst who teaches at a New York University. After he left the office of the special counsel, he fulfilled every account of someone with uncontrolled bias against Trump, including his book that attacks prosecutors for refusing to take on his extreme views. Weissmann called on prosecutors to refuse to assist John Durham in his investigation and, after the pardon of Roger Stone, called for Stone in a grand jury.
Even staunch critics of Trump like former prosecutor Randall Eliason described Weissmann’s book as a “betrayal of Mueller” that “trashed” his colleagues and threw them “under a bus for not agreeing with him.” He added that Weissmann’s “dishing may sell a lot of books” but he “himself violated the norms about how prosecutors should behave.”
After leaving the Special Counsel’s office, Weissmann seemed intent on proving critics correct in saying that he was a uniquely poor choice by Mueller to serve as his deputy. Now, Weissmann is openly voicing the extreme interpretations that have led many of us to criticize his tenure at the Justice DepartmentNow Weissmann voices the kind of extreme interpretations that led many of us to criticize his tenure with the Justice Department. His most recent column is illustrative. Many of us called out the recent pardons by Trump, ranging from corrupt former members of Congress to the father of Jared Kushner. However, Weissmann insists that the pardon of figures tied to the special counsel investigation is evidence of obstruction.
But these individuals were not pardoned to stop them from testifying or, with the case of Michael Flynn, from working with prosecutors, nor were they pardoned before they were tried and convicted. Former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, for instance, served time in prison before he was released due concerns of the coronavirus. Former campaign aide George Papadopoulos and attorney Alex Van Der Zwaan served sentences. Flynn was convicted and should have been sentenced years earlier if not for a series of bizarre actions by the federal judge who heard his case.
Trump did not pardon his lawyer, Michael Cohen, when Cohen angled for his pardon. Instead, Cohen worked with Mueller, testified against Trump, and was sent to prison. That is a curious pattern for obstruction. Wait until everyone testifies and most are sent to prison before they are pardoned. It did not seem to have been obstruction that Bill Clinton notably pardoned his own friend and business partner in the Whitewater scandal.
Weissmann insists that, when Trump is out of office, there is no barrier to indict him for obstruction and have all these figures appear before grand juries. The problem is the same one Weissmann faced for his disastrous role in the prosecution of Andersen. Weissmann simply misunderstands criminal obstruction. Indeed, he may have the longest learning curve in legal history on this issue. Indeed, he may have the longest learning curve in legal history on this question. Not even an unanimous rejection of his views by the Supreme Court for the case of Andersen seems to register with him, particularly when the law stands in the way of pursuing Trump.
I testified in the impeachment hearing on the flaws with this obstruction theory. Mueller himself did not find a case for an obstruction charge. He listed the alleged acts of obstruction discussed in the media but did not find the critical element of intent to support the charge. That was also the point that former Attorney General William Barr tried to make in his press conference on the summary of the special counsel investigation. Despite different ideas of obstruction, there was no doubt that it would take intent to prosecute. Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — who appointed Mueller and was widely praised by Democrats for his independence — also said under oath last year that there was no evidence of obstruction.
None of this matters to Weissmann, who comes across as a legal Captain Ahab, so blinded by rage that he would lay waste to the criminal code to nab his white whale. This same kind of rage could be cited by Trump for a controversial pardon of himself. I believe a president can pardon himself but should not do so. Even if someone had standing to challenge that, the Constitution is silent on any such limitation on the pardon power. That is the same reason I believe a president can be indicted in office. Yet, while constitutional, I still view self-pardons as a misuse of the power.
There are solid arguments on both sides of this debate, which has gone on for decades. From my view, the main obstacle is political rather than constitutional, but Weissmann and others are now working to remove that barrier. These critics demand prosecutions of Trump and his associates with the same blind fury as Captain Ahab, who said, “From heart of hell I stab at thee. For the sake of hate I spit my last breath at thee. Ye damned whale.” Their long-standing rage could be the long-sought rationale for the president.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates online @JonathanTurley.
Frankly a special counsel should be appointed to investigate every single case Weissman ever prosecuted. Every email, every note, every text message should be carefully examined. Subpoenas for his personal email, personal phone and all social media should be obtained and poured over with a fine tooth and comb. This man has made a career of false prosecutions. He has been reversed by appeals courts for what is in reality misconduct. He is a disgrace to the judicial system and is a prime example of why people like me do not trust the DOJ.
It appears that Joe Biden should be considering a self-pardon.
“Ukraine Press Conference Explicitly Ties Hunter & Joe Biden To Corruption”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ukraine-press-conference-explicitly-ties-hunter-joe-biden-corruption
Note the dates: November 16, 2016 and February 2017
“Andrii Derkach picked up the narrative. He focused on Joe Biden’s conversations with Former President Poroshenko when Viktor Shokin, a prosecutor, started looking into Zlochevsky’s graft. As we all know, Biden openly boasted about holding up money from the U.S. unless Poroshenko fired Shokin.
The press conference included audio from a November 16, 2016 conversation between Biden and Poroshenko. Biden was wheeling and dealing for influence and money – and conducting foreign policy behind Trump’s back. The men spoke again in February 2017, at which time Biden smothered Poroshenko with fulsome compliments.”
The most admired man in America
Yes and Joe Biden “won” the election? Nope. It was stolen.
Prove it DS.
He won 18% of the votes. Don’t get too excited. He just lost the vote for president by 7 million votes and in 2016 by 3 million and has never broken 50% in elections or polls. Americans don’t like him, never have, never will.
Why would they? He’s an a..hole.
‘At what point does it become common knowledge that we are already at non-kinetic war with China, and Trump is a better wartime president than Biden?’
@scottadamssays
White man!
Call him White man!
What kind of Krauts would call him White man?
Fat Krauts. Skinny Krauts.
Krauts who walk on ice!
Etc
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-threat-of-authoritarianism-in
The Threat of Authoritarianism in the U.S. is Very Real, and Has Nothing To Do With Trump
The COVID-driven centralization of economic power and information control in the hands of a few corporate monopolies poses enduring threats to political freedom.
Asserting that Donald Trump is a fascist-like dictator threatening the previously sturdy foundations of U.S. democracy has been a virtual requirement over the last four years to obtain entrance to cable news Green Rooms, sinecures as mainstream newspaper columnists, and popularity in faculty lounges. Yet it has proven to be a preposterous farce.
In 2020 alone, Trump had two perfectly crafted opportunities to seize authoritarian power — a global health pandemic and sprawling protests and sustained riots throughout American cities — and yet did virtually nothing to exploit those opportunities. Actual would-be despots such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán quickly seized on the virus to declare martial law, while even prior U.S. presidents, to say nothing of foreign tyrants, have used the pretext of much less civil unrest than what we saw this summer to deploy the military in the streets to pacify their own citizenry.
But early in the pandemic, Trump was criticized, especially by Democrats, for failing to assert the draconian powers he had, such as commandeering the means of industrial production under the Defense Production Act of 1950, invoked by Truman to force industry to produce materials needed for the Korean War. In March, The Washington Post reported that “Governors, Democrats in Congress and some Senate Republicans have been urging Trump for at least a week to invoke the act, and his potential 2020 opponent, Joe Biden, came out in favor of it, too,” yet “Trump [gave] a variety of reasons for not doing so.” Rejecting demands to exploit a public health pandemic to assert extraordinary powers is not exactly what one expects from a striving dictator.
A similar dynamic prevailed during the sustained protests and riots that erupted after the killing of George Floyd. While conservatives such as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK), in his controversial New York Times op-ed, urged the mass deployment of the military to quell the protesters, and while Trump threatened to deploy them if governors failed to pacify the riots, Trump failed to order anything more than a few isolated, symbolic gestures such as having troops use tear gas to clear out protesters from Lafayette Park for his now-notorious walk to a church, provoking harsh criticism from the right, including Fox News, for failing to use more aggressive force to restore order.
Virtually every prediction expressed by those who pushed this doomsday narrative of Trump as a rising dictator — usually with great profit for themselves — never materialized. While Trump radically escalated bombing campaigns he inherited from Bush and Obama, he started no new wars. When his policies were declared by courts to be unconstitutional, he either revised them to comport with judicial requirements (as in the case of his “Muslim ban”) or withdrew them (as in the case of diverting Pentagon funds to build his wall). No journalists were jailed for criticizing or reporting negatively on Trump, let alone killed, as was endlessly predicted and sometimes even implied. Bashing Trump was far more likely to yield best-selling books, social media stardom and new contracts as cable news “analysts” than interment in gulags or state reprisals. There were no Proud Boy insurrections or right-wing militias waging civil war in U.S. cities. Boastful and bizarre tweets aside, Trump’s administration was far more a continuation of the U.S. political tradition than a radical departure from it.
REGARDING THE ABOVE CONTINUING…
The hysterical Trump-as-despot script was all melodrama, a ploy for profits and ratings, and, most of all, a potent instrument to distract from the neoliberal ideology that gave rise to Trump in the first place by causing so much wreckage. Positing Trump as a grand aberration from U.S. politics and as the prime author of America’s woes — rather than what he was: a perfectly predictable extension of U.S politics and a symptom of preexisting pathologies — enabled those who have so much blood and economic destruction on their hands not only to evade responsibility for what they did, but to rehabilitate themselves as the guardians of freedom and prosperity and, ultimately, catapult themselves back into power. As of January 20, that is exactly where they will reside.
The Trump administration was by no means free of authoritarianism: his Justice Department prosecuted journalists’ sources; his White House often refused basic transparency; War on Terror and immigration detentions continued without due process. But that is largely because, as I wrote in a Washington Post op-ed in late 2016, the U.S. Government itself is authoritarian after decades of bipartisan expansion of executive powers justified by a posture of endless war. With rare exception, the lawless and power-abusing acts over the last four years were ones that inhere in the U.S. Government and long preceded Trump, not ones invented by him. To the extent Trump was an authoritarian, he was one in the way that all U.S. presidents have been since the War on Terror began and, more accurately, since the start of the Cold War and advent of the permanent national security state.
The single most revealing episode exposing this narrative fraud was when journalists and political careerists, including former Obama aides, erupted in outrage on social media upon seeing a photo of immigrant children in cages at the border — only to discover that the photo was not from a Trump concentration camp but an Obama-era detention facility (they were unaccompanied children, not ones separated from their families, but “kids in cages” are “kids in cages” from a moral perspective). And tellingly, the single most actually authoritarian Trump-era event is one that has been largely ignored by the U.S. media: namely, the decision to prosecute Julian Assange under espionage laws (but that, too, is an extension of the unprecedented war on journalism unleashed by the Obama DOJ).
The last gasp for those clinging to the Trump-as-dictator fantasy (which was really hope masquerading as concern, since putting yourself on the front lines, bravely fighting domestic fascism, is more exciting and self-glorifying, not to mention more profitable, than the dreary, mediocre work of railing against an ordinary and largely weak one-term president) was the hysterical warning that Trump was mounting a coup in order to stay in office. Trump’s terrifying “coup” consisted of a series of failed court challenges based on claims of widespread voter fraud — virtually inevitable with new COVID-based voting rules never previously used — and lame attempts to persuade state officials to overturn certified vote totals. There was never a moment when it appeared even remotely plausible that it would succeed, let alone that he could secure the backing of the institutions he would need to do so, particularly senior military leaders.
Whether Trump secretly harbored despotic ambitions is both unknowable and irrelevant. If he did, he never exhibited the slightest ability to carry them out or orchestrate a sustained commitment to executing a democracy-subverting plot. And the most powerful U.S. institutions — the intelligence community and military brass, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and the corporate media — opposed and subverted him from the start. In sum, U.S. democracy, in whatever form it existed when Trump ascended to the presidency, will endure more or less unchanged once he leaves office on January 20, 2021.
Whether the U.S. was a democracy in any meaningful sense prior to Trump had been the subject of substantial scholarly debate. A much-discussed 2014 study concluded that economic power has become so concentrated in the hands of such a small number of U.S. corporate giants and mega-billionaires, and that this concentration in economic power has ushered in virtually unchallengeable political power in their hands and virtually none in anyone else’s, that the U.S. more resembles oligarchy than anything else:
The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence. Our results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.
The U.S. Founders most certainly did not envision or desire absolute economic egalitarianism, but many, probably most, feared — long before lobbyists and candidate dependence on corporate SuperPACs — that economic inequality could become so severe, wealth concentrated in the hands of so few, that it would contaminate the political realm, where those vast wealth disparities would be replicated, rendering political rights and legal equality illusory.
But the premises of pre-Trump debates over how grave a problem this is have been rendered utterly obsolete by the new realities of the COVID era. A combination of sustained lockdowns, massive state-mandated transfers of wealth to corporate elites in the name of legislative “COVID relief,” and a radically increased dependence on online activities has rendered corporate behemoths close to unchallengeable in terms of both economic and political power.
The lockdowns from the pandemic have ushered in a collapse of small businesses across the U.S. that has only further fortified the power of corporate giants. “Billionaires increased their wealth by more than a quarter (27.5%) at the height of the crisis from April to July, just as millions of people around the world lost their jobs or were struggling to get by on government schemes,” reported The Guardian in September. A study from July told part of the story:
The combined wealth of the world’s super-rich reached a new peak during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a study published by the consulting firm PwC and the Swiss bank UBC on Wednesday. The more than 2,000 billionaires around the world managed to amass fortunes totalling around $10.2 trillion (€8.69 trillion) by July, surpassing the previous record of $8.9 trillion reached in 2017.
Meanwhile, though exact numbers are unknown, “roughly one in five small businesses have closed,” AP notes, adding: “restaurants, bars, beauty shops and other retailers that involve face-to-face contact have been hardest hit at a time when Americans are trying to keep distance from one another.”
Employees are now almost completely at the mercy of a handful of corporate giants which are thriving, far more trans-national than with any allegiance to the U.S. A Brookings Institution study this week — entitled “Amazon and Walmart have raked in billions in additional profits during the pandemic, and shared almost none of it with their workers” — found that “the COVID-19 pandemic has generated record profits for America’s biggest companies, as well as immense wealth for their founders and largest shareholders—but next to nothing for workers.”
These COVID “winners” are not the Randian victors in free market capitalism. Quite the contrary, they are the recipients of enormous amounts of largesse from the U.S. Government, which they control through armies of lobbyists and donations and which therefore constantly intervenes in the market for their benefit. This is not free market capitalism rewarding innovative titans, but rather crony capitalism that is abusing the power of the state to crush small competitors, lavish corporate giants with ever more wealth and power, and turn millions of Americans into vassals whose best case scenario is working multiple jobs at low hourly wages with no benefits, few rights, and even fewer options.
These comments posted under my name are not from me, as is clear from the avatar.
I don’t know why someone wants to post under my name, but I consider it a form of trolling.
What is your evidence that you are not a troll?
Where is the proof that you are not using now, in the past and tomorrow sock puppets?
Provide the patent number for your alleged fake name and WYSIWYG avatar, then we might consider any of your concerns
Oh look the mighty ‘we’ speaks and demands proof.
Elvis Bug
Superb….but dont hold your breath. The trolls never provide answers to questions when challenged, just insults
It’s easy to see that I’ve been posting under this name and avatar since I first started posting comments on this site last spring.
Here are a few examples of earlier comments from me over time:
https://jonathanturley.org/corrections/ (comments from May and June)
jonathanturley.org/2020/07/14/princeton-student-reportedly-denied-job-after-signing-letter-defending-free-speech/comment-page-1/ (July)
jonathanturley.org/2020/08/22/court-orders-president-trump-to-pay-stormy-daniels-attorneys-fees/comment-page-1/ (August)
jonathanturley.org/2020/09/24/taylor-grand-jury-decision-denounced-by-legal-and-media-analysts-as-raw-racism-or-state-sponsored-white-supremacy/comment-page-3/ (September)
As for your demands, I don’t have to prove anything to you. Conclude whatever you want. If you think I’m a troll, I invite you to ignore me. If you troll in response, I’ll ignore you just as I ignore several other people whom I consider to be trolls.
some users on both sides of the aisle here fancy that there are only two or three of us talking in spite of twenty some or more frequently seen names. i prefer to take comments as they are and not focus too much on personalities.
in an open forum format, the use of sockpuppets is impossible to curtail, even in a moderated one people can use VPNs. it is best not to waste too much energy worrying about who is faking multiple voices.
all of us chatting here are not enemies. we have different points of view and are all basically peasants or we would not be sitting here doing this.
BILLIONAIRES ARE THE ENEMY. let every heart look inside and ask, have I been a pawn of those who consider themselves as “Masters of the Universe” due to their overweening financial power?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/12/01/american-billionaires-that-got-richer-during-covid/43205617/
Sal Sar
You mean to say that you were “deployed” by the American Communist Deep Deep State to defend and support the theft of the 2020 election; before, during and after.
At some point in the future, when the American Communist Deep Deep State is confident of its suppression of the truth of the theft of the 2020 election and its opposition, agent
NeedsToBeCommitedToAnInsaneAsylum will be reassigned.
_______________________________________________
WWGWD?
What would George Washington do?
@CommittoHonestdiscussion Believe it or not the avatar is influenced by the email address provided. Some of those trolling you could feasibly alter the email address repeatedly until they reach an icon that is hard to distinguish from your own. Some here seem determined to troll and play childish games hiding behind the ambiguity this forum affords. As much as I enjoy returning to the way the internet used to be in some of my visits here, it’s a bit of a double edged sword, and a waste of time dealing with those who skirt the guidelines of integrity here, or those who make unreasonable demands as it seems your harassers have of you.
ah but it’s great to read Glenn Greenwald. He’s a genius!
Saloth Sar
read this again., brilliant! BILLIONAIRES ARE THE ENEMY
“Employees are now almost completely at the mercy of a handful of corporate giants which are thriving, far more trans-national than with any allegiance to the U.S. A Brookings Institution study this week — entitled “Amazon and Walmart have raked in billions in additional profits during the pandemic, and shared almost none of it with their workers” — found that “the COVID-19 pandemic has generated record profits for America’s biggest companies, as well as immense wealth for their founders and largest shareholders—but next to nothing for workers.”
These COVID “winners” are not the Randian victors in free market capitalism. Quite the contrary, they are the recipients of enormous amounts of largesse from the U.S. Government, which they control through armies of lobbyists and donations and which therefore constantly intervenes in the market for their benefit. This is not free market capitalism rewarding innovative titans, but rather crony capitalism that is abusing the power of the state to crush small competitors, lavish corporate giants with ever more wealth and power, and turn millions of Americans into vassals whose best case scenario is working multiple jobs at low hourly wages with no benefits, few rights, and even fewer options.”
Just trying to wrap my head around how many hours of wall-to-wall coverage we’d see on Fox News if Obama had been president when a bomb destroyed a full city block in the US and he disappeared all weekend to golf and didn’t bother to even acknowledge that it happened.
Tell us how many loads you swallow from Barry? Do you swirl, gargle or use it for lube?
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/zoey-dimauro/during-times-crisis-president-obama-goes-golfing-fundraising
During Times of Crisis, President Obama Goes Golfing, Fundraising
President Obama on the links in Martha’s Vineyard with former NBA star Alonzo Mourning the day after American journalist James Foley was beheaded by ISIS terrorists. (AP photo)
(CNSNews.com) — President Obama was recently criticized for playing golf immediately after giving a speech about the brutal beheading of American journalist James Foley by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). But a close look at his presidency shows that Obama’s behavior was part of a pattern.
At times of crisis throughout his presidency, Obama has often left the White House to go golfing, vacationing or fundraising.
Even sympathetic members of the media have noticed the trend.
“It’s understandable that Obama would want to get away from it all, but for a president struggling to build support for his foreign policy, vacationing during a crisis is no day at the beach,” wrote Washington Post opinion writer Dana Milbank.
“Playing a round at the Farm Neck Golf Club was appropriate. Giving a speech after the murder of James Foley was necessary. It is the immediate juxtaposition of beheading and golfing that should have raised questions,” Michael Gerson remarked in a Post oped.
Although Obama called Foley’s parents to convey his condolences, neither the president nor anyone from the White House attended the journalist’s memorial service in New Hampshire, even though three White House aides were dispatched to Ferguson, Missouri to attend the funeral of a black teen killed by a police officer.
Earlier this month, the commander-in-chief was also playing golf at Martha’s Vineyard during the funeral of Major General Harold Green, the highest-ranking U.S. officer killed in battle since the Vietnam War, who was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
In fact, few international or domestic emergencies have diverted the president from his pre-planned activities.
As The New York Times noted, “with some rare exceptions, the public relations team around the president has remained consistently stubborn about refusing to let the never-ending stream of political, economic or international crises affect Mr. Obama’s daily schedule.”
For example, shortly after Ukrainian separatists shot down the commercial airplane Malaysian Flight 17, which resulted in the death of 298 people, including one American, the president gave a brief speech before leaving the White House to eat lunch at a barbeque restaurant in Delaware and attend two fundraisers in New York.
When reporters asked White House spokesman Josh Earnest if going ahead with political events in light of the tragedy was a mistake, Earnest defended Obama, saying that the president had all the tools he needed to do his job on the road.
Pressing national issues have often had to compete with fundraisers for the president’s time and attention.
In early July, President Obama traveled to Dallas, Texas for a fundraiser but decided not to witness the mass influx of illegal aliens then pouring over the Mexican border, saying, “I’m not interested in photo-ops.”
But that claim rang hollow to many who had observed his activities earlier that very same week.
“It’s not like the president is averse to all photo-ops,” CNN’s John King remarked. “We showed you yesterday he was fist-bumping with a guy in a gorilla suit, a guy in a horse head showed up, he was drinking beer with the governor of Colorado. So it is hard for him to say he doesn’t do photo-ops when he’s doing a lot of photo-ops.”
Obama attended several Democratic fundraisers around the country before publicly addressing the scandal of veterans who died waiting for treatment at Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals.
On May 21, three weeks after the story first broke, the president finally gave a speech about the VA misconduct, saying, “If these allegations prove to be true, it is dishonorable, it is disgraceful, and I will not tolerate it — period.”
But the next day, he was off attending two more fundraisers in his hometown of Chicago.
In the fall of 2013, Obama similarly failed to comment on major problems with the Healthcare.gov website until three weeks after it was launched.
“There’s no sugarcoating it. The website has been too slow. And I think it’s fair to say that nobody’s more frustrated by that than I am,” Obama finally said on October 2–a day after he played a round of golf.
The Obamacare website’s serious glitches continued until mid-November, during which time the president played four more rounds of golf and attended at least 10 more fundraisers.
In 2012, Obama continued on the campaign trail the day after the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. After visiting the State Department, Obama flew to Las Vegas to speak at a boisterous campaign rally.
He thanked Nevada Congresswoman Dina Titus and responded “I love you back” to a cheering audience member before addressing the situation in Benghazi, where four Americans were murdered, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
“No act of terror will dim the light of the values that we proudly shine on the rest of the world, and no act of violence will shake the resolve of the United States of America,” Obama said.
In April of 2010, the president of Poland and other top-ranking Polish officials died in a plane crash on their way to Russia. Obama had originally planned to attend the funeral, but volcanic ash in the atmosphere from an erupting volcano in Iceland prevented him and several other world leaders from flying.
Instead, Obama played golf that afternoon.
+10000000
Thanks for demonstrating that each time, Obama made a public statement, unlike Trump who has been silent. Thanks for demonstrating that Obama was criticized, and Trump should be too.
Trump has gone golfing over 300 times while in office. If it bothered you when Obama did it, then it should bother you even more that Trump does it more.
golf is a good sport and wise people exercise. POTUS office does not mean the holder can’t exercise. good for them to recognize that they are still human
Sal Sar
How many luxurious vacations has Trump taken? How many luxurious vacations flying all around the world with her mother, her daughters, and their “friends” and Moochelle’s friends did Obamas take? How many private celebrity-filled bashes did Obama host at the White House? Obama milked it for all he could get away with and so did Michelle, and they got away with it all because the media kissed their butts and deified them for no reason but for being black and Democrat. Just nauseating.
You’ve clearly never looked up the data you’re talking about.
“Last fiscal year, the Trump family took more trips that required Secret Service protection than the Obama family took in seven, according to a budget document released by the Treasury Department. On average, Obama’s family took 133.3 protected trips per year, while the Trump family has taken an average of 1,625 annually.”
More numbers here –
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/trump-family-travel-12x-obama-family/
No comparison, no context. Obama’s family flew around taking extravagant luxury vacations with family and friends. Every December flying on Air Force One all the way to Hawaii so he could camp out on Oahu with Secret Service staying in hotels on Waikiki Beach. Obama’s spent month of August hobknobbing on Martha’s Vineyard. Michelle and her kids and friends went skiing in Vail or Aspen every February. Spring break was always extravagant overseas trips with the girls and her mother and friends. Obama flew to Palm Springs for his golf weekends. The Obama’s traveled everywhere in the world they ever wanted to travel and see and they did it all on the taxpayers dime. When they were not vacationing and taking luxury trips for themselves, they were throwing lavish weekly parties at the White House for all their celebrity friends. On and on the list goes for the Obama’s taking FULL advantage of the compliant media kissing their you know whats.
Trump and his family flew back and forth to his “homes” for his weekend and holiday getaways. The Trump adult children were doing business trips as usual. There was nothing extravagant about the taxpayer funded travel any of the Trump family did during the past four years. Obama holds the record on extravagant world travel and vacations.
+1million.
Barry Baby Jesus Obamma can do no wrong in the bedazzled eyes of the suck-o-phantic press — even though Obamma’s administration was THE most hostile toward the press and the LEAST transparent. Unbelievable sucking up sycophantry by the sick fake news media that Obamma treated so poorly. They all said, “Thank you sir, may I have another!” And they STILL do. Too bad the “media” has lost all credibility.