The heated exchange between White House Senior Adviser Stephen Miller and CNN reporter Jim Acosta this week has been the focus of much coverage. Both men went after each other over immigration and, in my view, neither came off particularly well. Acosta at times seemed more of an advocate than a journalist while Miller seemed bizarrely eager to convert the press conference into some high school debating competition. However, my greatest interest was Miller’s repeated accusation that Acosta had revealed his “Cosmopolitan bias.” This may be a new term of art in political circles but it left me scratching my head. It was like the scene in Princess Bride when Montoya stops Vizzini after he says “inconceivable” for the umpteenth time: “You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Category: Media
Below is my column in The Hill Newspaper on the most recent allegation of criminal conduct by President Donald Trump or his family. Added to the ever-lengthening list of clear crimes is now witness tampering despite the fact that it does not come close to any prior definition of that crime. Both Professor Lawrence Tribe and CNN Legal Analyst Norm Eisen (Eisen previously said that Trump’s conversations with James Comey could constitute witness tampering) have claimed that Trump’s dictating or contributing to the statement of his son, Donald Jr., on the Russian meeting establishes the basis for such a charge. I obviously disagree.
Here is the column.
Continue reading “Gambino-Lite: Accusing Trump Of A Half-Truth Does Not Constitute A Whole Crime”
A lawsuit has been filed by Rod Wheeler, a former Fox contributor, that alleges that Fox News Channel and Ed Butowsky, a wealthy Trump supporter (who hired Wheeler to investigate the murder — a story involving the alleged murder of the Democratic National Committee aide. The bombshell part of the complaint is an email that states that President Donald Trump wanted the story to air to distract from the Russian investigation.
President Donald Trump has been widely criticized for his breaking an 80-year-old tradition in making political comments at the Boy Scouts National Jamboree in West Virginia. When asked about the controversy, however, Trump refused to apologize and instead said that there were no “mixed” views at the event. Rather, he said that the head of the Boy Scouts called him and told him it was “the greatest speech that was ever made to them.” That comment left many scratching their heads since the Boy Scouts apologized to parents for the Presidents speech and said yesterday that they are unaware of any such telephone call.
Women’s Studies Professor Kevin Allred at Montclair State University is back in the news. Allred previously attracted national attention (while on the Rutgers faculty) after he was reportedly ordered to go through a psychiatric evaluation after students “felt threatened” by him following Trump’s election. Now, Allred (who teaches a course on Beyonce) posted a comment that he hoped someone would kill Donald Trump. As should come as little surprise to many who know my view of the First Amendment, I view this statement as protected speech and hyperbolic. However, it was reckless, hateful, and worthy of condemnation.
Continue reading “Montclair Professor Calls For Trump To Be Killed”
The Washington Post is reporting that President Donald Trump personally dictated the misleading statement issued by Donald Trump Jr. about his meeting with a Russian leader — a meeting that was expressly set up to received damaging information from the Russian government on Hillary Clinton. The report that the President became personally involved in the statement — which inaccurately portrayed the meeting — is yet another example of an operation that has stumbled through scandal after scandal. Where most Administrations would have actively insulated the President from any role in the statement, Trump directed events and dictated the four-line statement that would be issued by his son.
The shocking comments of new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci on Thursday has left the Trump Administration staggering around Washington with no one clearly in control of the staff and, ironically, an increase in leaks about Scaramucci and fears of the President’s staff. In the meantime, the crude comments of Scaramucci have undermined any effort of the White House to convey strength after the stinging defeat of the “skinny” health care bill. With Republicans in open revolt, the Scaramucci controversy conveys a team in disarray and division. This was the worst possible time to go full Jerry Springer.
Below is my column in USA Today on the possibility of a “Doomsday scenario” where President Donald Trump first fired (or forces the resignation) of Jeff Sessions and then moves to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller. That scenario was reinforced yesterday with reports that Trump has discussed firing Sessions and giving a recess appointment to his successor — the very scenario laid out earlier in this column. In addition, Trump blasted Sessions again yesterday — this time criticizing him for not replacing Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, whose wife ran for office in Virginia in 2015 and received large contributions from the Democratic Party.
Trump’s unrelenting criticism of Sessions is occurring at the same time as new leaks about his discussing not just a replacement but a recess appointment — something the Democrats have vowed to prevent. The question is whether some Republicans might join in that effort to prevent the type of Doomsday scenario laid out in this earlier column.
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ranian state television presenter Azadeh Namdari is known as an advocate of the strict Iranian dress codes for women that many women have bravely resisted in the authoritarian country. For that reason, a photo of Namdari sitting outside without a hijab and allegedly drinking a beer has caused a firestorm of criticism from both secularists and Islamists.
For an Administration that has long complained about the effort of “the deep state” to undermine President Trump, the most recent leak detailed in the Washington Post will confirm an openly hostile intent by people within the intelligence community. The Post published accounts of how Russia’s ambassador to Washington Sergey Kislyak told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed campaign-related matters with then Sen. Jeff Sessions during the 2016 presidential race. If true, the account would conflict with Sessions earlier denials.
The media is reporting that President Donald Trump’s legal team is investigating possible conflicts of interest by former FBI Director Robert Mueller. Today I ran a column in USA Today on those conflicts of not just Mueller but Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. I have great respect for Mueller but I believe it was a mistake of Rosenstein to select him given his history with Comey and his reported interview with Trump for Comey’s job. Nevertheless, as I have stated since this story broke this morning, I am very concerned with any concerted effort to investigate the investigators. Such an approach is less evidence of a strategy as a spasm. Clearly, defense counsel has a right — if not an obligation — to raise any known conflicts of interest with the Justice Department. Yet, such investigations can easily get out of hand and can trip legal wires if aides are too aggressive in investigating the investigators.
Continue reading “Report: White House Investigating Mueller”
President Donald Trump gave a bombshell interview with the New York Times on Wednesday in which he said that he would not have appointed Jeff Sessions to be attorney general had he known Sessions would recuse himself from the Russian investigation. It was a highly disturbing interview since Sessions recused on the advice of ethics experts at the Justice Department and the overwhelming view of the bar.
Fox News’ Martha MacCallum aired an interesting interview with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein this week in which the Rosenstein reaffirmed something that I have previously said: the memos leaked by James Comey were FBI documents and their release violated FBI rules and regulations. The media has largely ignored indications that some of the memos were indeed classified and that Comey broke FBI rules by leaking material to his friend (with the intent of his giving the information to the media). Rosenstein however did not address one glaring issue of his own: his own conflict of interest in continuing to oversee the Special Counsel investigation while being an obvious and important witness in that investigation.Continue reading “Rosenstein: Comey Memos Were Confidential and Improperly Leaked”
Washington was rocked last night by another scandal with allegations of collusion and a true cover up. As you can see in the above screenshot, I appeared on Fox News but my suit jacket did not. The reason, dear readers, was that my jacket was lifted from the green room at Fox News shortly before I went on with Martha McCallum. The culprit left a very small blue jacket in its place. With minutes to go live, I had to choose between looking casual in shirt sleeves and looking fat in an undersized jacket. Vanity won out over propriety. But there remained growing questions of who knew about the jacket switch and when did they know it. The culprit left the studio literally cloaked in the cover up that was once my jacket.
Continue reading “WASHINGTON ROCKED BY ALLEGED COVER UP WITHIN FOX NEWS”
Presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway gave an interesting interview this weekend where she objected to criticism of her performance in the White House as “gender-based.” The suggestion that sexism drives her critics has unleashed a new round of criticism that she is “playing the gender card.” I thought it would be an interesting question to debate on the blog.
Continue reading “Conway Objects That Criticism Of Her Performance In The White House Is Sexist”