TRUMP'S UNRAVELING IN FRONT OF US

If you have watched a minute of cable news in the last 24 hours, you have likely heard the leaked audio of Donald Trump confessing to the nation that he knowingly possessed classified documents that he knew he should not have, that he should not show them to those present in the room, that he did not have the ability to declassify them as an ex-president and had not declassified them when he took them during his term as president, and still apparently showing them to the other people in the room who did not have the clearance to see them, which at least one of those individuals acknowledged.

It is a riveting bombshell, in which his actual words are exponentially worse than the indictment that quoted the tape described it as being.

Not only did he knowingly possess documents he knew he shouldn’t have, for which he was indicted this month, he confessed to a separate crime of showing them to people not authorized to see them, opening himself to an additional indictment for his behavior in Bedminster. So far as we know, there is no federal Judge “Lucy” Cannon in New Jersey to save him.

While the relevant points in the tape are described in the indictment, listening the actual audio recording of a laughing, confessing ex-president, ending with the banality of his ordering one of the servants to bring him “some Cokes” after revealing possession of secret war plans…

Is beyond even the sheer relentless moron stupidity I have given him credit for these past eight years.

How damning is that new tape?

“These are the papers,” Trump says.

“This was done by the military and given to me,” Trump continues, claiming it is the evidence of his innocence, since it was given to him (most likely in response to his request that a plan be developed to do what he wanted) before he notes the document remained classified.

“See as president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

“Now we have a problem,” his staffer responds, which is proof that those in the room knew they should not be hearing this.

“Isn’t that interesting,” Trump says, in the last line included in the indictment.

The audio recording includes several additional lines from the conversation:

Trump: “It’s so cool. I mean, it’s so, look, her and I, and you probably almost didn’t believe me, but now you believe me.”

Writer: “No, I believed you.”

Trump: “It’s incredible, right?”

Writer: “No, they never met a war they didn’t want.”

Trump: “Hey, bring some, uh, bring some Cokes in please.”

Hannah Arendt spins in her grave with the criminal so perfectly demonstrating “the banality of evil.”

The response has been unsurprising.

Garrett Graff: “Speaking as a Watergate historian, there’s nowhere on thousands of hours of Nixon tapes where Nixon makes any comment as clear, as clearly illegal, and as clearly self-aware as this Trump tape.”

Former GOP congressman now presidential candidate Will Hurd: “Having a Coke and a smile while you willingly show classified information to those who shouldn’t see it, which could put American lives in jeopardy, is the definition of ‘Me First, America Last’.”

George Conway, in answer to Anderson Cooper: “Well, the special counsel already had Trump dead to rights because we knew this tape existed in some form. But to actually hear a former President of the United States committing a felony, probably multiple felonies, on audiotape while laughing about it is something I just — I think it's just stunning... I don't know how you can explain that in front of a jury.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, hearing the tape was the turning point for Jack Smith and his team of prosecutors in the decision to indict Trump, as they had the proof of motive dropped in their lap in his own words.

Predictably, the World’s Most Persistent Moron followed up this morning, shouting his defiance again:

“COULD SOMEBODY PLEASE EXPLAIN TO THE DERANGED, TRUMP HATING JACK SMITH, HIS FAMILY, AND HIS FRIENDS, THAT AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, I COME UNDER THE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT, AS AFFIRMED BY THE CLINTON SOCKS CASE, NOT BY THIS PSYCHOS’ FANTASY OF THE NEVER USED BEFORE ESPIONAGE ACT OF 1917. “SMITH” SHOULD BE LOOKING AT CROOKED JOE BIDDEN AND ALL OF THE CRIMES THAT HE HAS PERPETRATED ON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC, INCLUDING THE MILLIONS & MILLIONS OF DOLLARS HE EXTORTED FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES!”

And after all tof the above, the new Morning Consult polls explains why you think the world has gone crazy:

“Trump takes lead over Biden in general-election matchup: Trump continues to be the favorite for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination, with 57% of potential GOP primary voters supporting his candidacy. But for the first time since tracking began in December, Trump also leads Biden by 3 percentage points in a hypothetical general-election matchup, outside the surveys’ margins of error.”

Yes indeed, the only thing “exceptional” about America is the exceptional moron stupidity of the average American. H.L. Mencken was right when he observed 90 years ago that “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

O.J. Simpson telling Trump in a Twitter video that all the “best lawyers of my lifetime” told him that the one thing he should not do as a defendant was “talk about the case” has to be the best joke of this entire lunatic event.

What was almost worse than the Trump tape is all the Trumpscum trying to find a way to contort themselves as they attempt to convince the drooling MAGAts that Trump has done nothing wrong.

Last night, Sean Hannity went on the air 30 minutes after CNN released their copy of the tape:

“Fake news CNN has exclusively apparently obtained another audio recording used as evidence in Trump’s document case. It’s kind of weird because there are virtually no leaks from Biden’s document investigation, if there even really is one. It’s almost as if we have a two-tiered system of justice, isn’t it?”

Hannity demonstrated immediately how the Trump Defense System works:

The investigation of Biden’s possession of classified documents is understood not to be in any way commensurate to Trump’s case in any significant way. There has been no indication Biden knew he had classified documents, and in fact it is clear in the record that when staffers found the classified documents, the National Records were immediately notified and the documents were handed over at the first opportunity,

For Hannity’s bullshit to stand scrutiny, it would have to be shown that (1) the recording obtained by CNN was leaked by the Justice Department and (2) that there exists a recording incriminating Biden in the same way, apparently showing someone a classified document and mentioning that it’s classified — but without that recording similarly leaking.

Hannity’s viewers aren’t pausing to consider that. They hear the code-phrase - “two-tiered system of justice” - and (Hannity hopes) nod agreement.

After a commercial break, Hannity played the audio itself. Every Fox viewer could hear Trump at showing something to the writer with whom he was speaking, mentioning that it’s secret and that it would need to be declassified, though he no longer had the power to do so.

There you have it: proof to Trumpworld that their Dear Leader is a bullshit artist and a confessed criminal.

However, that’s not what Hannity claimed he heard.

“Now, while he did say, you know, this is stuff that he got from the military that would be highly confidential and secret and says at another point as president, I could have declassified it, now I couldn’t. But now, you know, it would still be a secret. That does not confirm for me whether or not specifically this document was declassified or not. Was that actually the real document or is it a story that he was telling?”

Numerous informed observers have made a point of the fact that it is very safe to assume the special counsel has testimony from the people who were in the room when the recording was made regarding what Trump was holding as he spoke and what it looked like, thus making a hash of Hannity’s bullshit “objections.”

The World’s Dumbest Mick (hired at Fox, according to Roger Ailes, because “he’s good at taking orders,” then went on to note “that particular document was never found by the special counsel or by the raid at Mar-a-Lago,” an implication that maybe there was no such document. This is further bullshit. The FBI search at Mar-a-Lago was not a search of Bedminster. Trump’s attorneys searched Bedminster and say they located no additional documents.

Hannity then turned to former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, who surprisingly was not willing to go along with Hannity’s arguments and stated what is the actual truth:

“I don’t know what his defense will be over this document, but as somebody who used to routinely handle classified information, I do have to say that is not how you are supposed to handle it.

Hannity’s other guest, former Trump press secretary and current Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany, was also hesitant to go along with the Trump-did-nothing-demonstrably-wrong line.

Hannity tried another tack, suggesting that the situation was comparable to Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state. (It isn’t, as shown here and here.) Ultimately, he simply reverted to his existing framework.

Hannity’s real problem was that he on the air so soon after CNN obtained the tape that he wasn’t able to “take orders” from Trump and follow the Party Line as dictated by Trump himself in a social media post a few hours later.

Trump claimed that the tape “is actually an exoneration, rather than what they would have you believe.”

Just like the transcript of his calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the tape of his call with Brad Raffensperger showed those calls were actually “perfect.”

Several sources have questioned who leaked this rape. At an equivalent point in Michael Cohen’s prosecution - when SDNY was on the verge of getting the recording Cohen made of Trump ordering a hush payment - Trump released that tape to preempt damage.

In that case, Trump received the recording via discovery, because he was participating in the Special Master review.

In this case, Trump independently owns copies of the recording, which was made for his own purpose.

Trump releasing it, then blaming Jack Smith for doing so just as Judge “Lucy”Cannon gets involved, would be the most predictable thing ever.

As bad as Hannity et al over on Faux Snooze are, they’re paid to be the shills.

The latest episode of MAGA political counter-reality is this: “Kevin McCarthy Backs MTG-Led Push to 'Expunge' Trump Impeachments.”

Last Friday, in response to news that Marjorie Traitor Goon wanted to see Ttrump’s two inpeachments “expunged,” the World’s Dumbest Okiefornian said, "I think it is appropriate, just as I thought before, that you should expunge it, because it never should have gone through."

Trump’s impeachments?

They never happened.

His attempt to extort the Ukrainian president?

Erased.

Inciting an insurrection? Attempting to overturn the election?

Deleted.

This is the new hotness in the GOP.

Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele, who I love for his committment to taking the Bowie Knife of Truth to Every MASA Balloon of Bullshit was quick to point out that, alas and alack for My Kevin, expunging impeachments is not really a thing - not in the law, not in the constitution:

"The reality of it is, you're not -- you can't expunge the impeachment. You can take it out of the official Congressional Record, but it doesn't change history, it doesn't change what happened. It doesn't change the fact that you and a lot of Republicans are on the record during that time talking about the very thing you said never happened and didn't exist and they weren't saying it didn't happen and it didn't exist."

Laurence Tribe tweeted: “Trump’s two impeachments can’t be ‘expunged’ any more than his term as president can be. (How I wish it could! - Erasing the past isn’t a thing; it’s a fantasy, like erasing reality or making yesterday disappear. Alternative ‘facts’ aren’t facts at all. It’s not about Congress’s power; it’s about truth.”

Even MAGA legal shill Jonathan Turley agreed: "It is not like a constitutional DUI. Once you are impeached, you are impeached."

But this kind of gaslighting is what Donald Trump wants and, once again, What Trump Wants, Trump Gets.

His presidential rivals promise to pardon him for his crimes; and the House GOP moves to airbrush out his impeachments. The aim is to let Trump claim that despite the events everyone witnessed, he was never impeached at all. That can be partrt of the fake historical record he sells to his moron supporters.

Elise Stefanik, World’s Most Embarrassing Striver, wants to go all the way. She has introduced a resolution in the House to “expunge” the impeachments, and the text of her resolution actually endorses some of Trump’s lies about the election itself, as a justification for his actions.

In one clause, she declares Trump is “the first president since Grover Cleveland in 1888 to have increased his vote from his initial election and seemingly still not won reelection in the subsequent cycle.” She also cites the votes in “bellwether counties” that Trump won.

I can’t go further with it, because every time I think of this bimbo, I want to sneak up behind her and pour a bucket of warm cat barf over her head. (And I have enough felines resident here that I could fill a bucket easily.)

Stefanik neatly demonstrates the House Republican Conference in 2023. It’s a constant tug-of-war between moderates looking to govern and hardline conservatives looking to score political points or settle grievances, especially those involving Trump.

And finally, there is this from today’s New York Times, proving once again that Donald Trump will grift any dime he sees that someone hasn’t reached for already.

“When Mr. Trump kicked off his 2024 campaign in November, for every dollar raised online, 99 cents went to his campaign, and a penny went to Save America. But internet archival records show that sometime in February or March, he adjusted that split. Now his campaign’s share has been reduced to 90 percent of donations, and 10 percent goes to Save America. The effect of that change is potentially substantial: Based on fund-raising figures announced by his campaign, the fine-print maneuver may already have diverted at least $1.5 million to Save America. And the existence of the group has allowed Mr. Trump to have his small donors pay for his legal expenses, rather than paying for them himself.

“Mr. Trump’s legal troubles are deeply intertwined with his political campaign and fund-raising efforts. His campaign store is selling an “I Stand With Trump” T-shirt showing the date of his indictment in Manhattan (“03.30.2023”) for $36; it recently added a second shirt with his Florida indictment date (“06.08.2023”) for $38. Half the featured items on the store’s landing page show a fake mug shot and the words “not guilty.”

Trump fully intends to fleece the rubes of every dime; he’ll monetize the ancillary rights to his criminal trials.

Anyone who sends him money sees the mark every morning when they look in the mirror.

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