Nancy

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Monday, May 8, 2017

The Daily Combover - May 8, 2017


"That boy done lost his mind." - Drake

I know, I know. This is what the Late Night Track is for, but "Shut it Down" just felt too appropriate after watching Former Director of Natiinal Intelligence James Clapper and Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates roast Trump and the GOP today.

By far the deadliest exchange was between Yates and Senator Ted Cruz:
CRUZ: Well, are you familiar with 8 USC Section 1182?
YATES: Not off the top of my head, no.
CRUZ: Well, it -- it -- it is the binding statutory authority for the executive order that you refused to implement, and that led to your termination. So it -- it certainly is a relevant and not a terribly obscure statute.By the express text of the statute, it says, quote, "whenever the president finds that entry of any alien or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interest of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or non-immigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem appropriate." Would you agree that is broad statutory authorization?
YATES: I would, and I am familiar with that. And I'm also familiar with an additional provision of the INA that says no person shall receive preference or be discriminated against an issuance of a visa because of race, nationality or place of birth, that I believe was promulgated after the statute that you just quoted. And that's been part of the discussion with the courts, with respect to the INA, is whether this more specific statute trumps the first one that you just described. But my concern was not an INA concern here. It, rather, was a constitutional concern, whether or not this -- the executive order here violated the Constitution, specifically with the establishment clause and equal protection and due process.
I would not want to be doing Cruz's laundry after that exchange.

Jason already covered it briefly here, but let's take a look into Trump's response.

Several hours before the hearing he began laying out the groundwork for his rebuttal:
1. Blame Obama.
2. Deflect to the leaks.
3. Blame the media.
4. If that fails, blame Flynn.
Obviously President Obama's White House had to have given Flynn clearance given that he worked for Obama until 2014. Note that last preposition: until 2014. Flynn was summarily fired for insubordination. The fact that Trump and Pence thought he'd make a great NSA without even bothering to give him a check is all on Trump.

But wait, as we now learned today, that's not exactly the case. It turns out Trump knew about Flynn's connections to Turkey and Russia when he named him NSA and just didn't care. He knew because President Obama flat out told him not to bring Flynn on for that reason.

Next up, a few minutes later Trump posted this:
Note, ignore the timing of that one -- he misused the word Council in place of Counsel and later deleted the original tweet.

As the comments on that Tweet imply -- Trump was getting very nervous at that point. He was already moving to step two and the hearing had not even begun yet.

Let's jump ahead to after the hearing:
When all else fails, #TrumpLies.

And now the admission of guilt:
That's right Donnie. This is old news. It's about 6 month old news to be exact.
Note how closely all of these last few tweets followed each other. And as you can see, we've moved onto step 3. After tomorrow my guess is the GOP circles the wagons and blames Flynn for everything. But Russia owns Flynn and therefore Trump cannot really target him without repercussions.

Pass the popcorn.

Catch you on the flip side.
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