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This really is a full service blog.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

No one could have predicted…

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night Russiagate Open Thread: Sometimes It’s What Doesn’t Get Said…

Late Night Russiagate Open Thread: Sometimes It’s What Doesn’t Get Said…

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The RNC discovers the sunk cost fallacy, will stop throwing good money after bad:

… Trump defense lawyer John Dowd said that following payments by the Republican National Committee, the president began paying the bills and now wants to make the party “even.” The RNC confirmed it is no longer paying the bills…

Also, they’re not tearing up the IOUs until Trump’s check clears — assuming it ever arrives. Do newspaper classified columns still include those post-divorce announcements that Mr./Ms. X “will no longer be held responsible for any bills charged to [his/her] former spouse Y”?

The expenses cover personal lawyers representing Trump in special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s probe of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in last year’s election…

Special White House counsel Ty Cobb said the administration was working with others to establish a legal fund for current and former staffers. Dowd said White House counsel Don McGahn and campaign lawyer Ben Ginsberg of Jones Day are working to structure that fund, which would be subject to rules that prohibit staff from receiving gifts or pro bono legal service.

The president is exempt from those rules, Dowd said.

“The geniuses are working on it,” Dowd said. “If it passes muster with the tax lawyers and accountants, then it has to pass muster with the Office of Government Ethics.”

During former President Bill Clinton’s administration, private funds were raised to cover Clinton’s legal expenses related to the Whitewater investigation…

I think we may have uncovered the spark behind last week’s BUT WHAT ABOUT TEH CLENIS!!! noisy public kabuki. It’s not as though Donald “I Am So A Billionaire” Trump could count on his base to chip in for his legal bills… and his usual donors don’t want to draw further attention to themselves.

… In August, Reuters first reported that the RNC was paying Trump’s legal bills, which amounted to more than $230,000 that month. The payments were made to Trump’s outside legal team, which includes Dowd.

Additionally, Trump’s re-election campaign paid more than $300,000 this year in bills to lawyers representing his son, Donald Trump Jr., according to public disclosures. The campaign did not respond to a request for comment on whether it will continue to pay for Trump Jr’s legal expenses…

While previous presidential campaigns have used these funds to pay for routine legal matters such as ballot access disputes and compliance requirements, Trump is the first president in the modern campaign finance era to use such funds on the costs of responding to a criminal probe, said election law experts.

Upcoming Trump tweet: Once Again I have acheived UNPRESIDENTED accomplishment!!! — not like Crooked Hillary who had to Pay for Her own … (1/x)

Reader Interactions

61Comments

  2. 2.

    ruemara

    In the interests of distracting you from President Perpetual Outrage, I present Kittens 2: Kitten Cattaloo. Unfortunately my cats just sit around loving on each other, eating, chasing each other and being rudely interrupted by adoring humans kissing and snuggling them, to do much interesting stuff.

    Edited to ask, do we have Seattle Juicers and if so, anyone interested in a meet up while I’m at PodCon?

  4. 4.

    opiejeanne

    @ruemara: Oh, Dec 9 & 10. I have to check with youngest child, whose birthday is the 10th, but she may want to celebrate on Friday.

  5. 5.

    TenguPhule

    Do lawyers who get stiffed by their clients still have any duty of care to those clients?

    Asking for a friend.

  6. 6.

    mike in dc

    230k per month, at 1000 bucks per billable hour, is 230 hours of legal work. That’s a pretty high burn rate for a single individual client.

  9. 9.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Also, they’re not tearing up the IOUs until Trump’s check clears — assuming it ever arrives.

    It’ll be tough to send in the leg breakers to collect, what with those pesky Secret Service agents getting in the way.

  10. 10.

    ruemara

    @CaseyL: I don’t know yet. I may have a sofa surf option or I maybe at a hostel. And I probably will be Lyfting it to downtown if I’m not downtown proper.

  11. 11.

    Joyce H

    How convenient, then, that the private yacht of a Putin-crony Russian oligarch has tied up in Palm Beach, where it is scheduled to remain until after Trump’s Thanksgiving visit to Mar-a-Lago several miles away. Can we assume that bags of cash will change hands? Trump to his lawyers: “Hey, you guys take rubles?”

  12. 12.

    Amir Khalid

    @TenguPhule:
    I Am Not American Lawyer, but it seems to me that to end that duty, the lawyer would have to formally break up with the client: “Dear Donald, I’m sorry but it’s just not working out between you and me. You never listen to what I say. There’s millions of dollars in outstanding bills to you. I need to know if there’s ever any chance that we can get through this, so that we can be together again the way we should be, as lawyer and client. But you keep avoiding the subject when I bring it up. I can’t live that way, never knowing if we’ll ever have again what we had before. It hurts me to have to say this, Donald, more than you know, but I don’t think you’re the client for me. [Unreadable, smudged by teardrop.] … ay goodbye. Yours sincerely, [signature]”

  14. 14.

    Ferdinand

    De-lurkifying to identify as a Seattle area daily reader (for way too many years) game to possibly join a meetup. I’m west of the city across the Sound but can make the trip to share my DT piss and vinegar with fellow travelers.

  15. 15.

    mai naem mobile

    All the hedgefunders,the fossil extraction people and the Kochs,Adelsons anf Mercers who are probably getting what they want can pay for his legal fees. For them,it’s the equivalent to the cost of a Starbucks Coffee for the average person.

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    @mike in dc

    Have seen legal bills which included charges of $20 per page for photocopying. That was about 25 years ago – FSM only knows what such inflated rates for routine tasks might be today. Also too, a billable hour and a 60 minute hour are not interchangeable terms.

  20. 20.

    fuckwit

    Well, a full-time person is around 170 hours a month.

    So at $1k/hr, $230k is around 1.4 full-time people for that month, and given the ratio of billable/unbillable hours, maybe more like 2 or 3 full-time people on just that client.

    That doesn’t seem unreasonable to me given the amount of work.

  22. 22.

    fuckwit

    I just want the fucking indictments, prosecutions, and convictions to hurry the fuck up.

    I know, I know, it’s a slow process.

  27. 27.

    CaseyL

    @opiejeanne: True. Seattle people respond to the sun in one of two ways: either tearing their shirts off and flopping down in the nearest patch of lawn to bask, or staring in a puzzled fashion at the sky and wondering what the yellow ball is.

  29. 29.

    Anne Laurie

    @mai naem mobile:

    All the hedgefunders,the fossil extraction people and the Kochs, Adelsons and Mercers who are probably getting what they want can pay for his legal fees.

    Sure, they could, but they seem to be sitting on their checkbooks right now. The Kochs were never strong Trump backers; Adelson recently announced he’s not gonna give Steve Bannon any more money; and Bob Mercer just had that weird announcement about turning his hedge fund over to his daughter.

    Rebekah Mercer is the last donor standing, for the moment, and she’s been more interested in the “background” alt-right/Nazi guys than in Dubious Donald all along. I get the impression the “smart money” is waiting to see what Mueller’s team does next… and since Bekah M wants to be The Big Player, I suspect either Jared/Ivanka are holding her at arm’s length, or she won’t commit to Trump until / unless those two are hustled offstage, one way or another. Could not happen to a more deserving bunch of grifters!

  30. 30.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    @Big R: I think most of this blog’s commentariat is literate enough to know what it’s a reference to. And Revolta is just following in the fine tradition of Rocky and Bullwinkle, what with its Ruby Yacht (still one of the great puns of all time).

  31. 31.

    Brachiator

    @Joyce H: That’s quite a yacht.

    The 533-foot Eclipse comes equipped with a pool, helipad, submarine and room for a crew of 92.

    Supposedly it cost between $400 and $500 million.

    Now we know what American plutocrats will want for Xmas with their shiny new tax cuts.

    ETA. Yep. The Ruble-Yacht pun immediately brought to mind Rocky and Bullwinkle.

  33. 33.

    Brachiator

    @(((CassandraLeo))):

    And Revolta is just following in the fine tradition of Rocky and Bullwinkle, what with its Ruby Yacht (still one of the great puns of all time).

    Early on watching the show, I got the pun in the name Boris Badenov (bad enough). But it wasn’t until late high school or college, I think, that I got the play on Tsar Boris Godunov.

  34. 34.

    rikyrah

    Maybe they saw the numerous Maddow segments asking:

    ” What happened to the $50 million that was left from the Inauguration?”

    Maybe they got hip that he has a $50 million dollar slush fund.

  36. 36.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @mai naem mobile:

    All the hedgefunders,the fossil extraction people and the Kochs,Adelsons anf Mercers who are probably getting what they want can pay for his legal fees. For them,it’s the equivalent to the cost of a Starbucks Coffee for the average person

    You forget the example of The Donald himself about the fiscal responsibility of the rich. If they were all just wallowing in piles of cash they wouldn’t be so frantic for a tax cut.

  38. 38.

    Russ

    The Trump crime syndicate is guilty and the RNC is smart enough to not keep shoving money down a rabbit hole. Trump’s crimes are indefensible and the RNC knows it and so now the best thing for them to do is stop the flow of cash, hang on until this is all over and assess the situation then.

  44. 44.

    BellyCat

    Y’all need some Toddler Conditioning. Seems there is some kind of silent intergalactic alarm that goes off at 5 am every day, audible only to Little People. Yoi!

    Here’s one for the legal eagles: if a client does not pay, does attorney/client privilege still apply? In other words, could an unpaid attorney testify against a former (unpaying) client?

    All sorts of “reputational” consequences for testifying, of course, but is this legally feasible?

  45. 45.

    trnc

    @Anne Laurie:

    Sure, they could, but they seem to be sitting on their checkbooks right now. The Kochs were never strong Trump backers; Adelson recently announced he’s not gonna give Steve Bannon any more money; and Bob Mercer just had that weird announcement about turning his hedge fund over to his daughter.

    They aren’t sitting on their checkbooks. They’re spending plenty of money pushing lies about tax cuts and buying up news outlets to turn into mini Breitbarts. They don’t have to spend directly on anyone’s campaign anymore, as we can see from the fact that the Clinton campaign raised almost twice as much as the DT campaign in 2016.

    Apart from that, Good Morning.

  46. 46.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @(((CassandraLeo))): I guess I’m semi-literate. I have heard the phrase “The Rubiyyat of Omar Khayyam” many times and have the vague impression it’s a written work. No idea what’s in it or why it’s famous.

    I’ve been up since 5:30. My wife is a church musician among her many hats, and I’d promised her to finish arranging a couple Messiah selections by this morning.

  47. 47.

    TriassicSands

    @fuckwit:

    I just want the fucking indictments, prosecutions, and convictions to hurry the fuck up.

    I know, I know, it’s a slow process.

    Most of my life, I’ve thought there were certain things — events, discoveries, etc. — that I very much wanted to happen before I died. At the top of the list has always been irrefutable confirmation that life exists beyond the Earth. Now that I’m within sight of the end (that is, my own end), my #1 wish seems unlikely to be realized. After many years of having a short but stable list, the past year has created a number of new entries. First among the new entries is to reach a point where I can accurately refer to Donald Trump as “the disgraced former president who is now serving time in prison after his impeachment and removal from office.”
    Adding “for treason” would be a nice, but unlikely bonus.

    If I’m being selfish, extraterrestrial life is still first, but for the good of the life we already know exists, I really should be hoping for the imprisonment of Trump. Since I sincerely doubt I will get my first wish, Trump’s humiliation and well-deserved incarceration would be a reasonable consolation prize. But they’ve got to hurry up, damn it!

    Note: world peace has never been on the list, because I wanted all the entries to be at least remotely possible.

  48. 48.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @TriassicSands:

    At the top of the list has always been irrefutable confirmation that life exists beyond the Earth.

    Read about the weird methane chemistry on Titan, investigated by the Cassini mission. It’s not irrefutable evidence, and scientists have been very cautious not to even strongly suggest it might be life. But something unexplained in the methane lakes is, IIRC, consuming methane and “exhaling” something else (acetylene? Don’t remember).

    Like you, I would love evidence of exterrestrial life, and I choose to believe there is methane-based life on Titan till proven otherwise.

  49. 49.

    Citizen_X

    I just want to make sure the motherfucker doesn’t stick us taxpayers with the legal bill. Because you know he’ll try that.

  50. 50.

    TriassicSands

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    I’m looking to both Titan and Enceladus, with the latter getting the nod as the best bet. Unfortunately, the eventual missions to those orbs to search for life will definitely come too late for me.

    Europa and Mars also could be home to ET. But like Titan and Enceladus exploration will come too late. My best bet is probably Mars where a probe/rover could find something.

  52. 52.

    TriassicSands

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Sadly, Huygens, which landed on Titan, was not sterile, so there is a small, probably tiny, possibility that we (humans) screwed up and “infected” Titan. They didn’t sterilize it because they didn’t think there was any chance of there being life already there. Oops!

    Huygens changed minds.

  53. 53.

    tobie

    Good morning, early risers and welcome @Ferdinand: to the conversation. We’re a noisy bunch but our bark is worse than our bite.

    I find it interesting that Republicans have suddenly awoken up to the fact that Trump’s pledge to pay for the legal costs of his staff is (a) probably a lie and (b) would generate a massive conflict-of-interest for the staff’s attorneys. Ben Ginsburg is not a Trump Republican but he’s super loyal to the party and would want to make sure that the Republican operatives working in the White House would have sufficient legal representation. I wonder if this implicitly means that he recognizes that the interests of the staff may well be in conflict with the interests of the President.

  54. 54.

    artem1s

    … In August, Reuters first reported that the RNC was paying Trump’s legal bills, which amounted to more than $230,000 that month.

    good. Finally these shenanigans are costing the GOP. The Dems have been spending untold dollars trying to fight egregious voter ID laws and other civil rights causes, just to keep their base in the voting game. That’s what is happening to a lot of their money. Not these ridiculous conspiracies about pizza and donuts. If the GOP wants to waste our time and lives with grifters it should at least cost their party some money.

  56. 56.

    Thoughtful David

    @TriassicSands: A few weeks ago an extrasolar object A/2017 U1 slingshotted around the sun and headed back out to interstellar space. First object ever detected to do so.
    Rama, anyone?

  60. 60.

    Ferdinand

    @tobie: Thanks Tobie! I’ve been a regular reader since Cole (and Johnson at LGF) was still a tortured Republican. RIP Tunch. I’ll watch for a “Seattle Meet Up” thread in the coming days.

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