Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

I really should read my own blog.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

This fight is for everything.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Breaking News: Former Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker Admits to Committing Perjury During His Public Testimony Before the House Judiciary Committee!

Breaking News: Former Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker Admits to Committing Perjury During His Public Testimony Before the House Judiciary Committee!

by | 181 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , , , , ,

And there appears to have been a nascent attempt to reprise the Bush 43 US Attorneys firing scandal involved too boot! Nicholas Fandos of The New York Times has the scoop.

Update at 6:15 PM EDT

Here’s the video of Congressman Nadler’s remarks:

Discuss amongst yourselves…

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

181Comments

  2. 2.

    ByRookorbyCrook

    I am shocked. Shocked, I say. Thankfully he is no longer in government service… So did he resign because of this or because he was going to come clean?

  8. 8.

    Baud

    @Baud:

    Nadler said Whitaker’s response came after he was pressed in a closed-door session on CNN reporting from December that Trump twice vented to Whitaker about federal prosecutors who referenced the President’s actions in crimes Cohen pleaded guilty to.

    But the top Republican on the committee, Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, disputed Nadler’s characterization, saying Whitaker told them he “did not talk with the president about Mr. Cohen at all.”

    https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/03/13/politics/matt-whitaker-jerry-nadler/index.html

  10. 10.

    oldgold

    Does anyone know if today’s examination of Whitaker was conducted by experienced litigators or pols?

    Nadler’s wording is not a model of clarity. “Whitaker did not deny …” is different
    than “Whitaker admitted that …”

  11. 11.

    MattF

    Lying is what they do. The surprise is that Whitaker (apparently) told the truth on one occasion. To a Democrat!

  12. 12.

    MJS

    @Baud: Neither Whitaker nor Trump needed to say the name, “Cohen” to discuss the scope of Berman’s recusal.

  13. 13.

    Adam L Silverman

    @oldgold: Nadler’s a former prosecutor. So are almost every Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. The GOP members on the committee include a disgraced and terminated former cop from Louisiana, a dentist from Arizona, and Gohmert!

  14. 14.

    zhena gogolia

    OT, it’s all over but the shouting — O’Rourke’s on the cover of Vanity Fair:

    https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/03/beto-orourke-cover-story?mbid=nl_CH_5c896b9e14d0712d223ee7c7&CNDID=53497223&utm_source=nl&utm_medium=email&utm_brand=vf&utm_mailing=vyf_vanityfair_news_newdb_active_20190313_beto_special_alert%20(1)&bxid=Mjc3MjQzNzA3NDkzS0&hasha=74fedcf0bb06c0496dab0006207d5b89&hashb=46b510c6240d97097e84fe34c684ef5309b45d6a&spMailingID=15285156&spUserID=Mjc3MjQzNzA3NDkzS0&spJobID=1601061449&spReportId=MTYwMTA2MTQ0OQS2&verso=true

  15. 15.

    MomSense

    I am shocked, shocked that Matthew big dick toilet Whitaker lied to Congress.

    In other news, I am a puddle of happy tears. We had a balloon juice miracle at my house today.

    More later.

  29. 29.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: “Let me read to you from the TEXTBOOK THAT I WROTE.”

    I’m not sure if that’s exactly right, but it was a thing of beauty.

  37. 37.

    Roger Moore

    @Searcher:

    You’d think that people who committed so much crime would be better at it by now.

    Not really. The whole reason these people resort to crime is because they’re incompetent. Even a marginally competent businessman with Trump’s inheritance wouldn’t need to cheat to make money.

  44. 44.

    terraformer

    @oldgold: Right? I thought it was weird when they brought in an outside prosecutor (was she? or some other capacity?) during the Kavanaugh hearings, but why not do it right back at them? Especially when pols don’t really know the subject matter (most of them) or otherwise aren’t good at the whole “questioning a hostile witness” kind of thing?

  47. 47.

    J R in WV

    So I read this B-J headline to wife, who shakes her head and says “So are all these guys STUPID?”

    To which one can only respond “Yes!” Yes, they are all stupid enough to lie under oath, as unbelievable as that is, to people who already know the answers to the questions they are about to lie about.

    Also, the college admissions fraudsters, who complete forms with signature lines, with fraudulent lies on them, also, too!!!

    All SO STUPID!!!!

  52. 52.

    Doug R

    @rikyrah:

    Jennifer #KamalaHarris2020 (@leftyjennyc) Tweeted:
    Things I have yet to hear one journo who’s interviewed Bernie Sanders ask him directly about:
    1. Rape essays
    2. Being a deadbeat dad
    3. Why he didn’t vote/have a job til 40
    4. Why he’s only proposed 350 bills in 30yrs & gotten <2% passed
    5. His civil rights record since the 60s https://twitter.com/leftyjennyc/status/1105834360111009793?s=17

    6. What kind of Socialist takes help from the party but doesn’t help in return?

  53. 53.

    Plato

    Bad news for the totus thug, his incompetent admin and the blog blowhards. Boeing has grounded the entire max fleet.

  55. 55.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: I can’t say. Which reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from the movie Dave. Dave and the secret service guy are eating sandwiches late at night, and Dave asks him a question. Fast forward a bit to “You don’t know or you can’t say?” To which the bodyguard replies in his super deep voice “I can’t say”. Maybe you had to be there.

  57. 57.

    rk

    Can I ask what is going to be done about this? Is there some action that congress can take directly, or does it have to be investigated elsewhere?

  58. 58.

    zhena gogolia

    @rk:

    You were talking down below about the Tucker Carlson latest tape. It is literally nauseating.

    I also feel guilty that I laughed about Miss South Carolina back then.

  71. 71.

    Adam L Silverman

    @terraformer: They did that because there weren’t any female Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee and they were worried about optics. They’ve since put two female Republican senators on that committee. Neither of them are attorneys.

  78. 78.

    Mary G

    Update: We’re 85% of the way to the 65,000 donors required to be invited to the @TheDemocrats debate. We’re not there yet, though, and need your participation to make it to 65,000. Would you please consider making a $3 donation today?https://t.co/8xPfRiSPPp pic.twitter.com/oBnnEwqzSA— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) March 13, 2019

    I have never donated in primaries, but I’ve been waffling over who to support. Not sure Pete is the guy, but he definitely needs to be in the debates, so I threw in the $3.

  80. 80.

    rk

    @zhena gogolia:

    That tape is horrible. I have a daughter with health issues. There are times when she needs help from strangers. So far she has always met people who have been kind and helpful. But I shudder to think that there are men who would would find her in a vulnerable position and think that they should take advantage. Out of all the awful things this bastard said the “wounded gazelle” comment really got to me.
    The Miss South Carolina viral video always made me cringe. I never thought that she was ignorant. It just seems like she got nervous and started babbling.

  82. 82.

    WaterGirl

    @Mary G: I’m really liking Pete. Liked him on Preet’s podcast, liked him on Pod Save America, liked the short clip someone linked to yesterday. Tonight I am going to listen to the CNN town hall video.

  83. 83.

    realbtl

    One of the few things about the Trump maladministration that give me satisfaction is the number of people going “That fucking Trump! We were in fat city and then that asshole decides to run for president and win and now look at the shit that’s coming down.” It must be in the hundreds.

  88. 88.

    trollhattan

    Can the day get any better? Possibly, you decide.

    Right-wing personality Jacob Wohl appears to have faked death threats against himself.

    Involving the police is where this goes from a hilarious self-own to a hilarious legal self-own. According to his own “documentary,” Wohl reported threats he made to himself to the police, which is anywhere between a misdemeanor to a felony carrying a maximum ten-year prison sentence depending on the content of the false police report (Jussie Smollett was just charged with 16 felony counts for filing a false police report). The Daily Beast obtained a police report that only said Wohl gave the cops printed tweets as evidence, but did not specify which ones, so we cannot say with certainty that Jacob Wohl is in dire legal jeopardy.

  89. 89.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rikyrah: Jesus, is that one still banging on about how Ilhan Omar hurt Uncle Lieberman’s fee-fees?

    Justin Baragona @ justinbaragona
    OF COURSE Meghan McCain thinks it’s unfair to criticize legacy admissions at universities and military academies

    Shorter Megs: “My Daddy was a war hero!” She has an English degree from Columbia. For some reason she was asked once to help Time Magazine pick their hot one hundred or whatever they called that (do they still do that?). Someone leaked her unedited comments on the selection process, and she said they really tried to find cases that were “year poignant”. You could just tell she thought she was using a really smart person’s phrasing there.

    Richard M. Nixon @ dick_nixon
    As I said we don’t bother with her but I do wonder what it’s like to have negative self-awareness. A dog has self-awareness. He learns how to look better to you and he does it.

    I wonder if Sherin came up with “negative self-awareness” just for her. She’s earned it.

  93. 93.

    Roger Moore

    @Doug R:

    What kind of Socialist takes help from the party but doesn’t help in return?

    The rule is “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. I think what this says about Bernie’s ability is obvious.

  94. 94.

    JPL

    @rk: I met someone whose son knew her and she really is suppose to be a lovely girl. Tucker is a horrible person, but we knew that.

  96. 96.

    Barbara

    @rk: Because, you know, teenagers never get nervous and start babbling when you point bright lights at them and ask them questions in front of large groups of people.

  100. 100.

    Roger Moore

    @rk:

    The Miss South Carolina viral video always made me cringe. I never thought that she was ignorant. It just seems like she got nervous and started babbling.

    I feel the same way. I think she actually had something reasonable to say but just couldn’t get it out under pressure.

  103. 103.

    Raven

    @JPL:

    Children of Medal of Honor Recipients
    Children (biological or adopted) of persons who have been awarded the Medal of Honor for acts performed in the armed forces who are fully qualified for admission are automatically appointed. There is no limit to the number of midshipmen who may be at the academy with this source of nomination.

  106. 106.

    NotMax

    @Roger Moore

    Don’t knock the Velcro. As someone whose feet intermittently and randomly are subject to becoming swollen, those closures are a boon when it becomes necessary to adjust the fit of the footwear.

  107. 107.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Richard M. Nixon @ dick_nixon
    If memory serves I think McCain himself even said he didn’t belong at Annapolis. He was never shy about admitting what a disgrace of a midshipman he was.

    I think this was all part of his cultivation of the lovable rogue (made good) image, but yeah, he was pretty open about graduating near the bottom of his class, and how his mother (Mrs Admiral McCain II) improperly intervened when he was about to get into serious academic trouble (I originally typed “booted out”, but I don’t know if it went that far, and his Wiki page is silent on the matter)

  113. 113.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: I thought about changing my nym to WaterGirl III, but then I’d be in moderation, waiting to be fished out, and the thread would be dead before it posted, and then I would have to change it back. Life as WG III would be hard.

    edit: I swear I wrote that before I saw #112.

  114. 114.

    oldgold

    Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are beefing up their legal team by hiring two top attorneys to help the panel with its oversight of the Trump administration.

    Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday announced the addition of Norman Eisen and Barry Berke – two vocal critics of President Trump – to the committee legal staff…… Berke has written extensively with Eisen on obstruction of justice and other potential legal exposures involving Trump. He is seen as a powerful litigator with vast experience.

    Here.

  117. 117.

    NotMax

    @WaterGirl

    Why stop at a tripstick? WaterGirlXIX has a nice look to it.

    :)

    Drawing a blank on the name of a guy met one time but do recall he was a VII.

  118. 118.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    Except Bobby Three Sticks

    I don’t think he earned his place in the world, either. That doesn’t mean he’s doing a bad job, but he got a lot of help along the way.

  121. 121.

    Martin

    @rikyrah: I legitimately want to cry tears of joy every time I see Rep Porter up there. We busted our ass to get her elected, and I’ve known her for years. I am not surprised she is getting attention. She is crazy smart, ethical, and determined.

  123. 123.

    FlipYrWhig

    @NotMax: Orel Hershiser the major league pitcher was THE FOURTH. And he named his son Orel, making him the FIFTH. I guess there’s a thin line between a family legacy and a family curse.

  124. 124.

    Steeplejack

    From the grammar police files: commas matter!

    C’mon, Fox News. A current headline on their site:

    Michelle Obama, daughters’ personal tennis instructor charged in college bribery scheme.

    Sorta makes it sound like Michelle was charged, right? No, it’s just some guy who—way down in the story—is “a tennis coach who worked with the family of former President Barack Obama.”

    Ernst was at Georgetown from 2012 to 2017 and was the personal instructor of former first lady Michelle Obama and her daughters, Sasha and Malia, according to the Providence Journal. None of the Obamas are implicated in the scandal in any way.

    Fuckers.

    And when I went back to the page to get the link I saw that the headline has been changed to:

    Personal tennis instructor for Michelle Obama, her daughters charged in bribery scheme.

    I know this is nothing out of the ordinary for Fox; they do it every day. But I got a jolt when it came up in my Google news feed and I had to take a look.

    ETA: And it’s still showing up the first way in Google News on my phone.

  125. 125.

    Bill Arnold

    @Plato:

    Bad news for the totus thug, his incompetent admin and the blog blowhards. Boeing has grounded the entire max fleet.

    Haven’t read all the recent threads (work got priority), but in case it hasn’t been noted, the WSJ reports that the government shutdown stopped work on a fix for the 737 problem for 5 weeks.
    US to ground all Boeing 737 MAX 8 and 9 jets in wake of crash – Software update, which may have been delayed by government shutdown, promised “by April.” (SEAN GALLAGHER, 3/13/2019)
    Boeing to Make Key Change in 737 MAX Cockpit Software (Andrew Tangel and Andy Pasztor, March 12, 2019, paywalled.)

    U.S. officials have said that the federal government’s recent shutdown also halted work on the fix for five weeks.

    (FWIW was able to read the WSJ piece with the Opera browser on another machine.)

  128. 128.

    WaterGirl

    @Gin & Tonic: Absolutely! I bet that was a great moment for her.

    Not at all the same, but it reminds me of when I was a cashier at the grocery store while I put myself through college. We always had to ask if that was their current address and get an ID. So some guy comes through my line and the address on his check is the house I was currently living in! (And the guys who moved out had left it really really dirty!)

    Me: Can I get your current address?”

    Him: He gets all uppity and says “It’s right there, can’t you read?”
    Speaking very slowly and arrogantly, he says: 4-0-5 Buena Vista St, Champaign, IL 61820.

    Me: “You can’t live there – because I live there.”

    Him: Um, uh, um…

    Everyone else in line: Laughing at this total asshole.

    That’s as close as I’ll ever come to “Let me read it to you from this book that I wrote”.

  129. 129.

    Brickley Paiste

    I don’t doubt that Whitaker is a lying sack of shit but Nadler is out over his skis with the perjury claim, based on what’s public at this point

  130. 130.

    Martin

    @Roger Moore: Yeah, he didn’t either. Went to Princeton Prep. He had his M.A. before he enlisted. Earned his JD after his service.

    For the record, if an applicant shows up in my lap with a bronze star, he/she is getting admitted and I don’t fucking care what your parents name is. Your record before that event is going to be largely immaterial to who you are after. There are so few such candidates that it’s worth taking the risk on their academic background, and in every such case that I’ve admitted like that, the applicant excelled. Determination can overcome a lot of poor prep.

    Y’all can fight me on that one.

  133. 133.

    Bill Arnold

    @zhena gogolia:
    I’ll defer to Steeplejack on whether any of those fields are private (userid makes me nervous) but in general, you don’t need anything including and past the “?” when reading from the html… end of the url (left to right), unless you are trying to link the results of a search or something similar.

  134. 134.

    WaterGirl

    @Bill Arnold:

    the WSJ reports that the government shutdown stopped work on a fix for the 737 problem for 5 weeks.

    Holy fuck! Shutdowns have consequences!

  136. 136.

    Brickley Paiste

    @Steeplejack:
    I like the _personal_ tennis trainer part. So he was on staff full time training the Obama daughters? No other clients?

    Disgusting

  138. 138.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @rikyrah: This was on Lawrence’s show. Also on later show he showed her questioning the prez of Wells Fargo.

    Saw she was born in IA, went to Phillips Academy in Andover. The school presents itself very well on its web page.

    Anyone here know anything about this school?

  139. 139.

    Bill Arnold

    @Steeplejack:

    Michelle Obama, daughters’ personal tennis instructor charged in college bribery scheme.

    Time to ramp up the FNN advertiser boycotts?
    They ran out of deniability for this bullshit behavior the third time they labeled a R politician embroiled in scandal as a “D” (early/mid 2000s?)
    (Haven’t found a comprehensive list yet. Does anyone know of such a list?)

  142. 142.

    sukabi

    If it hasn’t been said yet LOCK HIM UP,

    If it has been said it’s worth repeating.

  146. 146.

    chris

    @Ladyraxterinok: I went to school in MA and knew a couple of people from lesser schools. They were all lesser schools. tuition was and is about the same as harvard.

    We visited Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts to see what makes it the best high school in America. The school is often confused with Phillips Exeter. There are 1,154 students on Andover’s campus. Tuition for students living on campus is $53,900.Oct 28, 2017

    ETA: I see via G&T tuition has gone up since 2017

  147. 147.

    Steeplejack

    @Barbara:

    I don’t know how Joy Behar stands it.

    She used to be a stand-up comedian, so she knows from hard times and obnoxious people. To be 76 years old, sitting behind a big desk and making serious network money to put up with nitwits must be a walk in the park. And it’s clear that no one stops her from bashing them regularly.

  149. 149.

    Steeplejack

    @WaterGirl:

    [. . .] and then I would have to change it back.

    If you change your nym, the old one is still good. The new one is additional. You don’t have to “change back.” Just put the old nym in the “Name” slot and proceed.

  150. 150.

    Starfish

    @Ladyraxterinok: That is one of the best known private high schools in the whole country. I think I may know someone who went there, possibly on scholarship.

  151. 151.

    ljdramone

    @WaterGirl: John McCain Senior and John McCain Junior were both Naval Academy graduates who became four-star Navy admirals, so you could say John McCain III had a bit of an advantage in getting an appointment to Annapolis.

  152. 152.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    No problem.

    As Bill Arnold said, you can almost always jettison everything after a question mark in a URL (including the question mark). The big exception is YouTube links, where the specific video to watch comes after the question mark.

  153. 153.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Martin: if it’s with the valor device, then yes. But they now give Bronze Stars as end of tour awards depending on the commander and the unit.
    That’s how Tom Cotton got one for being on a provincial reconstruction team.

  154. 154.

    West of the Rockies

    So RT asked above about consequences for Whittaker, but no one seems to have addressed the question (that I can see).

    He gets away with it? No consequences at all? F***ing A.

  158. 158.

    Luthe

    @Roger Moore: One of my professors was a III. He is a brilliant classicist, an excellent teacher and mentor, and an all around awesome person. His son, the IV, is shaping up to be the same way.

  160. 160.

    Roger Moore

    @Martin:

    For the record, if an applicant shows up in my lap with a bronze star, he/she is getting admitted and I don’t fucking care what your parents name is.

    Definitely. Real world achievement is a better predictor of future achievement than academic record. I’m just imagining being the college admissions officer looking over Malala Yousafzai’s application…

  162. 162.

    Roger Moore

    @Luthe:
    I also had a professor with a III after his name, and he was excellent at his job. I’m not saying that anyone who gets ahead because of their family is a bumbling fool, just that they got a big head start.

  163. 163.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Prickly Waste: “Out over his skis” is vastly preferable to “head up his arse,” which is a perfect description of the position you’ve been in ever since you showed up here, asshole.

  164. 164.

    Ken

    @Steeplejack:

    How “instant” does everything have to be?

    In a properly-run dystopian dictatorship, we’d be watching the tapes of his tearful confession to espionage, sabotage, and crimethink at the next Two Minutes Hate.

  167. 167.

    joel hanes

    I would be Joel Hanes IV except that my family of small-town merchants thought numerical postscripts were pretentious, and went with different middle names instead.
    But my kid is not named Joel because his Mom would not hear of it.

  170. 170.

    West of the Rockies

    @Steeplejack:

    Is that the same as soft-boiled eggs? I love those, but–damn!–they’re difficult to get right, at least with a scrappy electric stove.

  172. 172.

    NotMax

    @Steeplejack

    People always freak out about preparing poached eggs. Not at all difficult, provided one adds white vinegar to the water they’ll be poaching in and has a good slotted spoon.

    @West of the Rockies

    different. Soft boiled are prepared in the shell.

  173. 173.

    Steeplejack

    @NotMax:

    The ATK sous vide poached eggs were done in the shell—169° for 12 minutes. Then an ice bath to room temperature. When the shell is cracked the egg sort of bloops out into the poached-egg shape.

  175. 175.

    Kirk Spencer

    @Steeplejack: huh. I’ve become fond of the microwave. 1 cup of water, round bottom cup, egg, and either plastic wrap or a saucer for a lid. Baseline is 1 minute but because wattages and tastes vary you’ll need to test. (2 eggs, 55 seconds for me.) Oh, and 1 minute hollandaise if I’m going for the benedict.

  178. 178.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: @Kirk Spencer: Tracking. I’m not trying to disparage anyone but Cotton in regard to his second one. The first one came from his combat tour. The second one for his PRT assignment. Let’s just say you assigned the O3s you didn’t want to the PRTs. If you really, really didn’t want them you sent them to the Afghan Hands mess.

  179. 179.

    Waynski

    @Adam L Silverman: Well, I guess it’s become a participation trophy. My Uncle Johnny got his by jumping into a burning ammunition truck that was hit by a mortar and driving it into a ditch, leaping out on the way down before it exploded in WWII Germany to save his platoon.

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