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You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Trump Crime Cartel / World’s Dumbest Criminals

World’s Dumbest Criminals

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Every now and then you see a story on News of the Weird or something else about a really stupid criminal who shows up to their DUI sentencing drunk or brings an ounce of coke with them to their sentencing for intent to deliver, and you say to yourself, “How fucking stupid is this guy?” Behold, our preznit:

President Trump pushed the Australian prime minister during a recent telephone call to help Attorney General William P. Barr gather information for a Justice Department inquiry that Mr. Trump hopes will discredit the Mueller investigation, according to two American officials with knowledge of the call.

The White House restricted access to the call’s transcript to a small group of the president’s aides, one of the officials said, an unusual decision that is similar to the handling of a July call with the Ukrainian president that is at the heart of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump. Like that call, the discussion with Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia shows the extent to which Mr. Trump sees the attorney general as a critical partner in his goal to show that the Mueller investigation had corrupt and partisan origins, and the extent that Mr. Trump sees the Justice Department inquiry as a potential way to gain leverage over America’s closest allies.

Both Barr and Trump need to be impeached and then put on trial.

*** Update ***

Jesus christ, I literally just posted this and this showed up on my news feed:

Attorney General William P. Barr has held private meetings overseas with foreign intelligence officials seeking their help in a Justice Department inquiry that President Trump hopes will discredit U.S. intelligence agencies’ examination of Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the matter.

Barr’s personal involvement is likely to stoke further criticism from Democrats pursuing impeachment that he is helping the Trump administration use executive branch powers to augment investigations aimed primarily at the president’s adversaries.

ITMFA

Reader Interactions

125Comments

  2. 2.

    NotMax

    Repeating from below.

    “There’s 195 countries on the planet. Eventually we’re bound to find one that will play ball.”

    //

  3. 3.

    Quaker in a Basement

    Buh…but… thought the Mueller report TOTALLY EXONERATED Trump. No COLLUSION! Why would he want to discredit it?

  7. 7.

    satby

    Which country will be next to come forward with a story about an attempted strongarm by the Tangerine Traitor.
    Should we start a pool?

  8. 8.

    Sasha

    Sometimes I think this is the point. Trump defenders are constantly needing to double down their support, no matter how ridiculous, to justify previous support that they never should have given in the first place. At this point, they are so far in moral debt, it would take an act of almost impossible strength to walk away and admit what complete fools they were. Obvious bad acts like this allow Trump to continue asserting his power over these idiots by forcing them to abase themselves yet once again.

  14. 14.

    randy khan

    There’s a little part of me that thinks Barr might flip on Trump if he were told by party elders that they want him to administer the coup de grace. It would be wrong for him not to go down with Trump, but I guess I’d take it.

  15. 15.

    hueyplong

    @David Tumarkin: Well, you see how easily they have walked away from their positions in the 1960s and the 1860s.

    Just give them some more time, and call off your outside agitators, you communists.

  20. 20.

    dmsilev

    So, what other countries has Trump leaned on to make up bullshit? My money is on pressuring Kenya to “find” Obama’s “real” birth certificate.

  25. 25.

    The Dangerman

    @satby:

    Which country will be next to come forward with a story about an attempted strongarm by the Tangerine Traitor. Should we start a pool?

    I so got Denmark.

  26. 26.

    waspuppet

    Barr’s personal involvement is likely to stoke further criticism from Democrats pursuing impeachment that he is helping the Trump administration use executive branch powers to augment investigations aimed primarily at the president’s adversaries.

    Barr’s personal involvement is conclusive proof that he is helping the Trump administration use executive branch powers to augment investigations aimed primarily at the president’s adversaries.

    I mean, c’mon guys. The Post isn’t as bad as the Times, but — c’mon.

  29. 29.

    mrmoshpotato

    @dmsilev: What about Dump’s imaginary investigators finding tremendous bigly things in Hawaii? What’re those bastards up to these days?

  30. 30.

    Roger Moore

    Can I just give a hearty “Fuck You” to all the DC insiders who went to bat for Barr when Trump nominated him? Too many people were willing to back him because he knew the right people and had been hanging around DC forever, while happily ignoring his role covering up Iran Contra. We should never trust anyone who spoke up for him ever again.

  33. 33.

    piratedan

    perhaps I’m off base here, while Trump is a vile, corrupt example of a human being who has been living so long in his wealthy bubble that no one has seen fit to puncture so they could use and abuse him for reasons of their own, I’m in a really special place of rage and loathing for the following:

    Mitch McConnell
    Rudy Guiliani
    William Barr

    These guys have either been public servants or worked in the Law and should fucking know better, that if you’re going to go full dictator and commit treason with/for someone, at least you should do so with someone who can at least shut up. That they’ve hitched their treasonous star to THIS imbecile means that once the fallout finishes (working under the assumption that ALL of this shit will indeed come out) that I hope that they end up in jail, stripped of any/all of their worldly assets and are given three squares a day and that the highlight of the end of their days is spent watching Vanna White turn letters and that those in their families that are innocent, disavow them and leave them to sit every fucking day wondering what in the fuck we’re they thinking.

  35. 35.

    tokyokie

    In early 1974, I attended a talk by Frank Mankiewicz, who was McGovern’s press secretary, that was part of my university’s speakers forum. In the Q&A that followed, Mankiewicz was asked whether he thought Nixon would be forced from office. Keep in mind that this was before the Senate Watergate hearings had transfixed the country. Anyway, Mankiewicz said that he thought Nixon would be forced from office, and his reasoning was that he couldn’t foresee how events might ever turn Nixon’s way.

    That remark was one of the most prescient political statements that I can recall. And I think it applies now as well.

  38. 38.

    The Dangerman

    @randy khan:

    There’s a little part of me that thinks Barr might flip on Trump if he were told by party elders that they want him to administer the coup de grace.

    Maybe Barr doesn’t go to jail, but does’t he get disbarred? And can a Barr get disbarred?

  39. 39.

    SRW1

    @NotMax:

    “There’s 195 countries on the planet. Eventually we’re bound to find one that will play ball.”

    Barr will not stop until he can prove Hillary once let one slip during a foreign visit to one of these 195 countries. Then her goose is well and truly cooked!

  40. 40.

    Puddinhead

    Bill Barr is in Italy because that’s where the Knights Templar hid Hillary’s 33000 emails from the Benghazi investigators.

  41. 41.

    moops

    ..and these are just international cases. Imagine how much wrongdoing Barr has been involved with domestically. I’m thinking a Rudy-NY FBI branch office malfeasance is sitting there waiting to show up again.

  47. 47.

    moops

    In the pool I have Kenya for birth certificate.

    But a strong side bet on quid pro quo shenanigans with Saudi Arabia.

    Also looking what odds someone would give me for attempted quid pro quo with China. That one is most likely a mess of contacts where emoluments are mixed with threats of trade wars and dirt on his political rivals. A real train wreck.

  50. 50.

    pat

    Hey, let’s get the entire intelligence community riled up against us. What could possibly go wrong?

    That tippy tap you hear is more whistleblowers typing up their complaints.

    I just posted this on the WaPo story and it already has 16 likes. Yay.

  52. 52.

    moops

    Not sure who Trump or Barr have been pressuring to prevent banks from responding to investigators.

    That stuff is just the regular low grade witness tampering and obstruction of justice. which it seems we don’t prosecute for anymore. Heck, the Ukraine call had several overt references to emoluments and nobody even bothers to mention it.

  56. 56.

    Aleta

    IncreasinglyUnhingedHat @Popehat
    So . . If I understand this . . Barr is doing Trump’s bidding by going to other countries and seeking intel that would contradict our IC’s conclusions about Russia?

    Because Trump doesn’t like our IC’s conclusions?

    Really?

  57. 57.

    FlipYrWhig

    What the ever-loving fuck is Barr doing? He knows what the Attorney General’s job is, having, you know, BEEN IT BEFORE. He knows it’s not this. If he wants to be Trump’s globetrotting fixer he can be his personal lawyer instead. For fuck’s sake.

  59. 59.

    FlipYrWhig

    OMG so when Barr was asked by Harris about whether Trump suggested that he do things, whatever that was, and he squirmed and then hemmed and hawed about the word “suggest,” it was because HE WAS CONCEALING THAT HE WAS SUGGESTING IT TO TRUMP.

  63. 63.

    Roger Moore

    @FlipYrWhig:

    What the ever-loving fuck is Barr doing? He knows what the Attorney General’s job is, having, you know, BEEN IT BEFORE. He knows it’s not this.

    Except you’re wrong. Helping Trump cover up his illegal activities is perfectly in line with helping Bush cover up his involvement in Iran-Contra. Barr was a hack before, so it should surprise nobody he’s a hack today, or that he’ll continue to be a hack as long as people keep giving him the chance.

  64. 64.

    West of the Rockies

    @Kristine:

    I hope you’re right. The leaks need to also reveal Barr’s dirty undies. The head of the DOJ is trying to discredit the US Intelligence Community!?!

  67. 67.

    Fair Economist

    The scale of this is boggling. Pompeo and Barr were both actively (and obviously knowingly) involved in corruption and abuse of power. It’s starting to look like they didn’t do much *besides* support corruption and abuse power. There’s going to be a scandal for almost every working day they’ve had in office.

  74. 74.

    Ohio Mom

    Today at synagogue, when we recited:

    “On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed …who will live and who will die…who will be safe and who will be torn, who will be calm and who will be tormented, who will become poor and who will get rich, who will be humbled and who will be raised up…”

    I took a moment to wonder if Ivanka and Jared were squirming in their pew, wherever it is. It wasn’t a thought in keeping with a service focused on penitent self-reflection but I couldn’t help myself.

  77. 77.

    Ohio Mom

    Today at synagogue, when we recited:

    “On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed …who will live and who will die…who will be safe and who will be torn, who will be calm and who will be tormented, who will become poor and who will get rich, who will be humbled and who will be raised up…”

    I took a moment to wonder if Ivanka and Jared were squirming in their pew, wherever it is. It wasn’t a thought in keeping with a service focused on penitent self-reflection butI couldn’t help myself.

  78. 78.

    Spanky

    @mrmoshpotato: No one suspects the Spanish what? Say it! SAY IT!

    I’ve got Fredonia, and I’m picturing Trump calling its President and Groucho answers. In fact, I would love to see the SNL cold opening take that premise and run with it.

  83. 83.

    jl

    @rikyrah: ” Barr played dumb. ”

    Barr played busted.
    Barr’s smug arrogance when he smirks and blows off questions at Congressional hearings has been infuriating to me.
    Harris showed how easy it is to wipe that self-satisfaction off Barr’s face and get him into flustered panic in an instant, if you have the goods on him. And looks like there will be plenty of goods on him.

  85. 85.

    chris

    When you’ve lost Faux News…again.

    Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano: "The president of the United States using foreign governments to influence domestic politics — that was the fear of the framers when they put that impeachment clause in the Constitution." pic.twitter.com/Rnd62ZjSol— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 30, 2019

  88. 88.

    patrick II

    @randy khan:
    Not me. I want Barr the enabler every bit as bad as I want Trump. Trump is a narcissistic, racist asshole who wanted to be president so he could salve his wounded ego after the beatdown by a black man. His criminality is a intrinsic byproduct of his nature. For Barr criminality is not a byproduct, to enable Trump’s Criminality is the reason he took the job. He’s a lawyer, he knows better, but corruption of the federal government and destruction of obeisance to law is that he lives for.

  93. 93.

    moops

    @Patricia Kayden: I sort of doubt they are going to come up with anything worthwhile on Perry. I think he was the lowest federal position an inauguration would accept and the highest Trump would accept, and Perry is just a dumb politico and went along.

  94. 94.

    David Evans

    @Ohio Mom: Those are impressive words. I looked up the poem which is also impressive – and now I know where Leonard Cohen got one of his best lyrics.

  95. 95.

    Leto

    @rikyrah: I keep harping on the Presidential Records act because that’s another easily provable article of impeachment. Also because it’s going to be harder for us to unravel the full extent of wtf is happening if they’re destroying all the records. Not just upclassifying, but destroying (as that’s Trumpov’s M.O. for notes/records).

  96. 96.

    Jeffro

    @Fair Economist:

    The scale of this is boggling. Pompeo and Barr were both actively (and obviously knowingly) involved in corruption and abuse of power. It’s starting to look like they didn’t do much *besides* support corruption and abuse power. There’s going to be a scandal for almost every working day they’ve had in office.

    Buy the ticket, take the ride…all the way down, you crooked MFs

    I think it’s amazing that the SoS and AG themselves have to do this…they don’t have some low-level flunky they can trust to do the work here and not squeal. It’s THAT bad/stupid/both.

  98. 98.

    catclub

    @ChrisS: I figure researching plenary indulgences. unfortunately, Trump is a total cheapskate and would never come up with sufficient cash.

  99. 99.

    dmsilev

    @Leto: People I know at DOE have said that, all things considered, Perry hasn’t been as bad as feared. There’s the politicized nonsense about coal, but once you get away from that, he apparently has had enough sense to listen to the professionals.

  103. 103.

    Leto

    @dmsilev: Small victories I guess. Basically one of the only agencies where the head isn’t actively destroying/looting it. I suppose his department isn’t consulted as much apart from, “Wind power causes cancer, right?” “That’s right Mr Trumpov.” “Mmm, hamburders…”

  104. 104.

    Roger Moore

    @dmsilev:

    There’s the politicized nonsense about coal, but once you get away from that, he apparently has had enough sense to listen to the professionals.

    This is more or less what I expected. Perry may not be competent to run DOE, but he at least appears to have the self-awareness to recognize that he isn’t competent to run DOE and he should let the career civil servants do the job. He’s basically acting as a cheerleader, which is an area where he has some experience.

  106. 106.

    moops

    @mrmoshpotato: you can’t impeach someone if they quit.

    now, lying during confirmation is also perjury, which is a crime I think. Are you under oath during confirmation?

  108. 108.

    cain

    @Spanky:

    @mrmoshpotato: No one suspects the Spanish what? Say it! SAY IT!

    I saw what you did there too – I know all memes! That’s the Sam Kinison thing from Back to School! :D

  110. 110.

    cain

    @moops:

    @mrmoshpotato: you can’t impeach someone if they quit.

    It’s clear that he’s broken laws, he’s going to jail if he quits. He’s got no choice.. he’s got to run this train till the end. He’s gonna have to Silver Streak it.

  117. 117.

    Ken

    Dang, HTML fail and no edit button. 116 should read: It’s like exactly the trolly problem as played by sociopaths.

    (Hoping that works… Will we have comment preview on the new site?)

  120. 120.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @moops:

    you can’t impeach someone if they quit.

    Actually IIRC you can. It seems pointless but impeachment can go beyond removal from the office currently held:

    Following conviction, the Senate may vote to further punish the individual by barring him or her from holding future federal office, elected or appointed. As the threshold for disqualification is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, the Senate has taken the position that disqualification votes only require a simple majority rather than a two-thirds majority.

    (source)

  123. 123.

    Redshift

    @Jeffro:

    I think it’s amazing that the SoS and AG themselves have to do this…they don’t have some low-level flunky they can trust to do the work here and not squeal. It’s THAT bad/stupid/both.

    Would you trust any underling in that snake pit not to sell you out?

  124. 124.

    EWM

    Ukraine’s leader: Trump didn’t use US military aid as lever https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukrainian-leader-says-doesnt-know-175213952.html
    Australia’s Prime Minister Denies Being Pressured by Trump Over Probe https://news.yahoo.com/australia-prime-minister-denies-being-063852162.html;_ylt=A0geKeaam5RdoHIAAQNXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEyZnBzbDVmBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDQjY4MzNfMQRzZWMDc3I-
    https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/mrz081419-color-1mb_orig.jpg?itok=sqB9we-m

  125. 125.

    GLEN TOMKINS

    Don’t miss the dementia for the criminality.

    Of course it’s criminal and impeachable for the president to use the powers of his office to bribe/blackmail foreign leaders into helping him smear a political rival. I’m not arguing that criminality should be ignored or tolerated. But this episode is far more stark as proof of something far more immediately threatening to the nation than the fact that we have a president willing to abuse his powers. We have a president who is not able to understand his duties and powers. The US who talked quid pro quo on an official call to the the president of the Ukraine that had a dozen US listeners-in, when he had already sent Giuliani to do the same thing in private, is not someone who understands what he was doing. Icing on the cake — he releases the record of the call in the expectation that this will make even his harshest critics agree that the call was “perfect”.

    The standard three points of orientation when you are examining a patient who might be demented or delirious, are orientation to person, place, and time; but we often add in orientation to situation for tow reasons. It’s more sensitive for a cognitive problem in that it generally disappears before the other three. But it’s also important in addressing all sorts of practical questions arising in treatment. For example, a patient unable to understand his situation may need to have relatives consulted as surrogate decision makers in consenting to treatments.

    Trump is not oriented to his situation. It’s not just this episode. He’s done things on almost a monthly basis that demonstrate an inability to discharge his powers and duties, because he doesn’t understand those powers and duties or the situation in which they must be exercised. And this pattern, the persistence of these episodes that have to involve dementia because they show lack of orientation to situation — no matter what else, like criminality, they also show — compels the interpretation of the daily parade of his word and deed in episodes that would not by themselves be clearly demented, as also products of his inability to discharge the powers and duties of his office.

    Why is it important to see dementia at work in his behavior, and not just criminality? The 25th would require 2/3 in the House as well as impeachment’s 2/3 in the Senate, and also requires the VP, so it might seem harder to achieve. Before impeachment seemed at all likely, and conviction on impeachment a pipe dream, maybe the extra requirements for suspension under the 25th seemed important, seemed to doom that project to an even lower possibility than conviction on impeachment. But now that we see that there probably will be an impeachment, and that maybe some of the R votes needed to convict might be persuadable, now that it seems no longer impossible, the central question becomes, how do we get 20 R Senators to agree to Trump’s removal?

    Which theory do you think will be easier for Rs to accept, that their leader is a criminal who committed impeachable offenses, or that he is an unfortunate dementia sufferer whose disease sadly decompensated over the past few weeks? Of course they’re not going to find either easy to accept, and they will only come over to removal in dire straits. Maybe impeachment is needed to put them in those dire straits, so by all means keep up the impeachment pressure. But for the final push to get them over the line, it seems to me that the idea that Trump is demented is needful. That idea happens to be true, which is nice, but that idea is also indispensable to the ultimate success of the project of removal.

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