Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

He really is that stupid.

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

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

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

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

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

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Consistently wrong since 2002

You are here: Home / Politics / Do I Have This Right?

Do I Have This Right?

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Do I have this right?  Trump’s attorneys sent a letter to the GOP chair of the House Intelligence Committee, asking them to tell the DOJ to “stand down” because they should leave the investigation of the classified documents to the intelligence community.

Wait, what?  I thought the intelligence community was the Deep State?

Either way, that’s scary, because it makes me wonder if they think they have some MAGA folks at the top in the intelligence community.  That would be a yikes!

But back to the story.  In the process of sending this ridiculous letter – because Congress doesn’t have the power to control the DOJ criminal investigations – they managed to reveal that foreign leader briefing documents were among the classified documents that Trump was hanging on to.

The CNN article goes on to say this:

The Justice Department has never said exactly what was in the classified material found in Trump’s possession after the presidency. Trump’s lawyers say in their letter that the Justice Department has refused to tell them whether any of the documents remain classified.

It’s not clear why at this point in the special counsel’s investigation that the Trump legal team was given access to the boxes turned over to the National Archives to look through them.

I find the part I put in italics to be distressing.  Not sure if they are suggesting that the Special Counsel’s office gave Trump’s legal team access to the classified documents?  (Why the hell would they do that?)  Of perhaps they are obliquely suggesting that someone Trump’s legal team was giving access by someone in the National Archives?

On a positive note, totally unrelated, Hakeem Jeffries is an excellent communicator!

And as long as we are honoring women who are speaking out, with some bonus Ted Cruz criticism, take a look at this.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

55Comments

  3. 3.

    Brachiator

    I do not know why editors and publishers cannot admit that Trump is unhinged and unfit to be president. He still refuses to admit that he lost in 2020 and he continues to act as if classified documents and other materials are his personal possessions.

    If he were elected again, we would never see the end of this. And who knows what new madness he would indulge.

  4. 4.

    RSA

    Earlier in the article it’s indicated that the classified materials were removed from the boxes first:

    Parlatore and Trusty say they reviewed the 15 boxes earlier this year that are now part of the Justice Department’s investigation. They saw placeholder pages where classified documents were removed by the National Archives, according to the letter.

    But it is confusingly written.

  6. 6.

    JPL

    The republicans are all in on tanking the economy, so time to buckle up.

    BTW  I feel like I’m watching the last episode of Chuck when Chuck hopes Irene Denova is the password necessary to defuse the bomb, and Casey says we’re fucked.

  7. 7.

    WV Blondie

    This made me wonder if he took the notes from his “perfect” call with Zelenskyy …

  8. 8.

    MattF

    Trump’s legal ‘theory’ about the classified documents case is that the documents are his property. So, there’s nothing to investigate.

  9. 9.

    Old School

    The woman in that last clip:

    Zurawski (shown left), from Austin, was denied abortion care after she experienced preterm pre-labor rupture of membranes at 18 weeks of pregnancy. Three days later, she was diagnosed with sepsis, a life-threatening condition. The doctors then performed an emergency abortion, but Zurawski spent the next three days in the ICU fighting for her life. Although she survived, the infection caused one of her fallopian tubes to become permanently closed, compromising her future ability to have children.

  13. 13.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Nora: 

    Gee, what a surprise that neither Cruz nor Cornyn chose to hear her testimony.

    “The number of women we kill will never total up to the number of babies we save. So there is nothing else to discuss. ” they did not say.

  14. 14.

    Roger Moore

    @WaterGirl: ​
     

    If so, then how did they know that the foreign leader briefing documents were part of the classified documents?

    It’s possible that the placeholder page describes what was there without including any classified details, e.g. “classified briefing on Vladimir Zelinskyy”. That seems like a reasonable approach. It lets lawyers work on the case without getting security clearances.

  17. 17.

    Captain C

    @WaterGirl: TFG may have bragged about it to them, though I’m kind of surprised he’d remember that level of detail

    ETA:  Them = his lawyers

  18. 18.

    Scout211

    The last paragraph in that CNN article notes that the letter seems to have left out some key legal issues:

     

    Wednesday’s letter also did not note that the FBI’s August 2022 search warrant came after federal investigators were told that Trump directed the movement of boxes from a basement storage room to his residence at Mar-a-Lago following receipt of the subpoena.

  19. 19.

    Sister Golden Bear

    As expected, Montana Republicans voted unanimously to censure the only trans state legislator and bar her from the floor. after clutching their pearls about her pushing back on an anti-trans bill.

    She will keep her position but will be barred from physically participating on the House floor. She will only be able to vote and attend sessions remotely for the rest of the legislative session, which ends May 5.

    The vote came roughly a week after Zephyr told lawmakers they would have blood on their hands if they supported a measure to restrict gender-affirming care for minors and two days after she was accused of inciting protesters in the chamber.

    This means Rep. Zephyr is not allowed to speak on any bill, effectively disenfranchising her 11,000 constituents. On Monday Republicans used police to clear protesters from the legislatures galley, who were demanding that she be allowed to speak. In turn, Republicans then threatened to expel her.

    “I was speaking to the real consequences of the votes that we as legislators take in this body,” she said. “When the speaker asks me to apologize on behalf of decorum, what he’s really asking me to do is be silent when my community is facing bills that get us killed. He’s asking me to be complicit in this Legislature’s eradication of our community, and I refuse to do so.”
    She added, “If you use decorum to silence people who hold you accountable, then all you’re doing is using decorum as a tool of oppression.”

  26. 26.

    Roger Moore

    @BeautifulPlumage:

    This is so often the case.  Comfort for the powerful is treated as more important than life and death to the powerless.

    It’s not quite the same thing, but I see something similar all the time when people are talking about housing.  NIMBYs are always fighting against new housing for all kinds of incredibly awful reasons.  They’re whining about whether new housing is architecturally suitable for the character of the neighborhood, or criticizing new houses for being McMansions, or whatever.  At the same time, we have people living on the street because there isn’t enough housing to go around.  I sympathize with people who want their neighborhood to be beautiful, but that shouldn’t take priority over making sure everyone has a place to live.

  27. 27.

    oldgold

    This case is going to be Trump’s undoing.  It is damn near a lay down.

    It should be brought independent of the January 6th case and very soon – like yesterday.

  28. 28.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    1 billion times this. I think you are wrong on it being an either/or situation though. I think it is both. The right wants all the power and their policies (such as they are) are all about hate. They want the power to enforce their hate.

  29. 29.

    Ohio Mom

    @Old School: Putting aside that the Republican anti-abortion policy almost killed this woman — which is the most important take-away, my observation is a side note — here we see the so-called party of fiscal responsibility um, reponsible for creating a huge hospital bill that could have been avoided with more timely intervention.

    I have no idea how much three days in the ICU costs other than A LOT. And you aren’t discharged home, you go to another bed in another department to make sure you are stable and on the mend. That costs big bucks too.

  30. 30.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Baud: All he had to do was give in to a lot more crazy ideas in the bill, too.

    Honestly, it doesn’t really matter what he puts in there. It’s all so insane and destructive that we would all shrug if he added a requirement that Democrafts ha e to praise Trump as Lord and Savior. Any increase in craxy is just marginal.

  33. 33.

    RaflW

    @Old School: This is exactly the sort of horror story illustrating why, for example, North Dakota’s new 6-week ban with ‘exceptions for the life/health of the mother’ is such total bullshit.

    Clinics and doctors will feel that they have to take their patient to the brink to avoid legal repercussions. As I mentioned the other day, only about 6% of voters support this sort of (effectively) total ban.

    We have to really push thru the message that these ‘exceptions’ are bunk and the results are extreme, and dangerous.

  34. 34.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Doc Sardonic:

    Hate, Evil and the lust for Absolute Power.

    Hate, Evil, the lust for Absolute Power, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Dope.

  35. 35.

    RaflW

    @eclare: I for one gave her an off-cycle donation via actblue, and I hope other randos out in the world are doing so. Build the war chest and do plenty of communications about this anti-democracy, authoritarian crap.

  36. 36.

    Ken

    Do I have this right?

    At first I thought you meant “Do I also have the right to order Congress to quash a DOJ investigation?”

    But I see that you just forgot the first rule of anything having to do with TFG or his lawyers: Yes, it really is that stupid.

  39. 39.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    She will keep her position but will be barred from physically participating on the House floor. She will only be able to vote and attend sessions remotely for the rest of the legislative session

    What the fuck, do they think she’s going to infect them with trans cooties?

  42. 42.

    J R in WV

    @Ohio Mom:

    I have no idea how much three days in the ICU costs other than A LOT.

    My wife was in ICU on a vent for 26 days before they weaned her off. She was in the hospital nearly 3 months, and came home with two chest tubes. I had a long course taught by an RN on her floor that afternoon on first aid for sucking chest wounds, which is what you get if/when your chest is accidentally pulled out.

    The home health /care nurses were all “They sent her home with chest tubes still in?!?!?!!!” and then I taught them how to maintain the chest tubes with the newest dressings, gauze slathered in vaseline in a foil pack.

    Fortunately none of the chest tube nightmares happened, her thoracic surgeon saved her life for the second time in that hospital stay. I still have vaseline soaked gauze bandages if needed.

    CAMC is a teaching hospital, which means med school students, Residents in training, etc. They have saved Wife’s life at least 3-4 times in the past 20 years. And working on me, also too. A great hospital indeed.

    ETA: The bill. It was close to $400K, but Medicare and her supplemental – she was on total disability — covered so much I don’t even recall our share. Peanuts to have Wife home again ~!!~

  46. 46.

    Jackie

    @Sister Golden Bear: I was thinking of you when this happened. I have no words to describe my feelings about the deplorable GQP right now. I know I’m more than pissed, but I also know my heart hurts so badly for what they’re determined to do to our country…

  47. 47.

    Anyway

    @RaflW:

    This is exactly the sort of horror story illustrating why, for example, North Dakota’s new 6-week ban with ‘exceptions for the life/health of the mother’ is such total bullshit.

    Clinics and doctors will feel that they have to take their patient to the brink to avoid legal repercussions.

    Imo doctors, health care professionals, hospitals should be speaking up much more, more forcefully about how bad these laws are, what a threat they are to the health of women etc Dr . They had no problem speaking out when the ACA was being debated. Now their statements are so mealy-mouthed buried at the bottom of a story on page 3. They could be giving interviews to local news outlets, the Chuck Todds generating more headlines about how catastrophic these laws are for treating women.

  50. 50.

    J R in WV

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    It was fall of ’09 iirc, a week at Rehoboth Beach after a weekend at Inner Harbour. Great book shops,  great seafood…

    By Wednesday or so Wife was lethargic so we left early headed home to rural Lincoln County WV! Sunday she was remote,  distant,  so I headed for the ER!

  51. 51.

    Redshift

    Okay, this thread is dead, but I can’t let this go:

    asking them to tell the DOJ to “stand down” because they should leave the investigation of the classified documents to the intelligence community.

    On top of all the other ridiculousness, the intelligence community doesn’t do counterintelligence investigations, the FBI does. So either TFG is down to lawyers who don’t even know how to google (a distinct possibility), or this is a hail mary they delusionally think will put this in the hands of someone who can’t indict him.

  52. 52.

    J R in WV

    @Anyway:

    How are you doing with your treatment?

    I’m  doing well, an 8 hour infusion sessios on 2 running Mondays with dosages adjustments after blood draws to get w/red/platelets to see how my marrow does at keeping cell counts up!

    So far 2 of 6 infusions with now a week off,  back for a 2nd set of two  Mondays. So far little nausea, mostly fatigue so I need to rest a lot. So far so good!

    I get 4 hours of therapeutic IVs in the morning,, to prevent nausea and vomiting then the 2 harsh chemical infusions with liters of mineralized fluids between actual  media to flush the kidneys.

    Usually Wife takes  me in for early blood work and a couple hours of infusions,  then my cousin comes by to relieve Wife and take me home to catch up

    So 1st Monday, 2nd Monday of April, then 2 weeks to recover recover… next Monday 1st of May,

  54. 54.

    C Stars

    @J R in WV: oh I have been wondering how you are doing since you mentioned a couple of weeks ago that you were starting chemo. Glad to hear from you and it sounds like you’re getting along pretty well. Wishing you a restful next few months.

  55. 55.

    evodevo

    @J R in WV: they’ve certainly improved the chemo regimen compared to what my mother went through 25 years ago, and she lived an additional 5 years…the best of luck to you

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