Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

So Judge Chutkan is playing 4D chess.

The judge ordered Trump to say, by Jan 15, if he's going to use "my lawyers told me to do it". Part of that order is, that if Trump says he will use "advice of counsel", he must prove it, by waiving lawyer-client privilege, and handing over everything.

She knows full well Trump is trying to stall, and getting out in front.

So, Trump has three options, all bad. I mean, of course they're bad, he's objectively guilty.

1) Go with the "advice of counsel" defense, comply with the order, and try to avoid guilt by selling out his legal team. This is a big risk, because it's very likely Trump told his lawyers to do these actions, and that will be entered into evidence. On the likely chance that it's found he was acting with his lawyers, not for his lawyers, he'll have effectively admitted guilt on the stand.

2) Change his stance, and stand with his team with "we did nothing wrong" and try to hide the communications between them. This is the best move, as it gives prosecution the most work to get the evidence against them. They should still get it, there is a crime exception, and this is a criminal case.

3) Appeal this ruling. I suspect the appeal will fail, and also, I predict the appeal won't move the Jan 15th date and they'll have even less time to comply. Trump failing to turn over the mandatory communications is a bad idea, and this isn't the first time he hasn't complied in time, and it's rarely worked for him.

- - - Updated - - -

I'll cite an expert over my opinion any day.

Nick Ackerman, a former Watergate prosecutor, said Trump is “toast” in his New York civil fraud case, arguing it is a “stupid move” for Trump to testify in his case after invoking the Fifth Amendment in a deposition for it last summer.

“And basically at this point, Donald Trump is toast,” Ackerman said in a CNN interview. “I mean, he is basically going to be found to be a liar by the judge here.”

Ackerman argued people are not only focused on the former president’s testimony, but also his deposition with James’s lawyers last summer, where he invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 400 times.

“Now what does it mean to take the Fifth Amendment? It means that you are refusing to answer a question, because a truthful answer would tend to be incriminating,” Ackerman said. “Then what did Donald Trump do last week? He went into court and said, ‘Oh, I didn’t do anything fraudulent, I wasn’t involved in a fraud.’ Which is just the opposite what in effect he was saying when he took the Fifth Amendment in his deposition.”

“So you’ve got contradictory testimony,” Ackerman continued. “You can use his assertion of the Fifth Amendment against him to basically find that he’s lying, that he’s manipulating the system when he goes in, refuses to answer questions, answers the questions in a half-baked manner.”

“I just don’t see how this judge at the end of the day is not going to find that, with respect to Donald Trump … ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire,'” Ackerman said.

Ackerman said that in his more than 40 years of civil law experience, he has never seen anyone “do such a stupid move as to suddenly start testifying” after they’ve taken the Fifth Amendment.

There's more to the 5th than I thought. I thought it counted as a non-answer, an "excused absence" if you will. This is a detail that I was unaware of.

[Edge-]

There's more to the 5th than I thought. I thought it counted as a non-answer, an "excused absence" if you will. This is a detail that I was unaware of.

I'd completely forgotten about this.

This seems like one of those things that like, a lawyer with a license to practice law would tell you about. "If you pleaded the Fifth to everything in deposition, your witness testimony will be pleading the Fifth to everything today." I didn't think of that because I'm not a lawyer, I have an excuse.

Are we all sure Habba has like, a real license to practice law from the state Bar and not like, from a box of Cracker Jacks(TM)?

- - - Updated - - -

https://newrepublic.com/post/176816/...countries-asia

Donald Trump tried to attack “incompetent” foreign policy officials in the Biden administration—before confusing two very different countries.

“We have never been closer to World War III, and only for one reason. We have incompetent people talking on our behalf,” Trump said during an event in Florida that took place at the same time as Wednesday night’s Republican debate.

He then began to defend previous comments in which he lauded various world autocrats. “Well, what am I supposed to say? They’re stupid people?” Trump asked the crowd. Trump named Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, whom he previously called “smart” and “very talented.”

In classic Trump style, the former president followed up a defensive litany by seemingly confusing North Korea and China. “Kim Jong Un leads 1.4 billion people, and there is no doubt about who the boss is. And they want me to say he’s not an intelligent man.”

The population of North Korea is in fact closer to 26 million, meaning in the best-case scenario, Trump inflated the population by about 1.3 billion people. In the probably more accurate version, Trump mixed up two Asian countries.

China has a population of 1.4 billion, and this isn’t the first time Trump has mixed up countries. During a speech last month, Trump mixed up two fascist leaders who adore him, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Donald is confused again.

Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.

[Breccia]

Are we all sure Habba has--

No.

"Trump inflated the population by about 1.3 billion people"

Proportionately, this is an even worse inflation than his property values. Trump was off by five thousand percent. To put that in perspective, that'd be like pointing to a building worth $250 million and saying "that building is worth twelve billion dollars". Or, it would be like Trump saying "I have a sixteen foot dick".

[Huehuecoyotl]

Or, it would be like Trump saying "I have a sixteen foot dick".

Are you trying to get me to do maths to work out just how insulting you've been to Trump there?

Because I totally will. Dammit.

[Poopymonster]

Are you trying to get me to do maths to work out just how insulting you've been to Trump there?

Because I totally will. Dammit.

I too am that petty.

[Resurgo]

Huh… looks like “Judge Nudie” is going to be a thing

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/202...gedly-posting/

[Edge-]

Huh… looks like “Judge Nudie” is going to be a thing

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/202...gedly-posting/

wait, he's got a few shirtless pics and that's...bad? Weren't conservatives getting all hot and bothered over RFK Jr's shirtless pics showing off his rapped abs?

This is just pathetic, rofl. Jesse Watters is no fuckin Tucker Carlson.

[Huehuecoyotl]

I too am that petty.

To be honest I'm surprised how generous @Breccia was being. If that was me, the comparison would barely be defined as convex.

[Endus]

Huh… looks like “Judge Nudie” is going to be a thing

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/202...gedly-posting/

1> They try and play up the "high school" angle, ignoring it's the newsletter for alumni. Not students.
2> It's a shirtless pic. You'd see the same on any beach in the summer. It's not a "nudie".
3> They accuse him of looking "malnourished". He doesn't. They're just being slanderous fucks.

[Edge-]

1> They try and play up the "high school" angle, ignoring it's the newsletter for alumni. Not students.
2> It's a shirtless pic. You'd see the same on any beach in the summer. It's not a "nudie".
3> They accuse him of looking "malnourished". He doesn't. They're just being slanderous fucks.

I think we need to just seriously consider that masculine, heterosexual conservative men just spend a lot of time looking at pictures of shirtless older men at this point.

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.thedailybeast.com/peter-...cream-for-help

Peter Thiel is better known for bankrupting media outlets than talking to them, but he decided to cooperate for a profile published on Thursday by The Atlantic as a way to box himself in: declaring on the record that he would not give “any money to Republican politicians in 2024.” In the piece, Thiel said Donald Trump had allegedly called him a “fucking scumbag” after the PayPal founder refused to donate more funds to his campaign. “Voting for Trump was like a not very articulate scream for help,” Thiel said of his endorsement in 2016. “It was crazier than I thought. It was more dangerous than I thought. They couldn’t get the most basic pieces of the government to work.”

Fuck this loser, but also glad he's at least correctly calling out Donald and his crew of Republican crony's as being completely fucking incompetent.

[Breccia]

For some time now, we've discussed how Executive Privilege works. Bannon should have come here to read up. He clearly doesn't know how it works.

Judge Cornelia Pillard grilled an attorney for Steve Bannon about why his client should avoid jail after being found guilty of violating a congressional subpoena from the Jan. 6 Committee.

At an appeals court hearing on Thursday, Pillard doubted the validity of the defense that lawyers told Bannon he could not comply with the subpoena because the president asserted executive privilege.

"The privilege is presumptively valid," an attorney for Bannon insisted during the hearing.

Pillard quickly shot down the attorney.

"Well, it's just, that's so broad to say it's presumptively valid, even at its broadest where [Office of Legal Counsel] has written, for example, that a former senior official can assert an absolute testimonial immunity," the judge said. "It only covers communications within the scope of that former senior official's service in the White House."

"And none of the conducted issues here was during Mr. Bannon's service in the White House, was it?" she asked. "None of it."

"Right, Judge," the attorney admitted. "It was during the presidency."

"But not during Mr. Bannon's service," Pillard emphasized.

"Correct, your Honor," the attorney replied.

Ah, yes, the Party of Law and Order having no idea what the laws are. Fucking all of us knew this one.

[Edge-]

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-c...0384fb91deb15b

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee abruptly adjourned a meeting on Thursday without holding an expected vote on subpoenas for two conservatives who have helped arrange luxury travel and other benefits for Supreme Court justices.

The panel’s Democratic chairman, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, gaveled out after Republicans on the committee made clear they would call for subpoena votes on a raft of Democratic officials and others, a protest of the planned subpoenas for Republican megadonor Harlan Crow and conservative activist Leonard Leo. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the panel, warned majority Democrats that the hearing would be contentious.

Jammed with amendments and the possibility of hours of debate, Durbin gaveled out. He said in a statement after the meeting that there were “scheduling issues” but that they would try again.

Reminder that ratfucking is not exclusive to House Republicans.

Speaking of - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/09/u...-deadline.html

At odds with one another on spending, House Republicans abruptly scrapped their legislative work on Thursday and left Washington with little progress toward funding the government and no plan to avert a shutdown next week.

Speaker Mike Johnson, just two weeks into the job, had yet to give any public indication about his plan to prevent a lapse in government spending — currently slated to happen next Friday at midnight if Congress fails to act. That effort would involve rallying deeply anti-spending Republicans around a stopgap funding bill that is likely to be a dead letter in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Instead of revealing a path forward to keep the government open, Mr. Johnson spent the week trying and failing to push through two individual spending bills that collapsed for lack of G.O.P. support. It was yet another reflection of the rifts among House Republicans that have made their tiny majority ungovernable, leading to the ouster of their last speaker and so far confounding his successor, who is far more conservative and less experienced.

“We have a lot of people that want to pass things with Republicans only,” said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the chairman of the Rules Committee and a senior member of the Appropriations Committee. “That’s one thing when there’s 240 or 250 votes. When it’s 220 and you’ve got as many individual personalities — and to be fair, different interests and different districts — that’s a risky game to play.”

On Thursday, House G.O.P. leaders abruptly canceled a vote on a spending bill to fund the Treasury Department and other financial agencies, the latest indication of the deep divisions among Republicans over funding federal programs that have pushed Congress repeatedly to the brink of economic chaos this year.

Across the Capitol, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, took initial procedural steps to allow the Senate to move forward with its own stopgap spending measure if necessary, with time running short to avoid a shutdown.

“I implore Speaker Johnson and our House Republican colleagues to learn from the fiasco of a month ago,” Mr. Schumer said. “Hard-right proposals, hard-right slashing cuts, hard-right poison pills that have zero support from Democrats will only make a shutdown more likely. I hope they don’t go down that path in the week to come.”

Whether Mr. Johnson is willing to put forward a stopgap spending bill that Democrats can accept remains to be seen. That move ultimately doomed his predecessor as speaker, Kevin McCarthy, after it became clear he could not pass a temporary funding measure — even one with deep spending cuts — with only Republican votes.

Mr. Johnson is substantially to the right of Mr. McCarthy and so far seems intent on not leaning on Democrats to pass a funding bill.

Mr. Cole said that some hard-line conservatives told appropriators they would not support any kind of stopgap bill to avert a shutdown, meaning that Mr. Johnson ultimately might have no choice but to push a bill through with Democratic support.

Representative Chip Roy of Texas, an influential conservative, said he would only support a stopgap spending bill with deep cuts and conservative policy priorities attached — legislation that could not survive in the Democratic-led Senate. “Certainly not anything that would resemble a so-called clean C.R.,” he said, using the shorthand for continuing resolution.

Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee, who voted to oust Mr. McCarthy, said he wanted “to give our new speaker every chance he can have.” But he noted that he had never voted for a stopgap funding bill before and was reluctant to do so for a first time.

“I just think we’re abdicating our duty,” he said. “We’re required to do two things: pass 12 appropriations bills and a budget, and for 30 years we’ve not done that.”

But Mr. Johnson’s efforts to pass 12 spending bills to fund the government have hit the same obstacles that Mr. McCarthy faced as he tried to shepherd the bills through. Republican leaders pulled votes on both the Treasury Department bill and another to fund the Transportation Department because of deep divisions within their ranks.

More mainstream lawmakers in particular have opposed the deep spending cuts and partisan policy riders included in the appropriations bills.

On Thursday, a bloc of them opposed the financial services bill because it contained a provision aimed at undermining a 2014 Washington, D.C., law intended to protect employees from being discriminated against for seeking contraceptive or abortion services. A group of conservatives also opposed the bill because it did not include an amendment that the House voted down prohibiting federal funds from being used to purchase a new building for the F.B.I.

The moderates said it was unconscionable for Republicans to attach unrelated anti-abortion measures to the spending bills just days after the party was clobbered on the issue on Tuesday in off-year elections.

“We’ll see next week what we actually do,” said Representative John Duarte of California, who represents a district President Biden won in 2020. “A lot of it will have to do with, can we pass some clean appropriations bills and get the monkey business out of them?”

Weeks later and a new Speaker, and Republicans seem like they're basically in the same position they were under the last guy. Almost as if it's the membership itself that's the problem.

Oppositions parties always do struggle to actually...govern.

[Resurgo]

The new speaker doesn’t even have a checking or savings account… I’m sure they figured he’d be the best one to sort out the government spending thing

[Breccia]

Trump says that you're not allowed to investigate political opponents, then promises to investigate political opponents when re-elected.

“If they do this, and they’ve already done it, but if they follow through on this, yeah, it could certainly happen in reverse. It could certainly happen in reverse,” Trump said in an interview with Univision. “What they’ve done is they’ve released the genie out of the box. You understand that. They’ve done something that nobody thought would happen.”

“You know, when you’re president and you’ve done a good job and you’re popular, you don’t go after them so you can win an election,” Trump continued.

“If I happen to be president, and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ Mostly that would be, you know, they’d be out of business. They’d be out of the election,” he added.

The comments echoed what Trump told supporters during a rally in Hialeah, Fla., on Wednesday night.

“Now that he indicted me, we’re allowed to look at him. But he did real bad things,” Trump said at the rally, adding that he would direct the Justice Department “to investigate every Marxist prosecutor in America.”

This is, again, where I'd challenge any remaining Trump supporters to explain this, but there's no point. We only have one left, and teh dang poster would just respond with a non-response. All the others are pussy-ass cowards.

[Redwyrm]

Trump Lawyer Objecting to Her Own Document Draws Mockery: 'Incompetent'
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...t/ar-AA1jETvy?
ocid=hpmsn&cvid=cfae93654c504a4fbc1c0d443c468032&ei=5

Donald Trump's lawyer was mocked on social media after objecting to her own legal document being used in court.

Alina Habba, Trump's lead defense attorney, took issue with a document her own team entered when Ivanka Trump testified as a witness in her father's civil fraud trial on Wednesday.

During her testimony, prosecutors asked Ivanka Trump, who left The Trump Organization in 2017 to join her father's White House administration and was initially named as a co-defendant in the trial, about emails she exchanged with Trump Organization executives.

She said she couldn't remember them, so the Attorney General's office entered documents into evidence to remind her, including an email she sent to Allen Weisselberg and other Trump Organization executives dated December 15, 2011.

"It doesn't get better than this. lets (sic) discuss asap (sic)," Ivanka wrote in the email.

At this point, Habba objected to the email being entered as evidence, claiming that it was never sent, The Messenger's Adam Klasfeld reported. Prosecutor Kevin Wallace told Habba that the document she objected to was one of her team's own documents.
Engoron said that he would allow the questioning about the email to continue.

Newsweek reached out to a representative for Habba via email for comment on Thursday.

Habba was swiftly mocked online following the incident.

One person who identified themselves as a lawyer in their bio on X, formerly Twitter, wrote: "An attorney fresh out of passing the bar could do better."

Another X user named Susan Denson said: "Boy, I bet all the big law firms are tripping over themselves just to hire such a brilliant lawyer!"

"So Alina Habba as lawyer for the defence, objected to her own document being entered into evidence? This trial is the gift that keep giving," a third X user posted.

"Donni Dollhands' attorney, Alina Habba, objected to the Prosecution entering an exhibit from the Trump Organization that Alina Habba handed over to the Prosecution during the Discovery Phase," X user Sgt Joker said. "Classic incompetent [clown emoji]. Only the best people...yada, yada..."

[Edge-]

You get what you pay for...or don't pay for, I guess.

[Huehuecoyotl]

You get what you pay for...or don't pay for, I guess.

Turns out that if you hire a lawyer on the basis of wanting to fuck them, they end up fucking you.

[gondrin]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...eeaaebc2&ei=14

Rep. Elise Stefanik files ethics complaint against judge in Trump's civil fraud trial

Rep. Elise Stefanik, the House GOP conference chair, has filed a judicial ethics complaint against the judge presiding over the New York civil fraud case against Donald Trump, accusing Judge Arthur Engoron of “weaponized law fare” against the former president, and calling on the judge to recuse himself.

Engoron had exhibited “clear judicial bias” against Trump, including by telling Trump’s attorney that the former president is “just a bad guy” whom New York Attorney General Letitia James “should go after,” Stefanik, R-N.Y., said in a letter to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct. She said the judge had failed to honor Trump’s due process rights, concerns that she said are exacerbated by the former president’s position as the frontrunner for the presidential nomination.
Engoron is presiding over the bench trial of a $250 million lawsuit, meaning the judge will also determine guilt and sentencing in the case. Stemming from a lawsuit James filed last year, it charges Trump with inflating asset values for financial gain. Trump testified angrily on Monday in the high-stakes case and has complained and clashed with the judge for weeks.

Engoron issued a partial gag order on Trump last month after he made disparaging remarks about a law clerk on social media and to reporters. He was fined twice for violating the gag order. The judge expanded the gag order last week to include the former president’s lawyers.

“I filed an official judicial complaint against Judge Arthur Engoron for his inappropriate bias and judicial intemperance in New York’s disgraceful lawsuit against President Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization,” Stefanik said in a statement to NBC News. “Americans are sick and tired of the blatant corruption by radical Leftist judges in NY. All New Yorkers must speak out against the dangerous weaponized lawfare against President Trump.”

Stefanik said in the letter to accompany the complaint that Engoron had illegally gagged Trump’s protected political speech, violated political giving rules with financial contributions to Democrats as recently as 2018, and ignored a decision on the appropriate statute of limitations in the case. At the start of the trial, Engoron “infamously smiled and posed for the cameras,” she noted.

“If Judge Engoron can railroad a billionaire New York businessman, a former President of the United States, and the leading presidential candidate, just imagine what he could do to all New Yorkers,” Stefanik writes. “Judge Engoron’s lawlessness sends an ominous and illegal warning to New York business owners: If New York judges don’t like your politics, they will destroy your business, the livelihood of your employees, and you personally. This Commission cannot let this continue.”

“All Americans, including political opponents, must receive due process and equal protection under our U.S. and New York Constitutions,” Stefanik wrote. “Judge Engoron’s disdain for President Trump and his politics are evident, and the Commission must take corrective action to restore a just process and protect our constitutional rights. Judge Engoron must recuse from this case.”

Last month, the American Civil Liberties Union argued that the federal judge presiding over Trump’s criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election had violated his First Amendment rights when issuing a gag order.

Stefanik was the first member of Republican leadership to endorse Trump’s bid for another run at the White House and is a close ally of the former president. The top New York Republican in the House, Stefanik is also suing Gov. Kathy Hochul over a mail-in voting expansion.

Trump faces a demanding trial schedule from his civil and criminal cases, with the lawsuit in New York, and indictments in Georgia, Florida, Manhattan, and Washington, D.C. Four members of the Trump family, including Trump, have testified in the New York case, which could cripple their business.

Overnight, Trump lashed out at the judge in New York on social media, accusing Engoron and James of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct by using “Valuations so LOW that they are Fraudulent.” James has charged Trump with allegedly overstating his family business’s real estate assets.

[Breccia]

Rep. Elise Stefanik

Fuck that vapid whore. My county is an embarrassment, more than most -- she won her first election running as a moderate.

[Edge-]

https://archive.is/GYZiG

“You’re Telling Me That Thing Is Forged?”: The Inside Story of How Trump’s “Body Guy” Tried and Failed to Order a Massive Military Withdrawal

Headline for the article, it's archived as it's paywalled. Get your attention?

To understand what a second Trump administration would look like, consider Johnny McEntee, the cheerful and upbeat young aide who became Trump’s essential man in the waning days of his presidency. In McEntee, Trump had the ultimate loyalist: He never hesitated to carry out the president’s orders, and he made it his mission to find and remove anyone in the executive branch who was not as devoted to the president as he was. If Trump makes it back to the White House, it would likely be McEntee—or someone like him—doing the hiring and enforcing loyalty.

Yep, it's all about Johnny, whom may be vaguely familiar as he did pop up in the news a few times.

McEntee’s efforts to root out Trump infidels in the administration were often comically petty, but they came with the force of a presidential mandate. Just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, for example, somebody on McEntee’s staff discovered that a young woman in the office of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson had liked an Instagram post by pop star Taylor Swift that included a photo of Swift holding a tray of cookies decorated with the Biden-Harris campaign logo. The transgression was brought all the way to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who placed a call to Carson’s top aide. The message: We can’t have our people liking the social media posts of a high‑profile Biden supporter like Taylor Swift.

He was reportedly the one in charge of the purity testing, and as you can see he was so thorough that if you even liked a Taylor Swift post on social media you were likely a secret Biden supporter and not someone who just liked a really talented young star who puts on incredible shows and literally saves local economies.

McEntee’s team reached the apex of its power after Trump lost the election in 2020. Within days, they orchestrated sweeping changes to the civilian leadership at the Pentagon that resulted in Defense Secretary Mark Esper and other top officials being fired. In preparing for Esper’s ouster, McEntee and his team created a memo listing the Pentagon chief’s sins against Trump, arguing he “consistently breaks from POTUS’ direction, and has failed to see through his policies.” Among Esper’s supposed transgressions:
Vowing to be apolitical;
Opposing the president’s direction to utilize American forces to put down riots;
Barring the Confederate flag on military bases;
Focusing the department on Russia;
Actively pushing for diversity and inclusion; and
Contradicting the reasoning for and disagreeing with the president’s decision to withdraw troops from Germany.

So McEntee was apparently the primary force behind Esper's late ouster.

Before leaving for the Pentagon, Macgregor sat down in McEntee’s office to go over the acting defense secretary’s sweeping agenda for the final seventy-three days of the lame-duck period before Joe Biden would be sworn into office. As first reported by Axios, on a piece of paper, McEntee jotted down four quick bullet points that, if carried out, would represent a dramatic shift in the global order:
Get us out of Afghanistan.
Get us out of Iraq and Syria.
Complete the withdrawal from Germany.
Get us out of Africa.

That's...an incredibly ambitious list for 73 days (shame on you vanity fair, that's not AP Style!)

Three days after Macgregor arrived at the Pentagon, he called McEntee and told him he couldn’t accomplish any of the items on their handwritten to-do list without a signed order from the president.

“Hey, they’re not going to do anything we want, or the president wants, without a directive,” Macgregor told him, emphasizing the need for an official White House order signed by Trump. The Pentagon’s stonewalling made sense, of course: You don’t make major changes to America’s global defense posture based on a glorified Post-it note from the president’s body guy.

Damn, you mean the military follows the chain of command and requires orders from a superior before they do things, especially some fairly significant moves like "leaving Africa and Germany completely"?

McEntee and an assistant quickly typed up the directive, but they moved the Afghanistan withdrawal timeline up to January 15—just five days before Trump was set to leave office—and added a second mandate: a complete withdrawal of US troops from Somalia by December 31, 2020.

Unelected, unappointed officials apparently thinking they can make SIGNIFICANT policy decisions on a whim. That's not good.

The absurdity of the situation was captured in McEntee’s interview with the January 6 Committee:

Q: Is it typical for the Presidential Personnel Office to draft orders concerning troop withdrawal?

McEntee: Probably not typical, no.

An exchange that highlights just how obviously wrong this was.

Upon receiving the order from his chief of staff, Christopher Miller called Joint Chiefs chairman Mark Milley to his office to discuss next steps. After reading the order, Milley told the January 6 Committee, he looked at Patel, who had just started working at the Pentagon three days earlier.

“Who gave the president the military advice for this?” Milley asked him. “Did you do this?”


“No,” Patel answered. “I had nothing to do with it.”

Milley turned to the acting defense secretary. “Did you give the President military advice on this?” he asked.

“No. Not me,” Miller answered.

“Okay, well, we’ve got to go over and see the president,” Milley said, noting his job required him to provide military advice to the commander in chief. “I’ve got duties to do here, constitutional duties. I’ve got to make sure he’s properly advised.”

And with that, Miller and Milley went to the White House to see Robert O’Brien, Trump’s national security advisor.

“Robert, where’s this coming from?” Milley asked O’Brien. “Is this true?”

“I’ve never seen it before,” O’Brien told him.

These are the people hired by the guy Repulicans want to send back to the White House. Where unelected assistants forge documents and ignore the normal process for policy decisions, instead having civilians with no experience or advice draft up impossible orders that they genuinely do not understand.

“You’re telling me that thing is forged?” Milley responded in disbelief. “That’s a forged piece of paper directing a military operation by the president of the United States? That’s forged, Keith?”

Despite McEntee’s best efforts—which included not only the advice from Macgregor but several minutes of searching the internet—the only part of the document that looked anything like an official presidential order was Trump’s signature at the bottom. But even that, Kellogg thought, could have been the work of an autopen used to mimic the president’s autograph on thousands of unofficial letters sent out by the White House.

THE FORGERIES ARE COMING FROM INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE AND MAKING IT TO MILITARY LEADERSHIP, thank goodness they're not cultists.

Cipollone, whose office was responsible for reviewing all presidential orders, said he hadn’t seen the document and knew nothing about it. When Derek Lyons, the White House staff secretary responsible for filing and transmitting official presidential orders, told them he hadn’t seen the directive either, the group knew they needed to go see the president himself.

They found him where he spent most of his time after the November election—in his private dining room next to the Oval Office, where the television on the wall was almost always on. Once the president confirmed he had indeed signed the document, O’Brien and Cipollone explained to him that such an order should go through some sort of process, and that an abrupt movement of so many US troops would be dangerous and unwise without proper planning. At the very least, they told him, such an order should be reviewed by White House lawyers.

Ah yes, EXECUTIVE TIME, the all important majority of each day.

Anyways, boy, sure seems like Donald didn't know or care about proper process and simply did his usual, "vaguely tell someone to get something done somehow and let them figure it out" schtick.

According to O’Brien, the president didn’t object. Trump’s bold plan for ending the war in Afghanistan before the end of his term was dashed as quickly and apathetically as it was slapped together. “It’s rescinded. It’s over,” O’Brien said when he returned to his office, where the acting defense secretary and Joint Chiefs chairman had been waiting for about fifteen minutes. Milley breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, fine,” he said. “So it doesn’t exist.”

Thankfully, our institutions proved resilient to Republican ratfucking this time.

How many more times are Republicans willing to roll that dice? A lot, it seems.