Passing Strange

October 1st, 2017. InDarkTimes. Today at InDarkTimes, we the publishers have decided to mark the passing of this, our record of the Passing Strange. When we started this blog in December of 2016, we were anticipating the worst–an alt right overthrow of our republic within the year. We were also anticipating many things about the ways and means of this takeover. The Passing Strange was meant to be a record of assaults on our political, social, and morally normative assumptions about what it means to be an American. Nine months later, our democracy has proved both more and less resilient than we had expected. But the sheer pace and ferocity of governance by distraction and spectacle has proved to be quite overwhelming. We at IDT apparently do not have the sheer endurance of an Amy Siskind. Also, we promised, when we started this experiment, that we would be honest with ourselves and our readers about what we thought was working and what missed the mark, and/or what seemed to work for a while, and then stopped being effective. The Passing Strange ground to a halt with Charlottesville in August, when we saw the POTUS attempt to make a distinction between sympathizing with Nazis and sympathizing with Nazi sympathizers.

This week on CNN, Chris Cillizza admitted the near impossibility, even for a media-savvy journalist, to come grips with Trump’s kaleidoscopic maelstrom of malevolence (ok, my term, not his) over just the past seven days. It started with attacking Steph Curry and the Warriors. Then there was the first salvo in the NFL anthem wars. There was “little rocket man.” Also, there was the false claim of an Iranian missile test. By mid week, there was the latest failure of Obamacare repeal and replace (again without CBO analysis), and much more athlete bashing. There was the horrifying victory of Roy Moore in Alabama, and the catastrophe in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and Tom Price’s Jetgate. By the end of the week, he was attacking Puerto Rico and its leaders when criticized for inadequate Federal response, and again attacking the media for fake news (reporting on anything that made him appear unfavorably). While all this was happening, various a-holes were being nominated or appointed for various posts, and Federal agencies continued to unravel under condition of leadership-driven purges.

The Passing Strange was the newsiest part of IDT; and perhaps we fell victim to the same fate as the corporate media–taking the bait and allowing every dumbass and deplorable thing POTUS said, did, or tweeted to become the lead. So for now, until we have a better idea, this column is officially parked. Still, we think that these entries, taken together, are a pretty powerful record of the Trump administration’s outrageous first ten months. Collect them all!

July 25, 2017: Washington DC. Presumably due to his increasingly squirmy discomfort about what Special Council Bob Mueller might turn up in his FBI Russian collusion investigations, Trump recently began attacking his own very loyal, white nationalist base-friendly Attorney General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions. Sessions, remember, risked his own career at the behest of Steve Bannon to be the first Republican Senator to endorse Donald Trump for President. Now Trump, who claims to deeply, deeply value loyalty, is attacking a staunch loyalist, suggesting that for Mr. Trump loyalty is a one way street. And he’s alienating his white nationalist base to boot.

In an interview on July 19th, Trump claimed that he never would have appointed Sessions as AG had he known he would recuse himself from the Russian investigation. Due to his recusal, he’s not at liberty to fire Bob Mueller before Mueller spills the beans on Trump. Getting even more aggressive, today Trump tweeted that Sessions is VERY WEAK, demanding to know why he wasn’t using the Justice Department to attack his former political opponent, Hillary Clinton.

July 24th, 2017—Washington, D.C. White House concern over the widening Russia probe heated up this past week due to evidence that the probe included obstruction of justice in the firing of FBI Director Comey, and the business activities of adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner. By Friday, news outlets had revealed that Trump had asked various officials about his power to pardon aides, family members and yes, even himself. Additionally, the Saturday morning hysterical tweetstorm included confirmation of this, with Trump tweeting, “While all agree that the United States President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when the only crime so far is LEAKS against us and FAKE news?”

The looming specter of a self-pardon circus, only seven months into the Trump Presidency, should probably not have come as a shock. It is the sort of thing one has come to expect from the Narcissist-in-Chief. But no previous President has sought to pardon himself. The power to pardon is granted to the president in Article II, Section II of the US Constitution, which says that the Commander-in-Chief may grant “Reprieves and Pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.”

If Trump pardoned himself in the face of the ongoing Mueller investigation, the Washington Post reporter said, “it would set off a legal and political firestorm.” To begin with, the notion of self-pardon as self-exemption from criminal law is an affront to the very idea of rule of law, as various legal scholars have pointed out. Also, since the Constitution exempts cases of impeachment, it is not unreasonable to assume that since one can’t pardon one’s associates under threat of impeachment, one probably couldn’t pardon oneself either.

In any case, it’s hard to see how such an act would provide the desired shielding, at least under conditions of Congress-with-spines. It is conceivable that prospective self-pardon could actually trigger impeachment proceedings, with self-pardon featuring in the list of impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors. Self-pardoning has similar features to obstructing the investigation into obstruction of justice. It’s why Trump appears on magazine covers in a sand trap golf-digging his way to the center of the earth. POTUS needs to cool it, remembering the sage words made famous by Lynne Anderson: Along with the sunshine there’s gotta be a little rain sometime.

July 21st, 2017—Washington, D.C. Apparently ignoring normal processes of succession, the White House today appointed Office of Government Ethics General Counsel David Apol to be interim Agency Director. Under usual circumstances, OGE number two Shelly Finlayson would be made interim Director, and Trump’s pick for permanent Director would be nominated for the post, and would be subject to Senate confirmation. The maneuver is really only explicable in terms of acting on a desire for immediate relief from an aggressive, watchdog OGE, since Apol is recognized as having a much more lenient view of ethics law requirements than either outgoing Director Schaub or Finlayson. Apparently, it is possible even for an ethics office to be managed in a manner contrary to its express mission. It remains to be seen if the Senate nomination process will ever occur, since having the hearings would provide a nice opportunity for Democrats and other Constitutional patriots to once again challenge Trump’s conflicts of interest.

This all started with the resignation of Walter Schaub, Jr. on July 6th—Schaub left the job six months prior to the end of his term because he felt there was nothing more for him to do, “given the present situation.” Usually a somewhat obscure directorate, the Office of Government Ethics’ primary function has been to help people entering government to avoid potential conflicts of interest by guiding each administration political appointee through financial disclosure requirements, and crafting custom agreements to ensure that each one would not participate in decisions involving their former private sector clients.

Schaub had served under both Bush and Obama; but in the Trump White House, this normal business did not unfold. Team Trump granted dozens of waivers for Trump himself, his vastly wealthy cabinet, and the large influx of advisers from business and lobbying firms. Subsequently, the White House initially refused to release these waivers to OGE, and when they finally did, Schaub was dismayed to find them undated, unsigned, and in some cases, even retroactive in nature. He also got into high profile arguments with Trump officials over the need to discipline Kellyanne Conway for endorsing the Ivanka Trump clothing line (White House counsel disagreed) and more importantly, continued to insist that Trump had erred in refusing to divest his business interests upon assuming the Presidency. In the end, the spectacle of Trump continually visiting his private properties as POTUS, each time giving them free publicity and advertising, was too much for poor Schaub, Jr.

June 30, 2017:  All Over the United States. Donald Trump has claimed repeatedly (with no evidence) that “millions” voted illegally in the 2016 election. In May he formed an “advisory commission” to look into the matter. This week that commission asked all 50 states in the union for their voter data, including names, party affiliations, addresses, and voting history. Thankfully a number of states–both with Democratic and Republican governors, have refused to do so. Still others have only partially complied by providing the kind of publicly accessible data that would be available to a citizen under a freedom of information act request. In addition to attempting to convince American voters that voting fraud is actually a problem in the US (it’s not), this request looks disturbingly like an attempt to lay the groundwork for further future voter suppression. If you want an Republican controlled apartheid government in which minority rule seems democratic, and you’re so unpopular that even years of gerrymandering, the repeal of the Voting Rights Act, and voter suppression legislation isn’t trustworthy, purging the rolls may be a necessary next step.

June 7th, June 13th, 2017. Washington, DC—Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 7th, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and NSA Director Michael Rogers refused to answer Senator’s questions about whether Trump directed them to impede the FBI’s Russian collusion probe, but would not or could not say on what legal grounds they were doing so.

In a first-of-its-kind-response under oath before such a committee (but not the last) Coats and Rogers said that they felt that it would not be appropriate to discuss these matters, even though executive privilege had not been invoked. At some points, the twosome seemed to suggest that the they might be prepared to answer in closed session, but not open session, further distancing their refusal from executive privilege, since public or private answering has no bearing on such invocation (either it is privileged or it is not).

Six days later, Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, appearing before the same committee, also performed this new maneuver, the invocation of non-privilege privilege. Asked by the ranking member, Senator Mark Warner why he was refusing to answer questions, Sessions said that it was based on “reasons that are founded in the co-equal branch powers of the Constitution.” The non-privilege privilege amounts to saying that one respects the absolute power of the presidency, such that invocation of executive privilege in the usual manner and for the usual reasons would be acknowledging some measure of Congressional power to compel testimony or disclosure, or to decide if the invocation is valid, something that the present criminal regime will not do, since the power of exception is reserved entirely for the POTUS by the terms of the slow-motion coup d’etat.

The success of the maneuver relies on the assumption that the Republican majority will not put the thumb screws to the one making the maneuver. It relies on their bad faith, given their role, the history of the institution, and the case law. It also assumes that Republicans, in willing to see executive power become absolute, are assuming that they will never again lose the White House. If this gives you chills, it should.

May 17, 2017. Washington DC. Deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, named former FBI Director Robert Mueller as Special Counsel overseeing the FBI’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government. Mueller served under both Democratic and Republican administration and is highly respected across the parties, so this is reassuring in the aftermath of Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey.

Remember, the reason this appointment comes from the Assistant AG, is because the AG (Jefferson Beauregard Sessions) has recused himself from the case after it was discovered that he failed to disclose during his confirmation hearing the fact that he’d had meetings with the Russian Ambassador while advising the Trump campaign.

This doesn’t look good for Donald Trump, and liberal-leaning media are already placing bets on impeachment dates. However, according to a Gallop poll just this week, Mr. Trump’s approval rating, while a dismal 38% among the general population, is 84% among Republicans. So until that number comes down I’m wouldn’t hold my breath on the Republican-controlled congress initiating impeachment proceedings just yet.

.

May 16, 2017. Washington, DC. Since Mr. Trump fired FBI Director James Comey last week several other developments have come to light that suggest that Mr. Trump is obstructing justice (which is an impeachable offense) regarding the investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian Government.

First, on May 11th in a televised interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, the apparently not very bright Mr. Trump admitted outright that he fired FBI Director James Comey because of “this Russia thing with Trump”. Yes. Despite the pretense in the firing letter that he was acting on advice from his Deputy Attorney General, Trump simply confessed that he canned Comey to thwart the investigation, which is a pretty clear cut case of obstruction of justice.

Today Mr. Comey shared a memo he’d written back in February documenting President Trumps request during an Oval Office meeting that Comey shut down the FBI’s investigation into former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn’s links to Russia. “I hope you can let this go,” the president told Mr. Comey. Mr, Flynn, we recall, was fired after it was revealed that he had colluded with the Russian government during the Trump campaign. Asking the FBI Director to halt this investigation is a pretty clear case of intentional obstruction of justice. Apparently daily in situ memos from an FBI Director are admissible as credible evidence in court.