Monday/ something is rotten in the State of the Union

‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’ – Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 4.


It was revealed last week that President Trump had pushed to have special investigator Robert Mueller fired in June 2017. Trump only stopped short when White House counsel Don McGahn threatened to resign. Trump and his White House staff now deny all of this (Trump: ‘fake news’), or refuse to comment – of course. They all lie, from the President on down, all the time, basically.

Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. ‘State of the Union’ misspelled on the visitor’s gallery tickets.

Today FBI Deputy Director Andrew G. McCabe abruptly stepped down. His retirement in the next few months had been widely expected, but Trump attacked him and the FBI relentlessly over the last few months. Then there is the bizarre spectacle of the House Republicans (Trump stooge Devin Nunes chief among them), that join in attacking and undermining the FBI.

So I refuse to tune in Tuesday night to see Trump’s State of the Union speech. Something in the State of the Union is rotten, and he will surely not convince me otherwise.

Paul Rozenzweig writes in The Atlantic that the person to watch is Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney-General at the Dept of Justice. Mueller effectively reports to him, and plays by the rules. So Mueller will not charge Trump with anything, or indict him. Rosenstein will decide if Mueller’s report (after the Russia investigation) will even be made public! Some speculate that Trump’s end goal is really to get Rosenstein fired and replaced. (Rosenstein’s boss, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a Trump supporter and recused himself from the Russia investigation).

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