Tag Archives: Donald Trump Jr.

national news

‘Like any father … ‘

Sarah Huckabee Sanders needs to get a grip on this indisputable fact: The man she serves as White House press secretary is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill parent who loves his children.

Donald John Trump is the president of the United States. So, when the press aide says the president was helping his son with public remarks to the public about a controversial meeting “like any father would,” she sets aside the fact that Trump is not like “any father.”

Sure, the president is still a father and a grandfather.

Sanders’s comment deals with questions into whether the president helped his son, Donald Trump Jr., craft a misleading statement about the nature of his meeting with a Russian lawyer who invited Don Jr. to meet with her because — allegedly — she had some dirt on Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Trump’s role as a parent in this context has been eclipsed — for better and/or worse — by his role as president of the United States, the head of state of the greatest nation on Earth.

He ain’t just “any father.”

national news

Special counsel’s plate getting quite full

Robert Mueller keeps getting more information than he can digest at a single sitting.

Yep, the special counsel assigned to examine Russian government meddling into our electoral process and allegations that the Donald J. Trump campaign colluded with the Russians is getting a good bit more, um, complicated.

The Washington Post is reporting, for instance, that the president told Donald John Trump Jr. how he should describe a meeting Don Jr. had with a Russian lawyer who invited him to meet so he could receive some alleged dirt on Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The president’s lawyer denies the story outright. Other Trump defenders accuse the Post of conveying “fake news.”

But, oh, this is the stuff of serious political intrigue.

Don Jr. supposedly reported the meeting was to be about “Russian adoption policy.” That wasn’t the case, according to the Post, which reports that young Don got instructions from Dad the President on what to say.

I believe that might constitute a serious obstruction of justice matter … if it’s true. The Post, of course, stands by its story, while the White House denies all of it.

Don Jr. isn’t talking. Imagine that.

Recall that another special counsel, Kenneth Starr, started looking into a real estate deal involving President and Mrs. Clinton. Then more tidbits began flying over his transom. Eventually, Starr got wind of a relationship Bill Clinton was having with a young White House intern. Starr poked around a little more and, well, the rest is history.

Mueller has the same latitude as Starr as he pursues the Russia matter. Stories such as the one published by the Post give him even more grist to pore through as he continues his pursuit of the truth behind the Russia story.

legal news, national news, political news

No dirt on Hillary? Really!

Let me try to keep this straight.

Donald J. Trump Jr. accepts an invitation to meet with a Russian government operative who tells him she’s got some dirt on Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic Party nominee for president of the United States.

Don Jr. goes to the meeting along with his brother-in-law Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, then the campaign chairman for Don’s dad, Donald J. Trump Sr., the Republican presidential nominee.

He meets with the lawyer/government operative. What does Don Jr. get out of it? He says nothing came of it. There was no dirt of any use to the Trump campaign.

In other words, Hillary was clean.

The story, of course, isn’t entirely that the Russians didn’t have the goods on Clinton; it is that Trump the Younger thought they did and that he “loved it.” He didn’t call the FBI to rat out the Russian government. Indeed, the only grownup from the Trump team — Manafort — didn’t bother to blow the whistle, either. Oh, no. Don Jr. was accepting “normal” opposition research — from a hostile government that was hacking into our electoral process, undermining our democratic system.

As for the Hillary story, the Russians came up with as much actionable dirt on the Democratic nominee as congressional Republican investigators were able to find over the course of several years. That would be, um, nothing, man!

What a coincidence!

business news, media news, national news, political news

This guy speaks the truth … at Fox!

It’s become a cliché of sorts that “only Nixon could go to China.”

The communist-hating U.S. president was the man in 1972 to open the door to the People’s Republic of China and that remains one of President Nixon’s everlasting legacies.

So, then, it might be said that “only Shepard Smith at Fox can speak the truth” about Donald J. Trump’s “mind-boggling deception.”

I single out Smith because of the network he works for. Fox News Channel is known far and wide — and beyond — as being quite friendly to the president of the United States. Trump is a frequent guest on “Fox and Friends,” and Fox commentator Sean Hannity is quite fond of extolling the president’s virtues while overlooking some of the other, um, non-virtuous qualities of the man and the team with which he has surrounded himself.

Smith isn’t part of that cadre of Trump acolytes.

He took aim at the controversy swirling around Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with that Russian lawyer and the ever-changing reasons/excuses/dodges he keeps offering for why he accepted a meeting he thought would produce some dirt on Hillary Rodham Clinton during the 2016 campaign.

“If there’s nothing there, and that’s what they tell us, why all these lies?” Smith told fellow Fox anchor Chris Wallace. “The deception is mind-boggling and there are still people out there who think we’re making it up. And one day they are going to realize we are not.”

You all know that I don’t watch Fox News regularly. My own bias forces me to wrestle with the notion that the network that once called itself “fair and balanced” has been neither “fair” or “balanced” in its coverage of U.S. politics.

Read The Hill’s report here.

Every now and then, one of the on-air folks at Fox shows us that journalistic integrity presents itself in a media organization well-known for the policies that come from the top of its chain of command.

Shepard Smith, I suppose, has become an “enemy of the American people” because he dares offer us a view that doesn’t comport with the president’s way events should be reported.

Welcome to the club, Shep.

national news

In hindsight, Don Jr., try this approach

1 Comment

Hindsight provides such clarity.

What we cannot foresee looking ahead appears like magic in our rearview mirror. Isn’t that right, Donald J. Trump Jr.?

Don Jr. told Sean Hannity that if he could do things differently when he got that email from a Russian lawyer he likely would take a different path.

He got the email from a lawyer saying that the Russian government had some dirt on Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was running for president of the United States against Donald J. Trump Sr. Don’s brother in law, Jared Kushner and Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort got the email, too. The subject line mentioned “Clinton-Russia: personal and confidential.”

Alarm bells anyone? Apparently not.

Trump got the email, then went to the meeting. He responded “I love it” when he learned that the Russians might have some bad stuff on Clinton.

How might he have handled it? Here’s a suggestion for Don Jr.

He should have called the FBI immediately to inform the agency that a hostile foreign government was offering to help his father win a presidential election. Yeah, he should have ratted out the Russians, who were trying to meddle in our electoral process; they had attacked our sovereignty.

He didn’t do that. Don Jr. has acknowledged that he accepted the invitation with the hope it would prove productive, that it would provide damning information on Hillary Clinton courtesy of the Russian government.

Is it a rookie mistake committed by someone with zero public service experience? Probably yes, but oh, man, it has some serious consequences.

If only he had seen as clearly then as he says he is seeing in hindsight.

Now for the big question, young Donald Jr.: Did you tell your equally inexperienced Dad about this meeting prior to its occurrence?

International news, national news, political news

Is that a smoking gun over there?

Hmm. That smoldering around the White House is beginning to reveal its source … maybe, perhaps, possibly.

Then again, maybe not.

Donald J. Trump Jr. has just released a head-scratching set of emails that detail some information he received from the Russian government about dirt it had dug up on Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was running against Donald J. Trump Sr. for president of the United States.

Don Jr. told the Russians “I love it” that they have dirt on Hillary. You see, Junior was working on Dad’s campaign. The Russians wanted Donald Sr. to become the next president and apparently were doing things to facilitate that event.

Now we see that Don Jr. has been dragged right into the middle of this growing controversy. He ended up meeting with a Russian lawyer, along with campaign chief Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, husband of Ivanka Trump (Don’s sis and the president’s daughter) and now a key White House policy adviser.

Here’s a new Question of the Day: Do you really and truly believe that none of these people — all of whom were up to their armpits in trying to get Daddy Trump elected president — would have kept any of this from him while he was campaigning for the high and exalted office?

The head-scratching, by the way, is occurring among legal eagles and pols around Washington who are wondering whether Don Jr.’s own legal counsel actually advised him to release this information to the public.

The hits just keep on comin’, man.

Check out the story here.

I’m betting there’ll be a good bit more to digest as we move forward.

International news, national news

It’s getting smokier in Washington, D.C.

The toughest job in Washington has been handed off from Sean Spicer to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, given that Spicer appears to have been taken off the White House press room briefing detail.

Sanders today sought to tell the media that there is nothing at all wrong with Donald J. Trump Jr. meeting with a Russian lawyer who reportedly told the young man that she had some dirt to pass on about Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Meanwhile, the New York Times is reporting that Donald Jr. received an e-mail informing him that the “Russian government” had information about Clinton that would be helpful to the Trump campaign. Thus, the meeting between Donald Jr. and the lawyer occurred. Interesting, yes? I damn sure think so.

Here’s the NY Times story.

Sanders said that campaign officials always meet with individuals or organizations in the heat of a contest. What’s the big deal? Actually, the big deal centers on questions about whether the Trump campaign cooperated with Russians seeking to damage Clinton’s campaign and aid Trump’s winning effort.

The younger Trump says he will cooperate with congressional committees. He has hired a lawyer to help him sort through this mess. He says he has nothing to hide.

You know what? It’s getting a bit smokier and murkier as special counsel Robert Mueller continues his hunt for the truth. Senate and House committees also are firing up their own investigative machinery.

Sarah Sanders’s effort at justifying this meeting that Donald Jr. had with the Russian lawyer, though, has to rank as one of the lamer efforts heard in some time. It does illustrate the difficult task she must perform while speaking on behalf of this dysfunctional administration.

As for the Kremlin and what officials in Moscow are saying about this, they are denying that Donald Jr. even met with the lawyer. Of course the Russians would deny it. I don’t believe Robert Mueller is going to accept the Russians’ version of what happened … or didn’t happen.

Keep looking, Mr. Mueller.

national news

Donald Jr. steps in it … bigly?

Did the eldest son of Donald J. Trump just say something terribly incriminating?

Don Jr. has told the New York Times that he met with a Russian lawyer on the promise that the Russian had some dirt that the Trump campaign could use against Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Collusion anyone?

Isn’t that precisely what special counsel Robert Mueller is examining, whether the Trump presidential campaign worked hand in glove with Russian operatives seeking to damage Clinton’s presidential campaign?

The president denies any collusion. Indeed, there’s been no proof of any collusion. So far it’s all been speculation and allegation.

Now, though, Don Jr., has poured some fuel on the smoldering embers that keep producing all that smoke.

The Washington Post reported the Times story and took particular note of something that Trump the Younger said. According to the Post: “‘It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting,’ Mr. Trump said.

“Read that last part again: ‘the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting.’”

So, if the young man is telling the truth, he went into the meeting expecting to receive dirt on Clinton. Did he pass it on to Dad? Did Dad do anything with it?

This story is getting murkier by the hour.

business news, International news, national news, political news

Divest, Donald! Divest

Of all the unexploded political ordnance laying in front of Donald J. Trump as he prepares to become president, one of them poses a seriously grave threat.

It’s this issue of divestiture … or Trump’s stubborn refusal to do what he should. That would be to divest himself fully of the enormous fortune he has acquired around the world.

He has chosen instead to hand all business operations over to his eldest son. Don Jr. is going to handle all the business dealings and Dad won’t have anything to do with it. None whatsoever.

That’s good enough for the president-elect to clear him of any potential conflicts of interest. Or so he says.

I am afraid it likely won’t provide nearly enough separation.

Indeed, this is just yet another demonstration of the non-traditional approach that Trump is taking toward his transition from fully private billionaire business executive to fully public leader of the free world/head of state and government/commander in chief.

The situation facing Trump is written in Article II of the U.S. Constitution. It’s called the “emoluments clause,” which has become common knowledge now among many Americans who before this election had never even heard of it.

The emoluments clause is founding father-speak that translates to “anti-bribery.” It prohibits a president from taking money from a foreign government, the acceptance of which opens the president up to being compromised as he conducts the affairs of state.

Trump is facing tremendous exposure, say, if Don Jr. consummates a business deal with a foreign government that deposits a few billion dollars into an account that has Daddy Donald’s name on the letterhead. The president-elect believes simply allowing his son do the transaction clears him of any suspicion. Wrong!

Divestiture of one’s assets is not a novel concept. My goodness, Trump’s team is going to make incredible sacrifice serving him and the government he will run. It is a reasonable expectation for the president himself to separate himself completely from his business holdings.

Short of complete divestiture, a much better option than the one Trump has chosen would be to put his holdings into a blind trust, to be operated and administered by someone with no ties at all either to the president-elect or his family.

The next president is playing a dangerous game of chicken with those who are waiting for a big mistake to occur.