THE PAJAMA GAME

Random thoughts while waiting for Mueller’s next move.

Trump supporters and some media folks are obsessing about the specific charge that Mike Flynn pleaded guilty to. They’re missing the point. By itself, the charge of lying to the FBI doesn’t mean much, except that it demonstrates that Flynn knew that the Trump campaign was guilty of some serious wrongdoing and was desperate to cover it up. This was a plea bargain, for crying out loud. Lying to the FBI is not the only crime Flynn committed. It was simply the crime whose sentence was consistent with the deal Flynn struck with Robert Mueller. Mueller is hunting bigger game than Mike Flynn. His goal is to find out what Flynn was trying to cover up, and in return of a lesser charge with a lighter sentence, Flynn has agreed to tell him.

Enter Trump’s personal attorney, John Dowd, to try to muddy the waters. First came a faux controversy over the authorship of the Saturday tweet in which Trump essentially confessed to obstructing justice. The tweet in question, which came from @realDonaldTrump’s twitter account, included this remarkable statement: “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies.” If Trump knew Flynn lied to the FBI and then tried to get the FBI (through then-Director James Comey) to drop its investigation, that’s obstruction right there.

Now Trump’s people are trying to walk it back, claiming that the tweet was written by John Dowd. I’m not convinced that’s true – the tone is fairly Trump-like, and the use of “pled” rather than the preferred “pleaded” is unlawyerlike. But I’m also not convinced that it matters. Unless Trump is claiming that Dowd commandeered his phone and sent a rogue message without his approval, then the authorship is irrelevant. A tweet written for him by an attorney is no different than a speech written for him by a speechwriter. If he said it or sent it, it’s on him.

By Sunday, Trump was in full panic mode. He attacked the FBI and the Department of Justice (or “Justice” Department, as he put it). These attacks make him look weak, as though he isn’t in control of the agencies who report to him. Which may be true, but still isn’t a great look for a big important guy like Donald Trump. Perhaps more importantly, it puts his new FBI Director, Christopher Wray, in an awkward position. The FBI loved James Comey, and they’ll be waiting to see whether his replacement comes to their defense. The FBI has a lot of incriminating information on the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and Trump has no idea of the trouble they could bring down on his head if he gets them really mad.

By Sunday, Trump’s defenders seemed to be conceding his guilt. Their new defense is that the God-Emperor can do no wrong. As the head of the Justice (or “Justice”) Department, whatever he does is, by definition, just (or “just”). That is not a defense that will hold up in court, and if that’s the best his attorneys can come up with, they’d be well advised to start negotiating a plea bargain immediately.

Meanwhile, the press has done a good job of filling in the blanks in the Flynn indictment. Jared Kushner was quickly identified as the Very Senior transition official giving Flynn his marching orders. It looks like KT McFarland is the Senior transition official, and that McFarland consulted several other campaign luminaries, including Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Stephen Miller, and Kellyanne Conway, before advising Flynn on dealing with Russia during the transition. McFarland’s two main qualifications for a senior leadership position in Trump’s inner circle were that she’d been a Fox News analyst, and had a long history of hating Hillary Clinton.

Josh Marshall points out that Kushner, McFarland, and Miller (along with Dan Scavino and official Trump pants steamer Hope Hicks) were with Trump during his “lost weekend” at Bedminster in early May, when he made the fateful decision to fire James Comey. Trump only hires the best people.

Finally, you may be wondering about the Cary Grant lookalike in the photo that accompanies this post. Is he the next James Bond? The new Batman? Sadly, no. It’s Texas Republican Congressman Blake Farenthold. He‘s been identified as the congressman who used $84,000 taxpayer dollars to settle a sexual harassment suit by his communications director (who is not the lady in the photo). Farenthold’s background is pretty much what you’d expect – he got his start in politics as a right-wing talk radio host. The citizens of Corpus Christi and environs keep sending him back to Congress despite the fact that this photo has been part of the public record since his first campaign. Stay classy, Republicans.