(This post is exclusive for readers here at PolitiZoom)

Charles P. Pierce writes in the English language passably well for someone who spends so much time watching sports with an ale at his elbow in Boston drinking establishments.

He reads English at least as passably well as evidenced by his latest in Esquire Magazine.

Charles notes, not without some glee and an easily imagined rubbing of his hands in righteous long unrequited anticipation, that the recent NY Times article on the opening of an FBI criminal and counter intelligence investigation into the criminal and counter intelligent activities within the Russian-aided campaign of America’s stupidest to date *Resident, Donald J. Trump, had one word inserted into it like a .44 caliber dumdum bullet pointed straight at the heart of dumbdumb drumpf’s rapidly imploding world.

“Deep in The New York Times’s latest bombshell is one singularly deadly word, a lethal bit of shrapnel aimed directly at the vitals of a criminal—and possibly treasonous—presidency. The word is tucked into a sentence that, at first glance, seems to be a perfectly anodyne statement of the current facts. Indeed, it’s tucked into a sentence that would be an unremarkable bit of knee-jerk newspaper balance if this explosive charge of a word weren’t placed right the in the middle of it. That word is “publicly,” as in:” 

Pierce then quotes the Times:

“No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials.

The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.

The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.

Agents and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude. But the president’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s firing in May 2017, particularly twoinstances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry, the people said.”

Pirce maintains that the word “publicly” was not chosen idly.

In fact he surmises that the august Grey Lady would not load such a weapon to no use and concludes:

“Otherwise, “publicly” is empty verbiage. To have written simply that, “No evidence has emerged that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government official,” would have sufficed for the purposes of journalistic balance. But by dropping that fatal “publicly” in there, the Times and its sources likely are giving us a preview of coming attractions. (Judging by his manic episode on the electric Twitter machine on Saturday morning, the president* knows this, too.) And the one thing about which we can all be sure is that is whole megillah is nowhere near as weird as it’s going to get.”

From your bar-stool to God’s ear, Charlie.

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