Another day, another weird development in Trump world. Come along as we play connect-the-dots. Less than ninety days ago, there was a major shake up at the Voice of America when Michael Pack, one of Steve Bannon’s filmmaking buddies, took over as head of the Agency for Global Media after he was rubber stamped by the Senate. It was thought at the time that he intended to convert the Voice of America into a pro-Trump organ. To that end, Pack hired a lawyer to ferret out anti-Trump bias, and boy, did he find a real jewel of a guy, in one Samuel Dewey. Dewey’s father was granted a restraining order against him in February of this year for threatening his life. NPR:

In June, Pack hired a lawyer with no background in news to investigate his agency’s coverage for potential anti-Trump bias, in a way that appears to violate Voice of America’s legal protections of journalistic independence. That investigative attorney has a potentially problematic record himself: he remains under a court order to stay away from his father and to surrender all firearms due to a complaint that he made detailed death threats against his father.

These details appear in publicly available documents from a court proceeding held just 35 miles up the Baltimore-Washington Parkway from USAGM’s headquarters. It raises questions about how rigorously the security-minded CEO had vetted his own newly hired legal counselor. And this is not an ancient episode: the court order was filed in early February. It remains in effect through February 2021.

So now we’ve got Steve Bannon, Michael Pack and Samuel Dewey and look at the next dot we connect.

Dewey, a political appointee, has strong conservative credentials. He is a 2009 graduate of Harvard Law School and a former student of U.S. Justice Brett Kavanaugh who wrote to support the latter’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. […]

In early February, Dewey’s father, Joel, wrote a petition to the Maryland court seeking protection. He warned that Sam Dewey twice texted his mother to threaten Joel Dewey’s life, writing that he was “seriously contemplating killing” the elder Dewey. (The two parents are divorced.)

Isn’t that intriguing? Kavanaugh was credibly accused of sexual assault, Dewey was credibly accused of seeking to do violence to his own father — by his own mother — at least such that a court granted a restraining order. And what is the dot that connects everybody? A corrupt and complicit GOP-led senate, that’s what. A senate that rubber stamped Kavanaugh, when there was ample reason not to do so, and then rubber stamped Pack, when there was ample reason not to, and of course, rubber stamped Trump, when there was every reason in the world to vote to remove him from office. But for this iteration of the senate, the most corrupt in American history, you would not be reading these stories about these characters that emphatically do not belong in government.

The Trump administration is disgustingly corrupt, but it would be nowhere if not for a complicit and equally corrupt senate. It is devoutly to be wished that the senate changes hands in November, so that decency and dignity can return to that befouled chamber, as well as to the White House.

 

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1 COMMENT

    • I don’t think any of them will be invited anywhere, except by subpoena. What a cabal of crooks! And this lawyer, Dewey, is obviously bright and did well in school, all of that. Just like Kavanaugh. But he’s another sociopath.

      • Funny how a lot of people in Trump’s stink’n cabinet are plastic scabs, at a distance they seem OK, then when they say and do horrible things it is painfully clear, they too are Trumper’s through and through … Trump himself is so simple minded, he has problems with stumble-stupidity at all times, such a sad little kid ….

      • In America, “smart” means don’t fundamentally question anything about this 240 yr old PR campaign by the rich against the poor. It means go to law school, medical school, or financial services so you can be rich too. People who are “smart” enough to see through the ruse, AND act on it usually stay poor & often in jail. Harvard is an institution founded on keeping things the way they are so their rich donors won’t jump ship.

    • I would like to see a return of the decent people, the smart, educated, experienced folks who either got run out of our government or fled when they saw the writing on the wall. There are a lot of good people who we need to return to the various departments and bureaus. Joe is going to need all hands on deck when he whips tRump’s ass and runs him out of town. Hope someone’s making lists, lots of lists.

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