Welcome to the daily therapy session of People Without A President. You’ve all heard of Parents Without Partners? Well, this is People Without A President, where we offer friendship and support and a place to dialogue about the hellacious prospect of being a family of 330 million members, without a functioning adult in charge.
If you haven’t heard, Donald Trump gave a short presser Saturday wherein he said that the judge’s order not to block the Bolton book was “great” which is a far cry from what he said earlier in the morning and then he said that he “wasn’t involved” in the decision to fire SDNY U.S. attorney Geoffrey Berman — in direct contradiction of what his attorney general said in the letter of termination which he sent to Berman. So now we’ve got a liar’s contest between the titular president of the United States and the equally titular attorney general, who is supposed to “serve the people and interests” of the country. Your guess is as good as anybody’s whose interests Barr is really serving but it sure as hell ain’t ours.
The president just said that he was not involved in the matter of Geoff Berman in SDNY. That means that though both Trump and Barr lie, at least one of them is lying about who is firing Berman. https://t.co/jDAiPzJEpx
— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) June 20, 2020
Trump on firing of Geoffrey Berman: "I'm not involved." (AG Barr says Trump gave the order to fire Berman.) pic.twitter.com/EVv6k5g9Zv
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 20, 2020
It’s one or it’s the other, friends, and you do not need a law degree to figure this one out.
- Did Trump fire Berman, in which case Berman is fired?
- Did Barr fire Berman, which he doesn’t have the legal right to do, and if so, does that mean Berman is still on the job?
or here’s a great third alternative:
3. Did Donald Trump just throw Bill Barr under the proverbial bus?
In all events, Barr is not having a good day. In the past fifteen hours he’s been called a liar by Berman and now he’s being called a liar by Trump. It’s safe to say that the Friday night massacre backfired and that Barr is drunk with his own power, but perhaps this will act as a wake up call. It’s also safe to say that Trump doesn’t want anything to do with this fracas and is leaving Barr to figure things out for himself.
And the dysfunctional government lurches on, with damage control statements being furiously drafted aboard Air Force One as Trump heads out for #Oklacovid! or #coronapalooza, take your pick and creates more chaos.
This administration is toxic. It is a cankerous sore that we need to remove before it infects the body politic any more than it has. Enough.
Sorry, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
I think I might start a daily thread for People Without A President and we can all come and talk about a time long ago when we actually had a president we loved and respected — oh wait That was only three years ago.
Three and a half year prison sentence for the country, I call it. Here’s to the Parole Board getting us a January release.
I love it! PWAP! Definitely a thing. And I was with option #3 even before I started reading the article. Dickweed needs another bus or two, it’s already full up under that first one!
Oy. Never have we had a president this inept, ignorant or chaotic although I’m reading Jon Meacham’s The Soul of America right now, and see some parallels with Andrew Johnson — extremely long rambling speeches that don’t make sense (Johnson was drunk) and whining that no one has ever been treated worse in defense of the Union than him (as Meacham writes “Lincoln comes to mind.”) But even Johnson kind of understood what was going on and had some predictable thoughts about it. Trump is a whole new kind of low.
The clueless buffoonery of Warren G Harding mixed with the tone-deafness of Herbert Hoover, evil of Richard Nixon and senility of late period Reagan meets here too.
The only thing Trump is best at.
Being worst.
Yeah, I’m laughing.
Christ, even they can’t do a bush league cover-up right. Here’s my take on the likely scenarios:
1) Trump, pathologically fixed on his taxes and sweating SCOTUS’ upcoming decision on such (likely not in his favor, going by this week’s decisions), ordered Barr to take care of Berman’s role. Barr thinks he can make Berman quietly go away…incorrectly. Berman pushes back, Barr throws his weight around and Trump rewards the move with the usual knife in the back.
2) Same as 1, only Barr does this on his own because Trump is too gone to realize how bad this is.
Either way, the situation is now SO much worse.
And here’s the cherry on top: Berman is now REALLY resigning, effective immediately, leaving his deputy Audrey Strauss–Roy Cohn nemesis and DOJ lifer–in charge. No way he’d do this if he thought she could be fired. With Lindsey Graham saying he’ll honor the blue slips and New York Senators ready to veto ANY Trump stooge, I’d say we’re looking at checkmate.
I wouldn’t trust Barr’s word any further than I could throw him and even back in my active duty days as a jarhead that wouldn’t have been very far. Barr, and Trump too were powerless to fire Berman under the controlling statute once he was approved by the Judges up there. The ONLY way they could have replaced him was to have a new nominee for U.S. Attorney for the SDNY confirmed by Congress.
Now however it’s Berman’s deputy, who WAS installed by Barr and the President which means they can replace her any damn time they please. And then turn right around and put the hack from NJ in charge just like they planned.
Berman thinks he extracted a concession or promise from Barr. He’s been played. Shit!
Hand off the trigger, Marine. You’re acting like Berman is a naive idiot rather than the experienced bureaucrat who probably had a better gameplan than you’re giving him credit for. The only promise Berman gave Barr was likely an even bigger world of shit if the latter so much as HINTS at moving on Strauss. So kindly wait and see before assuming that you already know the ending.
Of course Trump-O ordered Berman’s firing….. he needs to stop the investigations of himself, his family and associates….but he can’t admit to being involved because of that pesky lil obstruction of justice thingy.
…,.but only he can fire Berman.
So what’s a traitorous criminal to do???
Whatever he actually needed to do, it sure as hell wasn’t THIS.
Tweet a lot tonight. Especially since the Tulsa arena is at most half full.
Trump, “Geoffrey Berman? Never heard of the guy. Total disaster. Barr made me fire him. Which I totally didn’t do.”
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