I wonder if Sekulow or Giuliani or somebody who went to law school could explain first semester Torts to Donald Trump. The truth is an absolute defense to any charge of defamation. Trump doesn’t know that. He claims that yet another one of his ridiculously unqualified candidates for an office, John Ratcliffe, is a victim, “treated very unfairly” by the media and set up for “months of slander and libel.” Nah, Donny, he was set up for proper vetting, which is something that you don’t bother to do. You just watch ’em perform on TV and make an offer. This is just another version of The Apprentice to you, and it would be comical, if it wasn’t so damned dangerous, and Capital Hill the movie set.
….John has therefore decided to stay in Congress where he has done such an outstanding job representing the people of Texas, and our Country. I will be announcing my nomination for DNI shortly.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2019
Here’s what really happened, per Axios:
The state of play, via Axios’ Jonathan Swan: Ratcliffe withdrew himself, per sources familiar with the situation. He was watching coverage of his possible nomination pile up, and the White House was getting word that he would struggle to get enough Republicans to confirm him. Ratcliffe “thought better to pull out now than put family through confirmation only to come up shy,” texted a source familiar with his thinking.
- According to a third source familiar with the situation, Ratcliffe did not anticipate the intensity of the reaction to his name being floated.
The backdrop: Ratcliffe, who defended Trump and “downplayed the threat posed by Russia” at former special counsel Robert Mueller’s July hearing, is not well-known by many Republican senators or trusted by Democrats, per Politico.
No, he’s not well known. He’s another Matthew Whitaker clone, embarrassingly unqualified, yet chosen by Trump because he can be combative on television and push Trump’s inane and insane talking points. That’s as sophisticated as Trump’s choices ever get. He probably should have let McConnell chose somebody. He might have found another serpent in the garden like Bill Barr.
Oh, well. Looks like Donnie’s plan to undermine the intelligence community just suffered a minor setback. “Too Bad!” as the saying goes.
I will take any good news I can get. Onto the next jerk trump will pick.
But don’t you find the speed of the collapse on this shocking, Cmae? We’ve not seen public embarrassment like this for Trump on a would-be nomination in a while. That Republicans are the source of the pushback (similar to their being difficult on the budget earlier this week) makes me think that they’re realizing there is no real benefit to playing along with Trump.
Yes, it has happened very quickly. Republicans tanked this, for sure. I hope Trump is having a very bad day.
Maybe this is telling, along with the resignations that are happening.
Fun fact, per Politico: Ratcliffe was one of the authors of the Magnitsky Act of 2015, which has frozen Russian assets to this day. It makes me question if there was more to his nomination than what we know.
Wow, really?
All roads lead to the Kremlin, per usual. Ratcliffe was acceptable because of his CT about Page/Strzok, his defense of Trump at the Mueller hearing, and this comment of yours fits right in. Russian sympathizing opportunists, that’s this iteration of the GOP.
WOW, what an interesting pre-dick-a-ment, Trump just does not know ANYTHING, and it is so dangerous that he may actually sink our whole economy in a few stupid moves … his already canon mouth stunts like the full trade war with China, falls directly on his misbegotten head …
And ALL of us get to pay the taxes …. where does the pea brain think the money to cover the 10% increase in Trade costs for virtually everything we get and use from china is coming from, and here is the kicker, can he explain where it goes ..?
If we were to ask Trump, could he possibly explain in words he can actually pronounce and spell, the whole products sourced, purchased by, and actual trade process we have built over the years with China and many other countries?
World wide trade is fairly simple, the size of the numbers is what Trump misreads, and stumbles on, into freaking stupidity, he implies and shows he has NO understanding of how much it has and now will cost each and every citizen of our Country … he’s already been killing off the old homestead family farms, pushing even more production land into the hands/pockets of big money corps that rape the land with chemicals and topsoil losses to produce profits over sustainable plans of conservation and minimal til/replenishing the land mass …
Does he even know where that penalty tax money goes, does he think it goes into his own pocket or the deep pockets of the other billionaires and foreign oligarchs ?
China started off slow, building an incredible supply chain between our Country and theirs, how did it happen? Simple greed, one of the main components of Trump’s every day pleasures … who can I stick it to today, and am I going to get my cut, … , if I don’t get credit for it, and an atti-boy as well, it’s never good ….
Well, Ursula, things are starting to look pretty grim, Trump blowing everything up, and the Republicans tearing everything down … Trump is a given problem as long as he is still in the oval office, MoscowMitch and his corrupt Senate on the other hand can be pushed out, but the delay between now and the 2020 election cycle seems like too much time and these corrupt A-holes can do an incredible amount of damage in that interval … what do you think would work to get Trump to focus long enough to stop his idiotic Trade crap?
Trump won’t stop his trade war because he’s too stupid. We know it’s going to blow up, we just don’t know when. I’m hoping it won’t be on a Democratic president’s watch, but it might be.
Because China is run by people who actually know what they’re doing on economics, I suspect tthey are slow-walking the worst of the consequences they could throw at us. Put just enough pressure on us to feel the burn and then get someone in 2020 who can actually think. And if that doesn’t work out, Plan B is ready to go.
Ratcliffe’s lies about his past work were coming out, and the fact that he was only an acting USA and did very little that was good wasn’t going to make people want to put him in a critical position.
It’s pure puffery. I saw plenty of resumes over the years that were pure puffery. It’s a bad thing when somebody has to report to puffery. If you are legitimate in your job description, whatever it may be, you should be able to do just fine with a legitimate list of your achievements. That’s true anywhere, but in something like Director Coat’s job? Oh, please.
Well, while it might not rise to the level of slander in a court of law RATcliffe did in fact make misleading, insulting and even false statements about Mueller among others. So by “Trump Court” definitions of slander/libel RATcliffe himself was guilty. I gather a lot of Republican Senators were nervous and I’m not sure it’s entirely due to the resume puffery. Strzok held up pretty well(I thought) to questioning from the GOP and while Mueller might not have come across as stoutly as some would have liked (in fairness tough to do – having to flip through pages looking up what he was being asked to confirm as the members were talking at him expanding their questions btw) it was pretty insulting the way Donnie Bone Spur’s would be tool and the rest of the GOP treated him.
A lot of Senators, especially those up for re-election next year have hoped Pelosi would prevail and kill impeachment. I think they might have had a different take on what Mueller’s testimony looked like and actually contained than the conventional wisdom. And unlike most of them Mueller has plenty of friends of the kind that matter in the DC world. Voting to acquit Trump in an impeachment trial would I believe be a big problem for them next year. And having someone so nakedly setting about to try and rig the election and/or trash our national security wouldn’t do them much good either even if Trump isn’t impeached by the House. They might not mind getting some Russian (or Chinese, or Saudi or Israeli) help they need someone who can open the barn gate with much greater discretion that RATcliffe or Barr. And that’s my worry. That McConnell will come up with someone he can convince Trump will do everything Trump wants but is low profile and will keep out of the limelight while doing it.
The scenario of your last sentence assumes good enough relations between Moscow Mitch and Traitor Trump to be that coordinated. While I can see McConnell holding the line on bills and impeachment, appointments for top jobs may well be where he and Trump diverge. Trump is too fixiated on personal loyalty, making anyone McConnell could recommend come with an asterisk…accent on “risk”.