Since before his poorly-attended inauguration it was clear to nearly everyone on Earth, except Aryans and evangelical extremists, that Donald Trump is not only corrupt, he is an idiot of the highest order. Among the groups that know Trump is a clueless fool are most members of the U.S. government, including members of his own party and administration - from his closest advisors in the White House to members of Congress to Justice Department lawyers. However, it is unique, to say the least, that the nation’s top law enforcement agency has to take steps to inform a federal court that the man sitting in a place he has no right visiting, much less occupying, is a blooming idiot.
In some sense it is not so stunning that Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers were forced into what many Americans would regard as a very enviable situation; explaining to a Federal Court that Trump knows nothing much about anything – particularly if it is related to the government.
That is precisely what was revealed late last week in a DOJ filing to the Washington D.C. District Court for a Freedom of Information Act case (James Madison v. DOJ). That particular case appears connected to statements made by Trump about James Comey; specifically to “resolve whether President Trump is or ever was a target of, subject of, or material witness to any investigation.”
In that filing, Department of Justice lawyers had to take the extraordinary step of saying that “Trump essentially has no idea what he's talking about” in regards to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court classification. The DOJ’s lawyers representing Trump’s administration also informed the D.C. court that anything Trump issues through social media (Twitter) “cannot be presumed to be legal evidence of anything”– no matter that “his official” evidence often originates with his “most trusted intelligence sources” such as Fox News, the right-wing punditry, or Trump’s own malignant mind.
This latest embarrassment for America is related to Trump’s persistent claim that everyone in America except Fox News, his family, evangelical extremists, and white supremacists are part of a grand leftist “Deep State” plot against Donald Trump. Chief among those Trump claims are “out to get” poor Donnie are agents and the leadership of America’s intelligence community, particularly the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Trump, Fox News, and most members of the far-right have claimed, ad nauseam, that the FBI is criminally corrupt and has repeatedly and blatantly “lied to the judges” on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court when pursuing a warrant to probe Trump's presidential campaign. Trump and company have made similar claims about anyone remotely related to the special counsel’s investigation into Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf.
Trump has led the attempt to portray the FBI as inherently corrupt and criminally-culpable on his favorite forum Twitter. He has claimed that, "the Trump Campaign for President was illegally being spied upon to help Crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC." He also impugned the character of the intelligence community and federal law enforcement agencies claiming that "the DOJ, FBI and Obama Gang need to be held to account; they Misled the Court to provide a pretext to SPY on the Trump Team."
Of course these claims have been debunked, but Trump works on “alternative facts” that sound perfectly plausible to his insane base that is sure the Special Counsel and FBI are corrupt. In fact, Trump is so intent on thwarting the so-called “Russia Investigation” that less than two months ago in what was rightly labeled “an unprecedented act of recklessness” surrounding foreign intelligence; he ordered the DOJ and director of National Intelligence to immediately declassify the FISA application on his former foreign policy aide Carter Page. That order also demanded that “all FBI reports of interviews"connected to FISA applications be declassified and released under the guise of what Trump claims he “really wants more than anything - complete transparency.”
An investigative reporter for USAToday, Brad Heath, took to Trump’s personal media outlet, Twitter, to summarize what the Department of Justice lawyers had to say about Trump.
For example: “When Trump quotes somebody on Twitter accusing his own government of wrongdoing, that ‘cannot be assumed to be his confirmation of the media reporting based on government information, and it is not evidence of government misconduct.”
Also, when Trump uses Twitter to talk about national security matters, “It does not mean his statements are accurate or that he has any personal knowledge that they are correct.”
Lastly, and a damning indictment of Trump and a subtle message to Americans from his own Justice Department lawyers – “Trump shouldn’t be presumed to know what he’s talking about.” From the DOJ filing:
“The President’s Trump’s statements may very well be based on [Fox News] media reports, or his own personal knowledge, or could simply be viewed as political statements [lies] intended to counter [accurate] media accounts about the Russia investigation, rather than assertions of pure fact.”
Although Trump is an idiot, he is well-versed in Hitler’s propaganda tactic to make any lie believable by repeating it until other idiots begin believing it is “pure fact.” It is something Republicans, conservative pundits, and Fox News have done to great effect since before Trump. However, Trump has taken it to a new level and it is not, as the DOJ lawyers attempted to portray, that their boss is a complete moron. He is deliberately feeding Fox’s fake news as his “official” news for one specific purpose – to sow doubt and suspicion about the veracity of federal law enforcement officials to portray the Russia investigation as inherently corrupted and therefore illegal.
This DOJ filing document is, or it damn well should be, a major asset for all media outlets to cite every time Trump issues lies about anything, but particularly about federal law enforcement agencies and the Special Counsel’s Russia investigation. It is important to remember that the DOJ’s filing was an administration effort to protect Trump by preventing the release of government documents that would almost certainly prove Trump is a liar regarding the Russia investigation. They may be successful. But even if that is the case, they acknowledge in the judicial record that the Department of Justice knows Trump is not only an uninformed idiot, he is fundamentally conspiring with Fox News to criminalize the FBI to derail the Russia investigation.