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Politico reported on Sunday that Donald Trump would formally request that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI had “infiltrated or surveilled” his 2016 campaign. They’re wrong. Trump didn’t “request” anything, formally or informally. Trump demanded that the DOJ take action against his political opponents—even if doing so mean taking actions against the former president of the United States for the crime of attempting to protect the nation. Trump’s despotic edict came at the end of a series of Sunday tweets in which Trump managed to squeeze at least eleven lies into five statements as part of what might be his most unhinged, and undemocratic, performance to date.
Trump vastly exaggerated the cost of the Trump–Russia investigation, misrepresented the political affiliation of those involved, and continued to insist that the investigation has found no collusion with the Russian government—a conclusion that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has definitely not announced. Trump then pivoted into deflection, tossing on lies about the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton and former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. It was at the end of this lengthy rant that Trump made his demand that the DOJ take up arms against his political foes.
The trigger behind this fresh step toward authoritarian rule came after the New York Times reported that the infamous meeting at Trump Tower in which Donald Trump Jr. hosted Russian agents eager to help Trump’s campaign, was only one of a set of meetings. Trump Jr. also hosted representatives from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, whose offers to assist the Trump campaign seem entirely non-coincidentally connected to Trump’s later support of the astonishing blockade of US ally, Qatar. While Michael Cohen’s Essential Consultants may have served as a clearinghouse for plain-old bribes, it now appears that the Trump campaign was also selling influence at much higher levels, for much higher numbers.
On Monday, Trump began the morning with a series of tweets on trade, then abruptly turned in what seemed like an inexplicable direction, attacking former CIA director John Brennan in a series of tweets. The reason appears to be that Brennan is one of many who called out Trump on Sunday, appealing to Republican leadership in Congress to take action. But while Trump immediately struck back, Republican leadership continues to do what it has done for the last year—nothing. Or at least, nothing but support Trump.
The signs that Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell are taking any action to limit Trump’s massive overreach are nonexistent. Ryan has made no statement since Trump’s “demand.” While Mitch McConnell’s last action seems to be a plot to keep Democrats parked in D.C. so they can’t return to their home states and campaign.
But Trump, dutifully watching Fox News, provided a transcription service for what is now the “proof” that the CIA was also part of the conspiracy against Trump.
Bogino is a three-time-losing Republican candidate whose claim to fame is that he was once a Secret Service agent and leaked multiple tales that not only breached the service’s protocol, but have been denied by others. But he’s now apparently the greatest authority on … the CIA. And an investigation that doesn’t include the CIA. Which started before there even was a “dossier.”