Today’s articles cover Omarosa’s tapes and claims, Paul Manafort’s trial, more on Qanon, and Donald Trump’s battle with the Mueller investigation.
📙 CBS: Omarosa reveals audio of Trump campaign aides allegedly discussing potential fallout of N-word
Omarosa has a book coming out… today, actually, I think, so she’s been making the rounds on TV, stirring up drama and getting folks interested. She made lots of clandestine recordings of conversations in the White House and with White House staffers, including with Trump.
Also including one in the Situation Room with John Kelly, when she got fired, which is big, bad news because the Sit Room is a SCIF, which means she shouldn’t have had her phone in there, and shouldn’t have been able to get her phone in there.
Anyway, today’s Omarosa news is that she claims she’s heard audio of Trump using the N-word, plus she’s got tape of White House staffers discussing how to deal with it if tape of Trump using the N-word came out.
All I can say to that is… does it matter? We already know Trump is horrifically racist. He proves that in deeds and words daily. This preoccupation with a tape of Trump actually saying the N-word is kind of superfluous at this point. It’s not going to change any minds with his base because they’re also racist and the majority of them won’t shy away from a few N-words. The rest of us already know he’s racist; we don’t need a tape from The Apprentice to prove it.
If you’re curious, the reason the news is hyping this up is because they would make so. much. money. if they could get their hands on such a tape and run with it for a couple of weeks.
Also,
⚖️ ABC News: Manafort trial takes sudden turn as defense rests without calling witnesses
Manafort’s defense has rested. Tomorrow we’ll get closing statements from the defense and prosecution, and then the jury goes into deliberation. I’d expect they’d come back with some guilty verdicts, but who knows.
🤔 NBC News: How three conspiracy theorists took ‘Q’ and sparked Qanon
I hope it doesn’t surprise you to realize that Qanon got popular because a small handful of people who were good at Internet marketing started promoting it in order to make money off it by scamming conspiracy theory rubes out of donations.
⚖️ Washington Post: the Plum Line: As Trump keeps raging at Mueller, another poll shows his lies are failing
Trump froths about Mueller, shoveling his BS and demanding an end to the investigation, just like innocent people don’t. Meanwhile, we all worry that other people are buying Trump’s trash. A new poll from CNN says that they aren’t, though, so that’s something.
⚖️ Politico: Trump muscles for end to Mueller probe after Strzok’s firing
And speaking of, since FBI agent Peter Strzok (the text message guy) just got fired, Trump’s been ratcheting up his calls to end the Mueller investigation. Quick reminder: the FBI and Mueller investigations did not being due to Strzok, Strzok’s texts, or the Christopher Steele dossier. They began because the FBI had credible information from unrelated sources indicating that the Trump campaign might be conspiring with Russia.
Notes & Thoughts 