What did Sergio Gor do wrong?

 And did we not have an ambassador to India?

There will be no justice

At the same time that Rep. Mike Rogers was on Fox lobbying for why he should be Trump’s FBI Director, Dan Scavino was posting this: “Just spoke to Trump regarding Mike Rogers going to the FBI. It’s not happening. In his own words, ‘I have never even given it a thought.’ Not happening.”

  Meidas Plus

Trump thrills to humiliating people.

Which is funny because yesterday Texas AG Ken Paxton was on Steve Bannon’s show making his case for why he should be Trump’s AG while Trump was announcing Pam Bondi.

[...]

CNN is reporting that Trump will task his new DOJ with conducting an investigation into whether the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Let me edit that to be more accurate: Trump will task his new DOJ with conducting an investigation with a conclusion that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Bondi happens to be the sister of the lawyer who represented Musk and Tesla when he was charged with securities fraud by the SEC. Expect that ongoing investigation to also be shut down as soon as Bondi takes over at DOJ. As I’ve pointed out many times, there is A LOT that Musk gets from the government, but he wants a WHOLE LOT more.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Some of the testimony you can expect in the Trump DC trial

Special counsel Jack Smith's team has uncovered previously undisclosed details about former President Donald Trump's refusal to help stop the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol three years ago as he sat watching TV inside the White House.

[...]

In April 2022, the House held Scavino in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena seeking testimony in the congressional investigation, after Scavino cited executive privilege. The Justice Department ultimately declined to charge him in that matter, but last year -- after a monthslong court battle -- a federal judge ruled that Scavino had to comply with a grand jury subpoena from Smith's team.

A federal judge similarly ruled that, despite any claims related to executive privilege, Meadows, Cipollone, Philbin and Luna also had to comply with Smith's subpoenas for testimony.

[...]

Many of the exclusive details come from the questioning of Trump's former deputy chief of staff, Dan Scavino, who first started working for Trump as a teenager three decades ago and is now a paid senior adviser to Trump's reelection campaign. Scavino wouldn't speak with the House select committee that conducted its own probe related to Jan. 6, but -- after a judge overruled claims of executive privilege last year -- he did speak with Smith's team, and key portions of what he said were described to ABC News.

[...]

Scavino told Smith's investigators that as the violence began to escalate that day, Trump "was just not interested" in doing more to stop it.

[...]

Scavino recalled telling Trump in a phone call the night of Jan. 6: "This is all your legacy here, and there's smoke coming out of the Capitol."

[...]

Sources also said former Trump aide Nick Luna told federal investigators that when Trump was informed that then-Vice President Mike Pence had to be rushed to a secure location, Trump responded, "So what?"

[...]

Trump didn't seem to care that Pence had to be moved to a secure location. Trump showed he was "capable of allowing harm to come to one of his closest allies" at the time, Luna told investigators.

[...]

[W]hat sources now describe to ABC News are the assessments and first-hand accounts of several of Trump's own advisers who stood by him for years -- and were among the few to directly engage with him throughout that day.

Along with Scavino and Luna, that small group included then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone, and Cipollone's former deputy, Pat Philbin.

[...]

At times, Trump just sat silently at the head of the table, with his arms folded and his eyes locked on the TV.

[...]

After unsuccessfully trying for up to 20 minutes to persuade Trump to release some sort of calming statement, Scavino and others walked out of the dining room, leaving Trump alone, sources said. That's when, according to sources, Trump posted a message on his Twitter account saying that Pence "didn't have the courage to do what should have been done."

[...]

Aside from Trump, Scavino was the only other person with access to Trump's Twitter account, and he was often the one actually posting messages to it, so when the message about Pence popped up, Cipollone and another White House attorney raced to find Scavino, demanding to know why he would post that in the midst of such a precarious situation, sources said.

Scavino said he was as blindsided by the post as they were, insisting to them, "I didn't do it."

[...]

Scavino told them he has yet to be shown any evidence of fraud that would have changed the outcome of the election. As ABC News has previously reported, sources said other loyal aides to Trump, including Meadows, allegedly provided similar statements about the 2020 election when speaking to Smith's team.

[...]

[B]efore Congress reconvened to finish its vote certifying the 2020 election -- Cipollone called Trump, relaying what a "horrible day" it had been and urging Trump to tell Republican allies in Congress that they should withdraw any objections to the certification so the country could move on, sources said.

Instead, Trump again declined to act, telling Cipollone, "I don't want to do that."

  MSN

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE :04:51 pm

According to Scavino's testimony,"[m]ore than a half-hour after Trump was first pressed to take some sort of action, Trump finally let Scavino post" that on Trump's Twitter account.

UPDATE 01/08/2024:

Just over three years since rioters stormed the Capitol and targeted him, former Vice President Mike Pence pushed back against the theory popularized by former President Donald Trump and members of his MAGA base that the FBI was responsible for the Jan. 6 insurrection.

“I’ve heard the many repeated assurances from the FBI that they were not involved, and I take them at their word,” Pence said during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sunday.

[...]

“And frankly I’m very grateful for the efforts of the FBI to bring nearly a thousand people to justice who ransacked our Capitol and did violence against police officers that day.”

“I believe everyone that conducted that riot at the Capitol needs to be held to the fullest extent of the law. I’m pleased that many have,” Pence added.

  Politico

Ellis and Powell proffer videos

ABC News has obtained portions of videos of the proffer sessions of both [Jenna] Ellis and Sidney Powell, two attorneys who aided Trump's efforts to overturn the election.

[...]

Ellis, in her proffer session, informed prosecutors that senior Trump White House official Dan Scavino told her "the boss" would refuse to leave the White House despite losing the election, and alluded to two other instances she said were "relevant" to prosecutors -- but appeared to be prevented from disclosing those in the video portions obtained by ABC News due to attorney-client privilege, which hindered portions of her proffer.

Powell, meanwhile, explained to prosecutors her plans for seizing voting machines nationwide and claimed that she frequently communicated with Trump during her efforts to overturn the 2020 election -- though both now claim she was never his attorney.

[...]

[She said Scavino told her] in response to her apologizing over the lack of success with their election challenges in court, culminating with a Supreme Court loss that indicated their ability to challenge the election "was essentially over."

[...]

"And he said to me, in a kind of excited tone, 'Well, we don't care, and we're not going to leave,'" Ellis said of the alleged Dec. 19 conversation with Scavino. "And I said, 'What do you mean?' And he said 'Well, the boss', meaning President Trump -- and everyone understood 'the boss,' that's what we all called him -- he said, 'The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power.'"


Ellis continued, "And I said to him, 'Well, it doesn't quite work that way, you realize?' and he said, 'We don't care.'"
[...]

"Assuming Ms. Ellis testifies consistently at trial, her testimony about the Scavino conversation would help the State prove its allegation that the former President conspired with others to unlawfully change the result of the election," said [former Georgia prosecutor Chris Timmons] Timmons. "But that evidence is not a 'kill shot' in that it didn't come directly from the former President."

  ABC

I wonder what the kill shot is, and I wonder how ABC got these "portions" of the videos.

Powell reiterated the false assertion that Trump won the election -- but acknowledged in the video that she didn't know much about election law to begin with.

[...]

Powell described in her proffer interview being in close and repeated contact with then-President Trump, claiming that she frequently received calls from Trump asking for updates on their efforts to overturn the election

[...]

Trump, said Powell, "was specifically willing to appoint me special counsel" -- a move that would have granted her substantial legal powers. "In fact, he looked over at [White House Counsel Pat] Cipollone three different times and said, 'Do I have the authority to name her special counsel?' and Cipollone said, 'Yes, you do,'" she said in the video.

"And then somebody said, 'Well, she doesn't have a security clearance,'" Powell said. "So he looked at Cipollone and he said, 'Do I have the authority to give her a security clearance?' and Cipollone said, 'Yes, you do.'

[...]

"I called Mark Meadows the next morning just to run it to ground, and said, 'Hey, when can I come pick up my badge and my key?'" Powell said. "He essentially laughed -- I mean he said, you know, 'It's not going to happen.'"

[...]

[Powell] told prosecutors that she never heard Trump concede that he lost the election even after being told by key aides that he had. Instead, she said he was following "instincts" that he won.

[...]

Powell said she was present when multiple advisers told him he had lost, and prosecutors pressed Powell over why the president followed her advice instead of his other advisers.

"Because I didn't think he had lost," Powell replied, later saying, "I saw an avenue pursuant to which, if I was right, he would remain president."

[...]

"That information would be helpful for the defense in that it bolsters a defense that the former president thought he was acting lawfully," [Timmons said].

UPDATE 08:54 am:

[See update at 1:06 pm below* for information on the protective order issue.]

The Post got recordings from four people, Ellis and Powell, and Ken Chesebro and Scott Hall.  Story here.  Post here.

*UPDATE 01:06 pm:

Willis and her team originally requested a protective order over evidence in the case on Sept. 27.

[...]

During a hearing in the case last month, before Powell, Chesebro and Ellis entered guilty pleas, McAfee asked about the status of that proposed protective order and a defense attorney for Chesebro said the order was still being negotiated between prosecutors and the numerous defense attorneys on the case.

  WaPo

Well that's not good. But at least it wasn't the judge, and therefore not mistrial fodder. It could be, however, that the judge's question served as a reminder to one of the participants (defense, I presume) that there was still time to leak.

“These confidential video recordings were not released by the State to any party other than the defendants charged in the indictment, pursuant to the discovery process as required by law,” the filing said. “The release of these confidential video recordings is clearly intended to intimidate witnesses in this case, subjecting them to harassment and threats prior to trial, constitutes indirect communication about the facts of this case with codefendants and witnesses, and obstructs the administration of justice, in violation of the conditions of release imposed on each defendant.”

Prosecutors said they would no longer share “confidential video recordings of proffers” to any defense attorneys involved in the case and said they must view those statements in person at the district attorney’s office. “They may take notes, but they will be prohibited from creating any recordings or reproductions.”

[...]

Steve Sadow, the lead Georgia attorney for Trump, emailed prosecutors saying the leak of the recordings did not come from him or another co-counsel on the case and asked prosecutors if someone in the district attorney’s office disclosed it to the media.

“The State had nothing to do with leaking any information to the media!” Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor and lead government attorney on the case, replied.

An attorney for Harrison Floyd, a Trump ally charged for his alleged role in the harassment of election worker Ruby Freeman, replied to the chain on Tuesday morning, writing, “It was Harrison Floyd’s team.” Prosecutors said in the filing Floyd’s attorney later said that statement was a typo and Floyd’s team had not shared the information with the media.

Panel video here.

Executive privilege rejected for more than attorney Corcoran

These rejections by Judge Howell indicates she believes the DOJ has presented credible evidence that there are underlying crimes, forfeiting the claim of executive privilege.  Corcoran's testimony is for the classified documents case; these guys are for the insurrection case.

DONALD TRUMP’S CLAIMS of “executive privilege” will not block key administration deputies from testifying before the federal grand jury investigating the former president for his campaign to overturn the results of the 2020 election and his role in the bloody events of Jan. 6.

As reported by ABC and CNN, a federal judge has dismissed Trump’s bid to prevent Special Counsel Jack Smith from questioning White House witnesses about their former boss. Judge Beryl Howell issued the decision in a sealed order last week.

The judicial order, per the reports, paves the way for Smith to compel testimony from top Trump deputies and loyalists including:

- Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff
- Dan Scavino, Trump’s social media maven
- Stephen Miller, the far-right Trump adviser and speechwriter
- John Ratcliffe, the ex Director of National Intelligence
- Ken Cuccineli, a former top Homeland Security official

  Rolling Stone

All of them know where all the bodies are buried. I suppose they will most often take the 5th. I'll be interested in seeing where it all goes, particularly if any of them are then targeted for prosecution.

And, of course, we have to go through appeals first.

The former president is predictably pissed. “The DOJ is continuously stepping far outside the standard norms in attempting to destroy the long accepted, long held, Constitutionally based standards of attorney-client privilege and executive privilege,” a Trump spokesperson told ABC in a statement that also alleged: “There is no factual or legal basis or substance to any case against President Trump. The deranged Democrats and their comrades in the mainstream media are corrupting the legal process and weaponizing the justice system in order to manipulate public opinion, because they are clearly losing the political battle.”

Clearly they are not. 

....but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Getting to the bottom of it

If (when?) the DOJ indicts, they intend to have their case tightened down to within an inch of its life.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

DOJ's complex contempt decisions

The Department of Justice will not charge former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino with contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the Jan. 6 probe in the House, U.S. Attorney Matt Graves reportedly told House general counsel Doug Letter on Friday.

The decision is notably at odds with the House's recommendation on the matter, Politico writes.

In a statement, Jan. 6 select committee Chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) described the DOJ's choice as "puzzling." "We hope the department provides greater clarity on this matter," they continued.

The decision arrived hours after it was revealed that another ex-Trump adviser — Peter Navarro — had been charged with contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a committee subpoena. That said, however, unlike Scavino and Meadows, "Navarro openly defied the committee's request and made no attempt to negotiate terms to comply," CNN writes. Plus, the subpoenas of Meadows and Scavino were complicated.

  The Week

Both officials served in high-level positions in the Trump West Wing and thus had more compelling cases for claiming executive privilege. Each also made an effort to cooperate with the committee at different points in its investigation. Meadows notably handed over thousands of pages of documents, including text messages that have become an important part of the committee's work.

[...]

An attorney familiar with the Meadows and Scavino cases told CNN they were not surprised by the Justice Department's decision. They argued that both men had engaged the committee, and that unlike Navarro and Steve Bannon, who have both been indicted [Bannon trial date is July 16], Scavino and Meadows had serious claims of privilege.

[...]

The decision by the Justice Department is a blow to the House panel's efforts to enforce subpoenas related to its investigation and could embolden other Trump associates facing similar requests to not cooperate.

  CNN

Well, no shit.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Offensive and inappropriate

Scavino and Trump have this on their Twitter accounts.  This is his visit to Dayton, Ohio, in the wake of the mass killing there. 

Doesn't everybody look happy?  Party time! 



Unbelievable.  Hospital staff, too.  Thumbs up.  Grins and backslaps.  Selfies.  Have you no sense of propriety?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

He has a digital strategy director - you'd never know it

The president turns to his digital strategy director for validation of his policies on everything from immigration to troop levels in Syria.

Shortly after President Donald Trump announced plans to yank U.S. troops out of Syria last December, a group of lawmakers came to the White House to talk him out of the idea, which critics called a threat to national security.

Trump responded by calling in the man who oversees his Twitter account.

“Get Dan Scavino in here,” Trump called out in the middle of the meeting earlier this year.

[...]

“Tell them how popular my policy is,” Trump instructed Scavino, who, according to two people with knowledge of the exchange, proceeded to walk lawmakers through the positive reaction he had picked up on social media about Trump’s Syria decision.

[...]

It was a remarkable moment given that not long ago Scavino was managing Trump’s golf club.

  Politico

Christ.

With few allies left in the West Wing, Trump frequently leans on his unassuming social media guru for affirmation and advice about how his most sensitive policies will be received.

Let me guess: Politico is FAKE NEWS!

Scavino met Trump as a 16-year-old golf caddie and has spent much of his adult life by his side. Today, he sits just feet from the Oval Office and is present at most meetings, tapping away on his laptop in the background. He has joined Trump on trips to Saudi Arabia, Argentina and other far-flung destinations.

And officials say he talks to the president more than just about anybody else aside from Trump’s own family members, ping-ponging in and out of the Oval, sometimes more than a half-dozen times a day. Aides wanting a read on Trump’s mood often check in with Scavino, who can be counted on to know.

[...]

As he did in the meeting about Syria, Scavino routinely provides rationalizations or justifications for the president’s most controversial policy directives, from his attacks on NFL players to his hard line on immigration — moves that Scavino has told the president thrill the #MAGA warriors on Twitter.

Trump's butt boy.

As Trump embarks on his reelection campaign, Scavino is the last of four completely trusted original insiders currently still at his side. Gone are his former bodyguard and sidekick Keith Schiller; communications director Hope Hicks; and body man John McEntee.

But most important is his role as caretaker of Trump’s explosive Twitter feed, which both rallies the president’s supporters and drives Washington’s daily news cycles.

[...]

The president has cycled through five communications directors since taking office, including the recently departed former Fox News executive Bill Shine, and has finally concluded he doesn’t need one, according to associates. He has himself — and Scavino.

So does Scavino have some responsibility for that poor quality, poor taste Air Force 1 video?

“Oftentimes, I’ll go through Dan,” Trump said. “You know, I’ll talk it over. And he can really be a very good sounding board. A lot of common sense. He’s got a good grasp.”

Not good enough.

“When I was running, I knew that Hillary had 28 people — and I had Dan. ... They used to say that we ran an unsophisticated campaign. And after we won, they said we ran one of the most sophisticated campaigns ever,” Trump said.

Yes, he's talking about those voices in his head.

Some who have witnessed Scavino’s interactions with the president up close say he is constantly reassuring Trump and regaling him with data points about how beloved he is.

[...]

“It’s this overt gushing to the president,” a former White House official said, adding that he recalls thinking, “Is Dan serious? Does he really feel that way?”

Yet it’s Scavino’s validation of the president that gives him influence. During his frequent visits to the Oval Office, conversations with the president on Air Force One or pull-asides in the president’s private study, Trump asks Scavino for feedback on a range of subjects, pressing him about how his tweets are playing, whether his policies are popular and what he thinks about potential administration hires, aides said.

[...]

Exactly how Trump’s tweets get made is a closely held secret inside the White House. But White House officials and even the president himself acknowledge that Scavino’s fingerprints can be found all over Trump’s feed.

Asked directly whether Scavino helps write his tweets, Trump said, “Generally, I’ll do my tweets myself,” but he allowed that his aide helps shape his missives “on occasion.”

[...]

It was Scavino who devised the “Game of Thrones”-themed motif that has repeatedly appeared in White House messaging in recent months, including a presidential tweet aimed at Iran last fall that featured an image of Trump with the words “Sanctions are Coming.”

Dear God. So, I'm guessing Scavino really is a believer. He's obviously still a teenage caddie.

He also worked with Trump to preplan one of the president’s first public responses to the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, according to two administration officials. The April 18 tweet, timed to post minutes after Attorney General William Barr wrapped up his news conference about the report, declared: “No collusion. No obstruction. For the haters and the radical left Democrats — Game Over.”

That tweet also borrowed its font from the hit HBO series — never mind that the network objected in a statement last November that it “would prefer our trademark not be misappropriated for political purposes.”

[...]

“He has a knack for phrasing things in a way that can drive news cycles,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “Corporations pay people millions of dollars to break through on social media like that.”

The other imbecile in the room.

The White House has created a separate review process for tweets that don’t originate from Trump or Scavino. Staffers propose a tweet, circulate it for feedback and then send it to Scavino, who sometimes “Trumps it up” before getting the president’s approval, according to a former White House official. Scavino has spent so much time around the president that he is an expert mimic of Trump’s speech patterns and predilections.

“He does a better a job at channeling Trump than anyone,” another former White House official said. (Sometimes, tweets deemed too hot even for Trump’s feed are posted on Scavino’s personal account.)

No, I'm not willing to monitor his Twitter shit, too.

Scavino’s own Twitter account, which has more than 368,000 followers, has become a home for the many behind-the-scenes videos and photos that Scavino takes on his travels alongside Trump, which often give him a better vantage point than journalists.

Don't care. Still not going there. Monitoring His Lardship's Twitter is nauseating enough.

“He’s somebody who the president knows has no personal motivation. He’s not doing this for himself,” said Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser.

That's how he's still there.  Actually, staying there IS his personal motivation.

His personal Twitter feed also displays a combative, populist sensibility virtually indistinguishable from Trump’s. When the president was feuding with MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski in 2017, Scavino tweeted, “#DumbAsARockMika and lover #JealousJoe are lost, confused & saddened since @POTUS @realDonaldTrump stopped returning their calls! Unhinged.”

God. Trump's lickspittle.

At the start of Trump’s presidency, White House officials took much greater pains to contain his rapid-fire tweeting. Scavino would present Trump with several draft tweets to choose from every morning that would allow Trump "a release valve," according to a person close to the president. The president circled the tweets he liked, and Scavino would send out the ones that he picked.

That setup didn’t last long, this person said. Trump "wasn’t feeling the actual euphoria of typing the tweet himself and … then within 15 seconds seeing it blasted on one of the cable shows.”

[...]

In his interview with POLITICO, Trump dismissed persistent rumors that Scavino might leave the White House.

“I would hope he’ll stay for another six years and maybe another four after that and then another four after that,” Trump said, adding that he only jokes about extending his term to drive the media crazy.

Mmm-hmmm. Sure.

Aides say Trump regularly complains about losing followers in what he suspects is politically motivated censorship of conservatives — but which Twitter attributes to a recent crackdown on spam accounts.

Trump confronted Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey about the matter in an Oval Office meeting last month. Seated beside Dorsey was Dan Scavino.

[...]

Trump often asks Scavino to tell visitors how many followers he has on social media — insisting that his aide tally followers across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other platforms, instead of just Twitter, where former President Barack Obama dwarfs Trump’s follower count of 60 million by more than 45 million.

“How many people do I have?” Trump asked Scavino during the Syria meeting earlier this year with lawmakers, referring to his follower count.

Jesus wept.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump's presidency is hard on marriages

First Don Junior, now Dan Scavino.  I was wondering who would be next.

The wife of White House social media director Dan Scavino has filed for divorce, according to The Huffington Post.

Jennifer Scavino filed for divorce in January in Duchess County, N.Y., according to court documents and records obtained by the news outlet.

[...]

Scavino played a major role in President Trump's 2016 campaign and is one of his closest aides.

He has also withstood a series of staff shakeup at the White House.

The social media director, for the most part, has avoided being in the headlines.

  The Hill

No doubt that's one of the reasons he still has his job. You don't keep your job if you get more attention than His Lordship.

I don't know whether the tension involved is what's getting to these people, but there's a chance - perhaps a very good one - that the impending legal expenses and probable freezing of assets impels them to attempt to protect their finances by agreeing to turn over large amounts of wealth to their spouses via divorce. If so, their spouses could be forgiven for making off with it altogether and leaving the assholes penniless.

Eric's wife, take a hint.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Making it up as they go

Dowd told NBC News that he drafted the tweet and then sent it to White House Social Media Director Dan Scavino to publish. When asked for the original email he sent to Scavino, Dowd said he dictated it orally.

  NBC

Okay, fine. Let's see the ID for the device that posted the tweet, and if it's not Trump's phone, THEN I'll believe Trump didn't do it himself.

Furthermore, if Dowd had any liar's sense, he'd then blame the tweet on Scavino, saying he misheard or misprinted what Dowd said. Numbnuts.

And how does Dan feel about being dragged into this?

Jesus, they're gonna have to build a new jail facility to hold all these people.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Ummmmm.....Fake News?

Thos posts are from NBC News and Raw Story.  They should know better.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Fake News from the White House About "Fake News" New York Times

Dan Scavino, the White House director of social media, [falsely] tweeted that I [disclosed the name of a covert CIA officer.]

[...]

To give Scavino the benefit of the doubt, I asked the C.I.A. spokesman to set him straight. I also rebutted his claim on Twitter, emailed and left messages with him on his private number, and wrote the new communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, at his personal email address.

No acknowledgment. No response. The tweet has not been deleted. The C.I.A. has not publicly corrected the record. The White House is knowingly allowing Scavino’s falsehood to stand.

[...]

One judges a liar less by the whoppers he tells than by the fibs — by his willingness to live outside the truth even when the advantages of doing so are almost negligible. Scavino’s failure to correct the record on something as minute as my exchange with Pompeo suggests he’ll lie about anything. And this is the guy who stands at the heart of the Trump administration’s social media operation — the most demagogic enterprise of our time.

[...]

Every administration has a few sulfuric personalities. This one bubbles over and erupts with them, like a fetid geyser at Yellowstone.

[...]

The United States Office of Special Counsel has already warned Scavino that he violated the 1939 Hatch Act in April by engaging in “prohibited political activity.” If Anthony Scaramucci is serious about cleaning house in his new shop, dismissing Scavino should be a priority.

  Bret Stephens @ NYT

That won't happen. Here's the story of this Scavino lie.  (And I have to wonder why CIA Director Mike Pompeo said he didn't know the name Phil Agee. Could it be he really didn't?)

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

On What Planet?

Old Lard Ass doesn't personally manage this Twitter account, but rather minion Dan Scavino. Still, OLA is responsible for it, and once in a while retweets from it to the one he does on his own.

What gangs and cartels are flooding our country?  And which of our cities have been turned into "warzones"?

I've been seeing lots of stories of law-abiding family men being deported lately, but I have yet to see one where a criminal alien was even harassed, much less deported.

Scavino gets tough with more than just gangs and cartels.

Even the picture chosen to place on the account is tough, eh?

Here's the avatar on OLA's personal Twitter account.

Not so tough.  Slightly prissy.  Still frowny.  Or is that squinty?  Does he need glasses?

Speaking of Minion Scavino, he seems to have made it past an earlier allegation of violating the Hatch Act. At least for now.

The alleged violation centers around a tweet that Trump senior adviser Dan Scavino made Saturday when he labeled Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) a “liability” and called on him to be primaried in next year’s congressional elections.

Scavino was lashing out at Amash for being a member of the House Freedom Caucus, the conservative wing of the House that the Trump administration has been bashing after their recent failure to pass health care reform. But according to Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor who served as the chief ethics lawyer for the Bush White House from 2005 to 2007, Scavino violated federal law with the tweet.

[...]

Painter was referencing the fact that Scavino’s personal Twitter account features an avatar of him in the Oval Office — essentially a representation of him as a government official.

[...]

The Hatch Act is a law passed under former President Franklin Roosevelt that prevents all federal government employees — with exceptions to the president, vice president and certain other high-ranking political offices — from using their positions in the government to influence or sway elections.

[...]

“This is use of official position to influence an election. Look at the photo and description underneath.

[...]

“Ethics 101- You can’t put official titles and WH photos all over your “personal” Twitter page and use it for partisan politics. Hatch Act,” he added.

  The Blaze

Apparently you can. It's a brave new world.