Get out while the gettin's good, eh?

 

An important note on the sexual assault allegations against Eric Swalwell

 

I'm guessing that just changed.  Steyer and Porter are undoubtedly in huddles with their campaign staffs.

UPDATE 04/11/2026:

Really, guys?  You want to post this?  If you knew, then why didn't you say something yourself?

UPDATE 04/12/2026:

UPDATE 04/13/2026:

Swalwell wants to be California governor

 

James Comey, Letitia James, Eric Swalwell...

 None of them will go anywhere.  But we're paying for the bullshit.

Who will be next?

Is Kash getting fired?

Fox reports that Kash Patel may be fired soon: “On Monday, former Missouri AG Andrew Bailey will be sworn into a new power-sharing role with Dan Bongino. Bailey’s installment comes at a perilous time for Patel, whose leadership atop the nation’s premier law enforcement agency is under fire, according to 10 sources. The WH’s reasoning to create an unprecedented office for Bailey has not been explained and left FBI leadership confused.”

One source with knowledge of ongoing personnel decisions: "The WH, Bondi, Blanche have no confidence in Kash. Pam in particular cannot stand him. Blanche either.”

“Allies of President Trump and Patel’s harshest critics have begun to circulate word that contingency plans for Patel’s ouster are forming. They also claim his hopeful successor, Andrew Bailey, made clear that he would not leave his post as Missouri’s AG – or abandon his aspirations to run for state governor – only to serve as Patel’s number two. Bailey, who starts at the Bureau on Sept 15th, would be eligible to fill the FBI Director post after he has been employed by the FBI for at least 90 days.”

  Meidas Touch

If it's reported on Fox...

Kash is probably going to get an ambassadorship to somewhere obscure.

“Multiple sources close to Trump acknowledged the president was not thrilled with some past episodes of Patel’s performance – including a public feud with AG Bondi over the admin’s handling of the Epstein case. One senior WH official also framed Patel’s botched communications during the manhunt for Charlie Kirk’s assassin as something Patel likely wished he could do differently, if he could do it all over again.

[...]

Patel was on Fox & Friends this morning trying to defend his erratic behavior during the Kirk investigation: Q - “When you were still looking for the guy you posted ‘we got him’. That ended up not being true. Patel: Could I have worded it a little better in the heat of the moment? Sure.”

I don't know what other words would work for "we got him." Also, should the FBI director be saying or doing anything "in the heat of the moment?"

Jim Jordan’s House Judiciary Committee announced today that it will hold an FBI oversight hearing on Wednesday morning where Kash Patel will testify. Should be interesting.

UPDATE 11:03 am:

 Kash doesn't think he should be questioned.

The question is whether they have any integrity.

Investigating at the behest of the president. Exactly what the FBI is not supposed to be doing.

Thanks, Corey, you just saved his job.

UPDATE 07:33 pm:

Schiff should have shut up earlier and let Patel carry on by himself, instead of joining in the shouting over each other.

UPDATE 09/18/2025:

And here, Republican Thomas Massie shows Patel's insistence the Epstein files do not include other men to whom Epstein trafficked young girls.  Massie has good questions that Patel circumvents as best he can.

In case you don't want to watch these videos in their entirety, here we find out just what Trump doesn't want revealed.  (One of the things.)  Surely someone will make us an AI image depicting these incidents that we can all point and laugh at.

Eric Swalwell is on fire in the Hunter Biden bullshit

Transcript

When will Roger Stone be behind bars?

I assume Jack Smith will charge Stone and any others involved in plotting the insurrection once Trump's trial is over. But since Trump commuted Stone's sentence when he was convicted of obstruction, witness tampering, and lying to Congress by Mueller's Russia probe, it will have to involve separate crimes. I feel certain Stone would fight any charge as double jeopardy, even though Smith's charges would be for plotting the insurrection. Smith would win that one, but it will be a long battle, no doubt. 

Weeks before the 2020 presidential election, infamous political operative Roger Stone sat across from his associate Sal Greco at a restaurant in Florida.

At the time, Greco was an NYPD cop working security for Stone on the side. Their conversation, at Caffe Europa in Fort Lauderdale, focused on two House Democrats for whom Stone harbors particular animosity, Jerry Nadler and Eric Swalwell.

In audio of the conversation obtained exclusively by Mediaite, Stone made threatening comments about the two lawmakers.

“It’s time to do it,” Stone told Greco. “Let’s go find Swalwell. It’s time to do it. Then we’ll see how brave the rest of them are. It’s time to do it. It’s either Nadler or Swalwell has to die before the election. They need to get the message. Let’s go find Swalwell and get this over with. I’m just not putting up with this shit anymore.”

A source familiar with the discussion told Mediate they believed Stone’s remarks were serious. “It was definitely concerning that he was constantly planning violence with an NYPD officer and other militia groups,” the source said.

[...]

Stone was convicted of obstruction, witness tampering, and lying to Congress in the Mueller investigation. Prosecutors sought a nine-year prison sentence for the longtime Republican operative, but Trump’s Justice Department reportedly intervened to impose a less severe sentence. Stone’s sentence was eventually commuted by Trump days before reporting to prison.

The intervention from the Justice Department prompted Aaron Zelinsky, the prosecutor and Mueller deputy who led the case against Stone, to recuse himself from the case in protest. Mediaite reported last week that Stone was caught on tape in December 2020 urging Greco to “punish” Zelinsky.

“He needs to be punished,” Stone told Greco in the audio. “You have to abduct him and punish him. That has to be done. It will be easy to abduct him because he is a weakling.”

Stone denied making those comments, claiming they were generated by AI.

[...]

Greco did not deny the comments.

[...]

Greco, who acted as security for Stone and was with the operative during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol soon after the 2020 election, was fired by the NYPD over his association with Stone.

  Mediaite

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

Tell 'em, Eric

Jesus Tapdancing Christ, Marj

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Thursday took to Twitter to defend Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, who was arrested Thursday over his alleged role in leaking Pentagon files.

“Jake Teixeira is white, male, christian, and antiwar. That makes him an enemy to the Biden regime,” Greene said on Twitter.

“Ask yourself who is the real enemy? A young low level national guardsmen? Or the administration that is waging war in Ukraine, a non-NATO nation, against nuclear Russia without war powers?” the congresswoman added.

  The Hill

You know, without a doubt, if the leaker had an Arab name, or had been black, she would be screaming for his head.

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

UPDATE :

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) slammed Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) over her comments defending Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira.

[...]

“I’m sorry, Marge, being white, male, and Christian is not license to betray your country and put the lives of thousands at risk,” he added. “But this wouldn’t be the first time she sided with traitors.”

  The Hill

UPDATE 12:19 pm: He's a whistleblower! Never mind he only posted on his gaming group site to impress his buddies. I didn't know that's where you're supposed to go to blow the whistle on shady government activity.

And Kyle Rittenhouse was a hero.

UPDATE 04/15/2023:

Members of the Discord group described Teixeira as someone looking to show off rather than being motivated by a desire to inform the public about US military operations or to influence US policy.

The Discord member said he did not believe Teixeira leaked documents to undermine the US government or for an ideological reason.

“If I had to give a gauge on it, it would be more or less just some nerds wanting to glance over some stuff and compare and contrast and kind of have a little joke about it,” he said.

“At the end of the day, I mean we’re just trying to have a fun time.”

  alJazeera

He'll be having lots of fun now. I hear military jail is especially fun.

UPDATE 04/30/2023:  We're learning some interesting things about this guy.  Not to mention the lax background investigations for security clearances.

Of course

And because Swalwell and Schiff were on a "special" committee - intelligence - they didn't even get a vote.  They simply got booted.

And all three were simply payback for the legitimate removals of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Louie Gohmert from committees.

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

Unsurprising

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

Announcing your vindictiveness

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

More coup lawsuits attempting to hold Trump accountable

Three civil lawsuits from lawmakers and Capitol Police officers that seek to hold Donald Trump and his closest advisers accountable for the US Capitol riot are moving forward after months of inaction.

Judge Amit Mehta of the DC District Court has set oral arguments on whether the cases -- which are separate from the congressional or criminal investigations -- should be dismissed for January 10.

[...]

In one complaint that Mehta will consider, former House impeachment manager Rep. Eric Swalwell sued Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani and Republican Rep. Mo Brooks, claiming their speeches on January 6 incited the riot and inflicted emotional distress on members of Congress.

[...]

In another, two US Capitol Police officers sued Trump, claiming he directed his followers to assault them.

In the third lawsuit, Rep. Bennie Thompson and other lawmakers accused Trump and Rudy Giuliani of conspiring with the far-right groups Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to incite the January 6 insurrection. Thompson withdrew from the lawsuit when he became part of the House Select Committee investigating January 6.

  CNN

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

Here's your answer to why the GOP is so against the Jan 6 investigation

They're complicit.

He's not the only one.  Bet on it.

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

UPDATE:

Looking forward to getting some info from this lawsuit, too.

Swalwell sues Trump

Former President Trump, his eldest son and several of his allies were sued on Friday by Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) over their role in the run-up to the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol.

The 65-page complaint filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., accuses Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr., Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani of inciting the riot and violating a number of federal and D.C. laws.

Each defendant was among the speakers at a pro-Trump rally that immediately preceded the deadly Capitol breach.

[...]

The lawsuit seeks unspecified money damages and asks for a court order requiring Trump and his allies to provide at least a week’s notice before holding any future rally in D.C. related to an election.

[...]

Swalwell, a former county prosecutor in California, served as one of the House impeachment managers in the Senate trial.

  The Hill

Clearing up the record

Late in yesterday's impeachment hearing, afater all the Republicans' bullshit ranting, Representative Greg Stanton cleared things up:

Eric Swalwell had done a pretty good job of it earlier, as well:

Mueller testimony

Eric Swalwell (D) presented a slide of the convicted Trump cabal liars:



Asked by Swalwell if the investigation was hampered by encryption and deletion of electronic messages, Mueller replied, "True."  He also agreed that other info protected by attorney-client privilege hampered the investigation.  He won't discuss whether he wanted to subpoena or interview Junior, but he will say he wanted to interview Senior.  Does this indicate there's still an investigation out there that includes Junior? Perhaps a counterintelligence investigation?  That may explain why it seems Junior got off.  Maybe he's not clear yet.  Maybe that's one of the aspects that Mueller's team passed off to another office.*

Will Hurd (R) mimicked Justin Amash's performance in an earlier Congressional hearing in that he actually asked questions designed to get information about intelligence and counterintelligence and what we can do to prevent Russia from interfering again, which is ostensibly why this committee is having this hearing.  Kudos to one more Republican.  Hopefully, he won't be driven out of the Party because of it, as Amash was.  Looking back, I see Hurd has been cross-ways with Trump before:  on the border wall, and on reopening some agencies Trump shut down.

John Ratcliffe (R), who was also on the previous committee and very aggressive there, declined to ask any questions, and tried to look gracious by thanking Mueller, acting like he respects the man.  Even Devin Nunes has been respectful (while his opening statement as Ranking Member was highly critical of the Dems and generally disparaged the Mueller report).

Republicans on both committees brought up the idea that Konstantin Kilimnik, whom Manafort provided polling data to and is characterized in the report as a Russian agent, is actually connected to US intelligence.  That has surely come out before, but I don't recall hearing it (although I may have and just forgot).  Mueller won't comment.  I wonder, if this is true, whether Manafort would have known that, or if he were being played as part of the intelligence scheme/investigation that was already underway when the Special Counsel was appointed.

Peter Welch (D) read out a list of evidence of conspiracy in the Mueller report, which Republicans have been repeatedly saying the report found no evidence of.

Welch asks if accepting information and help from foreign countries is now going to be the new normal.  Mueller says he hopes not, but "I fear it is."  In fact, Trump has said he'd accept it again.

Patrick Maloney (D) asks why Mueller didn't subpoena the president.  He answers they negotiated for over a year to get an interview, but finally, having had no success, they didn't want to subpoena because of the "necessity of expediting the end of the investigation," and that a subpoena would drag it out.  He says the written responses "were not as useful."  Incomplete, inadequate, imprecise, etc.  Maloney asks why it stopped being vital to get the president's interview, something Mueller had claimed when asking for a face-to-face.  Maloney wonders if Mueller didn't think he needed it in the end.  Did you have sufficient evidence without it to show the president's intent to obstruct?  "We had to make a balanced decision....We didn't do the interview because of the length of time it would take," is all Mueller would admit to.

Val Demings (D) asks if they asked all the questions of the president they wanted to, and Mueller says no.  He says he "can't get into" what he thinks of Trump's credibility.  Trump's incomplete answers included those related to the Trump Moscow Project, and he didn't answer follow-up questions.  In fact, there were several questions he didn't answer.  Mueller finally admits that "generally" the president's answers were not always truthful.  And Demings says she finds the fact that Trump was allowed to get away with that "a disgrace" to US law inforcement.

Adam Schiff ends the hearing by asking if Mueller agrees it's unethical to accept help from a foreign government, to which Mueller replies, "And a crime, given certain circumstances."  Schiff's closing comments are much like his opening statement.  "We must take any action necessary to protect the country while [Trump] is in office."  He gave some specifics about what Mueller didn't investigate because it was outside Mueller's purview, so what "we [Congress] must find out."  I think that indicates at the least that they're continuing with various investigations, not necessarily that he thinks they should impeach, although he did mention that as an option.

This was certainly a better showing for the Democrats than the Judiciary Committee hearing.

*  I went back over  Mike Quigley's questioning because Mueller said something was "subject to investigation," but I'd missed what it was.  In fact, it was about Junior.  After establishing Mueller's and the US Intel community's belief that Wikileaks is a "hostile intelligence service," Quigley showed this slide...

...and asked Mueller's reaction.  "Problematic is an understatement...in terms of some  hope, or some boost, to what is and should be illegal activity," he responded.  Then Quigley quotes from the report about Junior having direct contact with Wikileaks during the campaign period.

"On October 16, Wikileaks sent another direct message to Trump Jr. asking 'you guys' to help disseminate a link alleging candidate Clinton had advocated a drone to attack Julian Assange.  Trump Jr responded back he 'had already done so.'  Same question.  Is this behavior, at the very least, disturbing?"  Mueller responds, "Disturbing, and also subject to investigation."

I'd say that's pretty indicative that Junior is still under investigation.  And he's not president.  I wonder who's handling it.  SDNY maybe.

UPDATE:

The worst client ever

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

Nunes has a lot to hide

He has to protect Old Lardass because he himself is dirty.

Just last week, hours before the Republican-led House recessed for six weeks, Nunes broke out his shovel yet again to bury even deeper the evidence of Russian interference, once again demonstrating there’s no distance he won’t go to protect this president.

Nunes and committee Republicans had promised that the American people would see our interview transcripts after the investigation was completed. When they abruptly ended the investigation without calling dozens of relevant witnesses, they voted to conceal the transcripts.

Suddenly, last month, Nunes agreed to release them. Perhaps he was worried about the burgeoning campaign of his Democratic opponent — a local prosecutor named Andrew Janz, whose argument to the voters includes powerful evidence of Nunes’ efforts to poison the Russia investigation.

But predictably, at a hearing last week on releasing the transcripts, Nunes still wouldn’t allow real transparency.

Committee Democrats asked to immediately send the transcripts to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who hasn’t been allowed to see them under Nunes’ rules. There’s good reason to believe many witnesses committed perjury or offered information relevant to the special counsel’s work. But Nunes opposed it, and it was voted down.

  Rep. Eric Swalwell @ Fresno Bee

I really don't understand that. And don't try that at home.

I do think, however, that it's highly unlikely Nunes would have shown the Committee anything that Mueller didn't get in his own investigation.

Committee Democrats then moved to have the transcripts released to the public immediately — after a 10-day intelligence community review — to avoid any selective release or other political manipulation. Again, Nunes opposed this.

Surely that was no surprise. If he wouldn't let the FBI see them, he surely wouldn't want the public to.

Though incomplete due to Republican obstruction, our investigation did reveal worrisome contacts between the Russians and candidate Trump, his family, his businesses, and his campaign. Yet every time we sought to learn more, we were blocked.

We sought to test witnesses’ accounts by subpoenaing third-party records such as cell phone, bank and travel records. Republicans refused to allow it.

To arrange the infamous June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting, Donald Trump Jr. called his Russian contact, then called a blocked number, and then called his Russian contact back. We had evidence from other witnesses that Donald Trump used a blocked number. Republicans refused to pursue whether it was the same number.

Again something I don't understand. Why can't anyone on the committee - or at least a certain threshhold number - call for something to be investigated? Having one man - the majority leader - making the decisions is a recipe for corruption and cover-up.

The Republicans ran a “take them at their word” investigation when most of the Trump team clearly didn’t deserve that benefit of the doubt. So at last week’s hearing, I moved to subpoena many of the records that could fill a lot of the gaps. Nunes nixed it.

Reviewing his plans, we saw a glaring omission: the transcript of Congressman Dana Rohrabacher’s interview. I took part in that lengthy interview and I was disturbed by his contacts with Russia before and during the 2015-16 campaign. So Democrats at our hearing moved to release Rohrabacher’s transcript, plus several others; Nunes killed our effort.

[...]

The Nunes fix was in from the very start. Soon after 2016’s election, as we began to see the breadth of Russia’s interference, I had approached him with an idea: “Let’s have an independent commission look at what the Russians did,” just as we had after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“We can handle this on the committee,” Nunes insisted. I was doubtful, but I never expected that by “handle,” he meant “bury.”

Well, you were very naive. Nunes was on the Trump transition team.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not giving up on Republicans. Many have told me privately that they knew Nunes and Trump were dead wrong, but they wouldn’t speak out for fear of incurring the president’s Twitter wrath. “When he tweets, he wins,” one told me.

Gutless, just as we figured.

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

UPDATE 11/19/19:

It turns out that the Mueller report indicated that, indeed, they were unable to get to the bottom of things because they were blocked, including not being allowed to see certain documents.  The tragedy of it is they stopped the investigation and declined to offer any judgment. 

And now, after Democrats have retaken the House in the 2018 elections, and impeachment hearings are being held against Donald Trump, Nunes is the minority ranking member.  Adam Schiff is in charge, and...turnabout is fair play, I guess.  Nunes is whining that the Republicans are not being allowed to call all the witnesses they want.  When in fact, the one witness they want to call is the whistleblower, whom they keep trying to out. 

The Republican Party is beyond hope.

Twitter war declared over McCabe firing

Attorney General Jeff Sessions's firing of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe Friday night was reminiscent of the "Saturday Night Massacre" during the waning days of the Nixon administration, presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said.

"This'll be known as the 'Friday Night Slaughter,' " Brinkley told CNN. "The very idea that Jeff Sessions hasn't released something to inform the public of what this is, it was done in sort of a cloak of secrecy late at night, bizarre fashion. The fact that he was about to have his pension and they couldn't let it go."

"It's something very cruel and sad that's occurred tonight," he continued. "And I hope our country is going to wake up, I mean, Donald Trump is struggling for his life. He's paranoid, he decided McCabe was too close to Comey, and he decided to get rid of anybody and anything that's standing in his way of kind of survival mode right now."

  The Hill

The timing is definitely nasty. McCabe had stepped down back in January. They had all this time to fire him, and decided to do it at the last possible moment to not only prevent him from getting his pension, but to make that as obvious as possible. Not only is it nasty, it's very childish. But, that's our president. And Sessions, who did the actual dirty work, is no better. Too cowardly and too lacking in morals to refuse.

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

UPDATE: