When the mainstream media fawned over the Obama administration, I was glad to have the conservative media as an alternative because much of the criticism was pointed and thoughtful. But now that we have an administration I usually agree with on policy led by a president who is, at best, a deeply flawed man, I find the cable coverage almost completely useless. Much of the opposition to Trump is unhinged — though, having had some time to reflect on it, the natural impulse of Trump critics to conflate policy disagreements with personal revulsion over Trump’s character is, if not excusable, at least understandable. Even Trump fans (and there are many we’ve visited with in California) tend to temper their praise with grumbling over the president’s antics. Meanwhile, much of conservative media sounds eerily like the mainstream media during the administration of Bill Clinton, even as comparisons to that deeply flawed man have become the leitmotif of Trump apologia.
.. It is simply not a defense of Trump to argue that Clinton did worse. President Clinton, as Fox commentators were wont to remind viewers not so long ago, was not impeached over sexual improprieties. He was impeached over illegal and unethical actions taken to cover up sexual improprieties, the untimely revelation of which might have cost him the presidency. Parading out Juanita Broderick and Paula Jones as a reminder of how bad Clinton was, and how indifferent the media was to how bad Clinton was, does not improve Trump’s perilous position. In the mid-to-late Nineties, we on the right full-throatedly argued that Clinton was unfit for office not merely because of the tawdry behavior (though that certainly was relevant), but because of the fraudulent abuses undertaken to conceal the tawdry behavior, some of which involved actionable misconduct.
.. the lesson from Clinton’s impeachment that I tried to draw in Faithless Execution: The further removed misconduct is from the core responsibilities of the presidency, the less political support there will be for the president’s removal from office.
.. A lot of the commentary about Clifford is of the all-or-nothing variety: Staunch Trump critics believe her every word; staunch Trump defenders reject her in toto. In nearly 20 years as a prosecutor, dealing with countless witnesses of suspect character, I learned that things rarely work that way.
.. There appears to be no doubt at this point that: (a) Cohen paid Clifford $130,000 for her silence; (b) the payment came on the eve of an election that Trump appeared to have little chance of winning and won by the narrowest of margins, meaning disclosure would likely have been fatal; and (c) the agreement went to absurd lengths to obfuscate Trump’s involvement, including the use of pseudonyms for Trump (Dennis Denniston) and Clifford (Peggy Peterson) and the use of an obscure Delaware company (Essential Consultants LLC) as a vehicle to make the payment. Even though Cohen has risibly claimed that he paid Clifford on his own accord, with no involvement by his client (Trump) or the Trump organization, at least two Trump lawyers (Cohen and Jill Martin) have been involved in the energetic legal efforts to keep Clifford silent — efforts that President Trump has now formally joined.
.. it does not matter that one may not be a fan of the campaign-finance laws — they are the law, and as we’ve seen, they can be enforced by criminal prosecution. It does not matter that one may not be a fan of the special-counsel appointment of Robert Mueller — he is the prosecutor, and it is a commonplace for prosecutors, and especially quasi-independent prosecutors, to investigate crimes that are disconnected from the original rationale for the investigation (compare, e.g., Kenneth Starr’s shift from Whitewater to the Lewinsky scandal in the investigation of President Clinton).
Longtime NR Friends John Bolton and Larry Kudlow Head to the White House
Correct. Trump is really good at “driving a media agenda.” He takes bold, beyond-the-Overton-window positions; he gets combative in interviews, he insults critics, he insists solutions are simple and that only a conspiracy of the malevolent and foolish stands in the way of enacting them.
.. I used to joke that Bill Clinton was the only guy who could distract attention from a fundraising scandal by getting into a sex scandal.
.. Trump figured out how to overload the system, generating so many headline-grabbing surprises, controversies and personnel changes that few if any really had the time to leave a lasting impression.
.. just during a couple months in the campaign, we saw Trump contending that a federal judge couldn’t rule fairly because “he’s a Mexican;” mock Carly Fiorina’s face; get into a war of words with a slain soldier’s father. Any one of those would have defined and politically destroyed a lesser-known figure.
.. Think about how Obama and the Democrats spent almost all of 2009 and a chunk of 2010 focused on what became Obamacare. But the amount of consistent focus — and presidential persuasion — needed to pass a legislative agenda is completely different from the amount needed to dominate a news cycle.
Every time it seems the president has zeroed in on an issue, and appears determined to see it through — guns and immigration are just the two latest examples — he moves on to something else. And Congress, which isn’t designed to respond swiftly to national events and the wishes of the White House even in the least distracted of circumstances, simply can’t keep up.
The constant whiplash of priorities is getting on lawmakers’ nerves.
“It’s unbelievable to me,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). “The attention span just seems to be. . . it’s a real problem.”
Donald Trump’s Real Porn-Star Problem
Remember the Clinton scandals. They provoked no decisive legal thunderbolt but a series of agonizing, consequential defeats.
It’s happening again.
.. If you want to talk about foreign influence on elections, the funneling of Chinese money into the 1996 Clinton presidential campaign is still stunning, even these many years later.
.. If the Clinton wing of the Democratic party is honest with itself, it has to understand the price it paid for its corruption. In 2000, the Democrats lost a presidential election they should have won. After all, in a previous time of peace and prosperity, the Republicans got three terms, even when the vice president wasn’t half the political talent that Ronald Reagan was. In 2000, America was on an economic roll, there was an actual budget surplus, and the threat of jihad was barely on the national radar screen. Yet Gore felt as if he had to distance himself from Clinton. He had to distance himself from the drama.
.. she lost a general-election campaign to the most disliked politician in the history of favorability ratings of presidential candidates.
.. While it may well be the case (though I’m skeptical) that some sort of climactic scandal will topple Trump, I think it’s far more likely that he’ll live the way he’s always lived — the way the Clintons always lived — doing what he wants, when he wants, as a phalanx of lawyers clean up his mess and a squadron of associates and allies take the fall.
Stormy Daniels Lawsuit Opens Door to Further Trouble for Trump
As any longtime legal hand in the capital remembers well, it was a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by an Arkansas state employee, Paula Jones, against Bill Clinton that led to his impeachment for lying about his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky.
.. The case of the adult film actress, Stephanie Clifford, who uses the stage-name Stormy Daniels, may not get past even the first considerable obstacles. But if her court case proceeds, Mr. Trump and his longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, may have to testify in depositions
.. Ms. Clifford’s agreement with Mr. Cohen stipulated that they would resolve disputes in the confidential arbitration proceedings. Assuming she does not blink — and her lawyer has said she won’t — it will fall to a judge in Los Angeles, where the suit was filed, to decide whether to compel Ms. Clifford to return to arbitration or allow the case to go forward in court
.. “A lawsuit opens the door, and judges almost always allow for a plaintiff to have a fishing expedition,” said Robert S. Bennett, the Washington lawyer who represented Mr. Clinton in the Paula Jones case. The questions could include, “Have you paid other people money?” he said.
.. perhaps intending to broaden it later to include claims that Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen coerced her into silence. “If that happened,” he said, “they certainly could seek to depose Trump.”
And in that case, he said, “I can certainly imagine how it might get broader.
And if it did, the wide array of Trump’s sexual interactions could be addressed
.. Ms. Clifford’s signature on the contract, and acceptance of the money, could count as a clear sign of agreement.
.. But other legal experts were struck by the sweeping nature of the nondisclosure agreement Ms. Clifford signed, and expressed skepticism that it would hold up in court. Beyond the circumstances of the alleged sexual relationship, the agreement barred her from doing anything, even indirectly, to “publicly disparage” Mr. Trump.
.. Ms. Clifford has claimed that she met Mr. Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in 2006 and began a relationship that included sex and promises from Mr. Trump to get her on his NBC show “The Apprentice” and to give her a condominium... Mr. Avenatti argues that because Mr. Trump did not sign it himself, the agreement is invalid — a point Mr. Super, the Georgetown professor, basically agreed with and Mr. Noble said might have merit... The extent to which Mr. Cohen was acting on his own in striking the agreement with Ms. Clifford and paying her is crucial.. Important factors in the case would include just how closely Mr. Cohen coordinated the payment to Ms. Clifford with Mr. Trump and whether it was intended to help the campaign avoid negative publicity... But in her suit, Ms. Clifford tries to implicate Mr. Trump in the transaction, saying the offer of money was intended to buy her silence to help “ensure he won the presidential election.”.. It could have simply been a personal matter, he said, of Mr. Trump wishing to keep a secret from his wife.