2017 May 18^th

Freshman Congressman Jim Banks of Indiana appeared on a show this morning to comment on recent events. He prefaced nearly every comment with, “If true, this is very serious.” On two different interviews, Banks declared that he thought Comey’s firing by Trump was entirely justified. He didn’t say why he thought it was justified, whether it was because of Comey’s treatment of Huma Abedin’s emails to her husband, that Comey belatedly admitted contained nothing he had not already seen; or perhaps his refusal to pledge his loyalty to President Trump when requested. Unfortunately, the interlocutor never asked Banks to explain why he thought the firing was justified.

The world and Donald J, Trump are still recovering from the appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel. There is near unanimous agreement that Mr. Mueller is a splendid choice. He has the approval of both political parties, his probity is unquestioned, and there is virtually nothing else besides this appointment on which both parties agree.

There is an exception: President Trump is, once again, not a happy camper. This unhappiness seems to be chronic; perhaps it is partially a function of age. President Trump has tweeted regarding the special counsel, “This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history.” Thus, President Trump reveals in only thirteen words, that he is ignorant of American history and that he is a whiney pants. The whiney pants designation is hardly new. At his graduation address to the Coast Guard Academy, he said that no politician in history had been treated more unfairly than he had been. What was that bit, “If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen.” We can only hope.

Bret Baier asked Vice President Pence, in an interview on Fox News, what he thought of General Flynn’s registering with the Department of Justice as a foreign agent. Flynn was making more than $500,000 as a lobbyist, essentially for Turkey. Baier asked, “Your reaction to that… Mister Vice President, that even if he didn’t lie to you about what the Russian ambassador said or didn’t say, that you would have had to fire him anyway?”

“Well, let me say,” Pence responded, “hearing that story today was the first I’d heard of it. And I fully support the decision that President Trump made to ask for General Flynn’s resignation.”

This makes it clear that Pence is either a liar or he is bone stupid or perhaps he is both. Pence was in charge of the Trump administration’s transition to the presidency. In the process the transition team was notified of Flynn’s employment by the Turkish government by Flynn himself. Mr. Flynn’s disclosure, on Jan. 4, was first made to the transition team’s chief lawyer, Donald F. McGahn II, who is now the White House counsel. That conversation, and another one two days later between Mr. Flynn’s lawyer and transition lawyers, shows that the Trump team knew about the investigation of Mr. Flynn far earlier than has been previously reported. Now Pence tells us that Pence’s Turkish connection was news to him.

There were other sources for this information as well. Representative Elijah Cummings sent a letter to the transition team on Non 18, 2016 advising them of Flynn’s Turkish employment. It apparently made no difference to them and Flynn was employed  by Trump until he was fired weeks later.

Now Pence pleads ignorance of this information about Flynn…give me a break!