8.19.18: "Truth Isn't Truth," Mr. Giuliani Has No Shame

There is something obviously wrong with the fact that President Trump has a list of individuals who he has targeted to revoke their security clearances because they have been critical of his performance as president. A letter, signed onto by over 70 intelligence officials, rebukes the president's actions of revoking fmr. CIA Director John Brennan's security clearance for what are purely political reasons and not because Mr. Brennan divulged any information vital to national security.

That takes us to the interview with Mr. Brennan who is correct in saying that he now has the proverbial target on his chest for the president's defenders. He did walk back his 'treasonous' comment in a way but not really, not like the panel concluded. Mr. Brennan said that collusion is evident, despite Mr. Giuliani's pathetic rebuttals which we'll get to in a few moments, because the Trump campaign knowingly tried to solicit damaging material from foreign nationals on their political opponent. Then Mr. Trump himself, during a press conference, uttered the statement, "Russia, if you're listening...," to which we come to find out that after hours that same day the Russians did in fact act. Where Mr. Brennan in a way walked back his statement was that he said there's no proof of conspiracy. This is where things became conflated inasmuch as Mr. Brennan's 'treasonous' comment was in response to Mr. Trump taking sides with Mr. Putin over the U.S. intelligence community on Russian election meddling. You would have to concede that saying it is 'treasonous' behavior is not completely out of bounds, but over the line for a former CIA director.

The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson explained that though the president is within his legal right to revoke a security clearance, it's not acceptable when done for the wrong reasons, namely vindictive political ones. So in line with John Brennan, the president is abusing his power, but that begs the rhetorical question of whether we could expect anything less from Mr. Trump given what we've seen so far.

Commenting on Ret. Adm. William McRaven's letter,  Hugh Hewitt would have advised him to 'save his bullets' in defending Mr. Brennan. However, the letter goes much further in being critical of the president, and it comes from a man who oversaw the operation that killed Osama Bin Laden. He also pointed out the collusion is not conspiracy, and the latter hasn't been proven, which Mr. Brennan conceded. However, the one key word left out is the word 'yet.' This column's guess is that conspiracy may not be proven, collusion must certainly, but what will certainly find is that the president has been compromised and subject to blackmail due to his extensive financial ties to Russian oligarchs. Again, always follow the money.

And because White House Counsel Don McGahn is cooperating with the Special Counsel's investigation, Mr. Giuliani doesn't feel the president needs to sit down for an interview with Robert Mueller's team to tell the truth and not worry about committing perjury because it's only a version of the truth.

Then Mr. Giuliani, the annoying ignoramus he has become, explained it with "Truth isn't truth."

Cemented is the fact the Mr. Giuliani is actually worse than President Trump inasmuch as he was a prosecutor who lead FBI agents, FBI agents in the same office who he now refers to as storm troopers. Giuliani has no shame, or to use Mr. Trump's favorite phrase, "He's a disgrace." He tried to explain that politicians are meeting with people to look for 'dirt' on their opponents so collusion isn't even possible. When Mr. Todd pointed out that it's illegal to do so from representatives of a foreign government, Mr. Giuliani responded that they didn't know they were representatives of the Russian government and continued to contend today that they weren't. Unbelievable...

Going back to Mr. McGahn for a moment, let's make clear that being White House counsel is not the same as being the president's lawyer. The White House counsel is the lawyer for the office of the presidency and protects the presidency from the person in the office. In a simpler way, Mr. Gahn advises the president on what he can or cannot do legally as president. With his 30 hours of testimony and cooperation with the Special Counsel, it's clear that Mr. McGahn has no intention of going down with the Trump ship.


Panel: Carol Lee, NBC; Yamiche Alcindor, PBS News Hour; Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post; Hugh Hewitt, Salem Radio Network

One More Big Thing...
The Catholic Church continues to despicably betray public trust. Over 300 priests abused over 1,000 children over the course of decades in Pennsylvania, according to the report issued by the state's Attorney General. Outlined in the report was a child pornography ring run by priests in the Pittsburgh area with particular child being given gold crosses to designate that they were susceptible to victimization. Utterly sickening.  Carol Lee explained that this is only one state and there's no way to fix this because the perpetrators - the priests and the hierarchy covering it up - tasked with correcting this systematic abuse and torture are the same people in this culture of secrecy. As Ms. Alcindor pointed out, before being rudely interrupted by Mr. Hewitt, this is extremely dangerous the world over because of how developing countries rely on the Catholic Church in schools and hospitals and through so many segments of society.  There was a 'playbook' for the Church on how to deal with it - see below:

Mr. Hewlitt said that Cardinal Donald Wuerl in Washington DC, who oversaw the Pittsburgh Archdiocese at the time should resign, which the Cardinal said he would not do. No, he shouldn't resign... He should be arrested immediately. Period. Hard stop.