{"id":56627,"date":"2018-02-01T20:08:39","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T01:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=56627"},"modified":"2018-02-01T20:08:58","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T01:08:58","slug":"the-daily-gouge-archive-wednesday-january-31st-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=56627","title":{"rendered":"The Daily Gouge Archive, Wednesday, January 31st, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Wednesday, January 31st, 2018…and yesterday morning Jim Geraghty entitled his Morning Jolt<\/em>, “Can You Feel the State of the Union Excitement<\/em>?<\/span><\/a>“, a question we answer with an emphatic “NO!”, just as we have\u00a0<\/strong>every year since Ronaldus Maximus left a seat in the Oval Office which has yet to be filled.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So anyone looking for observations on The Donald’s first foray into the belly of the beast, other than this, courtesy of Balls Cotton…<\/strong><\/p>\n

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…should seek entertainment elsewhere.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Though if we<\/em><\/span> were writing The Donald’s address, we’d open with Trump holding up an easy-to-read chart highlighting America’s economic boom over the last year, have him look straight in the camera and say…<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Now, here’s The Gouge!<\/strong><\/p>\n

First up, reports they recently reviewed the Nunes memo and could not cite “any factual inaccuracies<\/span><\/a>“<\/span><\/em> notwithstanding, NRO<\/em>‘s Kevin Williamson still questions…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why Trust th<\/span>e FBI?<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/h1>\n

There is a reason for the cr<\/span>isis of faith in our institutions<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n

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“...<\/span>President Trump often is accused of being at war with fundamental American institutions, and that criticism is not without some merit.<\/span> Trump is not<\/span> what one would call a nuanced<\/span> critic<\/em>.<\/strong><\/span> The press that is critical of him is horrible, in his view, and might reasonably be suppressed by various official means, including gutting the libel laws in such a way as to make it easier for the powerful to sue their critics. On the other hand, the president loves the press that is friendly to him, though here \u201cfriendly\u201d must necessarily be read \u201cobsequious,\u201d as Breitbart, Fox & Friends, et al. have been. President Trump does not think very much about institutions <\/em>at all<\/em><\/span>. He thinks of friends and enemies<\/em><\/span>.<\/span> One<\/em><\/span> of the problems with his bitter, often excessive criticism of American institutions is that such abuse, coming from the president, can have the effect of corroding faith in our institutions<\/span><\/em>. The other<\/span> problem is that he is sometimes right<\/span><\/em>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Another<\/em><\/span> big tranche of missing communications?<\/span> Really<\/em><\/span>?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

When the IRS was in trouble for targeting tea-party organizations and other conservative groups in the run-up to the 2012 election, thousands of emails<\/em><\/span> \u2014 evidence under subpoena<\/em><\/span> \u2014 went missing<\/em><\/span>. John Koskinen, then acting commissioner of the IRS, lied to Congress about how and why that happened<\/span>, a fact<\/span> he was later forced to acknowledge<\/span><\/em>.<\/span> As a legal<\/em><\/span> question, the result<\/em><\/span> of all that malfeasance \u2014 destroying evidence<\/em><\/span> \u2014 was precisely squat<\/em><\/span>. Lois Lerner walks the streets a free woman with a fat federal pension, and John Koskinen is perfectly comfortable showing his face in the daylight.<\/span> And now<\/span> it is the FBI\u2019s turn<\/span><\/em>. With serious questions being posed about the bureau\u2019s activities during the 2016 election<\/em><\/span> \u2014 about whether the bureau protected Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama in the matter of their habit of using off-the-books email communications to avoid ordinary oversight \u2014 the FBI has suddenly discovered months\u2019 worth of communication between FBI counterintelligence specialist Peter Strzok and his paramour, FBI lawyer Lisa Page<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span> The two exchanged politically charged messages about Trump and the Clinton email investigation, and Strzok wrote darkly of developing an \u201cinsurance policy\u201d against Trump\u2019s election, still regarded as highly unlikely at that time.<\/p>\n

The texts went missing<\/em>, and then<\/em><\/span> were recovered<\/em><\/span>. Or some of them<\/em><\/span> were recovered.<\/span> All of them? Whose word<\/em><\/span> would you take on that<\/em><\/span>?<\/span> And why<\/em><\/span> would you take the FBI\u2019s word<\/em><\/span>?<\/strong><\/span> Aaron Blake, writing in the Washington Post, argued that the \u201cinsurance policy\u201d message looked bad, but not as bad as some on Trump\u2019s side insisted. Well. He allowed that \u201cit\u2019s 100 percent true Mueller and his probe aren\u2019t above reproach.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that, of course, is really what this is all about.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cAbove reproach\u201d does not<\/em> mean<\/em><\/span> \u201cnever made a mistake,\u201d \u201cnever got it wrong,\u201d \u201cnever had a rogue employee misbehave.\u201d No, \u201cabove reproach,\u201d in this context, means that the institution behaved and responded institutionally in a way consistent with its duties, its mission, and its public purpose<\/em><\/span>.<\/span> That means<\/em><\/span>, among other things<\/em>, acknowledging forthrightly when bad actors within the agency abuse their offices and their powers for political purposes and tilt the table toward their political friends and benefactors<\/em><\/span>. That means treating such situations with complete and total transparency<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It means<\/em><\/span>, at the very least<\/span><\/em>, not destroying evidence in a federal investigation<\/em><\/span>.<\/span> And no sane<\/span> person believes for a nanosecond<\/span> that those \u201clost\u201d communications represent anything other than willful obstruction of justice<\/span><\/em>. If you are on the FBI\u2019s radar and you got a parking ticket in Sheboygan in 1983, the FBI knows whether you paid it.<\/span> The Federal Bureau of Investigation is a federal bureau in the business<\/em><\/span> of conducting investigations.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

No one believes that the IRS or the FBI is above reproach. No one seriously believes that the editors of the New York Times would have treated a President Hillary Clinton and a President Donald Trump in the same way.<\/span><\/strong><\/span> (One likewise wonders what Fox News would have made of partially documented claims that President Bill Clinton had paid $130,000 in hush money to a porn star who says she had an affair with him.) President Obama\u2019s so-called scandal-free administration was in fact rife with abuses of power, from the IRS to the ATF to the EPA to the NLRB.<\/span> Trump<\/span> may sometimes<\/span> attack our institutions without good cause<\/span>; the Obama administration gave critics good cause to attack our institutions<\/span><\/em>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We have not yet reached the point of no return, but the diminishing faith in our institutions<\/em> \u2014 the media, the government, law enforcement, the universities, and more \u2014 is not<\/span> the result of Donald Trump\u2019s wounded egomania or talk-radio screeds against the mainstream media and the \u201cdeep state<\/em>.\u201d<\/strong><\/span> (Some of those are amusingly daft: Sean Hannity lamented that the mainstream media was sure to ignore a certain story while he was reading aloud on the radio the text of an Associated Press report about that very story \u2014 which of course is how he knew about it in the first place.) Yes, conspiracy theories are to be resisted and ridiculed, and the institutions that make possible our free society are to be cherished.<\/span> But they need not be cherished blindly<\/span><\/em>. In fact, it is essential<\/span> that we do the opposite<\/span><\/em>, that we keep them under close and aggressive oversight<\/em> \u2014 conducted both by government institutions and by the press \u2014 and that we weed out corruption, self-dealing, and political abuses where we find them<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t up to Donald Trump<\/span> to see to the FBI\u2019s reputation if the FBI will not see to it itself<\/span><\/em>.<\/strong><\/span>“<\/p>\n

We’re of the opinion the entire<\/em><\/span> Department of Justice, including<\/em><\/span> the FBI, is in need of a cleansing as thorough as that which\u00a0Hercules provided the stables of King Augeas<\/em><\/span><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Welcome to Washington: like Chicago, this town stinks..<\/strong><\/p>\n