Trump Cards, Con't

If you hire nothing but opportunistic liars and dispose of them when their usefulness to you ends, you automatically have plausible deniability when they inevitably turn on you.

Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway responded to allegations that President Donald Trump is a racist, saying "none of us would be" at the White House if that were true.

Conway also told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl on "This Week" that in the two years she has worked for Trump, she has “never a single time heard him use a racial slur about anyone.”

Conway was responding to a new book by former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman who describes Trump as a racist and that she has heard him use racial slurs.

“I think that Omarosa unfortunately has undercut her own credibility,” Conway told Karl. “This is somebody who gave a glowing appraisal of Donald Trump the businessman, the star of 'The Apprentice,' the candidate, and indeed the president of the United States. She told your own network, Jon, ABC News, the day after she was fired from the White House that she had resigned … She said she never heard him use the N-word.”

Conway is lying of course about never hearing Trump use a racial slur, but she's actually correct about Omarosa Manigault Newman having no credibility and being a liar as well. "You can't believe the liars calling me a liar now, who lied for me previously when they were working for me, because we all know they are liars" has been Trump's defense for decades, and he knows exactly how to play that game.

It's the same defense Trump's people are using in the Manafort trial this week.

Rick Gates, former associate and protege of Paul Manafort, is testifying in the latter’s trial. Gates has already pleaded guilty to felony charges and is cooperating with the government. Under questioning by the prosecution he admitted committing multiple financial crimes with Manafort, as well as stealing from Manafort himself. On cross examination the defense hammered Gates, forcing him to further admit to his own many frauds and deceptions, including an extramarital affair.

Gates is a liar and a fraud. He’s testifying to help himself out in his own case. He carries a lot of baggage to that witness stand.

And he’s the government’s star witness.

Although that may seem bizarre, it’s a common occurrence in complex criminal cases. Often the best way — and sometimes the only way — for the government to learn what happened is to persuade someone who was on the inside to plead guilty and cooperate. Participants in an illegal enterprise may provide the crucial details necessary to convict others involved — typically those a few rungs higher up the criminal ladder. But such witnesses are subject to withering attacks on their own credibility and present real challenges for the government.

No matter where Mueller goes from here, whatever evidence presented against Trump that is obtained from Manafort or Gates or Michael Flynn for example, Trump and his supporters will scream LIARS and FAKE NEWS and ignore it.

Whether or not our media actually cuts through that noise, I have no idea.