Retribution Execution, Con't

There's a lot to cover today as Trump has gone completely off the rails, and there's little doubt now that the remaining Justice Department investigation into the Mueller probe itself is going to be used to put a lot of Trump's enemies, perceived and real, in jail.

Trump administration officials investigating the government’s response to Russia’s election interference in 2016 appear to be hunting for a basis to accuse Obama-era intelligence officials of hiding evidence or manipulating analysis about Moscow’s covert operation, according to people familiar with aspects of the inquiry.

Since his election, President Trump has attacked the intelligence agencies that concluded that Russia secretly tried to help him win, fostering a narrative that they sought to delegitimize his victory. He has long promoted the investigation by John H. Durham, the prosecutor examining their actions, as a potential pathway to proving that a deep-state cabal conspired against him.

Questions asked by Mr. Durham, who was assigned by Attorney General William P. Barr to scrutinize the early actions of law enforcement and intelligence officials struggling to understand the scope of Russia’s scheme, suggest that Mr. Durham may have come to view with suspicion several clashes between analysts at different intelligence agencies over who could see each other’s highly sensitive secrets, the people said.

Mr. Durham appears to be pursuing a theory that the C.I.A., under its former director John O. Brennan, had a preconceived notion about Russia or was trying to get to a particular result — and was nefariously trying to keep other agencies from seeing the full picture lest they interfere with that goal, the people said.

But officials from the F.B.I. and the National Security Agency have told Mr. Durham and his investigators that such an interpretation is wrong and based on a misunderstanding of how the intelligence community functions, the people said. National security officials are typically cautious about sharing their most delicate information, like source identities, even with other agencies inside the executive branch.

Mr. Durham’s questioning is certain to add to accusations that Mr. Trump is using the Justice Department to go after his perceived enemies, like Mr. Brennan, who has been an outspoken critic of the president. Mr. Barr, who is overseeing the investigation, has come under attack in recent days over senior Justice Department officials’ intervention to lighten a prison sentencing recommendation by lower-level prosecutors for Mr. Trump’s longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr.

A spokesman for Mr. Durham did not respond to phone and email inquiries. The C.I.A. and the National Security Agency declined to comment. The people familiar with aspects of Mr. Durham’s investigation spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.

The indictments of Trump's enemies are coming.  Barr at this point is begging Trump to stop tweeting about them so that he can get them rolled out without it being too obvious.

In an exclusive interview, Attorney General Bill Barr told ABC News on Thursday that President Donald Trump "has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case” but should stop tweeting about the Justice Department because his tweets “make it impossible for me to do my job.”
Barr’s comments are a rare break with a president who the attorney general has aligned himself with and fiercely defended. But it also puts Barr in line with many of Trump’s supporters on Capitol Hill who say they support the president but wish he’d cut back on his tweets.

“I think it’s time to stop the tweeting about Department of Justice criminal cases,” Barr told ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas.
When asked if he was prepared for the consequences of criticizing the president – his boss – Barr said “of course” because his job is to run the Justice Department and make decisions on “what I think is the right thing to do.”

But Trump won't be contained, and everyone knows the game is up anyway.  He'll never stop tweeting.  He doesn't care. The consiglieri is warning the boss that the feds will notice, and the boss keeps on buying yachts and cars and fur coats and telling everybody at the butcher shop that the guys who tried to prosecute him are gonna get whacked anyway.

He's openly making quid pro quo threats against NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo and laughing at him openly on Twitter.

President Donald Trump appeared Thursday to link his administration's policies toward New York to a demand that the state drop investigations and lawsuits related to his administration as well as his personal business and finances.

Hours before New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was set to meet the president at the White House, Trump tweeted that Cuomo “must understand” that National Security far exceeds politics,” a reference to his administration’s recent decision to halt New York’s access to the Global Entry and other “trusted traveler” programs that allow New Yorkers faster border crossings and shorter airport lines.

Trump continued, “New York must stop all of its unnecessary lawsuits & harrassment, start cleaning itself up, and lowering taxes.”
Trump’s invocation of “lawsuits & harrassment” was a reference to the state’s numerous lawsuits against his administration and also against Trump’s business, which is based in New York.

That prompted Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.), one of the House managers who prosecuted Trump’s impeachment in the Senate, to accuse the president of “expanding his abuse of power to blackmailing U.S. states (threatening millions of people he supposedly works for). In this case, he's holding New York state hostage to try to stop investigations into his prior tax fraud.”

State attorney general Letitia James has subpoenaed for Trump’s financial records, and the state is pursuing multiple inquiries about the Trump Organization’s business practices. James also just secured a $2 million settlement from Trump’s now-defunct charitable foundation, which was accused of numerous violations of misuse of funds.

The settlement prompted a sharp rebuke from Trump, who tweeted on Nov. 7 that James’ suit against the foundation was for “political purposes.”

“When you stop violating the rights and liberties of all New Yorkers, we will stand down,” James said Thursday, responding to Trump’s tweet. “Until then, we have a duty and responsibility to defend the Constitution and the rule of law. BTW, I file the lawsuits, not the Governor.”

Much more after the jump.  It's been a while since I've split a post up like this, but the lawlessness is coming at breathtaking speed.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

Like any good investigator, Bob Mueller is conducting interviews with witnesses in order to obtain information, and the witnesses he wants to talk to regarding Trump and Russia are a half-dozen aides, all high-level Trump regime personnel, to get them to roll on the boss.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has alerted the White House that his team will probably seek to interview six top current and former advisers to President Trump who were witnesses to several episodes relevant to the investigation of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the request.

Mueller’s interest in the aides, including trusted adviser Hope Hicks, former press secretary Sean Spicer and former chief of staff Reince Priebus, reflects how the probe that has dogged Trump’s presidency is starting to penetrate a closer circle of aides around the president.

Each of the six advisers was privy to important internal discussions that have drawn the interest of Mueller’s investigators, according to people familiar with the probe, including his decision in May to fire FBI Director James B. Comey. Also of interest is the White House’s initial inaction after warnings about then-national security adviser Michael Flynn’s December discussions with Russia’s ambassador to the United States.

The advisers are also connected to internal documents that Mueller’s investigators have asked the White House to produce, according to people familiar with the special counsel’s inquiry.

Roughly four weeks ago, the special counsel’s team provided the White House with the names of the first group of current and former Trump advisers and aides whom investigators expect to question.

In addition to Priebus, Spicer and Hicks, Mueller has notified the White House he will probably seek to question White House counsel Don McGahn and one of his deputies, James Burnham. Mueller’s office has also told the White House that investigators may want to interview Josh Raffel, a White House spokesman who works closely with Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.

White House officials are expecting that Mueller will seek additional interviews, possibly with family members, including Kushner, who is a West Wing senior adviser, according to the people familiar with Mueller’s inquiry.

The Prisoner's Dilemma is always a fun scenario to see acted out.  And if Spicer and Priebus don't roll over, Donny's family seems pretty vulnerable and self-centered to me, just like dad.

Hell, Mueller might end up with too much information, a pretty rare occurrence in a criminal investigation of a politician as dirty as Trump.  White House Communications Director Hope Hicks is the latest to lawyer up over Russia, and she won't be the last Trump aide to play this game of musical chairs to see who gets the immunity prize when Mueller kills the tunes.

Stay tuned, folks.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

Things are starting to move fast on the Trump/Russia front.  First, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer is out.

Sean Spicer, the embattled and increasingly invisible White House press secretary, resigned on Friday morning shortly after the president offered Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci the job of White House communications director. The New York Times, which first reported Spicer’s resignation, writes that Spicer “vehemently disagreed” with Scaramucci’s appointment as his new boss, and that he quit in protest.

These developments appear to be the first steps in a long-promised communications shakeup at the White House, which has struggled to stay focused amid the unfolding Russia collusion story.

Scaramucci is a polarizing figure among the warring factions in Trump’s administration. According to Axios, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon opposed the appointment, while Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner supported it. As communications director, Scaramucci would be stepping into a position that has been vacant for several weeks since the resignation of Mike Dubke, a Spicer ally, in May.

Scaramucci is a fast-talking businessman, exactly the type Trump respects.  He's names Sarah Huckabee Sanders as the new press secretary, and Spicer gets to train his replacement through August.

But the White House wouldn't be getting rid of Spicer at this juncture if damage control wasn't the top priority, and they know they're going to have a hurricane or two worth of spin to put out. Spicer wasn't up to the job, frankly.  Something big is coming on the horizon, and that something may have been this major leak on Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Russia’s ambassador to Washington told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow, with Jeff Sessions during the 2016 presidential race, contrary to public assertions by the embattled attorney general, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s accounts of two conversations with Sessions — then a top foreign policy adviser to Republican candidate Donald Trump — were intercepted by U.S. spy agencies, which monitor the communications of senior Russian officials both in the United States and in Russia. Sessions initially failed to disclose his contacts with Kislyak and then said that the meetings were not about the Trump campaign.

One U.S. official said that Sessions — who testified that he has no recollection of an April encounter — has provided “misleading” statements that are “contradicted by other evidence.” A former official said that the intelligence indicates that Sessions and Kislyak had “substantive” discussions on matters including Trump’s positions on Russia-related issues and prospects for U.S.-Russia relations in a Trump administration.

Sessions has said repeatedly that he never discussed campaign-related issues with Russian officials and that it was only in his capacity as a U.S. senator that he met with Kislyak.

“I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign,” Sessions said in March when he announced that he would recuse himself from matters relating to the FBI probe of Russian interference in the election and any connections to the Trump campaign.

Jeff Sessions's perjury before Congress at his confirmation hearing involving the extent of his association with Trump's Russian buddies is basically the worst-kept secret in Washington, but this has now become the 90-ton giant robot in the room.

It's almost like the White House wants Sessions gone.  Oh wait, Trump does want Sessions gone, but the White House would rather not fire him outright.  They gave Sessions the chance to resign earlier this week after Trump's interview with the NY Times where he flat out said that he wouldn't have appointed Sessions if Trump had known Sessions would recuse himself on Russia.  Remember, this was basically the reason he fired Comey: perceived lack of personal loyalty to Trump despite his obvious misdeeds.

Suddenly there's a new WH Communications Director and this massively damaging leak on Sessions hits the Washington Post, along with calls from conservatives for Sessions to resign.

Don't need a PhD to put this one together, guys.  Trump wants somebody at the DoJ who will kill the Mueller investigation.  The Saturday Night Massacre 2: Orange Boogaloo is coming.

I mean hell, Trump himself is giving up the game.

While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us.FAKE NEWS

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2017

Watch.

Of course, he'll need to get Mueller canned before the idnictments come.  I know I've said multiple times in the past that only the House can bring charges against a sitting president, and that it's up in the air as to if a federal grand jury can indict one, but hey, that depends on who you ask, and it's not the first time this question has been asked, either.

A newfound memo from Kenneth W. Starr’s independent counsel investigation into President Bill Clinton sheds fresh light on a constitutional puzzle that is taking on mounting significance amid the Trump-Russia inquiry: Can a sitting president be indicted?

“The 56-page memo, locked in the National Archives for nearly two decades… amounts to the most thorough government-commissioned analysis rejecting a generally held view that presidents are immune from prosecution while in office.

Just putting something out there.  Trump's damn well thinking about it, I guarantee you.

Last Call For A De-Pressing Development, Con't

Buried in this NYT story on Trump regime mouthpiece Sean Spicer being horrible at his job is another nasty Dear Leader trial balloon: decreeing that the daily press briefing be limited to weekly state-run propaganda blurbs with pre-approved topics only.

The biggest shift Mr. Trump is discussing is a dramatic change to the briefing room schedule, including limiting briefings that he has described as a “spectacle” to once a week and asking reporters to submit written questions. Some of Mr. Trump’s outside advisers, including the Fox News host Sean Hannity, have urged him to curtail the freewheeling — and often embarrassing — barrage of questions. Mr. Trump has been particularly irked by CNN, and other allies such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have suggested banning the cable network.

“Donald Trump might as well get behind the podium himself, as the press coverage is the part of his presidency he cares the most deeply about,” said Tim Miller, who was communications director for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign. “You can’t be a credible press secretary when your boss makes you tell preposterous lies. You can’t be a credible press secretary when you don’t know what your boss thinks on key issues because he changes his mind depending on the last person he talked to.”

And even with Spicer being "promoted" out of the job, finding a replacement to read the weekly Trump regime press release is still pretty hard.  Trump doesn't want a press secretary, he wants a FOX News talking head.

Among the candidates: Laura Ingraham, the conservative radio host, about whom Trump advisers remain “iffy”; Kimberly Guilfoyle, the Fox News commentator who said publicly that Mr. Trump had called her in recent weeks (she said she didn’t want the job); and David Martosko, an editor for The Daily Mail who was briefly considered for the role during the transition and has been talked about for other roles now (White House aides said he was liked by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, but was never under serious consideration and put out a statement withdrawing his name).

So we're about one more major Trump-Russia leak from Tang the Conqueror reducing the White House to being, well, the Kremlin.

But maybe he'll pivot, right press flacks?

A De-Pressing Development

The Trump regime is now in the full paranoid style as Tang the Conqueror's approval ratings crash into the mid 30's and are still falling, and that means that like most proto-fascist autocracies, we're into the "information control by the state press" era.

Over the course of the Trump administration, the White House’s daily press briefings have been pared progressively further back; they are now shorter, less frequent, and routinely held off-camera.

The daily briefing is a venerable Washington tradition, though one that has often been a target of criticism. Media critic Jay Rosen has called for media outlets to “send the interns,” arguing that the briefing is a largely useless exercise in grandstanding. President Trump himself has publicly mused about canceling them, tweeting “Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future "press briefings" and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???”

But instead of canceling them entirely, the White House has appeared to embrace a different strategy: simply downgrading them bit by bit, from “briefings” to “gaggles,” and from on-camera to off-camera. Guidance for the briefings have begun to include a note that audio from them cannot be used. Additionally, though Trump has held short press conferences when foreign leaders visit, he has not held a full press conference since February.

The changes haven’t gone unnoticed, although reporters are still attending the gaggles. A clearly exasperated Jim Acosta, CNN’s chief White House correspondent, said on Monday that White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer had become “kind of useless.”

“It feels like we’re slowly but surely being dragged into what is a new normal in this country, where the president of the United States is allowed to insulate himself from answering hard questions,” Acosta said on CNN. “I don’t know why we covered that gaggle today, quite honestly Brooke, if they can’t give us the answers to the questions on camera or where we can record the audio. They’re basically pointless at this point.”

Asked for further comment, Acosta said in an email, “Unless we all take collective action, the stonewalling will continue.”

“If the WH is going to place unreasonable demands on our newsgathering, we should walk out,” he said.

What’s not clear is how much the White House would care if this happened. Reporters’ demands for access have not been a top priority for this administration, and though Trump is an avid media consumer and did a large number of interviews as a candidate and earlier in his term, he has begun to hold the press at arm’s length, skipping the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and doing fewer interviews lately.  

I respect Acosta's position and he is correct, but I hope that he also understands that the media boycotting these laughable kabuki events gives Trump the excuse to start declaring the "lamestream liberal media" as de facto enemies of the state, and that is precisely what Trump wants right now as the Mueller probe threatens to blow the whole sorry state of affairs open like a rotten melon dropped off of a rooftop.

The Trump regime is trying to couch this as Sean Spicer getting "promoted", but they definitely want to prove that if our media dares to make this political and not cover the daily "press briefings", well, then maybe America doesn't need an adversarial media...

Believe me when I say that step is coming sooner rather than later.  The nonsense about "going around the press to get the truth to the people" is propaganda of the the worst sort, an obvious manipulation, but in the kayfabe Trump era of convenient fictions, it's one that will go from perception to reality with frightening speed if allowed.

Reince's Impossible Job

Tang the Conqueror has given his Chief of Staff Reince Priebus three weeks to "fix the White House" or he's fired, which begs the question "Can Priebus start by having Trump resign?"

President Donald Trump has set a deadline of July 4 for a shakeup of the White House that could include removing Reince Priebus as his chief of staff, according to two administration officials and three outside advisers familiar with the matter.

While Trump has set deadlines for staff changes before, only to let them pass without pulling the trigger, the president is under more scrutiny than ever regarding the sprawling Russia investigation, which is intensifying the pressure on his White House team.

Days after his return from his first foreign trip late last month, Trump berated Priebus in the Oval Office in front of his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and deputy campaign manager David Bossie for the dysfunction in the White House, according to multiple sources familiar with the conversation.

Trump had been mulling bringing on Bossie as his deputy White House chief of staff and Lewandowski as a White House senior adviser with a portfolio that includes Russia, but told the two at that meeting that they would not be joining the White House until Priebus had a fair chance to clean up shop, according to the sources.

"I'm giving you until July 4," Trump said, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation.

"I don't want them to come into this mess. If I'm going to clean house, they will come in as fresh blood."

White House press secretary Sean Spicer, in a statement on Sunday, refuted the idea that Priebus is facing a July 4 deadline. "Whoever is saying that is either a liar or out of the loop," Spicer said. 

The thing is nobody believes Trump is actually going to do this, because nobody believes Priebus can "clean up" anything in the White House without duct taping Trump's hands together for the next year so that he can't use Twitter for starters.  The biggest non-secret in DC is that Priebus is about as responsible for the problems in the Trump regime as Lex Luthor's accountant is for his failing to beat Superman.

Once Trump realizes the story makes him look bad for makling the threat and even worse if he carries through with it, this will evaporate like so many other of his tantrums.  Three weeks after all is a long time for talking Trump out of something (just ask the Saudis, or Spicer, still gainfully employed.)

Count on it.

Last Call For Where's Devin?

CNN asked GOP Rep. Devin Nunes where he was the night before his now infamous press conference earlier this month where he tried to sink the Russia investigation by Congress into the Trump Regime by leaking all kinds of info.  His reply makes it pretty clear that Nunes is a terrible liar, and that there's no way that Nunes can be in charge of an impartial investigation.

It has been something of a mystery, the whereabouts of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes on the day before his announcement that he saw information suggesting that communications of then-President-elect Donald Trump and his advisers may have been swept up in surveillance of other foreign nationals. 

The California Republican confirmed to CNN in a phone interview Monday he was on the White House grounds that day -- but he said he was not in the White House itself. (Other buildings, including the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, are on the same grounds.) 

Nunes went to the building because he needed a secure area to view the information, he told CNN. He said he didn't believe the President nor any of his West Wing team were aware he was there, and the White House said Monday it learned of Nunes' visit through media reports and directed any questions to the congressman. 

A former government intelligence official told CNN on Monday that members of Congress, like the general public, must be cleared and escorted into facilities on White House grounds. 

"Every non-White House staffer must be cleared in by a current White House staffer," the official said. "So it's just not possible that the White House was unaware or uninvolved." 

Not only did the White House know full well that Devin was there, they are now trying to run screaming from that fact.

Trump's press secretary, Sean Spicer, refused to rule out Monday whether Nunes' source came from the White House but did say during the daily press briefing that "it doesn't really pass the smell test." 

"I did not sit in on that briefing," Spicer said. "I'm not -- it just doesn't -- so I don't know why he would brief the speaker and then come down here to brief us on something that we would have briefed him on. It doesn't really seem to make a ton of sense. So I'm not aware of it, but it doesn't really pass the smell test." 

Nunes said he was there for additional meetings "to confirm what I already knew" but said he wouldn't comment further so as to not "compromise sources and methods." A spokesman for Nunes said he "met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source." 

A government official said Nunes was seen Tuesday night at the National Security Council offices of the Eisenhower building which, other than the White House Situation Room, is the main area on the complex to view classified information in a secure room. 

The official said Nunes arrived and left alone.

So there's something very suspicious going on here.  Nunes isn't telling the truth, and neither is Spicer.  But all I know is that Nunes can't continue to be the guy in charge of the Trump/Russia investigation in the House. 

Last Call For The Media Martyr

Don't look now, but national embarrassment and Mouth of Sauron Sean Spicer is apparently a rock star out in MAGA Country, fighting the good fight against the evil Lamestream Media or something.

In blue America, Trump’s spokesman stands accused of violating press freedoms and is the butt of jokes, lampooned on Saturday Night Live by comedian Melissa McCarthy. A woman accosted Spicer last week in a D.C.-area Apple store in a video that went viral. Rumors have swirled that the longtime Republican party operative might be replaced as press secretary and that Trump has been unhappy with his performance. 

But in Nashville, Spicer was a bona fide celebrity. As he tried to make his way to the press pen to talk to reporters before the rally, a mob formed around him, with supporters shaking his hand, telling him to keep up the good work, and posing for photos. A group of five women with pink "Women for Trump" signs pushed through the crowd for a photo. "We love you Sean!" they said. 

"You guys want to come to a briefing?" Spicer asked the crowd. 

To Trump’s base supporters, Spicer is a crusader against what they consider an unfair and dishonest media. Vincent Kirby, 19, said he watches Spicer’s briefings with White House reporters every day. He likes Spicer’s straight talk and cheers him on when he regards reporters as attempting to trip him up over technicalities. The attacks, the criticism, the mockery -- all of it only adds to Spicer’s appeal, Kirby said. 

"Some of the reporters’ questions, they are just trying to nitpick and sensationalize things -- it’s hard to take them serious," Kirby said before darting off to catch up to Spicer, who was trying to make his way through the crowd.

Gosh guys, isn't Trump's propaganda mouthpiece dreamy?

I really don't want to hear any more complaints about how the Obama administration was a cult of personality after reading this drivel, I really do not.

Inventing Terror

As bad as it is, it's one thing for Trump regime NSC mouthpiece Kellyanne Conway to make up terror attacks in order to justify executive orders.  It's another thing entirely for Trump's White House press secretary Sean Spicer to do it at an official press briefing.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer has repeatedly pointed to Atlanta, along with San Bernardino and Boston, as one of three U.S. cities that have been attacked by Islamist terrorists to argue that the Trump administration needed to act quickly to prevent another attack in the future.

While the Boston bombing and shootings in San Bernadino were both carried out by Islamist terrorists, neither involved foreign nationals from the seven countries in Trump’s executive order. There has never been an Islamist terror attack in Atlanta.

In a Jan. 29 appearance on ABC’s This Week, Spicer explained to Martha Raddatz that the White House needed to implement its executive order quickly, before another terror attack could take place. “What do we say to the family that loses somebody over a terroristic (sic), to whether it’s Atlanta or San Bernardino or the Boston bomber?”

Spicer used a similar line the following day on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, when The New York Times’ Jeremy Peters asked him if President Trump had signed the executive order as the result of an imminent terror threat on U.S. soil. “Too many of these cases that have happened, whether you’re talking about San Bernardino, Atlanta, they’ve happened, Boston,” Spicer said. “Jeremy, what—do you wait until you do? The answer is we act now to protect the future.”

At the White House press briefing later that day, Spicer again pointed to Atlanta to explain the need for the “extreme vetting” provided in the White House’s executive order.

“I don’t think you have to look any further than the families of the Boston Marathon, in Atlanta, in San Bernardino to ask if we can go further,” Spicer said. “There’s obviously steps that we can and should be taking, and I think the president is going to continue do to what he can to make sure that this country is as safe as possible.”

Seamus Hughes, the deputy director of George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, said Atlanta should not be included.

“There has not been a successful jihadi terror attack in Atlanta,” Hughes said.

Again, a White House willing to repeatedly create a terrorist attack out of whole cloth in order to justify political action is a White House willing to lie to the American people about everything else. Why Spicer still gets coverage, I couldn't tell you at this point.  News outfits need to just walk away and explain to viewers and readers that the White House can no longer be trusted with even basic facts at this point.