Reports out of the nation’s capitol are indicating that Trump’s Attorney General, William P. Barr, is not pleased with the work product of the Justice Department’s Inspector General, Michael Horowitz.

Although, I.G. Horowitz’ does not report to Barr in a subordinate role, Barr is said to be critical of Horowitz’ conclusions regarding the question of whether the FBI acted improperly in launching its initial investigation on the Trump campaign in 2016, shortly after the November election. 

The official release of the report is not expected until next week, but sources familiar with it, tell the Washington Post that Horowitz’ findings severely undercut the broad narrative of Trump and the GOP Congress, as well as Trump’s media circus, that the investigation was improper and biased against Trump.

Additionally, the New York Times is detailing that they have been informed that not only will the report not support the notion that Trump and his campaign was “spied on” by the FBI – (a claim that had previously been rejected by Trump’s own replacement of fired Director James Comey – current FBI head, Christopher Wray), but also that charges of political motivation on the part of the agency officials that conducted the investigation are lacking in substance.

Barr had previously told members of Congress, “I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal. I think spying did occur, but the question is whether it was adequately predicated. And I’m not suggesting it wasn’t adequately predicated, but I need to explore that.” 

The Attorney General has been in process for over a year, attempting to produce a competing report designed to demonstrate that the origins of the investigation were tainted.

That report is said to be forthcoming, but it was originally supposed to have been finalized last year, then dragged on through the summer and fall of this year, some suspect because despite all the digging, some of which Barr involved himself in, failed to turn up anything other than rumor and innuendo and therefore, more digging was necessary. 

Not surprisingly, Donald Trump himself, has a fractured and addled take on the I.G. report’s impending release. Pushing back against the media reports that predict Horowitz’ report will amount to a nothing burger, Trump said today that he doesn’t believe Barr is actually displeased with the report.

“I do believe that, because I’m hearing the [inspector general’s] report is very powerful. But I’m hearing that by reading lots of different things — not from inside information. It’s really from outside information. I think all we have to do is wait.” 

Trump went on, to essentially hedge against the likely reality of the report’s contents.  “I do think the big report to wait for is going to be the Durham report. That’s the one that people are really waiting for,” he added. “And he’s highly respected, and he’s worked very hard. And he’s worked long hours, I can tell you, and gone all over the world. So we’ll see. But the Durham report is the report people are really looking forward to.”

What people? Trump voters? Probably, but most everyone else knows by now that there was more than enough fire to accompany the smoke emitted by Trump and his campaign’s efforts to enable Russia to subvert the 2016 election.

Barr’s expected cocktail of unfounded conspiracies won’t alter the basic facts. 

by Richard Cameron

Trump’s Golfing – At Your Expense

In our most recent edition of Writer’s Lounge, we reported how the Peterson Foundation is sounding the alert via digital billboards, about the ballooning of our National Debt, which just within the last month, rolled over to $23 Trillion, under Donald Trump. 

We liked the billboards and the exposure of yet another of Trump’s bold and fraudulent campaign claims that has failed to materialize, so much, that when the web site, “Trump Golf Count” came to our attention, we thought it would be a great follow up on the contradictions Trump has demonstrated between what he promised voters and the reality of his leadership.

Just as Trump assured you he would get a handle on the debt by spurring the growth of the economy so dynamically, he would roll the debt clock backwards, which obviously has not happened, Trump promised he would spend a mere fraction of his time as president on the links.

Has that happened? Well, no more than Mexico has agreed to pay for the wall – the “big, beautiful wall”.

Trump boasted of his intent to shame the outgoing president with his determination to stay focused on the job of being president and not sluffing off on golf outings.

“I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off.”

And Trump further outlined the deep personal sacrifice of remaining away from his beloved golf resorts, pledging to keep his nose to the grindstone.  

“I love golf, but if I were in the White House, I don’t think I’d ever see Turnberry again. I don’t think I’d ever see Doral again,” Trump promised attendees of one of his worship services, pardon me, rallies,  in February 2016, adding “I don’t ever think I’d see anything. I just want to stay in the White House and work my ass off.” 

He has a big ass, yes – and despite the memes he’s retweeted with his face atop, “Rocky 4” era Sylvester Stallone’s body, we have not seen any evidence of it getting more svelte as a result of his efforts to work it off. The actual results in fact, look more like the $3 Trillion plus he’s added to the national debt, we discussed in the previous edition of Writer’s Lounge. 

Then there was this boozy doozy:

Chuck Jones, writing in Forbes, after projecting the total cost of Trump’s golf outings, put the dollar total ($340 million), in perspective (if this nation’s voters were stupid enough to re-elect him), by contrasting it against:

• 106 times Trump’s $400,000 salary over 8 years combined.
• Almost twice the $190 million annual cost for the Peace Corps.
• $25 million more than the $315 million annual cost for the General Accounting Office.
• About 10 times the approximately $35 million cost of the Mueller investigation. (But in reality Mueller’s team brought in more than it spent due to acquiring enough of former campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s assets to more than pay the full cost.)

For those of you who prefer to see the data in a visualization, here is the contrasting frequency of Trump’s golf activity vs. that of former president Obama, on a week by week basis of comparison. The difference shows Trump’s assurances to voters that he was going to practice diligence in his work habits, were colossal lies.

What else is new?

by Richard Cameron

Nice, compliant leash doggies …