The Trump thread: All things Donald

[psiberzerker]

 Haha.. you actually believe the altered PDF, including shading to make it seem as if it was photographed from a thick 'bible' like book, is the birth certificate?

What, you have any reason to suggest, other than some comparison to the Bible, but the nonexistent tax forms are what, exactly?  They weren't just photographed, they were notarized, confirmed by the Hospital, the city of Honolulu, and the (United) State of Hawaii, but I'm sure it's all a conspiracy with the government of Kenya.

Today, White Supremacist would be the buzz word to slime anyone who dared to doubt.

Only a White Supremacist would attempt to slime an American in this manner.

 The IRS has President Trump's Tax Returns, of course.

You have proof of that, of course.

Those attempting to out personal information on another citizen "by any means necessary" seek every old and new thing that their minions may believe...

Like offering his tax returns in exchange for his birth certificate.  

hope their voters will do as before, and pull the AllDem handle once again.

Does this look like "All dem" to you?

[Jed_]

A birther?
Still?
Even Trump who never usually backs down from one of his countless false statements said Obama was born in the U.S.


Meantime, I’ve been reading about his visit to El Paso and the response with a song by the Vapors stuck in my head, except it goes:

Turning Texas blue . . . . .
I think we’re turning Texas blue . . . . .
I really think so!

[joan1984]

 The birther thing no longer really matters, does it. A win for Barry.
--------------
Not saying any big deal, except saying some questions were simply shouted down by Media and The White House, and it is what it is. Does not matter what I think in any event. I live in DC, so "we" give 3 electoral votes to Democrats every time. Reincorporation into Maryland (The Virginia portion already was retaken by the State of Virginia) will remove Two of the Three Electoral College votes, those supposedly representing 'our' two "Shadow Senators"...

  The other Electoral College vote DC always contributes only to Democrats, is to represent 'our' non-voting Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives.

  We have enough people to have a single Congressperson, barely, so that vote will simply move to Maryland, and the person who holds the U.S. House Seat for that District in Maryland, will be elected by Maryland Democrats, forever or so far into the potential logical future, than it truly does not ever matter.

  So the net result would be to take 2 Electoral votes away from Hillary's count in 2016, or from 'you pick them' whoever gets the Democrat nod for 2020, or whatever year the District Of Columbia fades properly into history, so far as any Electoral votes may be concerned, and whatever non-residential area of land surrounding the Capitol, the WhiteHouse, and Pentagon, likely, along with Langley VA and a few other local places will take on the DC moniker.

  Not likely to happen any time in my lifetime. Hopefully no Statehood either for DC in my lifetime, or any or your lifetimes, or your children... the damage is already done, with the permanent over-vote Electorally, for Democrats.
---------------
  Is anyone paying attention to the planned MOVE of the U.S. Department Of Agriculture from DC, to the Heartland?

   Many thousands of current Federal workers are planned for displacement, should they not wish to move to retain their positions, and those folks are due to submit their Move or Go decisions formally by the end of this month. I read there is some leeway to end of September 2019.

  Some functions of DOA will likely remain local, perhaps under DOA, more the likely situation is the functions will be transferred to other Federal Agencies, in whole or in part, and only some 'small' (in Fed Terms, no idea what that may mean in Billions of Dollars spent annually) location in or near DC.

  Virginia and Maryland House Members will likely fight to the last dog to stop the DOA move, so as to placate the bureaucrats affected, and in the end this will be for the good, for U.S. Taxpayers, if retention of millions of Federal workers is for the good at all. Will no doubt benefit, and affect, the Heartland location(s) to which chunks of DOA are moved...

  This work needs to continue, whittling the Federal Government footprint from the present location(s) to lower cost, more central to their focus, States, more Rural than City new locations, hopefully, and less costly to maintain supposed new construction spaces, versus the antique buildings now supporting Agency employees.

  Peeling away the 'entrenched' bureaucrats, via force reduction, or retirement (forced or buy-outs) is a healthy thing for us all.

  When a horse and buggy was the mode of transportation, it made sense to have the Federal Agencies close to the Legislators and WhiteHouse. No longer necessary, and where practical, where possible, the various States should be considered to 'spread the wealth' of so many jobs, as States embrace such an opportunity, and DC sheds itself (hopefully) or the giant, ancient, polluting buildings now in use for these functions.

May the 'migration' proceed apace...

[psiberzerker]

  Is anyone paying attention to the planned MOVE of the U.S. Department Of Agriculture from DC, to the Heartland? Many thousands of current Federal workers are planned for displacement, should they not wish to move to retain their positions, and those folks are due to submit their Move or Go decisions formally by the end of this month. I read there is some leeway to end of September 2019.

Not a whole lot, honestly.  Logistically, it makes more sense to have it centrally located than on either coast, but on the scale of things going on this year, it's not a huge blip.  You heard about it though, so that's neat.

  This work needs to continue, whittling the Federal Government footprint from the present location(s) to lower cost, more central to their focus, States, more Rural than City new locations, hopefully, and less costly to maintain supposed new construction spaces, versus the antique buildings now supporting Agency employees. Peeling away the 'entrenched' bureaucrats, via force reduction, or retirement (forced or buy-outs) is a healthy thing for us all.

Again, the majority of spending is in Defense. You want to cut costs?  Start there.

  When a horse and buggy was the mode of transportation, it made sense to have the Federal Agencies close to the Legislators and WhiteHouse. No longer necessary, and where practical, where possible, the various States should be considered to 'spread the wealth' of so many jobs, as States embrace such an opportunity, and DC sheds itself (hopefully) or the giant, ancient, polluting buildings now in use for these functions.

Maybe we can move them to Mar a Lago to make the golf commute more convenient? 

[Athos_131]

Pipe-bomber Cesar Sayoc's lawyers named Trump in their defense. They won't be the only ones.

As our country debates how President Donald Trump’s rhetoric incites racism and violence, one place his words and conspiracy theories unquestionably have had a parallel impact is in criminal courtrooms.

Already, defendants have begun raising objections to cases that include witnesses who have cooperated with federal authorities (which happens in the majority of federal criminal cases, from gang violence to fraud) because Trump has repeatedly used the biggest megaphone in the country to say that “flippers” (as he calls them) should be illegal. Now, we are seeing the emergence of the “Trump made me do it” defense in criminal cases — or at least the “Trump influenced me” mitigation.

Take, for example, Cesar Sayoc, who for two weeks terrorized the public by sending almost daily pipe bombs to public officials and private citizens alike based on their political affiliations. Sayoc was caught in 2018 living in a van covered in dozens of Trump pictures and decals attacking the media. In March of 2019 he pleaded guilty to 65 counts, including using weapons of mass destruction and the illegal mailing of explosives with intent to kill or injure.

Sayoc could have been sentenced to life imprisonment — the recommended sentence under the federal sentencing guidelines — but his lawyers cited Trump’s words and arguments in their attempt to secure a lighter sentence. They argued that their client was a cognitively limited, sexual abuse survivor who thought of Trump as a “surrogate father” and came to believe in an “alternative reality” fueled in part by the president’s attacks on his political opponents. Sayoc, his attorneys wrote in a sentencing memo filed in federal court in New York on Monday, was a Trump “super fan” and “began to consider Democrats as not just dangerous in theory, but imminently and seriously dangerous to his personal safety.”

Ultimately, Judge Jed S. Rakoff sentenced Sayoc to 20 years in prison, a technically lighter sentence than what prosecutors asked for although practically speaking, it could mean life in prison for the 57-year-old defendant.This sentence was based largely on the judge’s acceptance of Sayoc’s argument that he did not intend for the bombs to detonate and hurt anyone, contrary to prosecutors' arguments. However, the judge did note that Sayoc’s troubled life, including his infatuation with Trump and his view of the president’s political enemies as demons, played a role. Rakoff was clear that Sayoc was not “insane in the technical legal sense of that word… [but] he clearly became obsessive and paranoiac, and it was in this state, made still worse by his steroid abuse, that he decided to commit the crimes for which he is now to be sentenced.”

Sayoc is the most high-profile defendant to at least partially blame Trump’s rhetoric in a court of law. But he’s unlikely to be the last, especially when you expand the legal defense to include other conspiracy beliefs shared by some of Trump’s most ardent supporters. In May 2019, in State Court in Staten Island, New York, Anthony Comello was charged with the murder of Francesco (Franky Boy) Cali, a leader in the Gambino crime family. In July, his lawyers claimed that Comello was fueled by the conspiracy theory QAnon, and that he “ardently believed that Francesco Cali…was a prominent member of the deep state, and, accordingly, an appropriate target for a citizen’s arrest,” which eventually lead to Cali’s murder. Comello also “believed he was a chosen vigilante of President Trump,” according to his lawyer Robert Gottlieb.

Was Sayoc’s “Trump made me do it” defense successful? Not really — but it certainly didn’t hurt his attempt to procure a lighter sentence. Will Commello’s work? We don’t know yet. There will always be people who are susceptible to conspiracy theories and there will always be good criminal defense lawyers looking to make creative arguments on their clients’ behalf. But, in my over 16 years as a federal prosecutor, I never once saw the president’s own words and conspiracy theories repeatedly cited by people involved in such violent crimes.

Of course, that’s because no other president in recent memory has used the largest bully pulpit in the world in the way that Trump has. Trump’s words have consequences, as suggested again this weekend by the El Paso shooter’s virulently anti-immigrant manifesto. The president and his surrogates have argued that he doesn’t direct people to commit violence. But, clearly that can’t be the standard to which we hold the president. There can be no question that his rhetoric has contributed to a dangerous cultural moment in America. So, if nothing else, this president — who claims to be for law and order — should think about the many ways in which his words make our citizens less safe and the job of law enforcement more difficult.

Have to wonder with all these, "Trump told me to do that," criminals if he doesn't get named in a few wrongful death suits.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

What the Teapot Dome Scandal Has to Do With Trump’s Tax Returns

There have been a lot of comparisons between President Donald Trump and President Richard Nixon, but Warren G. Harding’s 1920s administration — and the Teapot Dome scandal that tainted his presidency — may actually be a better guide to what’s going on right now. The scandal also helps address the question of whether Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Richard Neal (D-MA) can lawfully request Trump’s tax returns from the IRS.

This request takes on extra urgency in light of the news that Trump’s sister Judge Maryanne Trump Barry recently retired from the federal bench, thereby ending an inquiry into her taxes. Both siblings stand accused by the New York Times of allegedly violating tax laws for years.

On April 3, Chairman Neal asked the IRS to provide Trump’s personal tax returns and the tax returns of several of his business entities. As the debate unfolds over whether Congress has the authority to obtain the president’s tax returns, it’s worth considering two outcomes of Teapot Dome: (1) Congress has the authority to obtain the president’s tax returns and (2) Congress can compel testimony from hostile witnesses.

Chairman Neal’s request for Trump’s taxes came after the president’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen testified before Congress on February 27 that as a businessman, Trump allegedly inflated the value of assets to apply for bank loans and deflated the same assets to avoid paying taxes.

In his testimony before Congress on April 9, a visibly shaking IRS Commissioner Charles Rettigbobbed and weaved around questions of how his agency has handled Congress’ request for the president’s tax returns. Rettig also testified that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had been involved in the debate over releasing the president’s tax returns. On April 13, Neal sent a second letter reiterating his demand and setting April 23, 2019 as the deadline for the IRS to comply.

The fight over the president’s tax returns may turn into an interbranch brawl, but it shouldn’t have to because the issue is clearly covered by a 1924 federal statute. In the meantime, if Congress cannot get the IRS to comply with their request, they can call on witnesses with personal knowledge of the tax returns to testify.

Often considered the greatest scandal in U.S. politics before Watergate, the Teapot Dome scandal involved Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall’s no-bid contract to lease federal oil fields in Teapot Dome, Wyoming to a private company on April 7, 1922. Congress’ investigation of the scandal centered on the question, “How did Interior Secretary Albert Fall get so rich so quickly?” Fall was eventually convicted of taking a $100,000 bribe.

The Teapot Dome scandal also embroiled Harding’s attorney general Harry M. Daugherty, who was lambasted for not investigating Secretary of the Interior Fall more rigorously. Two special counsels—one Republican and one Democrat—were appointed by President Coolidge to investigate Fall. (Coolidge had become president after Harding abruptly died in 1923). The kerfuffle over the attorney general Daugherty’s actions led to a fight over Congress’s subpoena power, which was ultimately resolved by the Supreme Court. That ruling could be newly relevant if Congress wishes to compel testimony on the contents of Trump’s taxes and business records.

Congress’ investigation into the Teapot Dome scandal escalated when a Senate committee subpoenaed Mally S. Daugherty, the brother of the then-former Harding Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty. When Mally Daugherty refused to show up to testify before Congress, the Senate Sergeant at Arms David S. Barry deputized John J. McGrain to arrest him and bring him to Washington to testify. Daugherty’s lawyer got him released from detention after he convinced a judge that Congress did not have the power to compel Daugherty to testify or to arrest him for not complying. The case ended up in the Supreme Court, which affirmed the power of Congress to compel testimony (and to arrest people who refused a lawful Congressional subpoena to testify).

As the Justice Willis Van Devanter wrote in the opinion for a unanimous Court in McGrain v. Daugherty, 273 U.S. 135 (1927),“a legislative body cannot legislate wisely or effectively in the absence of information respecting the conditions which the legislation is intended to affect or change, and where the legislative body does not itself possess the requisite information — which not infrequently is true — recourse must be had to others who do possess it.”

The Teapot Dome scandal inspired additional federal reforms such as the Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925, which expanded federal campaign finance disclosure requirements and included expenditure caps for congressional candidates. Another reform was the Revenue Act of 1924, which provided the chairs of the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees with the ability to demand tax returns from the IRS.

The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee is well within his statutory rights today under the Revenue Act of 1924 to obtain the president’s personal and business tax returns. And if Congress wanted to subpoena people to testify about the president’s businesses — including family — McGrain v. Daugherty gives them that power too.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Jeffrey Epstein, accused sex trafficker, dies by suicide: Officials

effrey Epstein, the disgraced millionaire who was facing federal sex trafficking charges, died by suicide early Saturday in his Lower Manhattan prison cell, law enforcement sources and the Bureau of Prisons confirmed to ABC News.

Epstein hanged himself, the sources said.

He was found unresponsive in his cell at Metropolitan Correctional Center around 6:30 a.m., the Bureau of Prisons said. He transported in cardiac arrest to New York Downtown Hospital at 6:39 a.m., according to sources.

Epstein, 66, was set to stand trial next year for allegedly sexually abusing dozens of girls in New York and Florida.

His death came less than three weeks after he was found unresponsive in his cell at the federal prison in Lower Manhattan, with marks on his neck that appeared to be self-inflicted, sources told ABC News. He was placed on suicide watch following the July 23 incident, but was not on suicide watch at the time of his death.

Epstein was arrested in July for alleged sex trafficking of girls at his Upper East Side mansion and his home in Palm Beach, Florida. Some of the charges date back to the early 2000s.

Epstein pleaded not guilty to the charges. He faced up to 45 years in prison if convicted.

Following news of his death, his alleged victims condemned his suicide and what they described as a lack of justice for them and other accusers.

"I am extremely mad and hurt thinking he once again thought he was above us and took the easy way out ... I still can't wrap my head around the fact that's really true," Jena-Lisa Jones, 30, an alleged victim of Epstein when she was 14 in Florida, said in a statement. "God will have his judgement now."

Jennifer Araoz, 32, who claimed that Epstein raped her when she was 14, called on authorities to "pursue and prosecute his accomplices and enablers.

"I am angry Jeffrey Epstein won’t have to face his survivors of his abuse in court. We have to live with the scars of his actions for the rest of our lives, while he will never face the consequences of the crimes he committed the pain and trauma he caused so many people," Araoz said.

Michelle Licata, an alleged Florida victim of Epstein when she was 16, said she didn't want anyone to die.

"I just wanted him to be held accountable for his actions. Simple as that," she said.

Law enforcement sources told ABC News the criminal case against Epstein will not end with his death. The FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan will continue to evaluate the evidence and hear from his accusers, the sources said.

A source familiar with the case told ABC News that Attorney General William Barr is "livid."

"Determined to get to the bottom of this," the source said.

The statement from the Federal Bureau of Prisons said the "FBI is investigating the incident."

Politicians, too, demanded answers in the wake of Epstein's suicide.

Lois Frankel, a Democratic congressman who represents Palm Beach, said his death "does not end the need for justice for his victims or the right of the public to know why a prolific child molester got a slap on the wrist instead of a long prison sentence."

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., wrote on Twitter, "We need answers. Lots of them."

His alleged crimes were thrown back into the spotlight amid renewed scrutiny of the plea deal Epstein reached with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami in 2007, led by then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta. A non-prosecution agreement allowed Epstein, a hedge-fund manager, to plead guilty to two state charges and avoid federal charges for an allegedly broad pattern of similar sexual misconduct. He would serve just 13 months of an 18-month sentence in county jail in Florida.

The alleged victims in that case told ABC News they were not made aware of the details of the plea agreement while it was being negotiated.

The deal is currently under review by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility. Acosta was serving as President Trump's Labor Secretary amid the controversy over his role in the deal. He later resigned from that position.

On Friday, a federal appellate court in New York unsealed around 2,000 pages of documents from a now-settled civil defamation case between Virginia Roberts Giuffre, an alleged Epstein victim, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime Epstein associate.

Giuffre accused Maxwell of recruiting her while she was working as a locker-room attendant at Mar-A-Lago in 2000 and bringing her to Epstein's home for a massage. She claims that she eventually became a teen sex slave to Epstein, and a victim of sex trafficking, beginning at age 17, at the hands of both Epstein and Maxwell.

The newly-unsealed documents showed that Giuffre alleged that Epstein and Maxwell directed her to have sex with, among others: Prince Andrew; criminal defense attorney Alan Dershowitz; former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson; former Senator George Mitchell; a well-known prime minster, who she wouldn't name; and a foreign man who was introduced to her as a "prince."

Maxwell has consistently denied Giuffre's claims.

"Ghislaine Maxwell did not participate in, facilitate, manage or otherwise conspire to commit sex trafficking" as alleged by Giuffre, her attorney wrote in a 2016 court filing.

Maxwell's attorneys also contend in the newly unsealed court filings that Giuffre had “utterly failed” to substantiate her allegations that Maxwell facilitated her abuse. Giuffre’s claims about having been trafficked to other prominent men, Maxwell’s lawyers wrote, are “patently incredible.”

Mitchell called the allegations "false."

"I have never met, spoken with or had any contact with Ms. Giuffre," he said in a statement issued Friday. "In my contacts with Mr. Epstein I never observed or suspected any inappropriate conduct with underage girls. I only learned of his actions when they were reported in the media related to his prosecution in Florida. We have had no further contact."

Richardson also denied Giuffre's claims.

"These allegations and inferences are completely false. Governor Richardson has never even been contacted by any party regarding this lawsuit," Maddy Mahony, a spokeswoman for Richardson, said in a statement. "To be clear, in Governor Richardson’s limited interactions with Mr. Epstein, he never saw him in the presence of young or underage girls. Governor Richardson has never been to Mr. Epstein’s residence in the Virgin Islands. Governor Richardson has never met Ms. Giuffre."

Giuffre's allegations were never tested in court because the case was settled prior to trial.

During a detention hearing in July, Epstein came face-to-face with two other accusers. Annie Farmer said she was 16 when Epstein had her sent to New Mexico where he was allegedly “inappropriate” with her. Courtney Wild told the judge she was 14 when Epstein allegedly sexually abused her in Palm Beach, Florida. Both women spoke in support of keeping Epstein locked up without bail.

Epstein appeared to watch them address the judge, but his face showed no emotion.

A federal judge later denied bail for Epstein, after deciding he was too great a flight risk to release from custody.

Epstein's body will be taken to the city morgue and an autopsy will be conducted as soon as Sunday, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

Well, that's certainly convenient for Donnie.

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

effrey Epstein...

You cropped a letter there.

So anyway, Suicide is never a tragedy, and pressuring such a deplorable criminal like that into taking the coward's way out of the public shame, serving his sentence...

Save some money on room, and board.  Too bad we don't have the Death Penalty for serial sexual predators, but even if we did.  Save some time, and money on an execution/death row too.

If anyone ever deserved the Death Penalty, though.  I hope they have plenty of records on his clients, too.

[joan1984]

Hmmm, the latest Arkancide?

FBI is investigating the death of the prisoner who was under 24 hour 'watch', a suicide risk. Will this too become one of those "No serious prosecutor would ever Indict...." case, or will we actually learn what happened here...

[Athos_131]

Trump’s El Paso Photo Is Obscene

A really exceptional work of obscenity, like a really exceptional work of beauty, exceeds the ability of its viewers to fathom what they just saw. Did that just happen? But … how? What sorcery created it? Words don’t arrive, and the stammering gives way to silence.

The latest publicity photograph of the president in El Paso, Texas, knocked me into silence for a good half hour this morning while I tried to figure out the many layers of obscenity on display. The photo features a baby whose parents were killed in El Paso a few days ago. The baby survived because his parents shielded him with their bodies. In the photo, he is cradled by Melania Trump. The president is next to her; both are smiling broadly, and the president is offering a thumbs-up. The child is expressionless and wearing a cute plaid bow tie.

If Trump had failed to visit El Paso, liberals would surely be criticizing him, rightly, for his absence. So it isn’t his presence alone that makes the photograph odious. First there are the smiles, so chipper in the aftermath of mass murder. For some reason, this Trump smile calls to mind the one in his famous tweeted portrait in which he’s eating a taco bowl (“I love Hispanics!”) served by Trump Tower Grill. Then there is the thumbs-up, also present to signal approval of the taco bowl, and in this case to signal approval of what, exactly? The narrow survival of the infant? The heroism of the hospital staff and first responders who cared for the wounded? Somehow neither of these possibilities seems quite right, and contemplation has brought me no closer to a better answer. I do not imagine that Trump is applauding the slaughter. But few gestures are appropriate for both a taco bowl and the death of a baby’s parents.

Out of context, the photo looks like a portrait of a family, with proud parents or grandparents awkwardly posing next to a new baby. In all such photos, the baby participates unwittingly. But in this one, his conscription is grotesque, and his lack of expression nauseating to behold. The vacancy of his stare is somehow more crushing than if he were bawling, and thereby showing some awareness of his loss. Does he know that his parents will never come back? Does he know that these plastic people, grinning in his parents’ place, will hand him to relatives and never come back either? Does he know that one of them called people who looked like his parents “invaders,” the same word used by the killer who shot them dead at a Walmart?

And then there is the bow tie. According to the El Paso Times, the boy’s father supported Trump, and the family wanted Trump to visit them. They dressed their little orphan up for the occasion, and I judge them for neither their support nor the resulting photograph. (Tito, the boy’s uncle, stands next to Trump in the photo.) What the bow tie shows, I think, is respect: This is how you dress up your little ones when heading to a wedding or a meeting with someone important. Contributing to the peculiarity of the image is the Trumps’ failure to match that respect, to modulate their smiles to suit the gravity of the occasion.

The president of the United States is photographed wherever he goes, and of course some of those photos will show him picking his nose or smirking when he should be serious. The optical demands of the job are impossible to appreciate, and we should forgive him for the occasional failure to twist his face into an appropriate expression. But sometimes—and this is one of those times—the optical demands of the office are the only demands. In the immediate bereavement of an infant’s parents, nothing is needed but respectful silence. This is never truer than for a man like Trump, who cannot speak without giving offense and enjoying it. The photograph was released by Melania and could have been taken in the spirit of mourning that the occasion deserved, or it could have been taken not at all. It is one of the most twisted things I have seen in a long time.

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

Trump making a Hospital visit, after denying basic hygene, and healthcare products to children in containment camps is obscene.  "Look how much we care about these sick kids in El Paso.  Quick, Melania, pick up a baby, and smile.  No, smile convincingly."

I think that infant is the only one in that photo with a sincere expression.



That's not Resting Bitch Face, that's "I married a monster, who loves his daughter more than me."

[joan1984]

When will we get to the release of names, dates, and secret service guards who accompanied President Clinton on Epstein's airplane, and spent time on Pedo Island.

The agents accompany both Clintons, all the time, whether Hillary is drinking wine from a box while walking in the woods... or when Bill is being "flown" by the likes of Epstein, and a full accounting of their whereabouts should be a full matter of record, including longitude and latitude, one presumes.

Maybe a House Oversight Committee could subpoena the records, and release all the records, as they usually have, and this time include Media leaks to those not beholden to Democrats, so we all get to see them...

[psiberzerker]

When will we get to the release of names, dates, and secret service guards who accompanied President Clinton on Epstein's airplane, and spent time on Pedo Island.

Ooh, ooh!  Can I play unsubstantiated rumor too?

Probably right after Donny dearest releases his Tax Records.  Epstein has lots, and lots of contacts, and unfortunately for you, the most qualified man to head up a team for exposing the entire ring is probably Robert Mueller.

Would it be worth it to you, if Presidents Clinton and Trump went down together?  How about the Koch brothers?  There's a fuck of a lot of millionaires in that circle jerk, and I hope they get ALL of them  

I'm not the one who's pointing the finger at one, while defending the other.  Child abusers are child abusers.  Regardless of political affiliation, you can't defend any of them.

[Lois]

So far all that we know is that one of Epstein's victims said that she was forced to have sex with Trump at one of his parties.

[Athos_131]

Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein partied together. Then an oceanfront Palm Beach mansion came between them.

For the better part of two decades starting in the late 1980s, Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump swam in the same social pool. They were neighbors in Florida. They jetted from LaGuardia to Palm Beach together. They partied at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and dined at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion.

And then, in 2004, they were suddenly rivals, each angling to snag a choice Palm Beach property, an oceanfront manse called Maison de l’Amitie — the House of Friendship — that was being sold out of bankruptcy.

Before the auction, Epstein and Trump each tried to work the ref; the trustee in the case, Joseph Luzinski, recalls being lobbied by both camps.

“It was something like, Donald saying, ‘You don’t want to do a deal with him, he doesn’t have the money,’ while Epstein was saying: ‘Donald is all talk. He doesn’t have the money,’ ” Luzinski said. “They both really wanted it.”

Only one man would win.

In the wake of Epstein’s arrest last month on sex trafficking charges, many who socialized with him — including Trump — are eager to have it known that they never much liked the man, or weren’t really friends, or barely even knew him.

“I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you,” the president said in the Oval Office the day after New York authorities took Epstein into custody.

But friends and associates said the two wealthy New York-to-Palm Beach commuters had socialized for years, drawn together by a mix of money, women and power.

“They knew each other a long time,” said Sam Nunberg, a former Trump aide who said he pressed the candidate about his ties to Epstein in late 2014 as the real estate mogul considered a White House run. “Bottom line, Donald would hang out with Epstein because he was rich.”

Their falling out, Trump said, happened about 15 years ago — several years before Epstein’s conviction on a prostitution solicitation charge.

Trump has not said why their relationship ruptured. “The reason doesn’t make any difference, frankly,” the president said.

Fifteen years ago, the two men squared off over the Palm Beach mansion. Just a few months later, local police began investigating allegations that Epstein was sexually abusing minors. Trump has also said — without providing details — that he at some point banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago.

The White House declined to comment. Epstein’s lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.

It had been a typical Trump relationship: heavily chronicled in the news media, with an uncertain core beneath the surface.

Photos and articles captured the men together over the years, the future president of the United States and the future convicted sex offender: Here they are, Epstein and longtime girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, Trump and his then-girlfriend, Melania Knauss, double dating at a celebrity tennis tournament at Mar-a-Lago. Partying with Britain’s Prince Andrew. Hanging out with National Football League cheerleaders. Dancing, laughing, palling around at a party Trump threw to celebrate his “freedom” after he divorced his second wife, Marla Maples.

“Terrific guy,” Trump said of Epstein in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with.”

Within two years, public sightings of the two had ended.

'They were good friends'
Trump and Epstein were more than just neighbors who happened to end up at the same parties. They were two outer-borough New York guys, both with a knack for building their images and making a buck. Both attracted a ton of attention, though Trump worked hard to win notice and Epstein sometimes sought to deflect it. Both won reputations as men who were seen around many beautiful women.

In 2016, Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten told Fox News that Trump had “no relationship” with Epstein: “They were not friends and they did not socialize together.” Garten declined to comment for this article.

But Epstein, asked in a 2010 deposition if he had ever socialized with Trump, responded: “Yes, sir.”

The Epstein-Trump relationship didn’t exist in isolation but as part of a larger Palm Beach social swirl. In the early years after Trump bought the private Mar-a-Lago estate in 1985, Epstein and Trump were spotted together at Palm Beach events, including a pre-pageant dinner at Mar-a-Lago in 1992, according to people in attendance.

“They were tight,” said one person who observed them together and spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution. “They were each other’s wingmen.”

Trump, recently divorced from his first wife, Ivana, was in an on-and-off relationship with the woman he would soon marry, Marla Maples.

During that period, the New York developer, casting himself as a carefree playboy billionaire, hosted and attended parties at Mar-a-Lago and elsewhere, sometimes featuring models, cheerleaders and beauty pageant contestants. Trump had a business connection to all three industries: For a time, he ran a modeling agency. He owned a team in the United States Football League, a short-lived competitor to the NFL. And he controlled the Miss Universe pageant.

Since the start of his career, Trump had made his love life a central part of his public image. The idea was to build his brand as an avatar of fabulousness and to extend that brand by attaching beautiful women to his name, he has said.

“I create stars,” he said on ABC’s “Primetime Live” in 1994, adding: “I’ve really gotten a lot of women great opportunity. Unfortunately, after they’re a star, the fun is over for me. It’s like a creating process. It’s almost like creating a building. It’s pretty sad.”

Trump’s parties at Mar-a-Lago often featured models from Miami who floated around the patio and pool, with many more women than men, friends have recounted.

“That’s true,” Trump said in an interview in 2015, stressing he was single at the time. “The point was to have fun. It was wild.”

“There’s 100 beautiful women and 10 guys,” Roger Stone, his longtime adviser, told The Post in 2016. “ ‘Look, how cool are we?’ . . . I mean, it was great.”

Epstein, who in 1990 bought his own place in Palm Beach, two miles north of Trump’s, never became a member of Mar-a-Lago but visited the club for social events, Garten has said. On some of those occasions, Epstein was accompanied by Maxwell.

“Donald liked Epstein,” said Steven Hoffenberg, a Trump acquaintance who was Epstein’s business partner at a New York private equity firm in the 1980s and ’90s, until Hoffenberg was convicted of running a massive Ponzi scheme. “But he was crazy about Maxwell, a very charming lady.”

Epstein made several appearances at Mar-a-Lago. He attended a party there with NFL cheerleaders in 1992, where he was videotaped by an NBC news crew gathering footage for a segment on Trump. The network recently released the footage, in which Trump greets Epstein warmly and whispers in the financier’s ear, leading Epstein to double over in laughter.

Photographs and videos show Epstein and Trump posing together at the mansion in 1992, 1997 and 2000. The two were also pictured together, with model Ingrid Seynhaeve, in 1997 at a Victoria’s Secret party in New York City.

Around that time, Trump flew at least once, in the late 1990s or 2000, on Epstein’s private plane from Florida to New York, according to Epstein’s brother, Mark, who described the flight in a 2009 deposition.

In an interview last week with The Post, Mark Epstein said Trump flew on the plane “numerous times” but said he was only present for one flight.

“They were good friends,” Mark Epstein said. “I know [Trump] is trying to distance himself, but they were.” He added that Trump used to comp Epstein’s mother and aunt at one of Trump’s Atlantic City casino hotels. When a Post reporter sought further details, Mark Epstein hung up.

When Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book of phone numbers appeared in a court file a few years ago, it contained 14 numbers for Trump; his wife, Melania; and others in Trump’s inner circle.

Trump and Epstein’s appearances together often made the news: In February 2000, Epstein and Maxwell attended a celebrity tennis tournament at Mar-a-Lago. Epstein brought along Prince Andrew, who was photographed with Trump and his then-girlfriend Melania Knauss.

Trump also dined at Epstein’s Upper East Side Manhattan mansion in 2003, according to New York magazine. “The dialogues are so engaging,” Epstein told the magazine, “that serving even the most extraordinary food sometimes seems inappropriate.”

But according to Stone, Trump turned down numerous invitations to Epstein’s private island and his Palm Beach home. In a 2016 book, Stone quoted Trump as saying that “The one time I visited [Epstein’s] Palm Beach home, the swimming pool was full of beautiful young girls. ‘How nice,’ I thought, ‘he let the neighborhood kids use his pool.’ ”

'Palm Beach egos going at it'

It was another prime property on Palm Beach island that pitted the two men against each other — a six-acre oceanfront estate with a 180-degree view of the Atlantic.

In November 2004, Trump, who was starring in NBC’s “The Apprentice” at the time, declared himself intent on winning “the finest piece of land in Florida and probably the U.S.,” an estate that had been seized as part of the bankruptcy of nursing home magnate Abe Gosman.

Trump said he planned to create “the second greatest house in America, Mar-a-Lago being the first” and then resell it.

Epstein was also enraptured by the property, which Gosman had purchased in 1988 for about $12 million from Leslie Wexner, the Ohio-based retail executive who was a friend and patron of Epstein’s. In contrast to Trump, Epstein seemed interested in living at the place. Harley Riedel, an attorney for Gosman, said the previous owner had filled the mansion with pricey art and “really did have in his heart that it would be nice if someone moved in and lived there.”

At first, Epstein pressed to gain the upper hand in the competition for the estate, according to Luzinski, the bankruptcy trustee. Epstein agreed on a price and terms that were viewed as favorable for Gosman’s creditors if a higher bid didn’t emerge, he said.

As the competition heated up, Trump and Epstein began talking each other down to the trustee, Luzinski said.

On Nov. 15, 2004, the bidders, their representatives, and a small cavalry of lawyers representing the creditors and the Gosman family gathered in a courtroom at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in West Palm Beach. Trump was connected by phone.

The auction began with an attempt by one of Epstein’s three attorneys to knock Trump out of the bidding. Attorney Andrew Kamensky argued that Trump was not qualified because he demanded that the property have title insurance or he would not close on the sale. “What I’m telling you is that Mr. Epstein will — he will close,” Kamensky said, according a transcript obtained by The Post.

Trump wasn’t in Palm Beach — his own attorney, Raymond Royce, was in the courtroom. But Trump was on the phone, and now he chimed in to defend himself.

Riedel’s first notice that Trump might personally take part in the proceedings came when his voice boomed from the speakerphone. “I was sort of shocked,” the lawyer said.

Judge Steven Friedman rejected Epstein’s objection. The bidding began with Epstein’s offer of $37.25 million, but he dropped out after his bid of $38.6 million was topped.

Trump “had made up his mind to get it no matter the price,” said Charles Tatelbaum, a lawyer for one of Gosman’s creditors, JPMorgan Chase Bank.

A third bidder jumped in late, prompting Trump to pipe up again. “This is Mr. Trump,” he said over the speakerphone. “It seemed to be very clear that they dropped out also.”

The judge allowed the other bidder, Mark Pulte, to proceed, but Trump outbid him, too, with an offer of $41.35 million.

“I will therefore determine by the bang of the gavel that Mr. Trump is the higher bidder,” Friedman said.

In an interview, Luzinski described the showdown as “two very large Palm Beach egos going at it.”

It is unclear whether Trump and Epstein were in contact after the house sale. That month, Trump left two messages for Epstein at his home in Palm Beach, according to records obtained by Vice News — the last known interaction between the two men.

Four years after he bought the Gosman mansion, Trump sold it to Russian businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million, more than doubling his investment.

'He's a real creep'
It is unclear when Trump learned of allegations that Epstein was preying on teenage girls. In a 2002 interview, he gave no indication of concern, telling New York magazine that Epstein “enjoys his social life.”

“It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” Trump said.

On Nov. 28, 2004 — less than two weeks after the mansion auction — Palm Beach police fielded a tip that young women were seen coming and going from Epstein’s home, then-Police Chief Michael Reiter said in a deposition. Reiter declined to comment.

Four months later, in March 2005, police received a complaint from a woman who alleged that her 15-year-old stepdaughter had been paid $300 by Epstein to massage the financier while partially undressed, according to the police report. The Palm Beach police investigation identified more than a dozen possible victims, the report shows.

In 2006, a Palm Beach grand jury returned an indictment against Epstein of a single count of soliciting a prostitute. Epstein pleaded not guilty. That July, news organizations first reported that Palm Beach police had investigated Epstein for unlawful sex with minors and wanted the FBI to take up the case.

After a lengthy FBI investigation, federal prosecutors agreed not to prosecute Epstein under federal law, allowing him instead to plead guilty in state court in 2008 to two felony counts, including soliciting a minor.

Epstein is now facing federal charges in New York of sexually abusing dozens of girls. He has pleaded not guilty.

In late 2007, the New York Post reported that Epstein had been barred from visiting Mar-a-Lago, which Epstein at the time denied.

Earlier this month, Garten, the Trump Organization lawyer, said that Trump “banned him from stepping foot on the property.”

Nunberg said that when he quizzed Trump about his relationship with Epstein, Trump told him, “He’s a real creep, I banned him.” Trump told Nunberg that Epstein had recruited a young woman who worked at Mar-a-Lago to give him massages. Nunberg said Trump told him he issued the edict against Epstein years before the police investigation became public.

Epstein has also been accused of preying on a girl he met at Mar-a-Lago.

One of his alleged victims, Virginia Giuffre, has alleged in court documents that when she was a 16-year-old towel girl in Mar-a-Lago’s locker room in 2000, Maxwell “recruited” her to come to Epstein’s Palm Beach place to make money by giving massages.

Giuffre said in a lawsuit against Maxwell that Epstein sexually abused her at his mansions in both Palm Beach and Manhattan. That case was later settled out of court. Epstein and Maxwell have both denied taking part in any sex trafficking.

Trump also appears to have been helpful to Epstein’s accusers.

Brad Edwards, an attorney for some of the alleged victims, said in an interview last year that when he was seeking information from Epstein’s acquaintances in 2009, Trump was “the only person who picked up the phone and said: ‘Let’s just talk. I’ll give you as much time as you want. I’ll tell you what you need to know.’ ”

Edwards declined to say what Trump told him but said he was “very helpful in the information that he gave.”

When Nunberg looked into Trump’s ties with Epstein, he said that Trump’s longtime secretary, Rhona Graff, and others in the Trump Organization all agreed that Trump had made a clear break with Epstein.

“That’s all I needed to know,” Nunberg concluded. “He’d never let somebody else get leverage over him.”

Manuel Roig-Franzia and Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Of course Yellow Wall won't explain this.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

At least Yellow Wall can't fake news away these photos.

Back to fake racism for that poster I suppose.

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

At least Yellow Wall can't fake news away these photos.

I'm sure there's pictures of Epstein, and Clinton together too, but fortunately, Joan is too lazy to look anything up.

[Athos_131]

Surrogate Angels of Death

Imagine this: A shooter has entered a public place, where you are walking with your family. You have but a minute to realize you can save your 2-month-old by using your own body to shield him from the bullets raining down around you. Mere days later, your baby, the youngest survivor of the El Paso massacre, will appear on television with the very man who inspired the terrorist who killed both you and your husband. A photograph is taken, for posterity.

In the photo, your baby wears a bowtie and tiny jacket; someone has dressed him up for this occasion. He gazes off to the side (toward his aunt, who stands beside First Lady Melania Trump), his body stiff, his face solemn. He is not at ease in this strange lady’s arms. How could he be? Your child has just gotten out of the hospital, where he was treated for broken bones incurred when you desperately threw yourself over his little body and took the bullets that seconds later orphaned him and his two siblings.

Neither the president nor Melania so much as glances at Baby Paul. Oblivious (as ever) to the solemnity of their occasion, they smile broadly, matching veneers on full beam. Your husband came from a family of Trump supporters. Perhaps, in a different world, you might even have wanted to meet Donald Trump, or take a photo with him as he gave one of his signature thumbs-up gestures — everything is A-OK here.

Imagine this, then look at this photo again.

Babies make excellent political props — so useful for a quick kiss and cuddle during campaign stops, instant humanizers of even the stiffest politicians. But the Trumps are different. We rarely see them with babies. They are the least “familial” First Family in our lifetimes, despite (or perhaps because of) having created the most family-centered, nepotistic, mob-dynasty-style administration in history. We detect no family warmth from this president (save his unsettling attachment to Ivanka). No spousal affection. But also so little acknowledgment of any of his other children, of the fact of being a father (and grandfather) at all. Where is Barron, for example? We never see him or receive even the most anodyne updates about him — his progress in school, his favorite sports team. Where are the grandkids? Nothing. And certainly, Melania is the least publicly maternal First Lady we’ve ever had. She doesn’t even pretend to care.

No, in Trumpville, the emotional texture and familial feeling usually modeled by a First Family has been replaced with the enthusiasm of anonymous crowds, with the mass hysteria whipped up at Nuremberg-style rallies led by the President, where people seek the thrill of connection conjured by ritualistic chants of racism and misogyny (“Lock her up!” “Build that wall!” “Send them back!”). Donald Trump seems to experience love only in such soulless settings, with their underlying threat of violence — and he encourages his followers to do the same.

Those fascistic ceremonies lie at the root of the El Paso massacre, and that’s what makes this photo especially galling. Banned site Baby Paul is the latest victim of the hatred those rallies gin up. For Trump then to create uncharacteristically this faux portrait of familial love, to play-act a kind of happy Daddy, Mommy, and Baby — by borrowing THIS baby — is an abomination. In this simulacrum of a family portrait, the centerpiece is a direct evocation of the massacre that rendered him available for “adoption” in this photo in the first place. And since the picture blithely replaces the baby’s slaughtered parents — murdered for the family’s Latinx ethnicity — with two unconcerned, smiling white people, it performs a kind of symbolic kidnapping, cruelly appropriating someone else’s child for personal gain. (Note also the marginalized positions of the two Anchondo relatives.)

The abuse and kidnapping of children of color are recurrent themes in this administration. Consider the children of the 680 Mississippi food workers cruelly arrested this week, who returned from their first day at school to find their parents vanished. They are the victims of child abuse, if not outright psychological torture. Ditto for the many children who lost parents and other relatives in three, largely racially inflected gun massacres in the past two weeks. Not to mention the children who were themselves killed in those shootings (including a 6-year-old Latino boy in Gilroy, CA). As for the thousands of migrant children ripped from their parents’ arms and held in subhuman, lethal conditions (with no plans in place for family reunification) they are unmistakably the victims of ongoing mass-scale, state-sponsored de facto kidnapping.

There is, furthermore, strong evidence that some of those migrant children have now been forcibly adopted out to white American families via “Bethany Christian Services,” an anti-choice adoption agency known for its coercive practices and run by Brian DeVos, a cousin-by-marriage of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. This amounts to kidnapping on top of kidnapping — and probably represents the end of any hope that these children might ever reunite with their own families.

All of these ghastly truths make themselves felt in this single photo of the vacuous and smug Trumps masquerading as kindly hospital visitors, seeking to comfort the El Paso survivors. Posing for this photograph, the Trumps remove any last doubt about their dead-eyed cruelty and transactional view of life. Smiling emptily above this wounded little boy, whose life was shattered before he could take his first step, the president and his wife call to mind those famous safari photos taken by Trump’s sons, Eric and Don Jr. — in which they, like their father, smile brightly over the victims of their own heedless cruelty and violence. To Donald Trump, this baby is little more than a hunting trophy in his own brutal race war (which explains his triumphant thumbs up).

Injured, confused, squirming away from Melania’s brittle embrace, and straining toward what’s left of his family, Baby Paul now stands in for all the children — indeed, all human beings — who, like him, have been harmed and are being held against their will by a white supremacist president.

Of course, Trump would have liked to include many more of the survivors in his photo op, but he met with none of the others. Of eight survivors in the hospital, five outright refused to meet with the president. As speaking, sentient adults, they were able to withhold their consent. (According to the hospital, the absence of other survivors was due to their injuries or the Spanish-language barrier.) But Baby Paul was too young to say no. When he learns later about what happened to his infant self, about the day when both his parents, as well as the peace of his childhood, were stolen from him, how will he feel about this photograph then? How would you feel?

#Resist

[Athos_131]

We Are Led by Ghouls and Goons

Check out this pair of fucking ghouls, acting like they just stole a baby to drink its sweet, young blood so they can live on for a few precious days before they suck another child dry. What you're looking at is Donald Trump, a worn-out sack of lies painted orange and shoved into a terrible suit, and Melania Trump, a lamprey in human form, who happen to be the President and First Lady of the United States, smiling as they hold an orphan named Paul.

Paul became an orphan because an immigrant-hating fuckworm decided to gun down people in an El Paso, Texas, Walmart. Paul's parents, Andre and Jordan Anchondo, died protecting Paul when the fuckworm opened fire. More specifically, his mother, Jordan, was protecting Paul, and Andre leapt in front of Jordan to protect her. When Jordan was shot dead, she fell on Paul, breaking some of his tiny fingers. He had been sent home after treatment. Well, not home, per se, because that doesn't really exist anymore, but sent with family. But when our First Couple of ghouls needed a prop for their visit to a hospital in El Paso and almost none of the victims there could or would act as that prop, Trump's goons called and asked if Paul could be brought back.

There is something so fucked up about those smiles, something so empty and soulless, something chilling and depraved, that it should hurt us to our bones to see it. The failure to act humble in the face of pain, pain that was caused in part by Trump's own words and actions, echoed in the fuckworm's 8chan post, is galling. And Trump's pathetic thumbs-up may as well just be a middle finger. They don't care, at least not in the sense that we generally think of empathy. They care about how they are perceived, yes, but they don't care about Paul or any of the dead or dying or wounded.  They are our American void, the abyss we have earned, the black hole that we have come to deserve.

Halfway across the country, just before Trump bragged about how his El Paso crowd size was bigger than Beto's to hospital staff who had been putting people back together, 600 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had surrounded chicken processing plants in several small Mississippi towns and then arrested 680 workers for "not having proper documentation to be in the United States."

You ever spoken to anyone who works in a chicken processing plant? Or worked there yourself?  It's a fucking nightmare of slaughter and blood and guts. It is horrible, hard work. Jesus, just imagine the noise you must deal with.

After traumatizing the children of the workers, who had just started their school year, ICE ended up releasing 300 of the people they had taken into custody who had kids waiting for them. The parents  promised that they would return for their immigration hearings. You got that? You understand that? It was literally catch and release. And while ICE claims they were always cognizant of ensuring that the mostly American children of undocumented workers were taken care of, you can fucking well bet that it wasn't until video of sobbing, pleading kids got onto the news that anything was done.

And what did our emotionally and morally vacant president say about this today? "I want people to know that if they come into the United States illegally, they’re getting out; they’re going to be brought out.  And this serves as a very good deterrent...when people see what they saw yesterday, and like they will see for a long time, they know that they’re not staying here." What a baldly inhuman statement, essentially saying that it's good to see children sobbing because...fuck it. I just don't want to tease that out. Fuck him.

The saddest part is how many of Trump's taint-licking supporters think he's right. "Hey, if those parents didn't want their kids to suffer, they shouldn't have been here illegally," they say, as if the decision to come here was made on a whim, as if they hadn't faced extraordinary suffering and deprivation in order to take a goddamn chance and work in one of the worst fucking jobs in the nation.  Trump is a leader of monsters.

But the only funny part of this is that the raid, where no Americans who hired the undocumented workers were touched and no executives who want this cheap labor force were rounded up and driven away, is going to hurt the bottom line of the companies to the tune of millions because, well, fuck, ICE just took away a shitload of their employees. One of the plants was partially shut down today because of a lack of workers. That's what your donations to Trump got you, motherfuckers.

It's not just that cruelty is the point, as we say all the time since Adam Serwer coined that phrase. It's also that, given the chance to even pretend not to be cruel, Trump will shove that aside, as if anything but cruelty is weakness. The orange ghoul in the White House will not soften for your dead; he will not bend for your children's pain.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

The administration said it was moving these agencies for efficiency. Now the truth comes out.

“WHAT A wonderful way to streamline government,” said acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney at a gala last week, referring to the Agriculture Department’s plan to move two of its science agencies out of the D.C. area to the Kansas City region. In celebrating this controversial decision, Mr. Mulvaney laid bare the thinly veiled motivations behind uprooting researchers: not efficiency, but to drive talented workers out.

Since the relocation announcement in June, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has defended the controversial proposal, arguing that relocation will bring researchers closer to the subjects of their research and save the agency millions in employment costs and rent. But the haste and amateurishness of the process raised suspicions about true motives. And, now, Mr. Mulvaney has confirmed those suspicions by celebrating the gutting of the Economic Research Service, a federal statistics agency, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which oversees grant money for agricultural research. The motivation fits with the administration’s broader hostility toward experts, science and honest data.

In June, a Politico analysis found that the Trump administration barred dozens of climate-change-related investigations from being publicized. Politico also discovered that the research service issued news releases on only two studies directly related to climate change — both of which were favorable to the meat industry.

Even if relocation were justifiable, the USDA’s handling of the process has, so far, been deplorable. The more than 500 agency employees affected by the move were given 33 days to decide between their career and the lives they had established in the District. Approximately two-thirds chose resignation over reassignment. The loss of talent and institutional knowledge creates an irreparable tear in the fabric of the agency — and an entirely foreseeable one. If the USDA’s plan was to “drain the swamp,” as Mr. Mulvaney put it, then it certainly is succeeding — if by swamp, as Post columnist Catherine Rampell wrote, they mean civil service expertise. But if the department wants to carry out its true mission of helping rural America, it should rethink this move.

Research by the USDA is vital to farmers. As economic challenges mount with the ongoing trade war with China, and as climate change poses a growing threat to farmlands worldwide, the work by the ERS and NIFA is indispensable. They not only help farmers improve efficiency and productivity but also help smooth access to international markets.

The relocation is not a done deal. The USDA’s watchdog, the Office of Inspector General, published a report this month that challenges the relocation, which is meant to be completed by Sept. 30. By acting without budgetary approval from Congress, the USDA may have violated the 2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act. Rather than waiting for a judicial rebuke, the department should cancel the relocation now.

#Resist