[ by Charles Cameron — kushner’s clearance, the koreas, impeachment and other topics of interest, chyrons, screen-grabs &c ]
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Chyrons:
Velshi:
Meet the Press:
Ari Melber:
Spares:
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Quotes with associated chyrons, Melber:
Howard Fineman:
In the campaign, I spent some time on the 26th floor of Trump Tower, in Donald Trump’s office talking to Donald and some other people. And it reminded me of nothing so much as a somewhat more upscale back room at the Bada Bing!
It was Donald Trump sitting behind the desk, and various people milling around, nobody sitting down because Donald Trump had too many trophies and paintings and other things on the chairs and seats, there was nowhere to sit down, but everybody milling around the office and only one person who mattered and who was making everybody else argue with each other, and that was Donald Trump.
Fineman cont’d:
Is this basically a giant RICO case? That’s what we’re dealing with.
Barbara McQuade:
You know, Robert Mueller, and prosecutors in general, are scrupulously careful not to overplay their hand. And so they are correct, they are all correct that there was no direct statement by Donald Trump directing Michael Cohen to lie { .. ]
All they said is, the statement was not accurate. They did not say that President Trump did not in some way imply or indirectly indicate and instruct Cohen [ .. ]
[ .. ] because of statements Donald Trump had said, saying There’s no business in Russia, Michael, and in the same breath asking about the status of the negotiations with Russia [ .. ]
He sent a message to everybody, Get on board, that’s the message.
Barbara, cont’d:
It can be very difficult to prove when someone is so careful and maintains that plausible deniability by talking in code, it’s something that drug dealers do with each other, and mobsters do with each other — but if you can get enough people together to say, That’s how he communicated, then I think you can show his intent.
Ken Dilanian:
Conspiracy theorists on both sides of the Trump Russia story need to fall back.
This is a really complicated story, right, there’s a lot of ins and outs to the facts, and we can disagree, reasonable people can disagree on the implications of the evidence we have seen so far.
Dilanian, cont’d: But the people who need to fall back are those on the right who insist that the whole Mueller Russia investigation is a deep state plot and a coup against the President, and the people on the left who insist that Donald Trump is the Manchurian Candidate, that he’s a puppet of Putin. Because there’s no evidence to support either side of that.
Final chyrons from Melber:
I told you, this was a blizzard..
Hardball:
Ken Dilanian:
We have a new statement from Jared Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, who said at the time that Kushner got his clearance by the book, there was no special interference, he’s now saying that he, Mr Lowell, was not aware that the President had intervened. Speaking for himself now, not his client.
Mieke Eoyang:
What we saw in the Cohen testimony earlier this week is how exactly the President gives these kinds of instructions to people. What he repeats what he wants. He gives a meaningful look, he expects his order to be followed. SO when he says, I didn’t do this, he expects everyone to fall into line — even though we know now, he did.
Greg Brower:
I guess his [Manafort;s] team thought they had nothing to lose and perhaps something to gain by taking a swing at the Special Counsel, but I can’t believe it’s going to work..
Steve Kornacki:
Kornacki:
At the very bottom, there he is: Jimmy Carter from Plains, Georgia, the peanut farmer, the famous story. He went from worst to first, didn’t just win the Democratic nomination, but won the Presidency. That’s the most famous example, I think, of a dark horse who emerged..
AIsha Moodie-Mills:
Let’s remember that the point of impeachment proceedings is ultimately to open up a formal investigation, to be able to get to the heart of the heart1 of the things that Donald Trump is hiding. They also were able to pull out names, like Allen Weisselberg, and others, and also start to ask questions about Trump’s tax returns that really teed up the opportunity for them to follow up on some of the conversation that was politically feel like started at this hearing. So whether they feel like they are at a place to formally call it impeachment proceedings and to start that process, I think what we’re going to see is surely an investigation that mirrors the question-asking and the interrogation that impeachment would provide. [ .. ]
He’s literally being shown to act like a mobster in the way that he conducts himself with the people he works with.
Kornacki:
A felony was committed to conceal a politically damaging extra-marital affair.
David French:
You will see a complete flip-flop on both sides.[ .. ]
You’re going to see the waters being muddied with people who were a No on Clinton being a Yes, and Trump people who were a Yes on Clinton being a No on Trump, the only thing we can be sure of would be that hypocrisy would abound.
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Okay, that’s Melber and Hardball, I’ll put the next programs in a separate post.
