More Mueller madness

It’s hard to keep up with the news related to the Mueller madness that dogs President Trump. I want to note the following items of the past day or two.

The usual gaggle of New York Times reporters delivers “Lobbyist Sam Patten Pleads Guilty to Steering Foreign Funds to Trump Inaugural.” Who is Sam Patten, you may ask. Whoever he is, his sin was that he failed to register as a lobbyist under the heretofore lightly enforced Foreign Agents Registration Act as a foreign agent for a Russia-aligned Ukrainian political party and that he helped the Ukrainian oligarch purchase four tickets to Mr. Trump’s inauguration. From Patten’s guilty plea the five Times reporters on the story generate enormous excitement of the wishin’ and hopin’ variety to which we have grown accustomed.

All by his lonesome Ken Dilanian reports for NBC News “Ex-Trump adviser Roger Stone says he expects Mueller to charge him with a crime.”

The AP’s Eric Tucker reports “Papadopoulos: Trump ‘nodded’ at suggestion of Putin meeting.” You may have heard that Homer nods. Now we have the news that, according to George Papadopoulos, Trump too nods. We are familiar with Trump’s monologues and outbursts and streams of consciousness. Nodding takes us into the previously unexplored realm of Trumpian silent communication.

Eric Tucker is joined by Chad Day for the AP story “Sources: Lawyer was told Russia had ‘Trump over a barrel.’” Lawyer=Bruce Ohr. Was told=Christopher Steele. Who’s zoomin’ who?

Sundance at Conservative Tree House comments on the Tucker/Day story and advises “Skip the Headline, Look at Detail Hidden Mid-Way…” Detail hidden mid-way=Glenn Simpson.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal decry the wrong done to our friend Cleta Mitchell in “Anatomy of a Fusion smear” (truncated but accessible here on Outline). Fusion smear=Glenn Simpson.

In a sort of Rathergate revisited moment of media madness, Jonathan Turley reviews CNN’s descent ever deeper into the quicksand in “CNN Sticks With Story That Cohen Alleges Trump Knew Of Trump Tower Meeting Despite Cohen and His Lawyer Denying The Story.”

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