Traitor Watch - The 45 & 47 Thread

[Axaday]

Because acting heads of departments are supposed to have limited power and responsibility, and the senate grilling candidates is to, in part, make sure they're actually capable of doing the damn job and are loyal to the country and constitution and not the ideology, agenda or individual.

But no good faith operation from republicans, so the system fails.

In the specific case of RFK, I feel like Trump didn't really give much rhetoric and just said, "Hey this guy is helping me, so he's my kind of guy and whatever he things ought to happen is fine with me", so he really is one the Senate should've identified as a weed. But in general these people are just there to implement Trump's executive orders. I don't think hanging up nominations serves any real purpose beyond the opportunity to politically embarrass the other party. Knock one down and there'll be another one soon and they're going to do just what the last one was going to do but without an embarrassing skeleton in their closet. They aren't the ones you gotta worry about. The ones you gotta worry about are in the Oval Office whispering in the President's ear and the Senate doesn't get a say on who those people are.

 

[Axaday]

In Musk's case it's not just that he wants to be in the room where it happened, he wants to be the one doing it. And he is. Trump isn't exactly spending every day playing golf anymore, but he's still delegated an insane amount of work to this guy who doesn't even have an official Cabinet position.

https://trumpgolftrack.com/ says he has golfed 16 out of 62 days.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

In the specific case of RFK, I feel like Trump didn't really give much rhetoric and just said, "Hey this guy is helping me, so he's my kind of guy and whatever he things ought to happen is fine with me", so he really is one the Senate should've identified as a weed.

I think you missed part of last summer's drama. Sometimes it's hard to tell what Trump believes in beyond just agreeing with the last person he spoke with on a topic, but the record strongly suggests he does actually agree with a lot of RFK's ideas. Many such cases.

 

[Axaday]

I think you missed part of last summer's drama. Sometimes it's hard to tell what Trump believes in beyond just agreeing with the last person he spoke with on a topic, but the record strongly suggests he does actually agree with a lot of RFK's ideas. Many such cases.

Withdrawn

 

[Dekafox]

In news from the weekend:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/us/politics/trump-memo-lawyers.html

paywall-free: https://archive.is/6xjNJ

Trump's been issuing XOs targeting law firms opposing him and his agenda(s). Not sure if it's in the article, but found this writeup as one example:

A week and a half ago, Donald Trump targeted Paul Weiss with an executive order stripping the firm of security clearances and business with the government, as well as potentially barring their lawyers from Federal courthouses.

In addition, Trump implied he would penalize Paul Weiss’ clients.

It’s a blatantly illegal order, the kind widely understood as an authoritarian move .

It followed on Trump targeting two other big law firms,
Covington and Burling and Perkins Coie, whose partners had engaged in partisan activity against the Republicans.

Threatening lawyers who represent clients opposed to the government is tin pot dictator stuff, meant to chill any opposition.

So you would think that a politically wired firm would recognize that they have an ethical obligation, or even just a branding one, to oppose it.

Indeed, a high profile case like this is in some ways a lawyer’s dream,
it’s so obviously morally repugnant and a sure loser, or winner potentially for Paul Weiss.

Moreover, you would think that the rest of the big law world would rally behind these firms, seeing that any one of them could be next.

And indeed, Perkins Coie fought the order in court, quickly winning a temporary stay, with the judge saying this order “sends chills down my spine.”

But in the case of Paul Weiss, that’s not what happened.

As the Wall Street Journal reported, “Competitors immediately began circling after the March 14 order, calling coveted Paul Weiss clients to note that
the firm had been marked as an enemy of the president, according to people familiar with the conversations.”

Within a few days, Brad Karp, the firm’s Chairman, sought to cut a deal with the Trump administration.

Paul Weiss hired Bill Burck, the lawyer for indicted New York City mayor Eric Adams.

Working through Burck, as well as New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, a firm client, Karp reached out to Trump, and they met for three hours.

In the middle of that meeting with Karp, Trump picked up the phone and calling Paul Weiss’s most important rival, Robert Giuffra of Sullivan & Cromwell, and asked what he should do.

The whole episode leaked, which revealed to the entire corporate and legal world that Paul Weiss has no juice in Trump-world, and Sullivan & Cromwell does.

Finally, they cut a deal.

In return for Trump ending his executive order, the firm agreed to end its diversity programs,
do $40 million of free work for Trump-aligned priorities,
and ensure that it would hire and represent Trump-aligned clients.

Karp also disavowed former Paul Weiss lawyer Mark Pomerantz,
who had worked in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in a case against Trump.

This capitulation shocked and horrified the legal world,
inviting Trump to expand his attack on the legal community.

The next day, Trump issued another executive order calling for the government to sanction lawyers who bring “frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious” lawsuits against the government.

That’s a signal to the entire legal world that representing clients in disagreements with the government carries a personal and professional risk.

 

[Ungnome]

STOP BOWING TO OBVIOUS ILLEGAL EOs..... The more you capitulate, the more power he will try to take, you idiots....

 

[Rhinox]

No one said standing up to the tyrant bully would be without cost. Now we will so who is willing to pay a price for the good of the nation.

 

[wonko the sane?]

If you think the psychopaths running million and billion dollar businesses or industries are going to voluntarily stand up and forego money to preserve the country: you best be ready to grow your own food when you're wrong.

 

[Rhinox]

If you think the psychopaths running million and billion dollar businesses or industries are going to voluntarily stand up and forego money to preserve the country: you best be ready to grow your own food when you're wrong.

No, but I do think some of the lawyers will. When the rule of law goes out the window two things happen. 1: they become ******* useless and 2: in tyrannical takeovers, one of the first things they do is kill all the lawyers.

 

[Dekafox]

Meanwhile the Trump Admin's apparently been using Signal to pass classified info in contradiction to the Espionage Act and federal record keeping regulations:

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans

U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[KidTDragon]

Trump’s portrait at Colorado Capitol to come down after president complains it was “purposefully distorted”

The portrait was paid for with a Republican-led fundraising effort and approved by Colorado Republicans before it was put on display in 2019.

www.denverpost.com

I assume he was expecting it to be akin to this:

 

[Ironbite4]

Well I guess it's just another Monday and seeing how it's Monday, I guess old Pete's still hungover from the weekend. So he can be forgiven for adding the Atlantic's editor to the group chat discussing it's war plans to bomb Yeman.

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans

U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.

www.theatlantic.com

Ironbite-.....SORRY WHAT!?

 

[The Mighty Mollusk]

At this point I wonder if they're just pushing to see how far they can go before anyone actually stops them. This whole regime has been a massive effort in provocation and so far nobody's actually done anything meaningful about it.

 

[Axaday]

They are never going to acknowledge this happened or explain it. Perhaps someone with the same name was supposed to get it?

 

[Thylacine 2000]

"new phone, hou this"

 

[Pale Rider]

Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)

"Nobody was texting war plans" -- Pete Hegseth

bsky.app

 

[Axaday]

WATCH: Hegseth slams journalist after officials text Yemen plans to a Signal group chat

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth blamed the media on Monday for reports he shared military plans to an unclassified Signal chat.

apnews.com

More of the same moment with Hegseth. I saw Mike Johnson say that the administration has actually acknowledged the text mistake, which I didn't expect, but Hegseth says it is a lie from a highly discredited journalist.

I don't know how the timeline goes, but if you want to bury a story you don't answer questions about it and then if people keep repeating it you can eventually say they just keep harping about this. If Hegseth goes and said the "so-called" journalist was lying, the journalist is probably going to show proof. Then you have a harder time. That might be why they had to acknowledge it.

 

[KidTDragon]

They don't need to do anything. Consequences for Republicans are a thing of the past.

 

[Dekafox]

There is actually already screenshots of the conversation in the article.

 

[Rhinox]

Hegseth can try to play this off, but it's not going to work. There's already enough evidence out there.
But, no, nothing is going to get done about this. If we get to have elections next time, i would love to see a democrat in with spine enough to demand prosecution of the entire ******* Trump cabinet. This would just be one of many charges.

But, while I'm dreaming, I'd also like a pony.