The Tweet That Did In Putin's Puppet?

Trump is now admitting there was, after all, some collusion. And it was Idiot, Jr. and Kushner-in-law who were doing the colluding, Trump personally covering up for them and Trump probably directing the collusion, or to put it more accurately, the conspiracy to commit treason. Just look at the Trump tweet from yesterday above. His wonderful son held a meeting with Russian spies "to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics." It's not legal. It never happens. And it won't be long before all the details of Trump's participation come spilling out. And if it was so legal and commonplace, why has Trump been lying about it so assiduously? Not only that, but who else has he dragged into the coverup conspiracy? Well, the bullshit about "the adoption iff Russian children" was invented by Trump with help from two of Trump's crooked lawyers, Jay Sekulow and Marc Kasowitz (who will both be disbarred over this), another crooked attorney Alan Futerfas, employed by Idiot, Jr and also likely to be disbarred, as well as Hope Hicks, Josh Raffel... oh, and Kushner and Ivanka. Those are the conspirators we know about so far. I met Mueller has twice as many lined up. No one ever believed this bullshit anyway-- except for the deranged Trumpists who believe the Q-Anon claim that when Trump says "Muller and 17 angry Democrats," he's signaling them because Q is the 17th letter iff the alphabet.

We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up... [it was] a short introductory meeting.

Sekulow isn't as stupid as Trump and he sees what's headed his way so he started to worms his way out of his role in the conspiracy by claiming he "had bad information." Yesterday, Adam Davidson's essay for the New Yorker, The Day Trump Told Us There Was Attempted Collusion With Russia makes us eager for Rachel Maddow's show tonight. Davidson took great pleasure to point out that it was August 5 (1974) that the whole Nixon conspiracy came apart at the seams. Saturday, when Trump tweeted his admission, was exactly 44 years to the day!

The tweet contains several crucial pieces of information. First, it is a clear admission that Donald Trump, Jr.,’s original statement about the case was inaccurate enough to be considered a lie. He had said the meeting was with an unknown person who “might have information helpful to the campaign,” and that this person “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children.” This false statement was, according to his legal team, dictated by the President himself. There was good reason to mislead the American people about that meeting. Based on reporting-- at the time and now-- of the President’s admission, it was a conscious effort by the President’s son and two of his closest advisers to work with affiliates of the Russian government to obtain information that might sway the U.S. election in Trump’s favor. In short, it was, at minimum, a case of attempted collusion. The tweet indicates that Trump’s defense will continue to be that this attempt at collusion failed-- “it went nowhere”-- and that, even if it had succeeded, it would have been “totally legal and done all the time.” It is unclear why, if the meeting was entirely proper, it was important for the President to declare “I did not know about it!” or to tell the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, to “stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now.”

The President’s Sunday-morning tweet should be seen as a turning point. It doesn’t teach us anything new-- most students of the case already understand what Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner knew about that Trump Tower meeting. But it ends any possibility of an alternative explanation. We can all move forward understanding that there is a clear fact pattern about which there is no dispute:

• The President’s son and top advisers knowingly met with individuals connected to the Russian government, hoping to obtain dirt on their political opponent.
• Documents stolen from the Democratic National Committee and members of the Clinton campaign were later used in an overt effort to sway the election.
• When the Trump Tower meeting was uncovered, the President instructed his son and staff to lie about the meeting, and told them precisely which lies to use.
• The President is attempting to end the investigation into this meeting and other instances of attempted collusion between his campaign staff and representatives of the Russian government.

It was possible, just days ago, to believe-- with an abundance of generosity toward the President and his team-- that the meeting was about adoption, went nowhere, and was overblown by the Administration’s enemies. No longer. The open questions are now far more narrow: Was this a case of successful or only attempted collusion? Is attempted collusion a crime? What legal and moral responsibilities did the President and his team have when they realized that the proposed collusion was underway when the D.N.C. e-mails were leaked and published? And, crucially, what did the President know before the election, after it, and when he instructed his son to lie?

Earlier on Sunday, Trump wrote another tweet, one that repeated a common refrain: journalists are the enemy of the people. “I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People,” it read. In a way, he did provide a great service. He allowed us to move away from a no-longer-relevant debate about whether or not he and his campaign had done anything wrong. Our nation can now focus on another question: What do we do when a President has openly admitted to attempted collusion, lying, and a coverup?

As David From tweeted yesterday about Trump and his close knit advisors-- a quickie summary of what conspired and what we now all know about what Trump insisted for a year was "no collusion":

• They knew they would be meeting with representatives of the Russian state.
• They knew they were being offered Russian state intelligence.
• They intended to use Russian intelligence offered by Russian agents against an American opponents.
• They did not alert the FBI.

Sounds like a treasonous conspiracy to me. So... call me crazy, but this very much looks like enough reason to me to put off the confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh, who was appointed by Trump almost entirely because he believes presidents are above the law and can't be punished. I wonder if Trump and Kavanaugh made a deal about whether or not a president's immediate family is also above the law. Trump must be especially worried about Idiot, Jr, the family Fredo.

What is it about Idiot, Jr, asked Katie McDonough in February, "that makes him sound like such a terrible asshole?" And she meant "sound" quite literally. And now that's he's going to have to make a good impression on a jury, we might all be wondering the same thing. She asked Brendan Houdek, the head of speech pathology at New York Speech Coaching. Although he mentioned that Idiot, Jr. has "a bit of a lower pitch to his voice as well as his resonance, which is a bit of a darker tone, a darker timbre," that makes his voice sound slightly manufactured, "like he is trying to be that authoritative speaker-- forcing that voice a little lower, forcing that resonance a little darker-- that comes across as hyper-polished." He's very rehearsed, even forced, stiff in his posture.

[McDonough:] I interviewed one of your colleagues last year about White House advisor Stephen Miller and how he also sounds like a complete dick. Because again, people can hold their same views but not sound this way. Jeff Sessions is also racist, but his speech is syrupy and sweet. There is something similar about Miller and Trump, then. A gendered kind of speech performance that feels very inauthentic.

[Houdek:] There are some gender stereotypes that exist in our culture. For men, they naturally gravitate toward that because it’s their impression, if you will, of a confident speaker. They try to emulate it, but it often ends up being a poor emulation. So for someone like Stephen Miller, there is going to be more of that attempt at being committed and confident and instead it comes across as more monotonous, trying to force that tone of voice lower. And that can sound how you described it.

...The linguistic choices they make are fairly similar, but Donald Trump Jr. is Donald Trump lite, in these aspects. By that I mean, just linguistically, Donald Trump’s way of speaking, he has many non sequitur, parenthetical statements, false starts.

But if you watch Donald Trump Jr. in an interview setting, you can see him do that in a similar way. Again, not to the same extent, but he does have these moments where he will start a topic, then go to another, then go to another. I think it is a conscious or subconscious attempt to dance around the topic a bit and avoid what is actually being addressed. But, in a sense, he is a poor emulation of his father’s way of doing things. I think the way that we sense that is due to their level of commitment. Donald Trump Jr., you might see moments, whether in his inflection or body language and facial expression, that show he is backtracking a bit. That he is changing topics because he is trying to avoid another, but you don’t see that in Donald Trump Sr. because of the commitment factor.

Not doctored-- before they started having work done, in fact

[McDonough:] One sounds horrible and natural, and one sounds horrible and alienating.

[Houdek:] For better or for worse, what you are saying about Donald Trump Sr. is what attracted many people to him. There wasn’t that polish, that forced quality of speech. With Trump Jr., you see that polish, that trying too hard. Humans can recognize that. Even if we can’t put our finger on it we recognize it: I don’t believe him.

[McDonough:] If you were going to do a coaching session with Donald Trump Jr. and wanted to help him sound like less of an asshole, what would you advise him to do?

[Houdek:] I would address some of the things we discussed together. If I felt the voice was a bit forced in terms of the register he was trying to speak in, I would do one of two things: one, raise that register just a bit to be in a more comfortable range or make him aware of the physiological behaviors that he is doing that make it sound so forced. We can manipulate the sound of our voice, that is something we work on here, called speaking voice enhancement. If he wanted to speak in that register, he could do that, but the tongue is a bit too far back, it’s a bit too crunched. Let’s bring it forward a bit so it sounds a bit more relaxed and less forced.

And the linguistic choices, for example. When he is changing topic, I might help him to keep his sentences more concise. I would also really focus on that commitment factor, the subtle body language cues and facial expressions that show he is putting on an act instead of seeming genuine about the message he is trying to communicate.