MSNBC's ConservaDem Approach To Bernie: "But At What Cost? Oh God, At What Cost!!!"

When I say "MSNBC," I don't mean Chris Hayes and Ali Velshi. I mean talking empty heads, like the blond lady, in the video above. They asked Jonathan Swan what the biggest story of the day is and he started answering that it was a story about "Bernie Sanders' sweeping vision to transform nearly every aspect of American life" in a way that hasn't been done since FDR. When Swan started sounding even slightly pro-Bernie ("I don't think he gets nearly enough credit for that"), the talking empty head-- sorry I don't know her name, nor is there any need to-- freaked out with every ounce of emotion she could muster: "But to what cost? How many trillions of dollars..."

Comcast broadcasting isn't as bad as Fox News. But Bernie as president? That is a step too far for Comcast-- and its on-air employees don't even have to be explicitly told what the boss' boss wants. She moved Swan into the "How You Gonna Pay For It?" lane. "The energy plan alone is $16 trillion," without mentioning the cost of not implementing it. And without mentioning what the transformation of life will be like if the Climate Crisis is just allowed to go its merry way like all of our geriatric leaders-- from Trump and McConnell to Biden, Pelosi and Schumer-- are perfectly content to see happen.

Comcast broadcasting wants to emphasize high taxes if Bernie's plans are implemented and Swan obliges, although with a caveat: "certainly on the wealthy," something that is supported overwhelmingly by the American people, particularly the Democratic Party American people. Half a year ago a poll from Morning Consult in Politico showed how prevalent is that support: "Support for raising taxes is widespread, according to a new poll, which found that 76% of registered voters want the wealthiest Americans to pay more. Americans also have a preference as to what a tax increase should look like, according to the Politico/Morning Consult survey. Politico found that 61% of Americans are in favor of a “wealth tax”proposed by Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, which would increase taxes on those with a net worth of $50 million or more... Politico notes that a recent poll from Fox News shows 70% of Americans supporting increased taxes for those earning more than $10 million-- a proposition that gained support among 54% of Republicans as well. While Republicans are generally less in favor of tax increases on the wealthy, some of the wealthiest Americans are warming up to the idea. Just last week JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said, 'I believe that individuals earning the most can afford to pay more. And I have no problem paying higher taxes to address some of the fundamental challenges and inequities in our society.'" From CNBC in early June:

The Politico piece by Jim VandeHei that Swan was discussing on MSNBC referred to the new Quinnipiac poll showing that if he gets the nomination, Bernie would beat Trump by a landslide: 53% to 39% (14 points). When's the last time a president's elected with a 14 point general election margin?

• 2016- Trump over Hillary with MINUS 2.1 points
• 2012- Obama over Romney with 3.9 points
• 2008- Obama over McCain with 7.2 points
• 2004- Bush over Kerry with 2.4 points
• 2000- Bush over Gore with MINUS 0.5 points
• 1996- Clinton over Dole with 8.5 points
• 1992- Clinton over Bush with 5.6 points
• 1988- Bush over Dukakis with 7.8 points
• 1984- Reagan over Mondale with 18.2 points

Three and a half decades ago! And what gives Bernie that kind of lead over Trump (aside from Trump's own toxicity among voters)? Back to VanderHei's Politico piece: "A Sanders government," he writes in a scare tactic manner, "would take control of...

• Your energy choices: His Green New Deal would spend $16 trillion to force you to stop using the energy mostly used today-- oil, gas and nuclear. He promises cleaner power and air in return.
• Your house and car: The Sanders government would pay to weatherize homes and small businesses, and to upgrade gas-powered cars for electric ones. He would mandate the end of conventional gas car manufacturing in a decade.
• Your health insurance: He would eliminate private insurance and put you on a government plan more generous than Medicare. No more copays, deductibles or premiums, too.
• Your current student debt: He would eliminate it for everyone.
• Your kids' college: Everyone gets free tuition at public universities, community colleges, trade schools and apprenticeship programs, too.
• Your teachers: He will hire more teachers, pay them more, and fund better school supplies.
• Your job: He promises full employment.
• Your wage: He would guarantee you at least $15 per hour.
• Your rich friends: They'll be paying for much of this with a fat tax increase.
• Your own taxes: Sanders has been vague on this one. But the total cost of just the programs listed above are $20 trillion-plus at the lowest possible end over a decade, excluding Medicare for All, which experts say could at least double the total.

Josh Orton, Bernie's policy director: "Bernie will continue to fight for proposals that save American families money and hold giant corporations accountable... [T]he cost of doing nothing is significantly more expensive for average Americans."

Expect More, Not Less, Of Trump's Race-Baiting Madness As The 2020 Campaign Heats Up

Louisiana's junior senator, Jon Kennedy, was first elected to statewide office as a Democrat but jumped the fence most of the way through his second term. Now he takes every opportunity he can to remind Louisiana Republicans that he's exactly as racist and bigoted as they are. On Fox yesterday he defended Señor Trumpanzee's racism and attacked AOC, Ilhan, Rashida and Ayanna as the "four horsewomen of the Apocalypse." Echoing Trump, he told an appreciative and deluded Fox audience that "The simple fact of the matter is, the four congresswomen think that America was wicked in its origins. They think that America and its people are even more wicked now, that we are all racist and misogynistic and evil... They’re entitled to their opinion. They’re Americans. But I’m entitled to my opinion, and I just think they’re left-wing cracks, and they’re the reason there are directions on a shampoo bottle. I think we should ignore them." He also thinks MSNBC viewers should ignore Trump's racist tweets. They caught up with him in a hallway and he told them Trump's tweets we're racist, "but a poor choice of words." Oh.

And speaking of Fox and delusional thinking, Eric Trumpanzee was on Fox & Fiends yesterday: "I'm telling you, 95% of this country is behind him in this message." I don't think so, but it was shocking Tuesday evening hearing to comments from Republican NPR listeners who completely agreed with Trump. I guess that accounts for the spike in his approval ratings among self-identified Republicans this week-- as it sunk even lower among normal Americans. Approval is now 41% and disapproval is 55%. Among Republicans its 95%. Sad.

When asked if he thought Mark Sanford could beat Trump, Tim Scott (R-SC), the GOP's only African-American senator, laughed and said, "No. I think President Trump is unbeatable in a Republican primary." Maybe that has something to do with the media mentality demonstrated by Keith Woods, NPR's VP for newsroom training and diversity, who says that journalists should not be using the term "racist" to describe Trump's tweets. "Leave the moral labeling to the people affected," he said... cluelessly.

Monday night, the Washington Post published a piece by Seung Min Kim about the Trump anti-immigration legislative agenda. It details "the type of immigrants the administration wants to admit to the United States." But there are already problems. "Senior Republicans in the Senate," she wrote, "on Tuesday immediately began downplaying the prospects of the White House’s proposal-- an effort led primarily by senior adviser Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law-- even before they had been briefed on its details. Said Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-SD): 'To get it to the floor, you have to have some bipartisan buy-in. There would have to be a lot of work that would get done, and I don’t sense that they’re anywhere close to having done that work with Republicans, let alone with Democrats.'"

MAGA poster by Chip Prosser

What's it really all about, as Thune well knows, is Trump's 2020 strategy, well-laid out yesterday by Jim VanderHei and Mike Allen for Axios readers: Trump's premeditated racism is central to his 2020 strategy. "It might seem," they wrote, "like improvisational madness when President Trump tells American citizens in Congress to 'go back' where they came from, but those close to Trump say there's a lot of calculation behind his race-baiting. It’s central to his 2020 strategy, they say. Trump's associates predict more, not less, of the race-baiting madness. The rough calculation goes like this: 

1- Trump knows that in 2016, he won the white vote by 20+ points.
2- He hopes he can crank their turnout even higher, especially among older, white evangelicals. He knows most of those voters are unlikely to ditch him, no matter how offensive his comments.
3- He watches Fox News and knows AOC, in particular, is catnip to old, white voters, especially men. She is young, Hispanic, female and a democratic socialist-- a 4-for-4 grievance magnet. Last week, AOC got nearly as much online attention as all 2020 Democrats combined.
4- Trump believes he did better than Mitt Romney among Hispanic voters because many who came here and went through the legal process agree with his views.
5- Axios sat in on a focus group in Michigan where white swing voters agreed with Trump on immigration. Carlos Algara, a political scientist at UC Davis, told the NY Times that a forthcoming analysis of the 2018 midterms found that even without Trump on the ballot, "white Democrats with high levels of racial resentment were likely to vote ... Republican."
6- Facebook is often his incubator. He has spent three times more than all Democratic contenders combined on Facebook, with a mix of message-testing immigration lines to appealing to Hispanics who seem susceptible to his worldview.
7- So Trump calculates that (white voters + some Hispanic voters) (tough immigration rhetoric + race-baiting language) = narrow 2020 win.

Even The Mooch! An old crony of Trump's-- and his former White House Communications director (for 10 days after Sean Spicer's 49 days but before Hope Hicks' 225 days)-- says he's appalled by Trump's racism and xenophobic and dishonest vitriol against AOC, Ayanna, Ilhan and Rashida. He told CNN's Alisyn Camerota this morning that Trump's unhinged statements of the last few days have been "racist and unacceptable" and that he's not going to vote for him if they continue (although he didn't say for how long). "And so what ends up happening is it's such a turnoff to a large group of people that you are running a risk that 15% of the people that you want to get you through that electoral map and back into the presidency say, 'You know what? I love the policies, but I don't like the send her back rhetoric. I don't like the racist rhetoric of sending people back to the homes that they came from.'" As a result, the Palm Beach County Republicans disinvited The Mooch from a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago.

Is Kavanaugh Still A Coke Freak? Will The FBI Tell Us?

Playin' the long game

People who looked at Kavanaugh's calendar and thought that the July 1, 1982 reference to "heading over for 'Skis' was about 'Brewskis,' are unaware that in '80s prep schools for rich white kids, 'skis' was cocaine, not beer. Just sayin'. Pelosi didn't mention that in her masterful Kavanaugh put down during an interview with the Texas Tribune in Austin yesterday. Her point was that Kavanaugh lacks the temperament to serve on the Supreme Court. "It’s not time, shall we say, for a hysterical, biased person to go to the court and expect us to say, 'Isn’t that wonderful.' ... I couldn't help but think that if a woman had ever performed that way, they would say 'hysterical.' I think that he disqualifies himself with those statements and the manner in which he went after the Clintons and the Democrats... I will say this-- if he is not telling the truth to Congress or to the FBI, then he's not fit not only to be on the Supreme Court, but to be on the court he's on right now."

Jim VanderHei approached the Kavanaugh debacle from a different perspective-- an opportunity lost. "Imagine," he wrote, "if Brett Kavanaugh had offered his emotional, tearful, you-ruined-my-life opening speech to the Judiciary Committee-- and then called for a quick FBI probe to clear his name and perhaps find the true assailant. He would have looked confident, humble, even a tad heroic, given the president who nominated him opposed the FBI probe. Well, he and Republicans had an epic failure of imagination: Instead, they were forced reluctantly and publicly into what should have been a fairly easy-to-anticipate moderate compromise: agree to a vote after a quick FBI probe. Instead of looking hungry for truth, Kavanaugh heads into the week looking fearful of findings."

There's a reason for this miscalculation:

• Republicans, from the earliest days of the allegations, were overly confident they could just jam this through, several people involved the process tell us.
• They thought he would be better defending himself-- and that Dr. Ford would seem less credible.
• Republicans treated this like a bare-knuckles political fight. They calculated a Fox News appearance, a Trump endorsement, a headstrong Mitch McConnell, a fired-up base, a fast vote would hold the party together.
• In the GOP’s defense, the strategy might have worked had Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) not changed his mind at the very last minute. 

In an interview posted this morning, Flake tells The Atlantic's McCay Coppins that his dramatic call for further FBI review came because he felt the Senate was "coming apart at the seams... I’m a conservative. He’s a conservative. I plan to support him unless they turn up something-- and they might."

That self-righteous freak, clearly, does not belong on any court of law, Supreme or otherwise-- and whether he still snorts coke or not. He gives new meaning to the phrase "sober as a judge." And he lies with a vile, repulsive sense of entitlement. This is the most unabashedly partisan Supreme Court candidate I've ever seen nominated. During the hearing on Thursday, Kavanaugh struggled to give a single straight answer, straining credulity "when he argued before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the 'Devil’s Triangle'-- a phrase that appeared on his high school yearbook page-- referred to a drinking game, a definition which, before Thursday, you’d have a hard time finding anywhere. (It actually refers to a sex act involving two men and a woman). He also unabashedly claimed that the term 'boof' is a reference to 'flatulence,' rather than other butt stuff, and that 'ralph,' which means to vomit-- implicitly from the overconsumption of alcohol-- was a reference to Kavanaugh’s weak stomach."

Kavanaugh’s choice to lie about things that are easily disproved speaks to a kind of hubris, or entitlement, that befits someone of his pedigree. He insinuated that he was of drinking age during the summer of 1982 because, back then, in Maryland, 18 year olds could legally imbibe. With artful wording, he testified that drinking was “legal for seniors,” even though it was decidedly illegal for him-- a rising senior who wouldn’t turn 18 until the following year. At other moments, he claimed ignorance about the consequence of plainly relevant evidence-- railing against the suggestion that his high school yearbook, a totem to debauchery and sexual frustration, could be relevant to the issue of whether he committed blacked-out sexual assault in high school. “Have at it, if you want to go through my yearbook,” he told Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) with disdain. As though the inquiry itself was made in bad faith.

In fact, Kavanaugh dissembled about whether he ever drank to excess at all-- an incredible claim given the contents of his yearbook; his friend Mark Judge’s damning memoir, which is titled “Wasted: Tales of a GenX Drunk;” and the sheer number of  times Kavanaugh mentioned “beer” during Thursday’s hearing. Although he admitted in his opening statement that “sometimes I had too many beers,” when pressed on how much was too much, he was evasive again: “I don’t know. You know, we-- whatever the chart says, a blood-alcohol chart.”... No lie, it seems, is too small for Kavanaugh.

... Kavanugh's apparent willingness to perjure himself over accusations of underage drinking or sexual innuendo-- which, alone, don’t necessarily bear on his suitability for the bench-- is troubling both because of what it implies about his integrity, and because of what it suggests about his reasoning as an adjudicator.

How should we judge someone who, during his testimony, repeatedly misrepresented facts and dissembled when pressed for detail? Should we understand these moments as lies, or as misinterpretations rooted in substandard analytical rigor? And given the importance of the position at hand, which is worse?

Some of this may seem like parsing hairs, but the law, in large part, is parsing hairs. Easy questions don’t make it to the Supreme Court. Slam dunk cases settle out. Outside of constitutional issues, the Supreme Court only agrees to hear cases that are so subject to interpretation, they’ve been inconsistently decided between states or federal circuits. Analytical precision, therefore, is a big part of the job.

That being the case, it was concerning to hear a federal judge clamor for “due process” as he sidestepped an opportunity to call witnesses, hear evidence, or have his name cleared by a federal investigation. How should we view a federal judge who seems not to understand, or who for political reasons ignores, that he is not, in fact, on trial, but at a job interview? Who, either due to a lack of understanding or a surfeit of political ambition, emotes as though the stakes were that of a criminal proceeding where the high burden of proof would militate in his favor? Do we want a justice who artfully aims for what’s “technically” true (and misses often), or one whose integrity is, well, unimpeachable?

...What matters, then, is whether Kavanaugh is of sufficiently fit character to fairly and ethically interpret the law. Thursday’s hearing, perhaps as much as the allegations against him, has thrown that into serious doubt.

A primary question here, and one that has largely been skipped over by the general public, is why, precisely, Kavanaugh’s past behavior, up to and including Thursday’s hearing, has any bearing on his ability to serve on the Supreme Court. What behavior would we consider disqualifying as a matter of principle? What qualities are non-negotiable in the nation’s top jurists-- women and men whose decisions directly affect the lives of over 300 million citizens, and billions across the world who are often beholden to the toxic effects of domestic policy?

We would argue that honesty is key to administering justice.

A Supreme Court judgeship is a lifetime appointment. And as Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) recently pointed out, members of the Supreme Court are asked to make dozens of decisions every year directly relating to the life, liberty, and happiness of Americans-- half of whom are women, and all of whom deserve jurists who possess a baseline level of integrity.

As Blumenthal, the Connecticut senator, said at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Friday meeting, Kavanaugh’s character and fitness give ample reason to vote “no.”

UPDATE: What Are Susan Collins Constituents Seeing This Weekend?

The Portland newspaper in Susan Collins' state, the Press Herald ran a blistering editorial: Brett Kavanaugh has shown he doesn’t belong on the Supreme Court. "Based on what he demonstrated in his own testimony, Kavanaugh lacks the character and judgment to serve on the Supreme Court."

In his widely watched appearance, Kavanaugh revealed that he has an explosive temper and resorts to bullying when he feels threatened. He was understandably under stress and fighting a high-stakes battle for his reputation, but his temperament was tested during the hearing, and he failed the test.

Kavanaugh also showed himself to be impermissibly political for a job that is supposed to be above politics. We’re not naive. We understand that federal judges are nominated by presidents and confirmed by senators, and that electoral politics influences their decisions about who gets to serve.

But we have never had a Supreme Court nominee who ripped off the nonpartisan mask the way Kavanaugh did Thursday and identified himself as an enemy of a political party that represents the policy preferences of millions of Americans. He blamed his predicament on bizarre conspiracy theories, claiming that his troubles stemmed from “pent-up anger about President Trump” and opponents seeking “revenge on behalf of the Clintons” and were not the result of allegations that emerged while he was being evaluated for an important job. After his partisan rant, Kavanaugh will never be able to judge a case without the animus he expressed being considered a factor in his decision. This is not the road we want to take.

And when he was talking about his high school years, he said things that, frankly, could not be believed. The self-proclaimed treasurer of the “100 Kegs or Bust” club says he was not much of a drinker.

His comment about “ralphing” was an innocent reference to his sensitive stomach and not related to heavy drinking. And, most incredibly, a group of football players posing for a picture calling themselves “the Renate Alumni”-- a stunt that reeked of sexual boasting about a girl named Renate-- were “clumsily” trying “to show affection” for a friend. The attempt was so clumsy that they never shared it with their friend, who learned about the joke only recently. She told the New York Times: “The insinuation is horrible, hurtful and simply untrue. I pray their daughters are never treated this way.”

These are small things, but they matter. Many adults are embarrassed about what they did when they were young, and it is human nature to minimize some of the details. But when you have taken an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, it’s not time to fudge the facts. If confirmed, Kavanaugh would bring this same lack of credibility with him to the place in the country where credibility matters more than anything.

If there were nothing else on his record, the Senate would have solid grounds not to confirm Kavanaugh. But it’s not the only thing. Not by a long shot.

Kavanaugh is the subject of credible allegations of sexual misconduct. It is incredible that any senator would want to vote to confirm him until the allegations have been thoroughly investigated.

...After Ford’s testimony, it would be a mistake to confirm Kavanaugh without a full investigation into her charges. But senators don’t even need to consider these explosive allegations. They can use their own eyes and ears and apply their own common sense.

The man who appeared before the Judiciary Committee on Thursday can’t control his temper, he is overtly partisan and he doesn’t always tell the truth. Based on his own testimony, Kavanaugh has shown that he does not belong on the Supreme Court.

Blood on Their Hands by Nancy Ohanian

Can Trump's Compulsive Lying-- And The Consequences-- Ever Really Be Normalized?

Yesterday Axios published some advise by Jim VandeHei: How to be the next Trump which starts with an assertion that may or may not be partially true: "Most coverage of President Trump focuses on the negative aspects of his style: the making-it-up-as-he-goes, the lying, the management-by-chaos." Maybe on Chris Hayes' Lawrence O'Donnell's, Rachel Maddow's and Jake Tapper's shows. Most of the mainstream media does not focus on that. And in any case, VandeHei insists it doesn't matter anyway... for 5 simple reasons:

1- People are sheep: Reversing one of the basic assumptions of politics, Trump has shown you can radically change a political party’s core beliefs and brand overnight. Only six years ago, the GOP’s Romney-Ryan ticket was preaching the evils of Russia, the virtue of free trade, the sin of deficits. With no debate and little resistance, Trump has flipped an entire party’s core beliefs. Turns out, voters are far more malleable than we thought-- and candidates and presidents can change minds overnight.

2- Money is overrated; authenticity isn't: Trump has shown that if you can write in a real and captivating way, you can dominate the conversation-- for free...

3- Companies can be bullied, in a good way: If Trump had a longer attention span, his campaign to pressure U.S. companies to keep jobs in America might very well be flourishing more... [T]he right political leaders applying the right kind of pressure can shift some behaviors.

4- A little wild unpredictability goes a long way: Even Democrats begrudgingly tell us North Korea would not be returning hostages and talking denuclearization absent Trump’s mad-man routine. The stilted, scripted, sclerotic ways of tradition are not always terribly effective tactics. Trump takes wild unpredictability way too far. But he has shown how constrained improvisation could be a powerful approach at home and abroad.

5- Anyone can run and win: We always assumed party affiliation was a prerequisite for leading a political party, and some political experience a must. Trump was a liberal Democrat and he hijacked conservatism. The hunger for something different is unmistakable, partly because a big chunk of voters have had it with conventional politics and politicians. No reason another exotic Republican-- or third party, or even a surprise Democrat-- couldn't do the same.

Meh. Analysis-For-Dummies... with a couple of grains of truth. Michael Bloomberg was never taken in by Señor Trumpanzee... just, like anyone with a three-digit IQ, mortified. He reiterated, during a commencement address Saturday at Texas’ Rice University that we're now facing an "epidemic of dishonesty" in Washington that’s more dangerous than terrorism or communism and that that "an endless barrage of lies" and a trend toward "alternate realities" in national politics pose a dire threat to U.S. democracy. "How did we go from a president who could not tell a lie to politicians who cannot tell the truth?"

He blamed “extreme partisanship” for an unprecedented tolerance of dishonesty in U.S. politics. People are committed more to their political tribes than the truth, he said, suggesting that the nation is more divided than any time since the Civil War.

“There is now more tolerance for dishonesty in politics than I have seen in my lifetime,” Bloomberg said. “The only thing more dangerous than dishonest politicians who have no respect for the law is a chorus of enablers who defend their every lie.”

...He warned that such deep levels of dishonesty could enable what he called “criminality.” Asked what specifically he was talking about, Bloomberg noted “lots of investigations” going on, but he declined to be more specific.

Several Trump associates are facing criminal charges as part of a federal probe into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election. Three have already pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI. Federal investigators want to interview Trump himself, although the president’s legal team has resisted so far.

“When elected officials speak as though they are above the truth, they will act as though they are above the law,” Bloomberg told Rice graduates. “And when we tolerate dishonesty, we get criminality. Sometimes, it’s in the form of corruption. Sometimes, it’s abuse of power. And sometimes, it’s both.”

“The greatest threat to American democracy isn’t communism, jihadism, or any other external force or foreign power,” he continued. “It’s our own willingness to tolerate dishonesty in service of party, and in pursuit of power.”

At the same time Bloomberg was giving his graduation speech in Houston, CNN writers Sarah Westwood and Sara Murray, were putting the final touches in a report that shows one small real world consequence of having a liar-in-chief running a criminal con-job on the country: Former Trump campaign aide is helping Russian firm shed sanctions. They're talking about Bryan Lanza, who was a former senior campaign and transition aide to Señor Trumpanzee and "is in regular contact with White House officials, is lobbying on behalf of the chairman of EN+ Group, an energy and aluminum firm presently controlled by Oleg Deripaska and "recently inked a deal to help a Russian oligarch's conglomerate shed sanctions the Trump administration slapped on them last month."

The scam is for the company to reduce Deripaska's ownership in the company enough to be freed from US sanctions while Deripaska maintains "a substantial stake in the company."

The moves by Lanza and Mercury Public Affairs LLC, the firm where he works as a managing director in its Washington office, on behalf of their client don't appear to be anything more than standard lobbying. But the deal is the latest brazen example of how Trump's "drain the swamp" campaign pledge has led to little change in a town where paying for access is a lucrative industry. In fact, Trump has presided over the expansion of a new generation of influence peddlers who have used their actual or perceived proximity to the President to line their pockets.

Corey Lewandowski, who served as Trump's first campaign manager and touts his close ties to the President, started his own consulting business in Washington after the election. Brian Ballard, Trump's longtime lobbyist in Florida and a GOP fundraiser, opened up a Washington office and brought on Susie Wiles, who led Trump's campaign in Florida. Jason Miller, former communications director for the campaign and transition who is also a CNN contributor, landed a plum gig as a managing director in global consulting firm Teneo's strategy group. He worked in crisis communications before the Trump campaign.

Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, has weathered the brunt of the scrutiny for allegedly trying to sell access to the White House. But similar arrangements have been rampant in Washington-- under both Democratic and Republican administrations-- and the old way of doing business has continued to thrive since Trump took office.

...Mercury itself has undergone scrutiny over the past year for its role in the Ukrainian lobbying operation that ensnared Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman, in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russian interference in the election and related matters. The firm has denied wrongdoing and has said its employees have cooperated with investigators.

Lanza's work with the Russian-linked firm comes as Mueller continues to investigate whether there was any collusion between Trump campaign aides and Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump has denied any collusion during the campaign.

Deripaska has intersected with the Trump orbit on a few occasions, most notably with Manafort. While at the helm of the Trump campaign, Manafort used an intermediary to offer Deripaska private briefings about the election, according to the Washington Post. Mueller's team later noted in a March court filing that the intermediary "has ties to a Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016."

...As aggressive as Cohen was in his pitches to prospective clients, one source said, Corey Lewandowski-- Trump's former campaign manager -- was more braggadocious about his access to Trump.

The source claimed Lewandowski had pitched companies by telling them "Trump doesn't make a decision without checking with me."

On Friday, AT&T acknowledged that Lewandowski's firm pitched them, but they said they didn't make a deal. AT&T is seeking government approval to acquire Time Warner, CNN's parent company.

Lewandowski, who has so far avoided registering as a lobbyist, continues to enjoy a high level of access to the President. Two sources confirmed he dined with Trump in the White House residence in March. He also joined Trump at a rally in Michigan in late April.

Meanwhile, even lesser-known Trump aides are making a living off their ties to the White House.

Former New York Republican Rep. John Sweeney has made more than $200,000 lobbying on behalf of a European pipeline venture owned by Gazprom, the state-controlled Russian natural gas company, according to federal lobbying disclosures. The New York Republican previously worked on Trump's campaign and assisted with administration hires during the presidential transition. Sweeney declined to discuss details about the clients he represents.