The Hat and The Hair: Episode 81

by | Jun 6, 2018 | Hat and Hair, SugarFree | 97 comments

“It’s nice to have Melania back,” Donald said. He leaned over and squirted a blob of Coconut Cream Extreme Conditioner on his desk. The hair scurried over and began to lap it up.

“Is it?” the hat asked. “Is it really?”

“I wish you two would get along,” Donald said. He ran a brush through the hair and it began to purr contentedly.

“She hates me, Donald,” the hat said. “I made you President. I made you the leader of the free world. I made you The King of Twitter. And she hates me for it.”

“OK, OK,” Donald said. The hair stomped on his bloated stomach a few times and curled up.

“Hey, furball, can’t you back me up here?” the hat asked the hair.

“She hates you,” the hair confirmed dreamily. “And it is all your fault.”

“Nuh-uh!” the hat said. He was sitting on the Diet Coke button, hoping Donald would forget it was there. He had already drunk 26 cans and the Oval Office trash can was overflowing.

“It kinda is,” Donald said.

“Lies. All lies.”

“The first time you met her you told you were available to help break up any encapsulation around her implants,” the hair said.

“I was just trying to be a part of the team; it was only polite to offer,” the hat protested.

“You said,” the hair began, “and I quote ‘I’ll help them rock-hard titties for you, girl.’’”

“No, I didn’t.”

The hair continued in the hat’s pinched voice “‘I’ll beat ‘em real nice and then maybe you give me a squeezer,’ unquote.”

“In my defense, I thought she was a hooker,” the hat said sulkily.

“She was introduced as his wife,” the hair said, arching up and then settling back comfortably.

“She talked like a hooker,” the hat said.

“Mr. President?” a voice asked.
Donald looked up from the squabbling headmates, startled. “How long have you been standing there, Pie?” he demanded.

“Oh, uh, not long, sir,” Sarah said. “Only ninety minutes or so.”

“Well, what do you want?” Donald asked. The hair made a contented grunt when Donald picked him up and put him on his head.

“Mr. President, I was wondering if we could finish up before this afternoon’s press briefing,” Sarah said.

“Where were we?” Donald asked quarrelously.

Sarah riffled through her notes, “North Korea. Singapore. Steel tariffs.”

“WITCH HUNT!” Donald suddenly screeched. “It’s a witch hunt hoax. It’s all Jeff’s fault. No collusion. No collusion. A hoax no collusion witch hunt.”

“Yes, sir,” Sarah said and scribbled on her paper. She shifted her weight from foot to foot and grimaced as she wrote.

“What’s the matter with you, Pie?” Donald asked, narrowing his eyes with suspicion.

“Nothing, sir,” Sarah said.

“Nothing? You’re shaking like you’re shitting a stream of frozen peas. What’s the matter with you? Wait? Are you wearing a wire?!?”

“No, sir,” she said and moaned.

“I won’t have spies in my office, Pie. I won’t have it. Spies and leakers. There all over. I won’t have it, I won’t have it!” Donald stood up and came around the desk, looming over Sarah.

“Cough it up, Pie,” he said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Mr. President…” she began.

“Spit it out,” he yelled in her face, his breath fetid with Diet Coke and mechanically separated chicken.

“I’ve been in your office for a very long time. I just have to go to the bathroom, sir,” she admitted.

“There’s a potted plant right over there,” Donald said, waving at the long-suffering Oval Office ficus.

“Sir…”

“Go, Pie. I can’t have you running off to the bathroom every five minutes,” Donald said. The hat snickered softly on the desk.

“But, sir…”

“Every President in the last twenty years has peed in that ficus, Pie, and many fine heads of state. Are you saying you are too good to pee in the Oval Office ficus?”

“No, sir,” Sarah said miserably. She set down her pen and notepad and began tugging down her pantyhose as she waddled awkwardly to the ficus.

“Now, where was I?” Donald asked.

“Witch hunt, Mr. President,” Sarah said, trying to squat over the potted plant.

“WITCH HUNT!” Donald screamed again. Sarah wobbled in surprise and sat down heavily in the planter.

“It’s a witch hunt,” Donald said. “Me? A witch? How dare they. I’m not a witch. Witches aren’t classy and I’m super-classy. Just the best. Look at this suit, Pie. Would a witch wear a suit this nice?”

“No, sir,” Sarah said as she struggled to get back into a squat.

“A witch? I’m no witch. I’ve never soured anyone’s milk. I wasn’t born with a caul. A witch,” he said disgustedly. Donald sat back down in his office chair heavily and swatted the hat flat to the desk.

“Hey, man, watch it,” the hat grumbled.

“Get off the Diet Coke button,” the hair hissed.

“A witch? What does that even mean?” Donald asked. “Pie! What does it mean to be a witch?”

“You, uh, have a black cat?” Sarah said.

“See? No black cat. I don’t even have a cat. The last cat we had was gray. Donny Jr. left a window open and oops. 28 stories. No more cat,” Donald said.

“I hated that cat,” the hair whispered. “It tried to pee on me once.”

“Are you done yet, Pie?” Donald asked. “That’s disgusting. Why can’t you use a normal bathroom like a normal person?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Sarah said miserably.

 

About The Author

SugarFree

SugarFree

Your Resident Narcissistic Misogynist Rape-Culture Apologist

97 Comments

  1. Not Adahn

    I kind of want to adopt Sarah. Or maybe just hire her to be my petsitter.

    • Chipwooder

      Nah, she’s the kind of petsitter who cleans out your fridge.

  2. CPRM

    I was waiting for him to ask about his hamburger to go, that would have tied it nicely into the cartoon.

  3. mexican sharpshooter

    It just occurred to me that there are no plants in the office…

    • Riven

      Same. I think I’m going to get a little stand and put, oh, I dunno, a ficus on it, maybe?

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Pics or it didn’t happen…

  4. mexican sharpshooter

    The Obama administration secretly sought to give Iran access — albeit briefly — to the U.S. financial system

    The effort was unsuccessful because American banks — themselves afraid of running afoul of U.S. sanctions — declined to participate. The Obama administration approached two U.S. banks to facilitate the conversion, the report said, but both refused, citing the reputational risk of doing business with or for Iran.

    We need you to go ahead and violate OFAC. I promise not to prosecute you later.

    • AlexinCT

      You can’t make this shit up. The Obama admin members should all be under indictment and facing criminal charges, and yet here we are after more than a year of the Red Scare with nothing to show for it.

      • Hyperion

        I think you get 2 versions of Democrats from here on out. The ones who are out of power who constantly whine, shriek, scream at the sky, protest, throw urine on people, attack people for being Nazis, and use the deep state to perpetually investigate the party in power over some made up conspiracy. Or the ones who are currently in power, who use their power to target and persecute offenders of wrongthink (see the Obama IRS) and constantly try to pass the worst most expensive (to taxpayers) legislation possible. That’s as good as it gets with Democrats and will never get any better.

      • Bob Boberson

        here on out

        That’s pretty much the description of every Dem politician in my living memory. Exceptions…. Lieberman (sometimes)? Jim Webb?

      • tarran

        Can you imagine how differently things would have turned out had it been Webb the democrats nominated?

        My guess is that he would have nailed Obama’s hide to the wall as well as the Clintons’ as a warning to the others.

      • Bob Boberson

        I read his book, I don’t agree with all his politics but he at least seems to have some principles and integrity, which of course means he has no place at that filthy table. You’d think he’d understand that the days of the dixiecrat are long gone.

      • tarran

        Given the speed with which he exited the race, I think he saw the writing on the wall regarding what a horrible slog he had in front of him if he took on the Clinton machine.

      • Hyperion

        Anyone who gets elected as a Democrat will be forced to move hard left whether they want to or not. The alternative is to be forced out.

      • Hyperion

        What’s really sad is that right now in Brazil, politicians are going to prison, including the x-president, for less than what some of our politicians (Clinton) have done.

      • BakedPenguin

        Stephanie Murphy isn’t too bad as Dems go. (She happens to be my rep).

      • Gustave Lytton

        Iran Contra was only a crime for evil Rethuglicans.

  5. ron73440

    Amazing, tears in my eyes and trying not to laugh, while I wonder:

    What is wrong with you?(not sure if talking about myself for reading or SugarFree for writing)

    • Creosote Achilles

      Embrace the power of ‘And’.

      • ron73440

        That sounds plausible

  6. The Late P Brooks

    “Never soured anyone’s milk.”

    You LIE!

    • Bobarian LMD

      Imma say he there is no way he weighs less than a duck.

  7. Hyperion

    I was just sitting here, working on stuff and all of the sudden, this signal… sort of … I don’t know, it just popped into my head and said ‘There’s a new hat and hair article’. So I looked and there it was. SF is sending out some sort of mind waves, now that there is scary, I don’t care who you are.

    • Mad Scientist

      Anti-mind waves!

  8. Hyperion

    “Nuh-uh!” the hat said. He was sitting on the Diet Coke button, hoping Donald would forget it was there. He had already drunk 26 cans and the Oval Office trash can was overflowing.”

    This sort of reminds me of our kitchen trash can on a ‘drink all the beer you want’ night. Only difference being, I don’t have a button or a hat that talks to me. When my ‘Hofbrauhaus Munchen’ hat starts talking to me, I’ll know I’ve done went too far.

  9. MikeS

    The hair stomped on his bloated stomach a few times and curled up.

    Awww…how sweet!

  10. Hyperion

    I lol’d at Donald calling Sarah ‘Pie’.

    • Hyperion

      I can’t wait to see NYT and CNN spin on this. They’re about to go full on drug warrior and elevate Sessions to cult hero. Not that they weren’t before, they just weren’t going hysterical about it. Now they will.

      • MikeS

        Here’s WaPo’s spin:

        President Trump’s acts of clemency so far have been scattershot, driven by television segments, celebrities, friends and White House advisers who have pressed their cases for pardons that include controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio, conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza and Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Richard B. Cheney.

        Trump; first prez ever to use the pardon for personal reasons. Also; look at all the terrible Rethuglican Nazi’s he released before this woman!

      • Hyperion

        When VOX has beaten you to something, it’s something you probably want to reconsider.

      • Bob Boberson

        Broken clock and all that. Of course they go into a bunch of mendacious observances about how all Trumps pardons are for political supporters, etc (as if the sainted Obama didnt do the same thing). Trump has been all over the map on the Drug War, I really think his official position is ‘shiny penny.’

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Trump has plenty of fleeting thoights that make it out of his mouth that wouldn’t make it through most peoples’ filters. I’m not sure of the context but I don’t think that was a policy statement (and ues it was stupid).

      • Hyperion

        Trump is also the same guy who once said that all drugs should be legalized. He was right of course, so he’s been right, at least once, no matter what the NYTs say.

    • wdalasio

      And while you’re at it all of the people who were giving the sneering comments about Ms. Kardashian going to the White House to plead Ms. Johnson’s case. Oh, who am I kidding? They’ll memory-hole this before it even makes the news.

    • Hyperion

      “The big picture: This is part of a broader effort led by Jared Kushner to highlight the issue of prison reform — particularly focused on nonviolent offenders.”

      Let me guess, the evul JOO will have an aircraft transport out back and as a pardoned prisoner leaves their confinement, thinking they are going home, they are instead herded onto the JOO slaver transport and taken to one of Israel’s many slaver plantations. Am I right, or what?

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Infowars? Zero Hedge commentators? Seems a little much even for them.

      • Hyperion

        Well, if I can make up stuff so good that someone thinks it came from Inforwars, then I’m winning, bigly!

      • Viking1865

        “Infowars? Zero Hedge commentators? Seems a little much even for them.”

        No that was DC City Council member Trayon White.

      • Chafed

        ^^^Today’s winner.

  11. Hyperion

    Are the alphabet news agencies straying off the plantation? Because this is like the 3rd, 4th time in the last couple of weeks that they have reported on stuff that would be absolutely forbidden at CNN.

    Saint Comey not totally Saint like?

    • Hyperion

      “In the draft report, Inspector General Michael Horowitz also rebuked former Attorney General Loretta Lynch for her handling of the federal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s personal email server, the sources said.”

      You know, and I’ve been thinking this for some time now. There really is a time to let sleeping dogs lie. Democrats may have wanted to consider this before they went all in on this Russian collusion insanity. If Hillary doesn’t wind up boozing while walking in the woods and berating her hired security people, in peace, it’s going to be her own damn fault. I want to see her in that double wide orange pantsuit, more every passing day.

      Also, I often wish the fuck that Trump would stop tweeting.

      • Viking1865

        “Also, I often wish the fuck that Trump would stop tweeting.”

        So does the Left. If he stopped tweeting, he wouldn’t be President, and he wouldn’t be reelected. He’s the first genuine innovator in Presidential communications since FDR. He’s completely sidestepped the legacy media, if the academics and particularly historians had any kind of actual professionalism they would be studying it and talking about it as what it is: a genuine innovation in how the POTUS connects with the country.

      • Hyperion

        Well, I love that part of it, I mean that he’s bypassing the legacy media. The part I don’t like is that sometimes his tweets make me wince, they’re so horrible. Now, if he decided to have Glibs write his tweets, mwaahahahaha!

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Why do you hate America? You need to build a tolerance for Glib “wisdom”

      • Psycho Effer

        He should give his Twitter account over to SugarFree?

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Pffft….HELL YEAH!

      • Hyperion

        Let’s not get carried away here. You want to give them a reason to actually declare Trump insane? Then we get Pence, fucking Pence… let that sink in.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Or STEVE SMITH for that matter. I can just see the progies now. Eek rape culture.

      • Swiss Servator

        STEVE SMITH NOT RUN IF NOMINATED, IF ELECTED, NOT SERVE. HIM STICK TO WOODS. AND RAPE.

      • Gustave Lytton

        STEVE SMITH HATE RUNNING.

      • Brochettaward

        By then, Lynch had taken the unusual step of publicly declaring she would accept the FBI’s recommendations in the case, after an impromptu meeting with former president Bill Clinton sparked questions about her impartiality.

        They use the word “impromptu” to describe this meeting multiple times, and call it brief despite it lasting far longer than initially reported. And it didn’t become public for days as the loyal apparatchiks in the media sat on it. Security prevented pictures from being taken, as well.

        She had no business meeting and interacting with the husband of anyone under criminal investigation.

        The media is in a tough spot here. They need Comey to be credible because it’s the only chance they have to get anything on Trump (a flimsy at best obstruction charge), but undermining Comey opens up all sorts of other questions they don’t want asked. So they’re playing this middle of the road game where Comey honestly screwed up the Clinton probe, but in a way that helped Trump so totally don’t start asking about email servers or immunity deals given out like candy. And his word is still good on obstruction.

        They’re trying to get out ahead of Trump and his tweets, basically. So, no, I encourage Trump to keep tweeting.

      • Hyperion

        What I remember most about the tarmac meetup between slick willy and megacankles, was how the media tried to hard to spin it as ‘They were just talking about their grandchildren!’. Where the fuck did they get that from? Because I doubt that anyone else was in that plane who is saying anything about what was discussed, which almost for sure, went something like this.

        Willy: You know Loretta, I’ve always loved a girl with some thicc cankles.

        Loretta: Ohhh, hehehehe…

        Willy: Yeah, that’s right, Loretta, I’d totally go down on them cankles.

        Loretta: Ohhh willy, stop!

        Willy: Yeah, and all you have to do is lay off my wife, and as a bonus, you’re going to keep your cushy job. What do you think Trump would do, keep you? He’s gonna throw you overboard like a bloated rotting tuna.

      • tarran

        Yeah… Impromptu my ass.

        They just happened to land at the same airport and Bill Clinton and she just happened to want to discuss his grandchildren…

        It reminds me of a scene in the Princess Bride, where Vizzini dismisses the boat pursuing his merry band of kidnappers as “probably some local fisherman out for a pleasure cruise at night, through eel-infested waters.”

      • R C Dean

        This right here. There is no freakin’ way this meeting was accidental. Just no way.

        Plus, I recall Bill’s cover story was that he was there in Phoenix to play golf. People fly in to Phoenix to play golf in February. Nobody goes to Phoenix to pay golf in June. Its the worst possible time of the year to visit Phoenix.

      • kinnath

        I always thought the worst month was a competition between July (the hottest absolute temperatures) and August when the monsoon season started. June was generally bearable.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Two summers ago we had a storm in July. It was hell on earth.

      • R C Dean

        The monsoon usually starts late June/early July, and breaks the brutal heat of late May/June. At least in Tucson, June is the hottest month of the year.

        I will amend my claim that June is the worst possible time to visit Phoenix, but not my claim that nobody goes to Phoenix to play golf in June. Especially not multi-millionaires who can play golf anywhere they want.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        No doubt. I distinctly recall it was 113 that day. A multimillionaire in his 70s with a heart condition does not play golf in Phoenix when it’s 113.

      • kinnath

        Google says the record of 122 was June 26, 1990 (I was there). So I may be off by a month in my recollections.

      • kinnath

        Trump is a world-class bullshit artist. The goal is to say whatever shit pops into your mind to 1) enrage your opponent; 2) distract your opponent; and 3) get done what you want done without interference.

        His use of the Tweet to derail his opposition while quietly dismantling Obama’s legacy is awe inspiring.

        I don’t care how ugly this process is so long as the results are generally in the direction that I agree with.

        I have no problem tuning him out. If the left had any brains, they would tune him out as well.

      • Psycho Effer

        The tweets are the equivalent of him shining a laser pointer on the wall and moving it around randomly to make the kitten-like press go ape-shit trying to follow the dot. Meanwhile he dismantles Obama’s shitty legacy. Bravo!

      • R C Dean

        Also, I often wish the fuck that Trump would stop tweeting.

        I don’t. Even aside from the entertainment value, his tweets drive news cycles, taking control away from the DemOp Media. Who still haven’t figured out, after two years of being led around by the nose and being shown up as fools, how Trump plays the game. Its a simple process:

        Make a tweet which overstates something that a lot of people suspect.
        Wait for DemOp Media to launch a hysterical attack on the overstatement.
        Watch the people who think there is something to the original tweet roll their eyes as the DemOp Media’s credibility declines further, and news cycles are consumed per Trump’s desires.

    • ron73440

      I think they know it’s going sideways, so they are practicing a little CYA in advance.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    FREE TRADE

    How many times do you tell someone not to touch a hot stove before you stand aside and let them do what they want?

    This is the question experts — and Congress — now face when arguing with people who seem bent on hurting themselves by supporting President Trump’s policies, and especially his trade policies. It’s possible that the president is right, and that what America needs is a vicious trade war with its closest allies. History and experience, to say nothing of common sense, suggest that he is wrong.

    I have a problem. As much as I want to agree (and I do), I cannot shake the suspicion that the guy who wrote this thought TPP was a “free trade deal”.

    Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., for example, is mobilizing senators to oppose Trump on tariffs. When it comes to congressional restraint on the executive, this is a pretty sad state of affairs. Apparently no one back home cares whether the president is shredding the rule of law, or that he is openly asserting the right to pardon himself for anything (including, according to his lawyer, murder). But a trade war could tank an economy that’s doing just fine without Trump’s interference, and if that happens, voters will take it out on the nearest targets they can reach.

    There. See? Trump neither gets nor deserves credit for the current state of the economy, because deregulation and tax reform (for lack of a better word) don’t affect anything. But by golly, have your torches and pitchforks ready, because when he starts a “trade war” we’ll finally have something to pin on him.

    Also, I like how he tries to portray American farmers as fanatical laissez faire capitalists.

    • Hyperion

      I have to agree with several articles I’ve seen lately, that China cannot afford or win a trade war with the USA.

      • R C Dean

        China cannot afford or win a trade war with the USA

        Of course they can’t.

        And the notion that “well, the Chinese hold so many Treasuries they have us by the balls” is nonsense as well. Those Treasuries are the foundation of their financial system now. Fucking with them might be the only thing that would crater their economy faster than a trade war with the US.

    • SoberPhobic

      I may be am a simpleton when it comes to trade. But paying 20-30% on exports vs 10%(?) on imports seems unreasonable.

  13. Swiss Servator

    Donald looked up from the squabbling headmates

    i don’t know why that made me laugh so much….but it did.

    Nothing? You’re shaking like you’re shitting a stream of frozen peas.

    Ditto. I am still chuckling…and wincing.

  14. UnCivilServant

    *Conan Narrator Voice*

    On the first day of the time in the land of the solitary star, to the range I did go. And such strange portents were seen, as lo, as rounds of seven did the revoler hold, eight the 1911 and the AR, thirty-one.

    *cough*
    */Conan Narrator Voice*

    Anyway, I ended up spending too much on ammunition. I liked the S&W Model 10, as it was neat and tidy with the brass, and had fewer moving parts. Though I was more accurate with the 1911 and it mulched the paper more. My main issue with the AR was that I could not even see the rear sights. With my eyes they blurred away to nothing, leaving me with the front post, a haze and a target to aim by. Still I got a nice grouping once I’d worked out where in the blur to put the post.

    • UnCivilServant

      Oh, and I’m not making up those values from the narrator voice section. I took the oddity in stride. One more round is one more round.

      • AlmightyJB

        Nice. What 1911? I’ve typically found revolvers to be more accurate than semi’s but that’s great.

      • UnCivilServant

        It was a Colt. (At least their logo was on the grip, so I have to assume it’s them)

        As for the accuracy – it’s me, not the revolver. I tended to twist more as I pulled the trigger on the Model 10, which threw off the aim point in that last crucial moment. The 1911 moved less in my hands during the trigger pull.

      • AlmightyJB

        Cool. I have a stainless colt officers special. I recently replaced the barrel bushing and the accuracy increased quite a bit.

      • UnCivilServant

        These were all rentals (No way I’m bringing my guns all the way to Texas – I might have passed through New Jersey).

  15. The Late P Brooks

    Finally, there is the argument that whatever the voters thought they were doing, they should nonetheless be protected from themselves. This is an argument that poses a dilemma for Trump’s critics, as we know all too well that Trump supporters take any objection to the president’s ideas as little more than elitist attempts to undermine the sacred will of the people.

    Sure, a disastrous exchange of economic artillery between the United States and the rest of the world would drive some farms and small businesses under, but it would give the voters what they wanted — “triggering the libs” and the professors and the economists and other experts.

    Sneering douchebag is sneering.

    • Hyperion

      “professors and the economists and other experts.”

      Meh, I haven’t really seen too much expertise from these self proclaimed experts. Let’s take Paul Krugman for example. That guy has been wrong about economic outcomes more than climatolgists have been about climate.

      • Mad Scientist

        On the upside, there’s money to be made by doing the exact opposite of whatever Krugman recommends.

      • kinnath

        Expert = unknown drip under pressure

  16. The Late P Brooks

    I have to agree with several articles I’ve seen lately, that China cannot afford or win a trade war with the USA.

    Yeah, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to find out Chinese economic might is a mile wide and an inch deep. The American economy is still probably stronger and more diversified than any other in the world.

    *Not that I want to see us wall off our economy.

    • Gilmore

      i think the notion of “Winning” wars, as opposed to merely wasting immense amounts of wealth + capital on futile endeavors that accomplish nothing, should have been dispelled by the last 20 + years of warfare.

      • invisible finger

        That’s why I get a kick out of the latest tariff crap going on with Canada and Mexico.

        A tariff is essentially raising taxes on the end consumer. Canada and Mexico and mad that Trump is raising taxes on Americans so they are going to raise taxes on their own citizens in retaliation.

      • AlmightyJB

        Exactly. People don’t understand wealth creation. They need some Bastiat.

      • ron73440

        That’s a good way to explain the stupidity.

      • robc

        If your enemy shoots himself in the foot, you must shoot yourself in the foot to keep him from having an advantage.

  17. Hyperion

    I’m going to make a beer run, which will once again magically make afternoon links appear. Yes, you can be first.

    • MikeS

      First!

    • Nephilium

      Grab me a six pack of something good!

      /tosses $20 at Hyperion

      • robc

        Big Flats 1901 it is!

        /puts $16.50 change in pocket.

      • robc

        I think I lost 51 cents somewhere.

      • BakedPenguin

        Big Flats 1901

        Pabst Blue Ribbon Light.

  18. Pan Zagloba

    Such human drama! Such a way with words. I’m running out of superlatives, so I’ll just say, poor Pie, let’s adopt her as an honorary Glib and help her escape.

    Lack of alt-text didn’t hurt this time. The images are just perfect as they are.

  19. Gilmore

    re:

    ABC news leaks some claims from forthcoming IG report saying Comey was “insubordinate”

    I don’t think the ABC reporting means anything because w/o specific detail its useless; if DoJ was demanding he slow-walk investigations or not do things that were requirements of the law, then insubordination is not exactly useful characterization.

    to wit: i continue to be irritated by this repeated claim that Comey “Reopened” the clinton investigation.

    The draft of Horowitz’s wide-ranging report specifically called out Comey for ignoring objections from the Justice Department when he disclosed in a letter to Congress just days before the 2016 presidential election that FBI agents had reopened the Clinton probe, according to sources. Clinton has said that letter doomed her campaign.

    i remember in the immediate days after Comey’s letter to congress that FBI people repeatedly stated to journalists:

    1) “the clinton investigation was not ‘reopened’ because there was more than 1 investigation into clinton (and clinton-associate) misconduct/misbehavior

    e.g. the investigation into whether she had mishandled classified intelligence was partly resolved; but investigations into whether Huma/Cheryl or others had lied or that evidence was flawed had not. there is no hard start-stop on any/all processes. there were multiple allegations, and the process that the press had turned into an “exoneration” of clinton was only a fraction of the actual material involved.

    2) in addition, the “FBI” is not some monolithic entity; there are different offices which receive go-ahead from Federal prosecutors in different areas of the country to pursue investigation. Call it “parallel” processes, if you will, rather than a top-down-serial process by which every single investigation begins and ends from Washington DC., which is how some like to imagine it.

    The process that ended up ‘reopening’ the evidence into the Clinton issue was the NY field office, which was investigating Weiner. It turned out that the NY Weiner investigation produced material *relevant* to the Clinton ‘mishandling intelligence’ investigation which was conducted by DC. By law, the DC people were obligated to review that evidence to see if it had anything material to prior investigation. THAT IS WHAT COMEY TOLD CONGRESS.

    That process of review was, to anyone but the most idiotic people (by whom i mean, “the public”) never going to produce any new conclusions, *even if there were a smoking gun hidden in the @#()*$@()# laptop*.

    But the risk of a smoking gun being leaked to the public by some rogue FBI agent was way too high, so comey had to get in front of it and defuse the situation. In fact, according to WSJ column written just a few days before the election, the debate between NY and DC field offices about ‘what to do re: the Weiner laptop’ had been going on for 2 fucking months (since September), and the only reason Comey was forced to “Reopen” (it wasn’t) was because of *exactly that reason* –

    ….that if he didn’t, that NY FBI were going to leak to the press that he was suppressing evidence.

    basically, my point is that the press seem to have collectively ignored the entire swath of context and detail around the why and how of what that situation entailed, and decided that the entire thing should be cast as “Comey reopened”, when it was a) not his decision, and b) he only did it because not doing it presented the greater risk to his credibility.

    end-rant

    • Gilmore

      **notice that ABC frame it as “FBI agents had reopened ” rather than Comey; which, in my mind implies they actually know the backstory, but want to have-cake-eat-cake by both suggesting it was Comey’s decision, w/o specifically accusing him of being the prime-mover

      others are not so careful w/ that claim

  20. BakedPenguin

    Good work, SugarFree