December 3rd 2018
Tonight, there are probably dozens, even hundreds of small puddles of urine scattered around the West Wing, and Trump is curled up in a fetal ball under the Lincoln bed, whimpering and muttering inchoate imprecations, his fingers shaking too violently for him to tweet his rage and fear to the world. He has a large brown stain on the back of his pajamas, and he smells appalling.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, really.
Mueller came out with his sentencing recommendation for Michael Flynn. Flynn, of course, is the retired general who made money by fucking with Turkey, playing each side against the other, and negotiated illegally with the Russian government. He also hatemongered against Hillary Clinton, urging crowds to chant “Lock her up!” for supposed crimes that were already widespread in the Trump organization, specifically use of unsecured private servers for official email.
The guy is a dirtbag, and his actions come within shouting distance of treason. He’s a disgrace to the uniform he once wore, he’s a liar, and he’s a vicious opportunist. Clearly he was destined to rise to the highest ranks in the Trump organization.
So Mueller could have recommended decades in jail for General Dirtbag and nobody would have much cared other than the QAnon nuts and Flynn’s son, Junior, who is, if anything, an even bigger sleaze ball than Daddy, lacking only the power to inflict his douchebaggery on the world.
So when I heard that Mueller had recommended little or no jail time for this dirtbag, my initial reaction was “Say what?” Was Mueller going soft? Or did Trump get to him in some way?
Then I read the sentencing memo from Mueller’s office, and by the time I was done, I was just grinning from ear to ear. I still am.
Mueller was quite happy with General Dirtbag. General Dirtbag, it seemed, sang like a canary. Nineteen separate interviews from a guy who lived a happy, slimy existence neck-deep in the Trump Swamp. And it seem the interviews covered quite a bit of ground. There was a criminal investigation, mentioned but the nature of which, and the persons of interest were artfully redacted. There was the ties to Russia thing, again with interesting amounts redacted and which promised much more to come in ensuing reports. Mueller praised General Dirtbag for his “substantial assistance.” And there was topic 3, which was completely redacted. Completely: just a line for a header of some sort, and a five-line paragraph. Mueller apparently saved the best for last.
Keep in mind that Mueller doesn’t go easy on assholes who try to cut a plea and then whip around and try to shank Mueller. He’s been a prosecutor for a long, long time, and he sees opportunistic scum like Papadopoulous and Manafort coming a mile away, and eats them for breakfast.
So for Mueller to give General Dirtbag a pat the head and a soft murmur of “Fly! Fly, my pretty! Be free!” means he got all kinds of stuff on Trump and his gang of thieves and traitors, vetted the information very carefully, made sure it would stand up in court, and then, and only then, pulled the hook from General Dirtbag’s mouth.
I picture Sally Yates, one of Manafort’s first victims as National Security Sellout, roasting her toes in front of a warm fire in her living area, sipping an appropriate beverage, and smiling off into the middle distance.
General Dirtbag is finished in the eyes of the country. Normal Americans despise him for what he did, and the Trumpkins hate him because he got caught and then snitched. He may as well take his medals and pawn them—he won’t be wearing them to any Fourth of July parades, not in this lifetime.
Adam Schiff, the Democrat who will be replacing the contemptible Devin Nunes as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said of the sentencing memo, “The recommendation of no jail time for Flynn, apart from its obvious irony for the man who led chants of ‘lock her up,’ reflects both the timeliness and significance of his help. That most of the details are redacted signals he has given far more than we or the President may know.”
Of course, we’ve known for some time that Mueller knows more than Trump thinks he knows. The recent implosion of the Manafort plea bargain, and the earlier, casual revelation that Trump knew more about the inner workings of the Russian “fuck with America” troll farms than the Russians themselves did, showed that to the world. But Schiff didn’t see any harm in reminding Trump about this. After all, what are the odds that Trump will eventually start tweeting and sink himself deeper with reckless, self-destructive and insane responses?
I caught a clip of Rudy Giuliani, who does for lawyering what Tiny Tim did for the ukulele, fuming on Faux News that Mueller and his team were “sick puppies”. That’s our Rudy. Always projecting.
And we had been treated to a steady stream of assurances from Trumpkins on line that Mueller was actually investigating Hillary Clinton for collusion with Russia, and was about to drop a house on her. They seem to have vanished this evening.
Finally, a note to General Dirtbag: why don’t you round up that vile kid of yours and go get drunk, and stay that was for a few weeks? It isn’t like you’ve got anything better to do now.
