The Art of the Swamp

#DrainTheSwamp | #WhatTheyVotedFor

This is not the lede:

AT&T said Cohen approached the company after the 2016 presidential election and said he was leaving the Trump organization to do consulting for a “select few” companies that wanted his opinion on Trump and the administration. AT&T said it had been looking for consultants who could help it understand the president’s approach to regulatory reform at the Federal Communications Commission, tax reform and antitrust enforcement—”specifically our Time Warner deal.”

It’s the sixth graf, via Associated Press, and might well move up as the story, posted without byline, develops.

____________________

Image note: Trump Organization attorney Michael D. Cohen in New York City, 13 April 2018. (Photo by Jeenah Moon/Reuters)

Associated Press. “AT&T chief lobbyist out after hiring Trump attorney, Cohen”. 11 May 2018.

The Pruitt Watch (#WhatTheyVotedFor)

#DimensionTrump | #WhatTheyVotedFor

Miserable: Jonathan Swan offers a glimpse “Inside Scott Pruitt’s ‘miserable’ bunker”, and what is unbelievable about the article is that it might be written at all. Starting with the incendiary report from The Atlantic about intracabinet political attacks and the typical Axios brief on “why this matters”—approximately that for whatever reasons, Administrator Pruitt still has his job—but then lays an ugly string of points from “behind the scenes”, starting with the idea that EPA senior staff apparently being surprised by a photo of the Administrator at lunch with “members of his team” emerging in a lobbyist’s tweet.

Gravity is gravity; the slope is uncertain, but something about downhill goes here.

• Over the last few months, Pruitt has walled himself off from all but five EPA political appointees: ​Millan Hupp, Sarah Greenwalt, Hayley Ford, Lincoln Ferguson, and Wilcox. Of those five, only Wilcox is over 30. Hupp, Greenwalt and Ferguson came with Pruitt from Oklahoma. Wilcox is the only press aide Pruitt appears to trust.

• Pruitt’s chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, runs the agency’s operations but rarely knows where his boss is. Pruitt has frozen Jackson out of his inner circle—a disaster for a chief of staff. Pruitt and Jackson don’t trust each other, multiple sources told me.

• “All of us have been frozen out over time,” one EPA political appointee told me. “It’s absolutely unreal working here. Everyone’s miserable. Nobody talks. It’s a dry wall prison.”

And the band plays on as EPA tumbles down the rabbit hole: “Pruitt never trusted the EPA’s career staff”, writes Swan, and the understatement about the sentence is nearly unavoidable; the point is highlight the Administrator having “frozen out” political appointees as administrative paranoia apparently grows and staff morale similarly continues its plummet.

The Pruitt Watch (#swamped)

#DrainTheSwamp | #WhatTheyVotedFor

The list from Steve Benen might, ‘twixt now and Monday, have become obsolete; it’s hard to tell, some days.

1. The EPA’s inspector general is investigating Pruitt’s controversial travel habits.

2. The House Oversight Committee is also exploring the EPA chief’s use of public funds for first-class travel.

3. The EPA’s inspector general is investigating Pruitt’s behind-the-scenes talks with the National Mining Association.

4. Pruitt’s exorbitant spending on an around-the-clock security detail is the subject of three inspector general investigations.

5. The House Oversight Committee is also examining the EPA chief’s security expenditures.

6. The Government Accountability Office has already investigated Pruitt for exceeding federal spending limits when he bought a $43,000 phone booth for his office.

7. The White House Office of Management and Budget is also investigating the phone booth.

8. The EPA’s inspector general is investigating Pruitt’s use of funds set aside for the Safe Drinking Water Act and diverting the money to give generous raises to two of his top aides.

9. The EPA’s inspector general is investigating Pruitt’s four-day trip to Morocco late last year.

10. The Government Accountability Office is investigating Pruitt’s ouster of scientists from the EPA’s science advisory committee.

11. The Government Accountability Office is investigating whether Pruitt broke lobbying laws with comments he made to the National Cattleman’s Beef Association.

12. The House Oversight Committee is investigating Pruitt’s living arrangement at a lobbyist’s condo.

13. And as noted above, the EPA’s inspector general is now also taking a closer look at Pruitt’s time at that condo.

Before the day was out, the msnbc blogger found himself adding to the list, sort of, noting a “controversy that should become the 14th” in a Reuters report describing a financial hardship waiver Pruitt’s EPA granted to an Oklahoma facility for a company owned by former Trump administration hand Carl Icahn:

The waiver enables Icahn’s CVR Energy Inc (CVI.N) to avoid tens of millions of dollars in costs related to the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program. The regulation is meant to cut air pollution, reduce petroleum imports and support corn farmers by requiring refiners to mix billions of gallons of biofuels into the nation’s gasoline and diesel each year.

And it does, you know, just keep going downhill.

The Plot Twist (Squeaky Gates)

#DimensionTrump | #WhatTheyVotedFor

This is hard to overlook. Los Angeles Times reports:

A former top aide to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign will plead guilty to fraud-related charges within days—and has made clear to prosecutors that he would testify against Paul J. Manafort Jr., the lawyer-lobbyist who once managed the campaign.

The change of heart by Trump’s former deputy campaign manager, Richard W. Gates III, who had pleaded not guilty after being indicted in October on charges similar to Manafort’s, was described in interviews by people familiar with the case.

“Rick Gates is going to change his plea to guilty,” said a person with direct knowledge of the new developments, adding that the revised plea will be presented in federal court in Washington “within the next few days.”

Caroline Orr, meanwhile, rightly recalls that “Gates was still making regular trips to the White House through at least June 2017”, noting the Daily Beast, circa June last:  

An Angel Giving You the Finger, and Other Notes

“Garterbelt, you keep slappin’ my butt around. Answer line: Freaky girl coming your way.”

―TeddyLoin featuring Debra Zeer

You know, some days you just don’t feel like you’re in the groove, so you end up saying, “Here’s a list, read this.”

Right.

Here’s a list. Read this.

• Sally Kohn on “How the GOP Invented Elizabeth Warren”. (The Daily Beast)

• If you ever wondered how long Chris Christie would remain in consideration as a serious GOP presidential contender, Perry Bacon, Jr., explains how “Christie Faces Growing Doubts Within GOP About his 2016 Campaign”. (NBC News)

• Amanda Terkel notes that “Apple Breaks Ties With Anti-Gay Alabama Lobbyist”, which seems almost inevitable, when you think about it. (Huffington Post)

• Shaun King reports on the Lone Star Republic values after “Texas students flash ‘White Power’ signs at rival team, may have defecated on rival team bus”. (Daily Kos)

• Conservative family values advocacy takes another hit “MO’s Country Club Committee Meeting Goes Wrong for Republicans, Get Caught on Camera talking Choice”, and we know that one doesn’t work out quite right as a sentence; deal with it. (Daily Kos)

• And speaking of things that don’t work out quite right, Caitlin Dewey explains why “Pinterest deleted Rand Paul’s sexist and unfunny Hillary Clinton ‘parody'”. (Washington Post)

And now, Anarchy, just because: