Mueller Closes in on White House, Pence Makes Himself Scarce

Lest Fox News viewers forget (assuming Fox is even covering Russiagate), Mike Pence was actively involved in the Trump campaign and he was the head of the Trump transition team.  Yet, as noted before, he has steadfastly acted like Sergeant Schultz in the old Hogan's Heroes, television show: he claims he saw nothing, heard nothing and knew nothing.  Recent revelations, including emails discussing Mike Flynn's Russian contacts, however, suggest that Pence - who claims to be a devout evangelical Christian - is perhaps lying.  As regular readers know, in my view from years of tracking them, other than perhaps Trump himself, few elements of American society lie more often or more viciously than the self-congratulatory "godly folk." A piece in Vanity Fair looks at Pence's efforts to fade into the woodwork as he no doubt hopes that if and when Trump is driven from office, he can step in and claim the mantle of the presidency.  Here are article highlights:

It is extraordinary, in retrospect, that Mike Pence wouldn’t have known about Michael Flynn’s conversations with Sergey Kislyak or his foreign lobbying ties. As we now know, multiple members of the Trump campaign were aware that the man who would become Donald Trump’s national security adviser was in communication with the Russian ambassador at a senior campaign official’s behest. Yet Pence, who was in charge of Trump’s White House transition team—directing staffing, organizing agency “landing teams,” and vetting administration candidates—was conveniently out of the loop. (Flynn was ostensibly fired for misleading the vice president about those contacts.) Pence went radio silent again last week, when Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about those conversations. And he was nowhere to be found in the aftermath, as Trump’s legal team raced to contain the fallout after the president potentially implicated himself in obstruction of justice on Twitter. The former Indiana governor has, on the one hand, secured Trump’s trust by serving as an unflappable, unquestionably ideological defender of the president’s agenda. But his blissful ignorance on all things Russia has also raised eyebrows in Washington among insiders who see him as the obvious back-up candidate if Trump doesn’t pan out. Indeed, Pence has a curious pattern of alibis whenever controversy strikes the West Wing. While Flynn and Jared Kushner were ensnared in back-channel brokering over a United Nations resolution during the transition, Politico notes, Pence was volunteering at a homeless shelter in his home state of Indiana. When Flynn was gabbing with Kislyak about lifting sanctions against Moscow, Pence was at his son’s wedding. As Donald Trump Jr. was fending off headlines about his Trump Tower meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya, his father’s right-hand man insisted that was the first he’d heard of it.

Rumors of Pence’s presidential ambitions seem to resurface whenever Trump’s political prospects look weakest. . . . . Others noted the existence of an unspoken agreement among Republicans to keep Pence above the fray. “He’s not stupid about the fact that there could be some very bad outcomes for Donald Trump here,” Rick Wilson, another Republican strategist, added.

There is no vice president who takes the job without the expectation of advancement. But Pence, it seems, glimpsed the possibility of a promotion early on. According to The Atlantic, amid the tumult after the Access Hollywood tape was made public, Pence briefly came within spitting distance of the top of the Republican ticket.

It is a grand irony that Donald Trump might, unintentionally, slingshot Mike Pence to the presidency. While Pence’s name emerged as a potential presidential contender for 2016 in the wake of his 2012 gubernatorial victory, the Indiana governor’s political career was on a downward trajectory when he unexpectedly hitched his wagon to Trump’s star.

Pence has repeatedly denied that he has any designs on the presidency. . . . Still, the signs are there. In May, he filed paperwork with the F.E.C. to launch his own PAC, the Great America Committee. Reports that he was cozying up to Republican mega-donors fanned speculation that he was in drape-measuring mode. According to the Times story, “multiple advisers” to Pence have “already intimated to party donors that he would plan to run if Mr. Trump did not.”

Pence’s ascendance could come sooner than later. . . . The latest argument from Trump’s legal team—that there “is no crime of collusion” and that the “president cannot obstruct justice”—appears to anticipate the worst. Meanwhile, Pence boosters are waiting quietly in the wing.

The country does not need another conniving liar in the White House.  If - and hopefully soon - Trump goes down he will reach out and take Pence with him.  If Trump has any sense, he ought to see the signs that Pence will knife him in the back as soon as he sees it to be in his own self-interest.  I despise Paul Ryan, but he'd be far less dangerous to the country and civil rights of its citizenry than either Trump or Pence.

Trump Adviser, K. T. McFarland, Lied to Congress

McFarland and Flynn - two liars

The release of additional emails over the weekend have revealed with a high degree of certainty that K. T. McFarland, former deputy national security adviser to Der Trumpenführer, lied in her testimony before Congress.  Specifically, she said she had no knowledge of communications between transition team members and Russian operatives.   Meanwhile, she had engaged in emails that were discussing the efforts of Michael Flynn to communicate with Russian operatives.  It is stunning how much like Trump's transitions team is like Trump's main base of support, evangelical Christians.  With both groups, the only safe assumption to make vis-a-vis anything they say is to assume it's a lie.   Of course, McFarland isn't the only one who seems to have been deliberately lying.  Mike Pence was head of the transition team when all of this was going down and it appears obvious that Pence was lying when he claimed Flynn had lied to him: Pence already knew of the Russian contacts and communications by Flynn.  The New York Times looks at the continuing cavalcade of lies emanating from the Trump/Pence regime.  Here are highlights:

A leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee questioned on Monday whether a high-ranking official in Donald J. Trump’s transition team had been deceptive over the summer about her knowledge of discussions between Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, and a former Russian ambassador.

K. T. McFarland served on the presidential transition team before becoming the White House deputy national security adviser. In July, she was questioned in writing by Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, on whether she had ever spoken to Mr. Flynn about his contacts with Sergey I. Kislyak, who was then the Russian ambassador to Washington, before Mr. Trump took office.

“I am not aware of any of the issues or events described above,” Ms. McFarland wrote in response, sidestepping a direct answer to the question.

An email exchange obtained by The New York Times indicates that Ms. McFarland was aware at the time of a crucial Dec. 29 phone call between Mr. Flynn and Mr. Kislyak that was intercepted by American intelligence.

If senators on the Foreign Relations Committee find that Ms. McFarland was evasive in her testimony, it could complicate her nomination to become ambassador to Singapore. Repeated attempts to reach Ms. McFarland, who left her post as deputy national security adviser in May, were unsuccessful.

In his written questions, Mr. Booker asked, “Did you ever discuss any of General Flynn’s contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak directly with General Flynn?”

In a statement on Monday, Mr. Booker said that he was concerned that Ms. McFarland might have given “false testimony” in her answers.

“If this is the case, this is an alarming development, and another example of a pattern of deception on the part of Trump’s closest associates regarding their connections and communications to Russian government officials,” he said.

Court documents released on Friday, along with Mr. Flynn’s guilty plea, indicate that senior members of Mr. Trump’s transition team were well aware of his discussions with the Russian ambassador about the Obama administration’s sanctions. Mr. Flynn talked to Mr. Kislyak by phone on Dec. 29, the day the sanctions took effect, and several days later.

Mr. Flynn then briefed senior transition team members about his discussions with Mr. Kislyak, the records show.  Ms. McFarland worked so closely with Mr. Flynn on the transition team that her colleagues sometimes referred to her as his “brain.”

 My thoughts? Lock her up.