TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2024
The doorman knocks early and often: Journalistically speaking—and "at long last"—is it time for her to go?
Journalistically speaking, we refer to Lisa Rubin. She's either "an MSNBC legal analyst" or "an MSNBC legal correspondent," depending on which part of the thumbnail you read.
She's a relatively recent addition to the army of legal contributors who have clogged the airwaves at that Blue America corporate channel keeping ratings and profits high. She's also a food, decent person.
That said:
This morning, she appeared on Morning Joe to discuss the events which took place yesterday at the Donald J. Trump election conspiracy trial.
She appeared at the start of the 6 o'clock hour. By this afternoon, we'll be able to link you to videotape of what she said, and we'll give you a fuller transcript.
We did manage to capture some exact quotes as she spoke about yesterday's opening statement by the prosecution. She voiced her concern about something she heard—rather, about the things she didn't hear.
In Rubin's view, several dogs had failed to bark within one part of the case against Trump.
Several dogs had failed to bark! Rubin voiced her concern:
What I didn't hear as much about is how Donald Trump then directed the coverup. How are they going to prove that?
I was hoping to hear that they have a lot more than that. I didn't hear that yet. I'm hoping that we hear prosecutors have a lot more about the back end of the deal—as much as they have about the front end of it.
Later, we'll offer a complete transcript. You'll be able to see the fuller remarks, in which Rubin announced that she's rooting for the prosecution to have a full and complete mountain of evidence against defendant Donald J. Trump.
Credit where due! Rubin wasn't hiding the fact that she, as a major journalist, is rooting for a criminal conviction. We recalled the remarkable breakdown form last year, when Rubin and several other "legal analysts" reported that they were pre-existing personal friends of E. Jean Carroll, who was suing Trump in civil court for an alleged sexual assault.
Carroll won her case. For reasons which never went explained, MSNBC had assigned several of her personal friends to report on the progress of her trial.
Journalistically speaking, that struck us as a remarkable state of affairs. This morning, there was Rubin, making it clear that she's rooting for the Yankees, not for the Red Sos. Or you may choose to see it the other way around.
This afternoon, we'll link you to tape. We'll transcribe the full statement.
Journalistically speakng, it it time for her to go? We'll link, then you can decide.
Meanwhile, back at the New York Times, it was Protess and Bromwich all over again. Today, though, they were listed as Bromwich and Protess.
Their front-page report about yesterday's session contains 36 paragraphs. In our view, the "mountain of evidence" boys got to the doorman fast. Front-page headline included:
An Unprecedented Trial Opens With Two Visions of Trump
(1) Manhattan prosecutors delivered a raw recounting of Donald J. Trump’s seamy past on Monday as they debuted their case against him to jurors, the nation and the world, reducing the former president to a co-conspirator in a plot to cover up three sex scandals that threatened his 2016 election win.
(2) Their opening statement was a pivotal moment in the first prosecution of an American president, a sweeping synopsis of the case against Mr. Trump, who watched from the defense table, occasionally shaking his head. Moments later, Mr. Trump’s lawyer delivered his own opening, beginning with the simple claim that “President Trump is innocent,” then noting that he is once again the presumptive Republican nominee and concluding with an exhortation for jurors to “use your common sense.”
[...]
(8) Matthew Colangelo, a senior aide to the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, then seized on what he called a conspiracy in the criminal case. Over the course of a 45-minute opening, as Mr. Bragg watched from the front row, Mr. Colangelo calmly walked the jury through the prosecution’s argument that Mr. Trump orchestrated the plot to corrupt the 2016 election.
(9) The scheme, he explained, involved hush-money deals with three people who had salacious stories to sell: a porn star, a Playboy model and a doorman at one of Mr. Trump’s buildings.
(10) Mr. Trump, who faces up to four years in prison, directed allies to buy those people’s silence to protect his candidacy, Mr. Colangelo explained. Mr. Pecker took care of the model and the doorman, while Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former fixer who is set to be the prosecution’s star witness, paid off the porn star.
Mr. Pecker took care of the doorman. The doorman arrived in paragraph 9, or perhaps right in paragraph 1.
The doorman arrived in paragraph 9, or possibly in paragraph 1. It wasn't until paragraph 25 that we rubes were advised about this minor detail:
(24) The plan was to watch out for any damaging stories about Mr. Trump—and then hide them from voters.
(25) Such stories arose swiftly. Soon, Mr. Pecker bought the silence of the doorman, whose story about Mr. Trump fathering a child out of wedlock turned out to be false.
The doorman's story—sold for cash in 2015, it dated back to the 1980s—turned out to be false! The doorman had been threatening to spread a story which happened to be untrue.
Presumably, Donald J. Trump would have known that the doorman's tale was untrue. But according to the logic of the Times report, Trump had engaged in a "plot to corrupt the 2016 election" by taking steps to stop a money-grubbing sleaze merchant from peddling a tale which was false.
So goes one part of the logic. According to Bromwich and Protess' account of the prosecution's claims, this was part of the gentleman's crime. More specifically, this was part of his corruption of our election!
The doorman knocks early and often in this morning's Times. That said, we don't have access to the text of the prosecution's actual opening statement. For that reason, we can't show you the precise way Prosecutor Colangelo presented this suppression of a false claim—the way he allegedly scored it as one part of the defendant's felonious crime.
We can tell you this:
Last night, an "all-star panel" had been gathered on Blue America's MSNBC for a special Ttump On Trial program.
Who sat on that all-star panel? When Rachel Maddow called the roll, it turned out that they were just the same old people who host the channel's shows each night!
(Everyone was there except Ari Melber, the channel's top legal host!)
To our ear, the all-stars were rather promiscuous, throughout their two hours, in the way they cited the doorman, generally failing to let us know that the story he had been threatening to peddle was false.
Like Bromwich and Protess, they downplayed that minor wrinkle. No one ever mentioned the presumptive fact that Donald J. Trump would have known, decades later, that the doorman's story was false.
The doorman's story wasn't true; the doorman's story was false! Mentioning that basic fact reminds us out here in soma land:
Sometimes, the exciting things that people say lack the advantage of being true!
The doorman's story was false. How about the claim by Stormey Daniels—the claim that she had consensual sex, on one occasion in 2006, with the defendant Donald J. Trump?
Is it possible that her claim is false? Well yes, of course it is!
We ourselves would be inclined to bet that her claim is actually true. But we can't exactly prove it.
Have previous president engaged in sexual relations with women (arguably, even with one girl) not their wives? Dear Jack was worst of all, but the answer is screamingly yes.
In her 2019 biography of Barbara Bush, Susan Page judged that President Bush 41 had a long affair with NAME WITHHELD. For Peter Baker's account in the New York Times, you can just click here.
We don't know if that judgment was accurate. That said, NAME WITHHELD came from the finer class. All-stars only scream and yell when extramarital sex is had with a woman from a lower station, with (say it loud!) someone described a "a porn star." Everyone knew they mustn't discuss the conclusion Page had drawn.
At any rate, Donald J. Trump corrupted our 2016 election by suppressing a false report! This is the way the accusation scans in the hands of Bromwich and Protess, and we suppose in the somewhat shaky hands of the prosecution.
In fairness, we checked with other major news orgs. We checked to see how often the doorman knocked in their accounts of yesterday's opening statement.
We checked with the Washington Post. We checked with the Associated Press (no paywall).
We checked with CNN (no paywall). We checked with the mothership—with NBC News itself (no paywall).
None of them even mentioned the doorman in their reports on the opening statement! At the glorious New York Times, the doorman knocked in paragraph 1—and you had to get to paragraph 25 to learn that his story was false, with no mention of the fact that Donald J. Trump presumably would have known that.
In our view, the all-stars were quite promiscuous last night with a second part of this clumsy logical fandango. We refer to the reason(s) why Michael Cohen went to prison.
The all-stars kept referring to his jailing—and they kept finessing some basic facts. This brings us up to what Joe Scarborough said, this very morning, about Yeats and The Second Coming.
"Thew worst are full of passionate intensity," Yeats said in his famous poem. Scarborough quoted the line.
Journalistically speaking, it isn't always all that easy to see where "the worst" are plying their trade.
The garbage is frequent at the "cable news" channel which exists in service to Red America. Journalistically, are some of the worst now found on Blue America's channel too? In our most famous newspaper?
At any rate, there was Rubin, this very morning, rooting, and rooting quite hard, for a criminal conviction. Later today, we'll link you to the videotape of what this good, decent person said.
She said she's hoping to learn that the prosecutors have more evidence than they suggested. Gone with the wind are the very old days of "just the [relevant] facts."
With us now are the fully emerging days of the clan. Within that realm, a criminal corrupted our election by suppressing a bogus tale!
Tomorrow: Wherever the winding road leads