By some measures, the controversy surrounding the president-elect's recent chat with the Supreme Court justice is intensifying, not dissipating.
https://bsky.app/profile/stevebenen.com/post/3lfg4knpids2u
In 2016, Bill Clinton and AG Loretta Lynch exchanged pleasantries at an airport, and it was treated like a hair-on-fire scandal.
The fact that Trump helped lead the charge seems relevant anew — given his far more controversial chat with Samuel Alito.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/newly-reported-details-spark-fresh-questions-alitos-call-trump-rcna187182
True to form, the justice ignored the pressure and signaled his willingness to give Trump the relief he sought. (Alito was, however, in the minority. A day later, the president-elect was sentenced.)
The controversy surrounding Tuesday’s phone call, however, isn’t over just yet. The New York Times reported that the chat and its timing “flouted any regard for even the appearance of a conflict of interest.” But that wasn’t the only relevant angle to the story:
The circumstances were extraordinary for another reason: Justice Alito was being drawn into a highly personalized effort by some Trump aides to blackball Republicans deemed insufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump from entering the administration, according to six people with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
On the surface, it’s a difficult dynamic to understand. The lawyer in question, William Levi, worked with Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah on Capitol Hill, clerked with Alito, worked with the Trump transition team, and he’s even the grandson of a legendary former attorney general. What’s the problem?
According to the Times’ report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, Levi has an unexpected “black mark against his name.”
In the first Trump administration, he served as the chief of staff to Attorney General William P. Barr, who is now viewed as a “traitor” by Mr. Trump for refusing to go along with his efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election. ... [Levi’s] bid for a permanent position has been stymied by Mr. Trump’s advisers who are vetting personnel for loyalty. ... As Mr. Trump puts together his second administration, Mr. Barr is among a handful of prominent Republicans who are viewed with such suspicion that others associated with them are presumptively not to be given jobs in the administration, according to people familiar with the dynamic.
If the Times’ report is accurate, the entire story is getting more bizarre, not less. (Note, none of the relevant players responded to the newspaper's request for comment.)
Time will tell if there are additional developments, but in the meantime,
let’s not forget that in June 2016, Bill Clinton exchanged pleasantries on a tarmac with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch. By all appearances, it was a fairly brief and inconsequential social interaction, and such conversations are not uncommon when prominent political figures are in the same place at the same time.
I remember the attacks on Hillary Clinton due to the tarmac incident. There is clearly a double standard here
= new reply since forum marked as read