- The president has sent multiple tweets attacking the Roger Stone jury, prosecutors, and judge. This is unheard of and isn’t the sort of thing that happened before his presidency. Stone is the sixth person to be convicted of/plead guilty to a felony.
- The president was furious over an intelligence briefing given to the House Intelligence Committee that said Russia is trying to help him win re-election. This is what led to the ouster of Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire. Two deputy DNIs were also reassigned this week. Trump was falsely under the impression that the briefing was given to only Adam Schiff as he learned about it from Devin Nunes.
- Richard Grenell, the new Acting DNI, previously worked for a corrupt Moldovan politician and did not disclose it to the US government as the law requires. This is the same law Paul Manafort and Rick Gates were convicted of breaking. This would normally mean he could not get a security clearance, but the president will override this. Grenell has absolutely zero intelligence experience and is now overseeing seventeen intelligence agencies. Luckily he cannot hold the position past March 11 if the law is actually followed.
- Grenell has named a top adviser, Kash Patel. Patel previously worked for Devin Nunes and was a key figure in trying to undermine the Russia investigation. Patel also met with Lev Parnas in the attempt to dig up dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine. He is now one of the top intelligence members in the nation.
- John McEntee was previously fired from the White House for a gambling problem and allegations of financial crimes. He is now in charge of hiring at the White House. McEntee has been tasked with getting rid of “deep state” employees and anyone who has been critical of the president. He is working to block promotions by reassigning the president’s critics. This is blatantly illegal, but would require the Department of Justice to take action which will not happen under Bill Bar.
- In back to back rallies, the president made a number of bizarre statements. He criticized Parasite for winning Best Picture since it is a foreign film and lamented that we no longer have films like Gone with the Wind, which celebrated The Confederacy. In response to a Fox News piece about his poor debate performance, he read multiple polls from 2016 saying he’d won every debate. He again bragged about “keeping the oil” in Syria. In order to convince him to leave troops there, The Pentagon told him they could protect Syrian oil fields. The United States does not own them nor receive oil from them. On the campaign trail, Trump frequently said the US needed to take oil from the countries it invaded. Doing so is a war crime. He said that Republicans would “protect pre-existing” and give you “brand new pre-existing.” He often uses this wording instead of bringing up “protections for those with pre-existing conditions.” It is not clear he understands the concept. Republicans do not currently have any health care proposals at all and are in court fighting to end protections for those with pre-existing conditions. This is one of his most frequent lies. Also at the rally, he rapidly switched between two conspiracy theories: that his campaign was spied on (not true) and that networks often turn off their cameras during his rallies and refuse to show the crowds (also not true.) Some pundits have used this clip to further questions his mental health, including myself.
