An “extremely rare” search warrant, requiring a considerable burden of proof, was issued for the offices and records of Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime fixer and attorney. “It’s a tactic generally used against organized crime, against very serious, very serious criminals and lawyers who are operating outside of the protections of the law.” — … Read more
Facebook’s stock fell roughly 5 per cent ($25 billion) when markets opened because of the huge “data breach” scandal that the Guardian broke over the weekend. It’s a complicated story (see URL) involving Cambridge Analytica acquiring and using Facebook data on users personal interests to target voters in the 2016 US election. … Read more
Is Trump descending into a sinkhole of his own digging or beginning to find his feet and rule as he pleases? He blindsides senior staff by impromptu decisions on trade, NK and Russia, losing an economic adviser along the way, firing the Secretary of State who wouldn’t toe his line and now about … Read more
Trump is up to his usual trick of blaming others for precisely what he’s guilty of himself. The upper echelons of the FBI and Justice Department were tweet slammed by him this morning for politicising the ‘sacred investigative process.’ This is the president who demanded that his security and legal chiefs be … Read more
Lest you’re suffering Trump withdrawal symptoms, now that everyone has got bored with same as same as/mine’s bigger than yours, there’s going to be renewed excitement with the publication next week of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. Leaks to date suggest that Steve Bannon is getting his … Read more
Donald Trump is either descending into paranoid psychosis or he’s up to his usual game of diversionary tactics to render reality irrelevant; plus his narcissistic urge to keep attention focussed on him. Although his return in private to obsessive conspiracy theories about Obama’s birth certificate, Hillary not winning the popular vote and it … Read more
Donald Trump’s penchant for dictator-chic is being well-nourished by a glitzy state welcome in China, though that’s likely to fall foul of North Korea and trade wars. This December/January look pretty explosive between Xi Jinping and DT; with a fast downhill slide through 2018. Today’s FT, sadly behind a paywall, has an … Read more
How delicious as light relief. A wife and ex-wife fighting for the title of First Lady. Ivana Trump, mother of Ivanka, Donald Jnr and Eric, is pushing her new memoir Raising Trump and says she has a hot line into the White House and is really the important wife having been first … Read more
Just as everyone sags back punch-drunk from seven months of Trump-mania, he stirs the cauldron and pours boiling oil over already inflammatory situations. His generals have clearly reckoned there’s little point in restraining his acid-rain twitter stream, but he runs the risk of tipping Kim Jong Un into a major miscalculation. What will … Read more
‘The president is alienating the one Republican he needs to advance his agenda — and to save himself from impeachment’. So reads a Vanity Fair headline over the long-simmering tension between Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The New York Times reported that the two men have stopped talking to … Read more