Donald Trump has been begging for quite some time, “Where are my killers?! I need a real killer!” His prayers have been answered and his new hire is former U.S. Attorney and frequent Fox News guest Joe diGenova, to represent his interests with the Russia investigation. DiGenova called FBI Director Christopher Wray a “coward” for not speaking out about the firing of now-former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, just this morning. Apparently the main reasons for diGenova being brought on board are his frequent appearances on Fox News proselytizing conspiracy theories (because perhaps Trump thinks that will help his liability with the Mueller investigation,) but primarily to slap a lid on John Dowd. CBS News:
According to sources familiar with this move, [White House correspondent Major] Garrett reports that John Dowd will remain on the Trump personal legal team but DiGenova was recruited and hired to limit Dowd's role. Over the weekend, Dowd called on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to "bring an end" to Mueller's Russia investigation. He had to clarify that he was speaking for himself and not for the president.
Dowd stated to the Daily Beast Saturday morning that he was speaking on behalf of the president. Here is their quote: “He told The Daily Beast he was speaking on behalf of the president, in his capacity as the president’s attorney.” You can’t get much clearer than that. A few hours later, he must have sobered up enough realized the gravity of his error and walked back the statement, saying that he was speaking in a personal capacity.
Trump’s new attack beast lawyer is well schooled in the dark arts of alt-right propaganda and is a frequent contributor on Fox News, where he successfully auditioned for the role of White House counsel. He endorsed Tucker Carlson’s Secret Society narrative:
Mr. diGenova has endorsed the notion that a secretive group of F.B.I. agents concocted the Russia investigation as a way to keep Mr. Trump from becoming president. “There was a brazen plot to illegally exonerate Hillary Clinton and, if she didn’t win the election, to then frame Donald Trump with a falsely created crime,” he said on Fox News in January. He added, “Make no mistake about it: A group of F.B.I. and D.O.J. people were trying to frame Donald Trump of a falsely created crime.”
But it doesn’t stop with the Secret Society cult of the infamous Deep State. Oh, no, disabuse yourself of that notion forthwith. Washington Post:
February 2: ‘The largest law enforcement scandal in history’
“We are headed toward a very sad ending for the FBI and senior DOJ officials. ... I believe that several high FBI officials will be charged criminally. And it is conceivable that some DOJ people will also be charged criminally. ... I would consider this the largest law enforcement scandal in history for this reason. The activities of McCabe and others and Bruce Ohr and others were designed to subvert the Constitution and a national election, the most serious offense under our Constitution.” (“Hannity”)
March 15: Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe should be fired...
“He's done a number of things worth punishment, including careening through obstruction of justice from the beginning of the Trump campaign, doing everything he could to exonerate Hillary Clinton in the email server case corruptly. ... He should be fired. He should have been fired a long time ago. And if he loses some of his benefits, that's good for the country. And it's the least that can be done to him.” (“Tucker Carlson Tonight”)
...and the people involved should be arrested
“It means that the system of equal justice has been rent asunder by the conduct of James Comey, America's best-known dirty cop, Andrew McCabe and others, including senior Obama administration Justice Department officials. This is a moment in history that has sullied the reputation of the FBI and the Department of Justice, and deservedly so. Every one of these people should be put in a wanted poster at a post office, even though they may never be arrested.” (“Tucker Carlson Tonight”)
And neither Trump nor Fox News should be surprised if he stabs them in the back. He’s done it before. He and his wife/law partner have been playing the media for years.
In a lengthy piece, [Washington Post Staff Writer Howard] Kurtz described diGenova and his wife/legal partner Victoria Toensing as a “classic Washington power couple” who “occupy a strange, symbiotic nexus between the media and the law that boosts their stock in both worlds.”
Perhaps no recent incident has drawn as much interest and speculation as diGenova’s role as an anonymous source for the Dallas Morning News. The melodrama began when Toensing was approached by an intermediary for a Secret Service agent who was said to be willing to testify that he saw Clinton and Lewinsky in a compromising situation. DiGenova passed this on to Morning News reporter David Jackson (“Joe and I exchanged a few words over that,” Toensing says) and the paper published the story in its Internet edition, attributing the account to an unnamed lawyer “familiar with the negotiations.” But by then the intermediary had told Toensing the agent was backing off.
Hours later, the Morning News retracted the report, saying the “longtime Washington lawyer” had said the information was “inaccurate.”
DiGenova was that lawyer and he said the reporter, David Jackson, was warned. He said that the Dallas Morning News was “told not to print and they chose to print.
“I don’t know how much more helpful you can be to a newspaper than to tell them not to print,” he added. Jackson, on the other hand, remembered the conversation “quite different[ly].”
The reporter may or may not have been warned, but definitely we have been and Trump should be, although as monumentally obtuse as he is, if diDenova is making all the right loyalty noises then Trump will think everything’s swell in the adamantine echo chamber in which he lives. DiGenova was brought on board to contain Dowd, but who in the world is going to contain him? There’s another mad dog loose in Washington, worse than Bannon, Gorka and Miller put together; or as Adam Schiff said today on twitter, “another dose of unreality in the White House.” Just what we needed.