Next Target: Pence

Where is the Trump of the campaign trail? All tough and full of bluster. Why does he keep caving so quick? He fired Flynn, he allowed Sessions to recuse himself, he hired the Islamic apologists McMaster and Gorka (and wanted to hire another, Harward, who turned him down — the most ardent supporters of the fantasy that Islam is a religion of peace, which is the greatest hindrance to our ability to understand and defeat the enemy.

I don’t see the unapologetic guy who was elected. Is Trump really this easily cowed and intimidated?

Regarding Sessions, consider this from the New York Sun: “If I could have done so in good conscience, I would have been pleased to demonstrate my integrity, and immediately silence the criticism, by getting off the case. Since I believe there is no basis for recusal, I cannot. The motion is Denied.”

Those are the words with which President Trump’s ideal Supreme Court justice — Antonin Scalia — refused to recuse himself from a case involving his duck-hunting pal, Vice President Cheney. He was reacting to a recusal motion from the Sierra Club, and he made short work of it in a magnificent opinion that begs for study in the wake of the recusal today by Attorney General Sessions in the investigation in respect of Russia.

“Pence used AOL email on governor business, got hacked,” by Steven Musil, CNet, March 3, 2017:

Vice President Mike Pence routinely used a personal AOL account for sensitive state business, including discussions about homeland security issues, while he was governor of Indiana, the Indianapolis Star reported Thursday.

One of the emails, obtained through a public records request, relayed an update from the FBI regarding the arrests of several men on federal terror-related charges, the newspaper reported. While the arrangement doesn’t violate Indiana law, the state requires all records dealing with state business to be retained and available for public information requests.

Use of a personal account raises questions about security, especially considering it was compromised last year. A hacker sent fake emails to his contact list last June claiming Pence and his wife had been attacked in the Philippines, the newspaper reported.

Use of a private email account for government business also raises transparency concerns since personal emails aren’t automatically stored on state servers, making them invisible to public records requests. But Pence’s office said Thursday that the contents of the email account are being archived in accordance with the law.

“Similar to previous governors, during his time as Governor of Indiana, Mike Pence maintained a state email account and a personal email account,” Pence’s office said in a statement to the Star. “As Governor, Mr. Pence fully complied with Indiana law regarding email use and retention. Government emails involving his state and personal accounts are being archived by the state consistent with Indiana law, and are being managed according to Indiana’s Access to Public Records Act.”…