Pelosi punts on Democrat’s joke about Kellyanne Conway looking ‘familiar’ kneeling on White House couch

“Has anyone seen the controversy around Kellyanne Conway and the couch in the Oval Office?” Scott said. “Come on, people. You remember the '90s. That couch has had a whole lot of worse things.”

WaPo

"Four days ago, a Democratic congressman made what seemed to be a pretty blatantly tasteless joke about how top White House adviser Kellyanne Conway “really looked kind of familiar” kneeling on a couch in the Oval Office.

"But House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday that she hadn't heard about it. And she also suggested that such crude jokes were fair game at the dinner where Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) said it.

"CNN host Jake Tapper played Pelosi a clip of the joke — “And you can just explain to me that circumstance, because she really looked kind of familiar there in that position there,” Richmond said — and called it a “sexist” and “disgusting” joke. He asked Pelosi whether Richmond should apologize to Conway.

“ 'I wasn't at the dinner. I'm just finding out about this,” Pelosi said. The Washington Post asked her office for comment Thursday and received no response." . . .

The Smearing of Jeff Sessions

"Other than hyper-partisans, no one cares about his insubstantial meetings with the Russian ambassador."

The Spectator  "Craven Republicans, looking for a pat on the head from the mainstream media, can always be counted on to echo its idiotic demands. The phony controversy over the Trump campaign’s imaginary ties to Putin is the latest pitiful example of this phenomenon.

Instead of exposing the hyper-partisanship behind this media obsession, these Republicans are humoring it. We hear from them craven calls for a “special prosecutor” to investigate and demands that attorney general Jeff Sessions submit to one because he had, in his capacity as a senator, a grand total of two unimportant encounters with the Russia ambassador. How shocking. Who knew that senators and ambassadors from major countries with whom we have diplomatic relations interact? Extraordinary.

To the hyperventilating twits on Morning Joe, Ted Cruz made the obvious point: “What we are seeing is a lot of political theater. This morning, everyone is in high dudgeon about the meeting. The underlying meeting is a nothing burger. It’s what senators do every day. Meeting with foreign ambassadors, that’s part of the job. I think everyone is getting all worked up because it’s a chance to beat up the attorney general and to beat up the president.” . . .

Comey Asks Justice Dept. to Reject Trump’s Wiretapping Claim

NY Times

. . . "Mr. Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected, they said, but the department has not released any such statement.

"Mr. Comey, who made the request on Saturday after Mr. Trump leveled his allegation on Twitter, has been working to get the Justice Department to knock down the claim because it falsely insinuates that the F.B.I. broke the law, the officials said.

"A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment. Sarah Isgur Flores, the spokeswoman for the Justice Department, also declined to comment.

"Mr. Comey’s request is a remarkable rebuke of a sitting president, putting the nation’s top law enforcement official in the position of questioning Mr. Trump’s truthfulness." . . .

Obama’s Intelligence Director Strongly Denies Any Secret Warrants Against Trump Or Campaign

Daily Caller  "In a surprisingly candid interview on Sunday, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence under President Obama, directly denied that a secret federal warrant was ever issued against President Trump or his campaign.


"Clapper, who was interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” also said that he saw no evidence while in office of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government to influence the election.


“ 'I will say that for the part of the national security apparatus that I oversaw as DNI there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time as a candidate or against his campaign,” Clapper told “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd.


"Clapper also told Todd that he would “absolutely” be in a position to know whether a warrant was ever issued to wiretap Trump’s phones under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA" . . .

On President Trump's wiretapping claims

I have a bad feeling about this. Remember the job Obama's writers did on Trump over his birther claims?

Breitbart was said to be Trump's source on the wiretapping  Two words: Steve Bannon
"Donald Trump relied on conservative media sources to make his explosive claim that former President Barack Obama had the then-candidate’s phones tapped during the 2016 election campaign, according to a person familiar with the situation.
"A spokesman for Obama said Trump’s claims were “simply false,” and lawmakers urged Trump, if he had evidence of a wiretap, to make it public or at least disclose it to Congress."
. . .

“If it was with a legal FISA court order, then an application for surveillance exists that the court found credible,” Sasse said in a statement. “The president should ask that this full application regarding surveillance of foreign operatives be made available.”


Did Obama authorize wiretapping of Trump?  "President Trump accused Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower before the election.


"The Washington Post dismissed the charge:

Trump offered no citations nor did he point to any credible news report to back up his accusation, but he may have been referring to commentary on Breitbart and conservative talk radio suggesting that Obama and his administration used "police state" tactics last fall to monitor the Trump team.

"The Washington Post, a member of the Opposition Party, does not believe that Breitbart is credible.  Breitbart reported that the Obama administration sought a FISA warrant in June 2016, which was denied, but did obtain a FISA warrant in October 2016." . . .Read more.

The fact that WaPo is an Obama supporter does not necessarily mean they are wrong about this. TD

President Trump's Obama Wire Tapping Claims Backed By Top Intelligence Officer
"Retired Lt. Col Tony Schaffer states President Trump was probably given sufficient evidence to make his claims."  (Probably?)


Obama DENIES Trump's sensational 'Nixon/Watergate' phone tap accusation:

. . . " 'As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.' 

However, the statement did not deny that another federal agency may have sought authorization to listen in on Trump Towers and received it. 

Lewis' statement comes shortly after Trump fired off a flurry of tweets early Saturday morning claiming that the former president had been spying on him in October, a month before his election victory.  

'" Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!' the president wrote on Twitter." . . .

Yes, There Could Be Serious Legal Problems if Obama Admin Involved in Illegal Surveillance  . . . "If the stories are correct, Obama or his officials might even face prosecution. But, we are still early in all of this and there are a lot of rumors flying around so the key is if the reports are accurate. We just don’t know at this time." LawNuze

The AP defends Obama