Um, this is actually the second time Trump's campaign has been caught soliciting aid from foreig
Wow. Just wow.
When it comes to shrewd political strategy, Donald Trump Jr. is about what you’d get if you dug up Lee Atwater and replaced his brain with an acorn squash: all of the feral, amoral ambition with none of the cunning.
Yes, Derp Throat struck again today, essentially admitting that he — eagerly — sought to collude with the Russian government to swing the election for his dad.
But while the administration and the president’s apologists may be preparing to contain the damage by scurrying away from Jr. like he’s Quint’s torso at the end of Jaws, this kind of sinister stupidity is actually a well-established pattern among the Trumpites.
Remember back in the summer of 2016 when the Trump campaign openly solicited donations from foreign nationals? If you don’t, it’s only because the story didn’t get nearly the attention it deserved — maybe because the media saw it as more of a moronic, amateurish blunder than a deliberate strategy.
As numerous media outlets reported at the time, the Trump campaign sent fundraising emails in June 2016 to members of parliament from several countries, including the UK, Australia, Iceland, Denmark, and Finland, in clear violation of U.S. election law.
Then, two weeks later, the campaign was caught sending even more campaign solicitations to foreigners.
And then, about a month later, it happened again.
After the second round of emails, Larry Noble, the general counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, which had complained to the FEC about the solicitations, said, “There is no reason this should be happening. While U.S. citizens do live abroad, they usually don't have foreign government email addresses or are members of parliament, so they can't try to explain this by saying they thought they were soliciting U.S. citizens abroad. If the Trump campaign has continued to solicit foreign nationals after the matter first came to light in June, this looks like either gross incompetence, gross negligence or willful conduct.”
Yeah, take your pick.
None of this rises to the level of colluding with our enemies to create an electoral advantage, but it was quite clearly illegal, and if Hillary had done it Jason Chaffetz would have started firing subpoenas through her campaign bus windows with a T-shirt cannon.
Trying to ascertain where the Trumps’ stupidity ends and their evil begins is like trying to figure out the big man’s hair weave. Maybe those unlucky enough to have an up-close look can tell what’s what, but from our vantage point it just looks like a revolting mess.
