Me and The Donald discuss dodgy dossier
WASHINGTON — Finally yesterday I got a chance to ask President Trump a few questions, starting with something I’ve been wondering about for a while now, namely the dodgy 35-page dossier full of “salacious and unverified” allegations, as the fired FBI director James
Comey put it.
What does he think of Christopher Steele, the reputed British “spy” who was apparently paid at least six figures to write this nonsense?
“He’s a novelist,” Trump said, as I sat with him in the East Room of the White House.
So did the “spy” just … pipe it?
“It’s made up, it’s fabricated, it’s false. Most people have said that, or at least that most of it is false.”
Then he mentioned the news that Donna Brazile, the Democrat operative who’d been running the Democratic National Committee last year, has written a book saying Hillary rigged the Democrat primary process against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“I heard that as I was walking in here,” he said, before looking at me and saying, “and congratulations on being in the White House.”
“Hey,” I replied. “Congratulations to you being in the White House too!”
It was a media day at the White House, with the president doing interviews with a few radio talk-show hosts and Laura Ingraham from Fox News.
The new GOP tax plan was being rolled out and the president was crowing about the fact that “a newspaper that isn’t very good to me” had pointed out that the Democrats had been saying that the plan would raise taxes on the middle class. The newspaper gave the charge a review of “four Pinocchio’s” — totally false.
“That would be the very fake news Washington Post,” I said.
But I really wanted to ask him more questions about the dodgy dossier. Did he think the FBI used a fictitious account to get a FISA warrant to wiretap Trumpworld?
“I think they did use it,” he said. Key word: think. So I said to him, “You’re the president, why don’t you just call up the FBI or the DOJ and ask them if they used it? You’re the president!”
“As president,” he said, “you’re not supposed to become involved with, like, justice, the FBI; you’re supposed to hope everybody is doing their job.”
He didn’t sound convinced they are. I know I’m not.
Of course the dossier was phonier than Hillary Clinton’s cackle. The only media person who’d even mention it before the election was one David Corn of something called Mother Jones. He just wrote earlier this week he had spoken to “the novelist” before Nov. 8. The fictioneer told him that after his, ahem, research, he was very concerned.
I rolled my eyes when I read it, but I didn’t bother to bring it up during the 10-minute interview I had with the president.
So last night I get to Reagan Airport and check out the internet and there I see the latest headline:
“David Corn investigated for inappropriate workplace behavior.”
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Another alt-left journalist caught with his … well, you know. Mark Halperin could not be reached for comment. Neither could that NYT-turned-NPR exec Michael Oreskes.
Damn, I wish I could ask Trump about his latest tormentor allegedly touching everything but the third rail.
Maybe next time.