Sometimes news in the #TrumpRussia matter comes at you like a firehose; it’s easy to miss some things. I did not realize, for example, that Felix Sater is being sued by television producer and celebrity agent Stella Bulochnikov Stolper for illegally and remotely accessing her home computer to get a movie made about his bizarre life. If you’ve been following my coverage of Sater, this will not surprise you, and it doesn’t surprise me. After all, he wanted me to write a screenplay and offered to help if I would give him a writer’s credit. Still, I didn’t notice this when it was first reported, nor did I realize that Sater’s scheduled testimony before the House Intelligence Committee had been postponed from this week until March 27. Perhaps these two things are related.
Another thing that slipped my radar is that former acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker was making an appearance on Wednesday to clarify his congressional testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.
Former acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker met behind closed doors Wednesday with the leaders of the House Judiciary Committee to discuss testimony he gave during a contentious hearing last month in which, Democrats say, he was less than forthcoming.
Whitaker’s meeting with the panel’s chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), and its ranking Republican, Douglas A. Collins (Ga.), took place despite a sharp disagreement between the lawmakers about whether there is any value in continuing to engage Whitaker, who has not been with the Justice Department since the Senate confirmed William P. Barr as attorney general early last month.
“We thought the hearing shouldn’t have happened, so if you want to bring him back in then fine,” Collins said in a brief interview before the hearing Wednesday. “It’s the chairman’s meeting, so I’m just going to sit there and listen and see what he says.”
Republican petulance by the ranking member of the committee aside, it doesn’t appear like the meeting went well for the president.
BREAKING: Former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker admits he lied to Congress under oath, and we all know what Republicans think of people who do that. Right? Or does the law just apply to people who have stopped lying for Trump? https://t.co/xBZZ6PyAoX
— Facts Do Matter (@WilDonnelly) March 13, 2019
Like I said, it’s hard to keep up. It took me almost an hour just to review Marcy Wheeler’s latest scribblings on Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, and Roger Stone. Then there were the new indictments against Manafort out of New York that I already covered.
On days like this, it’s hard to believe that anyone will remember what Nancy Pelosi had to say about impeachment. But I do wonder how much evidence of criminality the American people can absorb at one time.
