If all this were in a mystery novel, no one would believe it; they would think it was too far-fetched.  The latest shoe to drop is that, during the campaign last year, US intelligence intercepted communications from Russians who were bragging that they already had Michael Flynn in their pocket and could use him to influence US policy should Trump be elected.  ALL of that came true.

The next shoe to drop will be the identity of the current senior advisor to Trump that has been labeled a person of interest.  My current guess is that it’s Jared Kushner, but who knows? It could be Ivanka since she was pushing he clothing line in Russia during the campaign.

This slow-motion train wreck threatens to come completely off the rails

The NY Times is now reporting that Trump boasted to the Russians in the Oval Office about firing “nut job” James Comey, and that the investigation would be relaxed.  Quote:

“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

This clown is unhinged.

As we all know by now, fired former FBI director James Comey left a paper trail of his conversations with Cheeto Jesus that will likely be damning to this president and carry great weight in the investigation of his and his cronies’ ties to the Russians.  Yesterday, though, there was a new twist to the story.  Pamela Brown is reporting on CNN that even though Comey routinely documented his conversations with Trump, he didn’t do so with his conversations with President Obama.  The reason?  Brown said,

“Even though he liked to create paper trails through his years at the Justice Department and the FBI, it was not common practice for him to document conversations with senior officials unless he thought it was significant. Conversations that Comey had with Trump he documented. In one memo, Anderson, he included a description of the President talking to him about crowd size at the inauguration. The source I spoke to said Comey did not do this with President Obama in part because he had fewer one on one conversations with the president, and as the source said, in Comey’s view, there was no need to document the conversations with people that are truthful or situations that are routine.”

Have a look:

WH comms staffers just put the TVs on super loud after we could hear yelling coming from room w/ Bannon, Spicer, Sanders

— Adrian Carrasquillo (@Carrasquillo) May 15, 2017

Reporters in the WH are saying they don’t know which way to lean to overhear staff trying to grapple with the tsunami of crises of Trump’s own making.  Monday night, the shoutfest between Bannon, Spicer, and Huckabee Sanders was so loud that comms staff turned up televisions trying to drown it out.

However, their boss is going to assure that the Daily Crisis will continue.  Trump is a moron; he thought it was a good idea to take on the intelligence community?  The FBI?  That’s just plain stupid and simply political suicide by bureaucracy.  Comey was a prosecutor.  These people raise evidence gathering and note taking to an art form.  You know that this snippet from one memo is just the tip of a giant iceberg and that iceberg is only going to get larger.  In the meantime, Trump’s inner circle is getting thrown under the bus one at a time on virtually a daily basis.  The ONLY staffer who carried any weight was H.R. McMaster, but that’s over after his performance in front of the West Wing entrance the other day.

And it’s only going to get worse.  With top staffers at each others’ throats, it’s only a matter of time before the entire West Wing melts down.  If Trump survives this latest crisis, he will be so damaged that his legislative agenda will grind to a halt.  He responds so poorly to perceived slights that you KNOW he’ll tweet out some other stupid declaration that will turn his scandals into a perpetual motion machine.

You have to ask yourself why anyone with any integrity would be a part of this fiasco.  Why are wealthy and influential people staying in, much less groveling like Tillerson did on MTP last Sunday?  It’s mind blowing to watch these otherwise smart people hang on while the WH turns into Fukushima on the Potomac.  The longer they do, the more they will get irradiated from this meltdown.

The NY Times is now reporting details of Comey memos that documented Trump’s request of Comey to shut down the investigation of Flynn and the Trump campaign’s involvement with the Russians.  MSNBC is reporting that Comey kept a VERY detailed paper trail and was very worried about Trump’s interference.

So…is that a faint voice out there?  I think I can hear the faint strains of…

Last week, beginning in the 24 blazing hours following Trump’s sacking of James Comey, the nature of Trump’s incumbency markedly shifted.  It started with the free flowing lies coming from every single one of his surrogates, then continued when the Big Cheeto threw that very same crew under the bus by contradicting his own talking points the next day after the firing.   Also, that same day, all of the networks, including Fox Noise, started using the word “lie”.  The words “chaos”, “turmoil”, and a dozen other descriptors of the Trump WH are now a regular part of network reporting.

Trump then threatened Comey with “tapes” of their conversations, and that was the moment mainstream GOP leadership started to part ways.  The Senate Intelligence committee has now asked the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to turn over documents related to Trump’s businesses.  Why is that significant?  FinCen enforces laws against MONEY LAUNDERING.  Over the years before Trump’s Atlantic City casino finally closed, it was caught several times money laundering.  This shift into serious investigation into his actually business dealings marks a change in emphasis from dark figures like Manafort, Stone, and Flynn to Trump.  That’s not insignificant. Referring to the request, Mark Warner, the ranking member on the committee, said, “[is] our effort to try to follow the intel no matter where it leads.”

There is now talk of Trump cleaning house and “rebooting” his administration.  Apparently, he’s furious with his staff for doing exactly what he’s told them to do, so the rumble is that he’s going to blow up the West Wing and start over.  Even if he does that, his problems are far from being over.  Money laundering? No one, including Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan can ignore that.  Mix in Russian money with that story, and Trump will finally be toast.

Fingers crossed here, but there is a clear shift of support away from Trump.  It can’t come too soon.