(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . GOP proved it's permanently Trumpified by picking Sarah Huckabee Sanders to respond to SOTU [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-15 You may recall that in September 2018, an anonymous White House staffer wrote an op-ed in The New York Times claiming that he and others faced an almost daily battle to restrain Trump’s “worst inclinations. If possible, Sanders’ response was even worse than that of Trump. She used her official Twitter account to make the Old Grey Lady the target of an angry mob (note that the tweet appears under the name of Trump’s last press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany). x For those of you asking for the identity of the anonymous coward: pic.twitter.com/RpWYPHa6To — Kayleigh McEnany 45 Archived (@PressSec45) September 6, 2018 Just days before the 2020 election, the anonymous staffer revealed himself to be former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor. A lot of never-Trumpers pilloried Taylor for staying anonymous. But this outrageous tweet from Sanders is why. It cannot be stated enough—the White House Press Secretary openly urged Trump diehards to crash The Times’ switchboard. When Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer in the latter days of the Bush 43 administration, saw this tweet, he called for Sanders to be fired. x Yet another firing offense for a Press Secretary who does not respect the truth or the First Amendment. Same for her boss. Sarah Huckabee Sanders "should be fired" for tweeting NYT's phone number after op-ed: Bush ethics chief https://t.co/phHqCwJ6EE — Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) September 6, 2018 Painter went on to tell Newsweek that Sanders’ tweet amounted to “using her official position to interfere with freedom of the press”—and did so in a manner that makes Trump’s constant ranting about the media being “the enemy of the American people” look minor league. Sanders worked in the Bush 43 White House, so it’s hard to believe she didn’t know what she was doing was outrageously wrong. If possible, Sanders outdid herself shortly after the blue tsunami of 2018. CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta had his press pass yanked after a particularly heated exchange with Trump at a White House press conference. Sanders claimed that the decision came after Acosta “put his hands” on a White House intern who was trying to take the mic from him, and circulated a video that appeared to show Acosta chopping the intern’s hand away. As it turned out, Sanders had just told the biggest and most dangerous lie in a career that led me to call her the “Princess of Lies.” According to forensic analysis by both The New York Times and The Associated Press, it appeared that the video had been manipulated to make the encounter between Acosta and the intern look worse than it actually was. Video production expert Abba Shapiro detailed his findings for the AP; watch here. Shapiro did a frame-by-frame analysis of the Sanders video alongside the AP’s footage of the exchange between Trump and Acosta. He noticed that the video Sanders released appeared to have slowed down and paused before the intern reached for the mic, then sped up to make Acosta’s attempt to shield the mic look aggressive. He believed that the differences between the video released by Sanders and the AP video were “too precise to be an accident.” Digital forensics expert Hany Farid came to a similar conclusion when he reviewed the video for The Times. He noted that the manner in which the video was edited—including zooming in and repeating several frames—made Acosta’s actions look worse than they actually were. He added that higher-quality videos “from other vantage points” made it clear that Acosta didn’t strike the intern. After a firestorm of criticism, federal judge Timothy Kelly—a Trump appointee—ordered Acosta’s credentials restored for at least 14 days. However, he tore Sanders apart in his ruling, saying that Sanders’ claim that Acosta inappropriately touched the intern was “likely untrue” and “partly based on evidence of questionable accuracy.” Translation—Kelly felt the video was bogus. CNN eventually dropped the suit three days later after the White House formally restored his pass. I believed then, and I believe now, that Acosta had grounds to file one whopper of a defamation or libel suit against Sanders. Posting that video was the very definition of “reckless disregard for the truth”—one of the requirements for actual malice. And it was arguably the most egregious action from a White House that made it its business to target journalists. But both of those outrages were minor league compared to what Sanders did in the middle of the 2018-19 government shutdown. House Speaker Pelosi was due to lead a congressional delegation to Afghanistan in order to visit troops stationed there. But on January 17, Trump wrote Pelosi to tell her that due to the shutdown, she would have to fly commercial. In true Trumpian fashion, he made the decision public. Sanders tweeted out Trump’s letter on the official @PressSec Twitter account. x President @realDonaldTrump’s letter to @SpeakerPelosi concerning her upcoming travel pic.twitter.com/TtBCvwp080 — Kayleigh McEnany 45 Archived (@PressSec45) January 17, 2019 Even if you accept the argument that Pelosi should have stayed in Washington, you do not give advance notice that VIPs are flying into a war zone. Career officials at the State Department knew this, and advised Pelosi to call off the trip altogether. Small wonder that Pelosi was shaken up when she spoke to reporters later that day. If I had been the Italian Grandma, I’d be just as shaken that Sanders complied with Trump’s apparent order to tweet out that letter. Remember, Sanders worked in the Bush 43 White House. She damned well knew that it was wrong, and indeed unlawful, to blast out that letter. And she did it anyway. God forbid that anything had befallen Pelosi and her team on that trip. Sanders would have been staring down the barrel of serious criminal charges, up to at least second-degree murder. In hindsight, this letter was the first warning that Trump was willing to launch a criminal attack on Congress. And the Princess of Lies was complicit in it. This is who the GOP saw fit to deliver its official response to Biden—a woman who exemplified Trumpism in its most unacceptable form. At bottom, the only substantive difference between Sanders and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is that Sanders is a brunette. Indeed, Sanders calling for Trump diehards to crash the Old Grey Lady’s switchboard is no different from Greene reading the private cell phone number of the director of the National Children’s Museum. Granted, the Princess of Lies is usually better at hiding her wingnuttery than the Mad Georgian. But when it comes out, Katy bar the door. The fact that the GOP sees fit to elevate a woman who is every bit as evil and depraved as Greene proves that the GOP is permanently Trumpified—and in such state, is not fit to govern. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/15/2152106/-GOP-proved-it-s-permanently-Trumpified-by-picking-Sarah-Huckabee-Sanders-to-respond-to-SOTU Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/