Rachel Maddow Highlights Trump Admin's Latest Litany Of Weirdness And

Rachel Maddow on Tuesday examined the latest “weirdness” from President Donald Trump and his administration, arguing that the litany of apparent scandals would have typically ruined any other administration.

Personnel and Agency Controversies

The MS NOW, formerly known as MSNBC, host began with FBI Director Kash Patel, whose 27-year-old girlfriend Alexis Wilkins has apparently been given a full-time security detail in an unprecedented use of the agency’s resources and taxpayer dollars, according to two people who spoke to MS NOW. “The FBI has never before had a taxpayer-funded security detail for an FBI official’s girlfriend, but that’s what we’re paying for now. The girlfriend of FBI Director Kash Patel has members of the FBI’s SWAT team protecting her as if they’re private bodyguards,” Maddow said. Maddow noted that Patel has even tried to increase the maximum monetary value of gifts that he is legally allowed to accept in his position, citing comments from Joseph Tirrell, director of the Departmental Ethics Office, a division within the U.S. Department of Justice. “I got a call from the general counsel at the F.B.I. About changing exceptions to the gift rules because his boss, Kash Patel, felt like he should be able to accept more expensive gifts,” he told the New York Times in an article published Sunday, citing a phone call in July. Tirrell continued, “I reminded him that his client was not Mr. Patel, but the United States.”

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Maddow ended with the news that Paul Ingrassia, who withdrew his Trump nomination to head the Office of Special Counsel after admitting in a leaked text message that he had a “Nazi streak,” will be a deputy general counsel at the General Services Administration. “GSA is in charge of federal real estate,” said Maddow. “This usually is not a very high-profile agency, but in this administration, we’ve got the president literally bulldozing the White House and dumping the debris randomly on public golf courses. So, all of a sudden, this previously low-profile agency is right at the heart of Trump weirdness and destruction.”

Legal and Law Enforcement Shifts

The broadcast also addressed the administration's financial and enforcement priorities:

• Department of Justice Costs: Maddow also noted that Trump is demanding $230 million from the Department of Justice for expenses incurred while defending himself against federal criminal investigations.
• Immigration and Trafficking: She cited a New York Times article from Sunday stating special agents at Homeland Security Investigations, who had uncovered online videos earlier this year of violent child sexual abuse, were ordered to focus on arresting undocumented workers instead.
• Michael Flynn: The administration has apparently also been “in talks” with Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who echoed his lie that the 2020 election was rigged — and is now seeking $50 million for what he claims was a wrongful prosecution, reported Bloomberg.

The Slush Fund and Judicial Scrutiny

Maddow observed that "the pushback always and ever matters" while discussing the end of President Trump's planned $1.8 billion "slush fund." "The White House tonight is reportedly backing off that plan to try to take that money for Trump," Maddow noted Monday night. "That is in part because it hasn't just been Democrats in Congress. It has been Republicans in Congress who said no to this thing and who showed themselves to be prepared to vote against it as well."

"The whole idea that this was a settlement of a lawsuit appears to have been false from the beginning. It was designed that way simply as a pretext to give the appearance of legality to what was otherwise just a bank robbery against the American people."

Rachel Maddow, host, via Yahoo News

"Trump may be dropping this slush fund as of tonight," Maddow continued. "But as far as I understand it, him dropping it won't necessarily stop the judge's investigation, the now ongoing investigation, into whether all of this was a crime."

Evidence and Transparency

The two hosts were referring to viral footage of the fatal shooting in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, when Good, a mother of three, was shot three times by a federal agent. A chilling video of the incident showed a scenario contradicting these claims. The clip shows a woman in her red Honda SUV partially blocking a residential street. Two ICE agents arrived in a pickup truck, walked up to the vehicle, and asked the woman, later identified as Good, to exit. They attempted to open the driver’s side door, at which point, her vehicle began moving forward and was turned away from the federal officials. A third agent, Jonathan Ross, stepped in front of Good’s Honda and fired three shots.