JD Vance isn’t stupid, but he thinks you are

Vice President JD Vance was a busy boy on Sunday, hitting the network shows with his patented combination of petulance and bullying. Not content with threatening the country with an expanded police state, Vance also made time to attack former FBI Director James Comey and lie to everyone about “border czar” Tom Homan. 

Well, at least he’s got some work to do, right? Given that deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller appears to actually be the president these days, old JD has to claim some territory for his own, right?

Vance used his time with NBC’s Kristen Welker to make some inflammatory and prejudicial statements about Comey and, for good measure, New York Attorney General Letitia James: “If you look at the fact that James Comey obviously lied under oath, Letitia James obviously committed mortgage fraud.”

Vance’s remarks openly undercut President Donald Trump’s pet Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan. Halligan is handling the prosecutions of both Comey and James because no one else is craven enough to do so. 

No sugar-coating it: Daily Kos needs your help. Can you chip in $5 today?

While Vance was declaring Comey and James guilty in the court of public opinion, Halligan was hilariously, incompetently busy demanding a protective order in the Comey case because “through social media, the Defendant has already made a public statement regarding the indictment.”

Ohhhhkay?

This isn’t the clearest thing ever written, likely because Halligan has no experience with prosecutions, but it looks like she is saying nearly all discovery in the case needs to be under a protective order and that Comey cannot have access to the material except through his attorneys. 

This is necessary, per the one-time Florida real estate lawyer, because “both the defendant and the government have an interest in a fair trial with impartial jurors making decisions based only on the evidence that is part of the record.”

Sure, except that Vance is running his mouth on national TV about how Comey and James are guilty. We are shocked, SHOCKED that the administration would undercut a fair trial for Comey. 

Recall that Vance only cosplays as a salt-of-the-earth nativist man of the people and is actually a dude who got a degree from Yale Law and became a venture capitalist, which is about as elite as you can get. He knows full well that making statements as to someone’s guilt—in the middle of the government prosecuting them!—is prejudicial, but he doesn’t care. He loves lying to your face.

No billionaire backers, no paywalls. Daily Kos news exists because of YOU, our donor community. Now, we need your help. Please donate today.

And man, he gets mad if someone stops him from lying. Witness his little tantrum on ABC News, the same Sunday. There, when asked about Homan keeping that sweet $50,000 bribe he received, Vance first tried to say he just had no clue what George Stephanopoulos was asking him about: “George, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Did he accept $50,000 for what?”

Once he decided he knew what Stephanopoulos was talking about, he went full “oh, so now it’s a crime to get paid?” 

“Is it illegal to take a payment for doing services? The FBI has not prosecuted him. I have never seen any evidence that he’s engaged in criminal wrongdoing. Nobody has accused Tom of violating a crime, even the far-left media like yourself.”

Notably absent from this tirade was an explanation of what “services” Homan was being paid for when he got a paper bag full of cash. Also, what on earth does “violating a crime” mean, anyway? Man, Yale Law has a lot to answer for. 

Vance is an avatar for the worst strain of conservative politics these days. He knows he’s lying. He knows you know he’s lying. But he also knows there’s nothing you can do to stop him, so we’re going to have to keep enduring his sneering little face gaslighting us.

Click here to check out this story on DailyKos.com.

We're not asking for much

The average donation to Daily Kos has been just $9.44. These donations may seem small, but they're a big deal to us. In fact, they are our largest source of income. We literally couldn't do the work we do without them. Can you join thousands of other Daily Kos readers and help us with a donation of $9.44 right now?