The president’s attorneys say he’s too busy being president to be distracted by a defamation case even though he wouldn’t be too busy to bring cases like it against others (which he threatened to do). Perhaps they’re worried it would get in the way of the time he spends squandering our tax money on golf trips and advertising for his hotels and resorts.

When Bill Clinton was president and had a civil suit brought against him for sexual harassment, the justices said “no one, not even the Leader of the Free World, is immune from civil litigation for conduct unrelated to his office.”

Summer Zervos, a contestant on 45’s show The Apprentice, said, “She came forward in October and accused Trump of kissing and groping her in a Beverly Hills hotel room in 2007. Trump denied the accusation, including a series of tweets calling the sexual misconduct allegations ‘100% fabricated and made-up charges,’ ‘totally false’ and ‘totally made up nonsense.'”

(This show is one of many businesses he hasn’t turned over to a trust; he’s an executive producer.)

He is accused by Zervos of doing exactly the things he brags about doing to women (minus the grabbing, as far as we know) in the tape of the conversation with Billy Bush. Is it “made-up nonsense” just in this one case even though it is not the rest of the time? Clearly, he does it often according to his conversation with Mr. Bush, often enough that he prepares with candy in case an opportunity arises to assault a woman.

At the same time, Representative Devin Nunes (California republican) is protecting (and briefing) the president even though Nunes is chairman of the committee that is investigating Russian ties to the president, his team, and the election. So far, he hasn’t stepped down and somehow expects us and his committee to trust him in this investigation. Fat chance.

Link: “Trump’s lawyers try to shield him from sexual misconduct lawsuit” – by Steve Benen of MSNBC

Link: “Transcript: Donald Trump’s Taped Comments About Women” – the transcript of the conversation with Billy Bush of Access Hollywood, posted by The New York Times

Link: “2 White House Officials Helped Give Nunes Intelligence Reports” – by Matthew Rosenberg, Maggie Haberman, and Adam Goldman of The New York Times

Link: “Devin Nunes Could Be Facing an Ethics Probe for Spilling Secrets” – by Tim Mak of The Daily Beast

Link: “Trump threatens to ‘change libel laws’ to go after NY Times” by Taylor Lorenz of The Hill