May 12, 2017

President Won’t Deny He Has Recording System in White House

Jeff Malet/Newscom via ZUMA Press

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President Trump says James Comey “better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations.” Well, are there any “tapes”? Does President Trump record conversations in the White House? Let’s ask the press secretary about all this:

Huh. You’d think the answer would be a simple no, but I guess not. Perhaps we’ll find out for sure when Congress subpoenas the recordings and Trump has to tell a federal judge whether they exist.

But if they do exist, I have some advice: just destroy them now. I never understood why Nixon kept those tapes around for so long. He should have just burned them and then claimed that they were destroyed in accord with standard record retention policy. Or something.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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