President Trump felt the need on Wednesday morning to quote tweet a follower’s side-by-side of a sketch purporting to depict the man who threatened Stormy Daniels with the porn star’s husband, Glendon Crain (also known as Brendon Miller).
A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)! https://t.co/9Is7mHBFda
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2018
The biggest news out of Trump’s tweet– in which he called the sketch “a total con job”– is that he actually weighed in on the Stormy Daniels accusations. He’s said previously he had no knowledge of Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Daniels, but that’s just about it.
If Trump’s tweet signals a new willingness to wade into the conversation, that would be a tactical error from his perspective. The public seems to both assume he slept with Daniels and not care– why gin up countless more Daniels-centric media cycles than necessary by tweeting about her? And Trump is right that Daniels and her attorney (not unlike James Comey), are very artfully orchestrating a media circus— one that’s probably designed at least in part to bait him into the discussion.
Oops! This is awkward! @StormyDaniels’s Ex ?#IDTheThug pic.twitter.com/GgLSxm2EJZ
— Deplorably???????Scottish (@ShennaFoxMusic) April 18, 2018
If left alone, their shameless promotions will grate on the public, and probably produce missteps of their own. Speaking of which, the tweet Trump quoted on Wednesday is kind of right: the forensic sketch (done by a celebrated forensic sketch artist) Daniels released of the man who allegedly threatened her in 2011 to remain silent about Trump does look suspiciously similar to her husband. I imagine there may be legitimate psychological explanations for that, but it’s pretty hard to deny if you do Google image searches for Glendon Crain and Brendon Miller.
So with plenty of other serious stories in the news, we now have to carve out the time to question a forensic sketch based on the recollection of a porn star who claims to have had an affair with the president more than a decade ago. With most of the rest of Daniels’ story bearing credibility, the possibility that the president or his attorney sent someone to threaten an alleged mistress still warrants the media’s attention.
