The Commentariat -- April 12, 2019

Arrested Developments

Ken Vogel & Katie Benner of the New York Times: "In an indictment that seized the attention of the capital's K Street lobbying corridor, Gregory B. Craig, a White House counsel in the Obama administration, was charged on Thursday with lying to the Justice Department and concealing information about work he did in 2012 for the government of Ukraine. The indictment of Mr. Craig, 74, stemmed from an investigation initiated by the office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. The charges represented a continuation -- and an expansion -- of a new focus on a long-neglected law governing foreign influence operations in the United States, which the Justice Department has begun prioritizing in part because of scrutiny related to Mr. Mueller's investigation.... The work was steered to Mr. Craig and his firm by Paul Manafort...."

Eileen Sullivan & Richard Pérez-Peña of the New York Times: "The United States has charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of conspiring to hack a computer as part of the 2010 release of reams of secret American documents, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday, putting him just one flight away from being in American custody after years of seclusion in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. The single charge, conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, was filed a year earlier, in March 2018, and stems from what prosecutors said was his agreement to break a password to a classified United States government computer. It carries a penalty of up to five years in prison and is significant in that it is not an espionage charge, a detail that will come as a relief to press freedom advocates. The United States government had considered until at least last year charging him with an espionage-related offense.... The conspiracy charge against Mr. Assange unsealed Thursday is not related to the special counsel's investigation into Russia's election influence.... He was detained partly in connection with an American extradition warrant after he was evicted by the Ecuadoreans.... Mr. Assange will have the right to contest the United States extradition request in British courts." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Ronn Blitzer of Law & Crime: "While the public was already aware of Assange's role in publishing military documents leaked by Chelsea Manning, the indictment includes some revelations regarding Assange's own alleged criminal activity. Here are the major points. 1. Assange allegedly helped Manning hack government computers.... 2. Assange's help was meant to hide Manning's role in leaks.... 3. Manning thought she was done leaking, but Assange encouraged her to do more.... 4. The indictment appears to solve the free speech problem." (Also linked yesterday.)

... See Trump's response to Assange's arrest under Trump Scandals, below. ...

... Rachel Weiner, et al., of the Washington Post: "... through the years, the case [against Assange] languished. Some prosecutors reasoned that Assange was arguably a publisher, if a capricious one. Concerned that proving a criminal case against him would run up against the First Amendment and, if successful, set a precedent for future media prosecutions, the Obama administration chose to put the case aside. In 2017 -- after WikiLeaks exposed CIA hacking tools and stirred political chaos by releasing Democratic campaign emails -- the government began to take a more aggressive tack. Under then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, prosecutors dusted off the investigation and discussed how the anti-secrecy organization's founder could be charged without running afoul of press freedoms. Under the federal law governing computer crimes, prosecutors faced a deadline to file charges within eight years of the 2010 disclosures that put him in their crosshairs. The single-count indictment unsealed in Alexandria federal court Thursday shows they did so just under the deadline.... Analysts said focusing narrowly on [cracking a government password] is a deft way of fending off criticism that the case puts news organizations in legal jeopardy."

Brian Melley of the AP: "Attorney Michael Avenatti has been charged in a 36-count federal indictment alleging he stole millions of dollars from clients, did not pay his taxes, committed bank fraud and lied in bankruptcy proceedings. Avenatti, 48, was indicted late Wednesday by a Southern California grand jury on a raft of additional charges following his arrest last month in New York on two related counts and for allegedly trying to shake down Nike for up to $25 million. The attorney best known for representing porn actress Stormy Daniels in lawsuits against ... Donald Trump said Thursday on Twitter that he will plead not guilty to the California charges." Mrs. McC: Other than that, Avenatti would have made a great president! (Also linked yesterday.)

The Usual Trump Scandals, Ctd.

Jonathan Allen of NBC News: "... Donald Trump said Thursday that he knows 'nothing about WikiLeaks' hours after the arrest of the organization's founder, Julian Assange, and two-and-a-half years after he frequently cited its information dumps about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign. 'I know nothing about WikiLeaks,' Trump told reporters at the White House, where he met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. 'It's not my thing. I've seen what's happening with Assange.' Later Thursday, during a White House event with World War II veterans, Trump said, 'I don't know much about it.'... At a[n October 2016] rally in North Carolina, Trump said, 'we love Wikileaks.'" Mrs. McC: Someone on MNSBC calculated that Trump favorably mentioned WikiLeaks 100 times during the 2016 campaign. ...

Comey Knocks Barr. Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "The former F.B.I. director James B. Comey said on Thursday that he knew of no electronic surveillance aimed at the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election, defending the bureau after Attorney General William P. Barr asserted a day earlier that the bureau spied on the campaign as part of the Russia investigation. 'When I hear that kind of language used, it's concerning because the F.B.I., the Department of Justice conduct court-ordered electronic surveillance,' said Mr. Comey, who oversaw the inquiry until President Trump abruptly fired him in May 2017. 'I have never thought of that as spying.'... 'I think spying did occur,' Mr. Barr said [during testimony].... Mr. Barr's statement lined up with that longstanding talking point used by Mr. Trump and his allies.... Mr. Trump said again on Thursday that he believed 'there was absolutely spying into my campaign. I'll go a step further: In my opinion, it was illegal spying, unprecedented spying, and something that should never be allowed to happen in our country again,' Mr. Trump said. 'And I think his answer was actually a very accurate one.'" ...

... MEANWHILE. Matt Shuham of TPM: "Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein defended Attorney General William Barr's handling of special counsel Robert Mueller's final report in an interview with The Wall Street Journal Thursday. Referring to Barr's initial four-page summary of Mueller's mammoth report, Rosenstein told the Journal that the attorney general was 'being as forthcoming as he can, and so this notion that he's trying to mislead people, I think is just completely bizarre.'" Mrs. McC: Huh. This is Rosenstein covering his own ass, of course. I can't access the WSJ report, but I'm going to guess Rosenstein didn't defend Barr's under-oath claim that the FBI & other agencies were "spying on the Trump campaign" inasmuch as Rosenstein himself signed off on at least two FISA requests to surveil Trump campaign operatives. ...

     ... Update: Lawrence O'Donnell said Rosenstein would not comment to the WSJ about Barr's use of the word "spying." ...

... Josh Marshall of TPM: "Barr is ... repeatedly playing word games like this ['spying' debacle]. He issues a supererogatory exoneration of President Trump and then claims he had never meant to do that. He'd like to release the whole Mueller Report. But the rules just make it really hard for him to do that. He very clearly used the word 'spying' and then said he needed to make sure it hadn't happened. That was to give the President his talking point. Then he or his staff tell the Times that he didn't mean to imply anything by that. He just meant 'spying' as a synonym for surveillance.... This is obviously not true. Yet the Times passes it on as though it were a good faith explanation of what Barr was thinking.... Robert Costa of the Post [says] that Republicans are themselves wondering what Barr is up to. The explanation they're being given? Well, it turns out he's actually not a career prosecutor. So he's just not really in tune with DOJ practices and policies and traditions. They [MSM] simply can't grasp their way toward the obvious explanation. He's a bad actor, using his office for the purpose of defending the President as opposed to enforcing the law. He's a crook. But he's a smart one." --s ...

... Caroline Kelly of CNN: "Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Wednesday it was 'both stunning and scary' that Attorney General William Barr would tell lawmakers that Donald Trump's 2016 campaign was spied on.... 'I was amazed at that and rather disappointed that the attorney general would say such a thing. The term 'spying' has all kinds of negative connotations and I have to believe he chose that term deliberately.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare: "Attorney General Bill Barr's statements [Wednesday] on supposed 'spying' by the FBI on the Trump campaign before the Senate Appropriations Committee were indefensible. They were at once indecipherable and contentless, on the one hand, and incendiary, on the other hand. I am not one of the many people looking to think ill of Barr. Indeed, I have taken a lot of heat recently for being willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on the specific issue of his production of a redacted version of the Mueller report. That said, his comments today were reckless. They will play into gross conspiracy theories. They are also unfair to the individuals whom Barr suggested had engaged in some sort of unspecified wrongdoing.... Asked if he had any evidence of improper collection, he responded, 'I have no specific evidence that I would cite right now.' But, he said, 'I do have questions about it.' When the attorney general 'has questions' about the conduct of his department, the proper thing to do is not to dangle those question in a congressional hearing in a fashion bound to stir up conspiracy theories." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Justin Baragona of the Daily Beast: "Reacting to Attorney General William Barr's shocking claim that he believes 'spying did occur' on the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election, CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said Wednesday night that this was further proof the Republican Party establishment was beholden to Fox News and its top star.... 'This is a classic demonstration of the Fox News-ification of the Republican Party,' Toobin exclaimed. 'That even an establishment figure like Bill Barr, someone who comes out of the George Herbert Walker Bush administration, talks like Sean Hannity.... There's already been an inspector general's investigation, so I don't know what he's going to investigate, but you know, his use of this term shows how much the paranoid lunacy of the right wing is now moved right in to the Department of Justice.'... This claim that the Obama administration used the FBI and intelligence agencies to spy on the Trump campaign has been pushed by President Trump and his allies for over two years now, starting with Trump's infamous tweet -- and unfounded claim -- that he 'found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: And, please, let's not give Barr the benefit of the doubt & buy his claim -- which he made under oath Wednesday -- that he had no idea "spying" was a loaded term. It may be occurring to you about now that Jeff Sessions was a more honorable AG than Barr.

Lock Them Up. David Cay Johnston in The Daily Beast: "I know why Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Charles Rettig, the IRS commissioner, are so cautious [about not outright refusing to release Trump's taxes]. They don't want to be removed from office and sent to prison for five years just for doing Trump's bidding.... It will for sure shock Trump, who claims that 'the law is 100 percent on my side.' The exact opposite is true. Under Section 6103 of our tax code, Treasury officials 'shall' turn over the tax returns 'upon written request' of the chair of either congressional tax committee or the federal employee who runs Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation. No request has ever been refused.... There is, however, a law requiring every federal 'employee' who touches the tax system to do their duty or be removed from office.... [It specifies that they be fined not more than $10,000, or imprisoned not more than 5 years or both.]... The crystal-clear language of this law applies to Trump, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Mnuchin and Rettig, federal employees all.... There are no qualifiers in Section 6103 that shield Trump from delivering, in confidence, his tax returns to Congress. No wiggle room at all." --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The problem is, of course, who would enforce the law? Bill Barr? I don't think so. It's possible there's a prosecutor somewhere out there in the hinterlands who would respond positively to a formal complaint from Johnston and/or others, but I wouldn't count on it. In the meantime, it will be interesting to see what "advice" the DOJ gives Mnuchin, who had written to Rep. Richard Neal that he is "consulting" with Justice on release of Trump's returns.

Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: "While much attention has focused on the question of whether the Trump campaign encouraged or conspired with Russia, the effort to target [Bernie] Sanders supporters has been a lesser-noted part of the story. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, in a case filed last year against 13 Russians accused of interfering in the U.S. presidential campaign, said workers at a St. Petersburg facility called the Internet Research Agency were instructed to write social media posts in opposition to [Hillary] Clinton but 'to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.' [Besides tweets urging readers to back Sanders,] any thousands of other tweets, with no direct reference to Sanders, were also designed to appeal to his backers, urging them to do anything but vote for Clinton in the general election.... The effort to promote Sanders as a way to influence the U.S. election began shortly after he declared his candidacy in spring 2015, according to Mueller's indictment of the Russians."

Edmund Lee & Andrew Sorkin of the New York Times: "The owners of The National Enquirer are in talks to sell the tabloid to Ronald W. Burkle, a supermarket magnate with ties to President Bill Clinton, according to two people.... The deal could still fall apart.... Mr. Burkle has been a regular in the gossip pages and on the A-list benefit and party circuit.... An acquisition of The Enquirer by Mr. Burkle, a longtime Democratic donor, could raise eyebrows in Washington, given President Trump's fondness for the tabloid, which he has praised on Twitter."

The Vindictive Administration. Rachel Bade & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "White House officials have tried to pressure U.S. immigration authorities to release detainees onto the streets of 'sanctuary cities' to retaliate against President Trump's political adversaries, according to Department of Homeland Security officials and email messages reviewed by The Washington Post. Trump administration officials have proposed transporting detained immigrants to sanctuary cities at least twice in the past six months -- once in November, as a migrant caravan approached the U.S. southern border, and again in February, amid a standoff with Democrats over funding for Trump's border wall. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's district in San Francisco was among those the White House wanted to target, according to DHS officials. The administration also considered releasing detainees in other Democratic strongholds. White House officials first broached the plan in a Nov. 16 email, asking officials at several agencies whether members of the caravan could be arrested at the border and then bused 'to small- and mid-sized sanctuary cities,' places where local authorities have refused to hand over illegal immigrants for deportation.... After the White House pressed again in February, ICE's legal department rejected the idea as inappropriate and rebuffed the administration." ...

... The Vengeful President* & His Evil Sidekick. Evan Perez of CNN: "Trump personally pushed Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to follow through on the plan [to dump detainees on the streets of sanctuary cities].... Nielsen resisted and the DHS legal team eventually produced an analysis that killed the plan....White House senior adviser Stephen Miller urged senior DHS officials to make the plan a reality, the source said.... Miller was angered that DHS lawyers refused to produce legal guidance that would make the plan viable.... DHS officials believe that the legal standoff is one reason why Miller has pushed for the firing of John Mitnick, the general counsel for DHS, who is still with the department. A separate DHS official confirmed there was such a proposal. 'These are human beings, not game pieces,' the official said." ...

Government Data Blow Hole in "Wall". Noah Lanard of Mother Jones: "In January ... the White House began pushing a new talking point. Seventeen thousand criminals had been arrested at the southern border in the previous year, Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen all said.... [A]ccording to previously unreleased government data obtained by Mother Jones, the government was vastly exaggerating the number of criminals arriving at the southern border.... Criminals are nearly three times as likely to be caught by Customs and Border Protection officers at the country's northern border.... [O]f the foreigners convicted of crimes in the United States or abroad who were stopped by CBP at ports of entry from October 2016 to February 2019, 43 percent arrived at the northern border, 42 percent at airports or ports, and just 15 percent at the southern border, according to a CBP spokeswoman.... Taken together, the new data suggests ... CBP officers and Border Patrol agents actually stopped fewer than 9,000 criminals at the southern border last year, not 17,000." --s...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Definitely time to build a 5,525-mile wall between the U.S. & Canada. And close all international airports.

... Trump Taps Albence to Run Immigrant "Summer Camps." Hamed Aleaziz of BuzzFeed News: "The Trump administration has tapped Matthew Albence to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the wake of the sudden resignation of its former leader. Albence, a career official and former ally of former ICE acting director Thomas Homan, has risen quickly under the administration and is seen as an official with the type of hardline approach that ... Donald Trump may appreciate.... Albence became better known after his appearance on Capitol Hill on July 31 during which he said that family detention centers were best described as 'more like a summer camp,' to the shock of some advocates and politicians."

Trump Tweets Lou Dobbs' Fantasy Poll. Adam Raymond of New York: "President Trump's approval rating is 43 percent according to a new poll from Georgetown. His disapproval is 52 percent and his unfavorable rating is 55 percent. On Wednesday's episode of Lou Dobbs Tonight, the Fox Business host and Trump favorite got those numbers wrong [and emphasized Trump's "soaring" approval rating]. And on Thursday morning, Trump tweeted" out the fake graphic, which claimed Trump's actual unfavorable rating of 55 percent was his favorable rating. Fox Business later issued an on-air correction; Trump did not delete his tweet. (Also linked yesterday.)

You paid your taxes & Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, didn't (actually he probably paid personal taxes, but Amazon paid zip): ...

... Thanks, Trump! Kathryn Kranhold of the Center for Public Integrity in an NBC News post: "At least 60 companies reported that their 2018 federal tax rates amounted to effectively zero, or even less than zero, on income earned on U.S. operations, according to an analysis released today by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The number is more than twice as many as ITEP found roughly, per year, on average in an earlier, multi-year analysis before the new tax law went into effect. Among them are household names like ... Amazon.com Inc. and ... Netflix Inc., in addition to ... Chevron Corp...., Eli Lilly and Co., and ... Deere & Co. The identified companies were 'able to zero out their federal income taxes on $79 billion in U.S. pretax income,' according to the ITEP report, which was released today. 'Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes, as the new 21 percent corporate tax rate requires, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate of $4.3 billion, blowing a $20.7 billion hole in the federal budget last year." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Benjy Sarlin of NBC News: "Companies with profits over $100 million would face new corporate taxes under a proposal released Thursday by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. The 2020 presidential hopeful said her 'real corporate profits tax' is aimed at companies that report large annual gains but pay little in taxes thanks to a variety of tax credits and deductions that are available to lower their overall bill." (Also linked yesterday.)

Samantha Michaels of Mother Jones: "Earlier this month, President Donald Trump threw a party to celebrate one of his only bipartisan victories, the First Step Act, which is supposed to reduce the size of the federal prison population.... Now there's another key indication that the First Step Act isn't being implemented as criminal justice reform groups and some lawmakers intended.... On Monday, the Justice Department announced that the Hudson Institute, a conservative DC-based think tank whose leaders have espoused harsh views on incarceration, would choose the members of an independent committee to help develop a risk assessment tool -- a crucial component of the law.... Now lawmakers of both parties who backed the First Step Act are alarmed at the Justice Department's latest move.... 'I'm a little bit worried that we just let a fox in the chicken coop here,' Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said[.]" --s

All the Best People, Ctd.

Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Senate on Thursday voted to confirm David Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for the oil and agribusiness industries, as secretary of the interior. The confirmation of Mr. Bernhardt to his new post coincided with calls from more than a dozen Democrats and government watchdogs for formal investigations into his past conduct. Senators voted 56-41, largely along party lines, in favor of Mr. Bernhardt's confirmation. Three Democrats -- Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia...; Senator Krysten Sinema of Arizona; and Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico -- supported Mr. Bernhardt, as did one independent, Senator Angus King of Maine.... Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said: 'It still amazes me. Donald Trump campaigns on cleaning up the swamp and he does exactly the opposite when in office. An oil and gas lobbyist as head of the Department of Interior? My God. That's an example of the swampiness of Washington if there ever was one. And when are Donald Trump's supporters going to understand this?'"

"An Inflection Point." Burgess Everett & Eliana Johnson of Politico: "As Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell asked Republicans this week to head off problematic nominees before ... Donald Trump officially picked them, the Kentucky Republican singled out Ken Cuccinelli. Floated for the job of Homeland Security secretary, the former Virginia attorney general runs the anti-establishment Senate Conservatives Fund.... McConnell remarked Tuesday that the group had cost the GOP seats in 2010 and 2012 by guiding the party away from more electable candidates.... In addition to confronting Trump on his purge at the Department of Homeland Security and his threat to deploy auto tariffs and keep existing levies, GOP senators hope they can persuade the president to avoid nominating Cuccinelli or Kris Kobach, another immigration hard-liner, to lead DHS. They also want Trump to drop plans to nominate Herman Cain [see related stories linked below] to the Federal Reserve and are considering whether to challenge Stephen Moore's nomination to the Fed. . We're trying to do everything we can to send the message before they send these people up here,' said a Republican senator who 20 seconds later lamented a separate problem: Trump's 'trade nightmare.'... It's an inflection point, with Senate Republicans weighing how hard to try to contain the president." ...

     ... Rebekah Entralago of ThinkProgress: "Nineteen leaders of conservative groups sent a letter to President Donald Trump Thursday, urging him to select Ken Cuccinelli to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Cuccinelli, a former attorney general of Virginia, is a staunch conservative with a significant track record of racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric.... Cuccinelli appeared on a conservative radio show in early 2012 to discuss the Occupy Wall Street movement and, in doing so, compared immigrants to rats.... In 2015, the former Virginia AG appeared on another conservative radio show and claimed former President Barack Obama was encouraging an 'invasion.'... Like Trump, Cuccinelli has opposed birthright citizenship, which grants U.S. citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants born in the country.... More recently, Cuccinelli supported the president's decision to deploy troops at the U.S.-Mexico border." --s

Herman Cain, who if nominated for a Fed position would first be vetted by the Senate Banking Committee, called members of that committee "a bunch of yahoos." Pretty good PR move. He also "compared the right to health care to the right to own a Cadillac, and said God would decide when it was time to stop using fossil fuels." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Update: The Yahoos Revolt. Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "Herman Cain's chances to win confirmation to the Federal Reserve plummeted on Thursday as at least four Republican senators indicated they would not back President Trump's choice to fill a Fed seat. Those defections would be enough to defeat Mr. Cain in a divided Senate, should Mr. Trump follow through with his plans to formally nominate him. Mr. Cain, a former pizza magnate whose 2012 presidential run was upended by claims of sexual harassment, is currently undergoing a background check and President Trump has said he will wait for that to be completed before officially nominating him to the seven-member Fed board. Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, told reporters on Thursday that he 'would vote no' if asked to confirm Mr. Cain. Three other Republican senators -- Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah and Cory Gardner of Colorado -- have also said publicly that they would not support Mr. Cain." ...

... So Then... Tara Palmeri & Katherine Faulders of ABC News: "Herman Cain is expected to withdraw his name from consideration for the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors, amid growing pressure from Republican senators on the White House to remove him from consideration, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter."

Katherine Krueger of Splinter: "On Wednesday morning, Fox News used its biggest megaphone to amplify an attention-starved congressman's [Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas)] bad faith charge against Rep. Ilhan Omar: that, in remarks before the Council on American-Islamic Relations, she characterized the Sept. 11 attacks as some people did something. That this is a willful misreading of her fuller point -- that all Muslims in America have faced violence, intimidation, and discrimination as a result of the actions of a small group of extremists -- shouldn't surprise you." The New York Post -- which, like Fox, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, splashed its notorious front page with a photo of the Twin Towers burning on 9-11, accompanied by the caption, "Here's your something." "... this narrative around Omar's remarks is proving her exact point -- bigots began widely equating terrorists with all Muslims after 9/11, but ask us not to do the same if the terrorist is white -- so cutting off Omar's remarks to make it seem like she was minimizing the attacks fits an Islamophobic narrative already entrenched on the right. Omar's response to fellow congressman Dan Crenshaw correctly accused him of 'dangerous incitement.'? ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: None of us should be surprised by the right's attacks on Omar. For more than eight years, these bigots hinted or said outright that President Obama -- who was not a Muslim -- was a Jihadist bent on destroying the good ole EwEssAy. Would you expect them to do less to an actual Muslim?

Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "Imagine a world where 85% of all electricity comes from renewable sources, there are over one billion electric vehicles on the road, and we are on track to preserve a livable climate for our children and future generations. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reported this week that such a future is not merely possible by 2050, but thanks to plummeting prices in key clean energy technologies, the cost of saving the climate has dropped dramatically. In fact, according to IRENA's new report, the most cost-effective strategy to achieve a 'climate-safe future' ... is an accelerated energy transition to renewables and energy efficiency coupled with electrification of key sectors like transportation. This Renewable Energy Roadmap (REmap) scenario 'would also save the global economy up to USD 160 trillion cumulatively over the next 30 years in avoided health costs, energy subsidies and climate damages.'" --s

The Commentariat -- April 11, 2019

Late Morning Update:

Eileen Sullivan & Richard Pérez-Peña of the New York Times: "The United States has charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of conspiring to hack a computer as part of the 2010 release of reams of secret American documents, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday, putting him just one flight away from being in American custody after years of seclusion in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. The single charge, conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, was filed a year earlier, in March 2018, and stems from what prosecutors said was his agreement to break a password to a classified United States government computer. It carries a penalty of up to five years in prison and is significant in that it is not an espionage charge, a detail that will come as a relief to press freedom advocates. The United States government had considered until at least last year charging him with an espionage-related offense.... The conspiracy charge against Mr. Assange unsealed Thursday is not related to the special counsel's investigation into Russia's election influence.... He was detained partly in connection with an American extradition warrant after he was evicted by the Ecuadoreans.... Mr. Assange will have the right to contest the United States extradition request in British courts." This is an update to a Guardian story linked below. ...

... Ronn Blitzer of Law & Crime: "While the public was already aware of Assange's role in publishing military documents leaked by Chelsea Manning, the indictment includes some revelations regarding Assange's own alleged criminal activity. Here are the major points. 1. Assange allegedly helped Manning hack government computers.... 2. Assange's help was meant to hide Manning's role in leaks.... 3. Manning thought she was done leaking, but Assange encouraged her to do more.... 4. The indictment appears to solve the free speech problem."

Brian Melley of the AP: "Attorney Michael Avenatti has been charged in a 36-count federal indictment alleging he stole millions of dollars from clients, did not pay his taxes, committed bank fraud and lied in bankruptcy proceedings. Avenatti, 48, was indicted late Wednesday by a Southern California grand jury on a raft of additional charges following his arrest last month in New York on two related counts and for allegedly trying to shake down Nike for up to $25 million. The attorney best known for representing porn actress Stormy Daniels in lawsuits against ... Donald Trump said Thursday on Twitter that he will plead not guilty to the California charges." Mrs. McC: Other than that, Avenatti would have made a great president!

You paid your taxes & Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, didn't (actually he probably paid personal taxes, but Amazon paid zip): ...

... Thanks, Trump! Kathryn Kranhold of the Center for Public Integrity in an NBC News post: "At least 60 companies reported that their 2018 federal tax rates amounted to effectively zero, or even less than zero, on income earned on U.S. operations, according to an analysis released today by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The number is more than twice as many as ITEP found roughly, per year, on average in an earlier, multi-year analysis before the new tax law went into effect. Among them are household names like ... Amazon.com Inc. and ... Netflix Inc., in addition to ... Chevron Corp..., Eli Lilly and Co., and ... Deere & Co. The identified companies were 'able to zero out their federal income taxes on $79 billion in U.S. pretax income,' according to the ITEP report, which was released today. 'Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes, as the new 21 percent corporate tax rate requires, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate of $4.3 billion, blowing a $20.7 billion hole in the federal budget last year." ...

... Benjy Sarlin of NBC News: "Companies with profits over $100 million would face new corporate taxes under a proposal released Thursday by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. The 2020 presidential hopeful said her 'real corporate profits tax' is aimed at companies that report large annual gains but pay little in taxes thanks to a variety of tax credits and deductions that are available to lower their overall bill."

Trump Tweets Lou Dobbs' Fantasy Poll. Adam Raymond of New York: "President Trump's approval rating is 43 percent according to a new poll from Georgetown. His disapproval is 52 percent and his unfavorable rating is 55 percent. On Wednesday's episode of Lou Dobbs Tonight, the Fox Business host and Trump favorite got those numbers wrong [and emphasized Trump's "soaring" approval rating]. And on Thursday morning, Trump tweeted" out the fake graphic, which claimed Trump's actual unfavorable rating of 55 percent was his favorable rating. Fox Business later issued an on-air correction; Trump did not delete his tweet.

Caroline Kelly of CNN: "Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Wednesday it was 'both stunning and scary' that Attorney General William Barr would tell lawmakers that Donald Trump's 2016 campaign was spied on.... 'I was amazed at that and rather disappointed that the attorney general would say such a thing. The term 'spying' has all kinds of negative connotations and I have to believe he chose that term deliberately.'"

Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare: "Attorney General Bill Barr's statements [Wednesday] on supposed 'spying' by the FBI on the Trump campaign before the Senate Appropriations Committee were indefensible. They were at once indecipherable and contentless, on the one hand, and incendiary, on the other hand. I am not one of the many people looking to think ill of Barr. Indeed, I have taken a lot of heat recently for being willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on the specific issue of his production of a redacted version of the Mueller report. That said, his comments today were reckless. They will play into gross conspiracy theories. They are also unfair to the individuals whom Barr suggested had engaged in some sort of unspecified wrongdoing.... Asked if he had any evidence of improper collection, he responded, 'I have no specific evidence that I would cite right now.' But, he said, 'I do have questions about it.' When the attorney general 'has questions' about the conduct of his department, the proper thing to do is not to dangle those question in a congressional hearing in a fashion bound to stir up conspiracy theories." ...

... Justin Baragona of the Daily Beast: "Reacting to Attorney General William Barr's shocking claim that he believes 'spying did occur' on the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election, CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said Wednesday night that this was further proof the Republican Party establishment was beholden to Fox News and its top star.... 'This is a classic demonstration of the Fox News-ification of the Republican Party,' Toobin exclaimed. 'That even an establishment figure like Bill Barr, someone who comes out of the George Herbert Walker Bush administration, talks like Sean Hannity.... There's already been an inspector general's investigation, so I don't know what he's going to investigate, but you know, his use of this term shows how much the paranoid lunacy of the right wing is now moved right in to the Department of Justice.'... This claim that the Obama administration used the FBI and intelligence agencies to spy on the Trump campaign has been pushed by President Trump and his allies for over two years now, starting with Trump's infamous tweet -- and unfounded claim -- that he 'found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: And, please, let's not give Barr the benefit of the doubt & buy his claim -- which he made under oath yesterday -- that he had no idea "spying" was a loaded term.

AND Herman Cain, who if nominated for a Fed position would first be vetted by the Senate Banking Committee, called members of that committee "a bunch of yahoos." Pretty good PR move. He also "compared the right to health care to the right to own a Cadillac, and said God would decide when it was time to stop using fossil fuels."

~~~~~~~~~~

The Usual Trump Scandals, Ctd.

** Jeff Stein & Damian Paletta of the Washington Post: "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said his department would not meet the Wednesday deadline set by congressional Democrats to turn over copies of President Trump's tax returns, escalating a clash between the White House and Congress. Mnuchin said he was consulting with the Justice Department as to the constitutional questions raised by the Democrats' request and appeared deeply skeptical of the lawmakers' intentions. He did not flatly reject the notion that he might ultimately comply, but his letter to the House Ways and Means Committee suggested that Mnuchin would not hold himself to any timeline.... Mnuchin's letter appeared to closely track the legal issues raised by Trump's lawyers last week in a letter in response to the request made by Ways and Means Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.). Even though Neal addressed his letter to Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Rettig, Mnuchin said he would personally oversee the review."

Lisa Mascaro of the AP: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday questioned Attorney General William Barr's independence from ... Donald Trump, arguing Barr's pursuit of Trump's claims about 'spying' during the 2016 campaign undermines his position as the nation's top law enforcement officer. In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, the California Democrat said she was 'very concerned' about Barr's handling of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian meddling in the campaign and accused Barr of doing Trump's political bidding in his testimony at a Senate hearing. 'He is not the attorney general of Donald Trump. He is the attorney general of the United States,' Pelosi told AP. 'I don't trust Barr, I trust Mueller.'" ...

On [Trump's] first [choice for attorney general], the president was very clear: He's not protecting me from the investigation, so he's fired, day after the election. Second guy was hired for the same purpose, but was very temporary and was clearly unqualified. The third guy was hired for the same purpose: Protect the president from the investigation, and he's done his job. -- Jerry Nadler, to Andy Kroll of Rolling Stone ...

... Charlie Savage, et al., of the New York Times: "Attorney General William P. Barr, appearing before Congress for a second straight day on Wednesday, said the government spied on the Trump campaign and said he would look into whether any rules were violated. Mr. Barr signaled he was open sharing more information with lawmakers about the redacted Mueller report than is released to the public and that he 'hoped' to make it public 'next week.'... He said Justice Department lawyers and members of Mr. Mueller's team, who are reviewing the report for sensitive information to black out before release, would not remove information that would harm the 'reputational interests' of Mr. Trump.... Mr. Barr also said that he ... had not discussed with the White House what he was blacking out.... Mr. Barr again declined to say whether he had briefed the White House on the fuller Mueller report, even though Justice Department officials had previously said it had not been shown to the White House.... Speaking to reporters as he left the White House on Wednesday, the president slammed the investigation as an illegal 'attempted coup.'... 'I have not seen the Mueller report,' Mr. Trump told reporters. 'I have not read the Mueller report. I won. No collusion, no obstruction. I won. Everybody knows I won.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

Lindsey Graham: 'You cannot possibly be surprised that President Trump would claim exoneration without having read anything.' -- Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times, in a tweet

     ... Zachary Basu of Axios: Barr clarified his "spying" remarks "at the end of the hearing: 'I am not saying that improper surveillance occurred. I am saying that I am concerned about it and I'm looking into it.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: The first several minutes of this MSNBC segment are worth listening to in order to get an idea of how far out on a conspiracy limb Bill Barr is willing to shinny. During the confirmation period, news organizations repeatedly referred to Barr as an "institutional" guy. But Barr proved in the 1980s & has proved again since his recent confirmation that he is not interested in preserving the "institution" of the Justice Department, but rather in preserving the political hides of Republican officials. IOW, he's a political hack. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "At a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday morning, Barr confirmed that he is looking into what he called 'spying' on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.... When pressed by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) on whether he indeed viewed it as 'spying' on Trump's campaign, Barr said, 'I think spying did occur.'... That is a highly disputed term when it comes to what the FBI did relative to the Trump campaign in 2016.... The idea that [FISA-warranted surveillance] constituted 'spying on a political campaign,' as Barr put it, is highly contentious. One reason is the nefarious connotations of 'spying,' and another is the idea that it was specifically 'directed at the Trump campaign,' as Barr said, rather than at potential Russian interference in the 2016 election.... [Barr's testimony Wednesday] lends legitimacy to what, at this point, is essentially a Trump conspiracy theory." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "James Baker, the former top lawyer of the FBI, said senior bureau officials -- including at least one deemed to be free of anti-Trump bias -- discussed the possibility in May 2017 that ... Donald Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey 'at the behest of' the Russian government. In testimony to two Republican-led committees last October, Baker described mounting concerns that crystallized in the frantic days after the FBI director's ouster, days that were punctuated by Trump's on-air declaration that he fired Comey because of the Russia probe and his chummy Oval Office meeting with senior Russian officials, at which he reportedly trashed Comey as a 'nut job.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "Prosecutors working for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York are investigating whether longtime Trump confidant Hope Hicks helped coordinate hush-money payments made to silence women who alleged to have affairs with ... Donald Trump. The Wall Street Journal reports that SDNY prosecutors 'asked Ms. Hicks about her contacts with [David] Pecker, the CEO of American Media, publisher of the National Enquirer' and also 'asked at least one other witness whether Ms. Hicks had coordinated with anyone at American Media concerning a Journal article on Nov. 4, 2016 -- days before the election -- that revealed American Media had paid $150,000 for the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal's story of an alleged affair with Mr. Trump.'... The Journal's report also reveals that SDNY 'has gathered more evidence than previously known in its criminal investigation' of the hush money payments and has also interviewed former Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller about what he knew about the payments. Additionally, the Journal reveals that prosecutors are looking at 'discrepancies' between the testimonies of [Michael] Cohen and longtime Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, as Cohen has told prosecutors that 'Weisselberg had a deeper involvement in the hush payment to Ms. Daniels than Mr. Weisselberg had indicated.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) See more on the National Enquirer linked below.

Jesse Drucker of the New York Times: "The Trump International Hotel and Tower in Manhattan, near the southwest corner of Central Park, is a 44-story building with a mix of luxury condominiums and hotel suites that go for more than $2,500 a night. Unit 32G, a two-bedroom, 1,767-square-foot apartment with sweeping views of the park, is owned by an entity called Ecree, which bought the condo in 2014 for $7 million in cash. Documents unearthed by the nonprofit group Global Witness show that the purchase was funded by the daughter of the Republic of Congo's president, a longtime target of anti-corruption investigators. The funds for the all-cash purchase appear to have been siphoned from that country's government, according to a report by Global Witness.... Owners of units in the building -- 1 Central Park West -- pay tens of thousands of dollars a year in condo fees to Mr. Trump's company, the Trump Organization.... Mr. Trump's properties, which he and his family continue to operate, have a long history of serving as home to people with checkered pasts." (Also linked yesterday.)

British authorities have arrested Julian Assange; see Guardian story linked under Way Beyond the Beltway below.

Rosalind Helderman & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "Attorneys for former White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig said Wednesday that he expects to face federal charges in the coming days in relationship to legal work he did for the Ukrainian government in 2012. The expected indictment -- which his attorneys called 'a misguided abuse of prosecutorial discretion' -- stems from work Craig did with GOP lobbyist Paul Manafort on behalf of the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice in 2012. At the time, Craig was a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, the law firm he joined after ending his tenure as White House counsel for President Barack Obama."

Adam Vary of BuzzFeed News: "... Donald Trump on Tuesday posted a video on Twitter that appeared to be part of his 2020 reelection campaign. In less than three hours, it had already amassed over 1 million views, but by late Tuesday night, the video was no longer available. BuzzFeed News has learned that Warner Bros. Pictures filed a copyright infringement complaint to have the video taken down because it uses part of the score from the studio's 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The Trump campaign has millions & millions of dollars in its kitty. It won't pay for copyrighted material?

Trump's Sister Retires to Stop Tax Fraud Inquiry. Russ Buettner & Susanne Craig of the New York Times: "President Trump's older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, has retired as a federal appellate judge, ending an investigation into whether she violated judicial conduct rules by participating in fraudulent tax schemes with her siblings. The court inquiry stemmed from complaints filed last October, after an investigation by The New York Times found that the Trumps had engaged in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the inherited wealth of Mr. Trump and his siblings. Judge Barry not only benefited financially from most of those tax schemes, The Times found; she was also in a position to influence the actions taken by her family. Judge Barry, now 82, has not heard cases in more than two years but was still listed as an inactive senior judge, one step short of full retirement." Mrs. McC: What a family!

Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "These days, thousands of people a day simply walk up to the border and surrender. Most of them are from Central America, seeking to escape from gang violence, sexual abuse, death threats and persistent poverty.... The very nature of immigration to America changed after 2014, when families first began showing up in large numbers. The resulting crisis has overwhelmed a system unable to detain, care for and quickly decide the fate of tens of thousands of people who claim to be fleeing for their lives. For years, both political parties have tried -- and failed -- to overhaul the nation's immigration laws, mindful that someday the government would reach a breaking point. That moment has arrived. The country is now unable to provide either the necessary humanitarian relief for desperate migrants or even basic controls on the number and nature of who is entering the United States." ...

... Dana Milbank: "President Trump is right. There's a crisis on the southern border. The existence of the crisis is as obvious as its cause: Trump. He didn't single-handedly create this mess, but he definitely made it worse. He pursued not a policy but an instinct, following emotion rather than empiricism. Now, an immigration policy of toughness and fear has backfired in tangible ways.... The underlying source of the migration -- violence in Central America -- wasn't Trump's doing. But he compounded the trouble. The bellicose talk of wall-building and a zero-tolerance crackdown gave migrants an incentive to hurry to the United States. The 2018 campaign hysteria about caravans and the country's limited ability to stop them, meant to frighten Americans, served as an advertisement for asylum for would-be migrants.... The government shutdown and unstable management (continuing this week with the purge of top officials at the Department of Homeland Security) slowed the government's response to the migration surge. The president's recent decision to end anti-violence and anti-poverty assistance to three Central American countries will worsen the root cause of migration.... By his own standard, he deserves all the blame, because he took all the credit for a decline in border crossings in 2017."

Julian Borger of the Guardian: "Under intense questioning about why the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights was good but the Russian seizure of Crimea was bad, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, told senators that there was an 'international law doctrine' which would be explained to them later. It turned out there was no doctrine. The state department's clarification of Pompeo's remarks contained no reference to one, and experts on international law said that none exists.... Such statements have raised fears that the Trump administration is planning to accept the end of international norms and usher in a might-makes-right contest between nation states.... In Senate hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday, Pompeo refused to say whether the US would recognise Israeli annexation of the West Bank." --s

Michael Stratford of Politico: "Education Department attorneys said last year that the agency could block states from using federal grants to buy guns for schools, even as Secretary Betsy DeVos claimed she was powerless to do so, according to an internal agency memo released by House Democrats on Wednesday. The 14-page memo was displayed during a tense back-and-forth between DeVos and a freshman lawmaker and former teacher, Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.), during an education committee hearing. It was the first time DeVos has appeared before the panel since Democrats took control of the House. DeVos announced last year that she would not stand in the way of states that wanted to use federal education grants to buy guns after Democrats implored her to prohibit such purchases. She said at the time that 'Congress did not authorize me or the Department to make those decisions.'... Donald Trump had touted the idea of training and arming teachers after 17 people were slain at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla."

If you want to know how Trumpies socialize in Washington, D.C. -- a city where they are pariahs, Ben Schreckinger & Daniel Lippman of Politico have the inside scoop on the outsiders' "exclusive" partying strategy. And, um, they wear ID pins "fashioned after the butt end of a .45 caliber bullet casing."

"Science Is 'a Democrat Thing.'" Amanda Marcotte of Salon: "Science, according to a Trump appointee at the Department of the Interior, is 'a Democrat thing.' Those words were reportedly used to justify the abrupt 2017 cancellation of a study into the health effects of mountaintop removal for coal-mining. At the time, then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke claimed that the study was canceled after a careful review of the grant process. But during a Tuesday congressional hearing on this issue, Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif., citing the inspector general's report into the matter, said that a Trump appointee named Landon 'Tucker' Davis had offered a likelier explanation for why a study that was more than halfway done was abruptly shut down: In Davis' words, 'Science was a Democrat thing.'... [Davis] is a former coal lobbyist, as well as a former regional director for the Koch brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity." --safari: So does that make ignorance a "Republican thing"?

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The U.S.'s Dumbing-Down comes with a big fat "R" after its name. See also the video of the exchange between John Kerry & an MIT-"educated" GOP Congressman, embedded below.

All the Best White People, Ctd.

Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "Jeffrey Rosen..., Donald Trump's nominee to be second-in-command at the Justice Department, declined on Wednesday to tell the Senate whether he thought the Supreme Court ruled correctly in Brown v. Board of Education.... [Rosen's refusal to weigh in on the most significant anti-segregation decision in the last 75 years] puts him in the same camp as Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who also declined to weigh in on Brown during his confirmation hearing, as The Atlantic noted. Judge Wendy Vitter, who was sworn in last year as a district judge, also refused to comment on the decision. Several other judicial nominees fielded the question in the same way, as Slate has reported."

Ted Hesson, et al., of Politico: "The White House is considering nominating the former head of an anti-immigration group to lead U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to a White House official and three people briefed on the deliberations, the latest development in a series of staffing shakeups that have alarmed some Republican senators. Julie Kirchner, the former executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which pushes for lower levels of immigration, is being considered as an option to lead the agency.... She had also been considered for the deputy director role in recent weeks. If selected and confirmed by the Senate, she would replace Francis Cissna, who is expected to be ousted by the end of this week, according to three sources familiar with the matter, as ... Donald Trump and aide Stephen Miller continue their purge of top Homeland Security officials.... One official acknowledged that Sen. Chuck Grassley's opposition to the move could complicate things, potentially causing the president to keep Cissna on the job."

Rafael Bernal of the Hill: "The acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Ron Vitiello, has resigned amid an agencywide restructuring of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Vitiello had originally been nominated to take over the post permanently, but his nomination was abruptly pulled last week by President Trump, who said he wanted to go in a 'tougher' direction. Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced the news of Vitiello's departure on Wednesday, praising his 'knowledge and expertise as a seasoned law enforcement professional.' Nielsen said in a statement that Vitiello 'has left a legacy of excellence as our Department has expanded and refined our efforts to curb illegal immigration and secure our borders.' Mrs. McC: Okay, finally a dig at Trump; if Nielsen won't stand up for herself, she's standing up for her subordinates.

Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast: "When a Facebook official tried to help members of Congress understand the company's struggle to get the horrific New Zealand shooter video off of the social network, it didn't go over too well.... The shooter killed 50 people ... and live-streamed the massacre; the livestream stayed online for an hour, until New Zealand law enforcement asked the company to take it down.... The members of Congress ... had lots of questions for Brian Fishman, Facebook's policy director for counterterrorism. Fishman's answer, according to a committee staffer in the room: The video was not 'particularly gruesome.' A second source briefed on the meeting added that Fishman said there was 'not enough gore' in the video for the algorithm to catch it." --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: So, um, maybe that algorithm needs some tweaking.

Rebecca Falconer of Axios: "The Ohio College Republican Federation apologized Wednesday evening for a fundraising email calling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D- N.Y.) a 'domestic terrorist.' Cortez said earlier she received a 'spike in death threats' almost every time Conservative groups made such 'uncalled for rhetoric.'" --s

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

Sarah Ellison & Marc Fisher of the Washington Post: "American Media Inc. is actively seeking to sell off the National Enquirer, according to three people familiar with the process.... The decision to sell came after the hedge fund manager whose firm controls American Media became 'disgusted' with the Enquirer's reporting tactics, according to one of these people. American Media has been under intense pressure because of the Enquirer's efforts to tilt the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump, who is a longtime friend of American Media's president and CEO, David Pecker. Pecker and his supermarket tabloid have also been embroiled in recent months in an unusually public feud with Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.... In January, Pecker and the Enquirer devoted the cover and 12 pages of its Jan. 28 edition to an exposé of Bezos's affair with Lauren Sanchez, former host of Fox's 'So You Think You Can Dance.'... 'The Trump thing was an issue, and [(Anthony) Melchiorre (who controls the hedge fund that holds an 80 percent interest in American Media)] was really disgusted by the Bezos reporting,' the person said.... Federal prosecutors reviewed accusations made by Bezos to determine if American Media may have violated the terms of a non-prosecution agreement [made in connection with the Trump catch-and-kill scandal]...." ...

... Erica Orden & Shimon Prokupecz of CNN: "Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is scheduled to meet with federal prosecutors in New York as soon as this week, according to people familiar with the matter. The meeting signals that the US attorney's office is escalating its inquiry connected to Bezos's suggestion that the kingdom of Saudi Arabia was behind a National Enquirer story that exposed his extramarital affair and his claim that the tabloid attempted to extort him. Plans for that meeting come as prosecutors in the Southern District of New York are seeking to obtain access to Bezos's electronic devices, these people said. They are attempting to examine Bezos's private investigators' allegation that the Saudis 'gained private information' from his phone, and that such information wound up in the hands of American Media Inc. tabloid the National Enquirer, which published Bezos's texts.... Bezos has suggested he became a target of the Saudis due to his ownership of The Washington Post and its coverage of the murder of its columnist Jamal Khashoggi."

Luke O'Neil of New York: "Last week, I devoted an installment of my newsletter Welcome to Hell World to a dozen stories from people who, like me, had close relationships that had been strained or ruined by family members who'd become obsessed with Fox News.... If I had to pinpoint the most common reaction to all the thousands of replies to the story, I'd say it was one of exasperation -- and desperation.... A lot of the stories echoed that turning point [was Obama's election]. There was something about Obama that seemed to make a lot of previously apolitical or moderate family members lose their minds. Gosh -- what could it have possibly been?... This may have been the hardest thing I learned from the stories I heard: Fox didn't necessarily change anyone's mind, so much as it seems to have supercharged and weaponized a politics that was otherwise easy for white Americans to overlook in their loved ones." --s

Presidential Race 2020

Roger Cohen of the New York Times: Benjamin Netanyahu's "victory contains a warning for any Democrat still imagining that the 2020 election will bring an easy victory over Donald Trump. The Netanyahu playbook will be President Trump's next year. Gather nationalist and religious voters in your camp, add in a strong economy, dose with fear, sprinkle with strongman appeal, inject a dash of racism and victory is yours -- whatever indictments are looming. It's not that this could happen. It will happen, absent some decisive factor to upend the logic of it. Netanyahu is savvier than Trump, but they share a shrewd assessment of how to control and manipulate the politics of spectacle, as well as a fierce determination to stay out of jail. They campaign ugly."

Beyond the Beltway

Louisiana. Julia Arciga, et al., of the Daily Beast: "A 21-year-old named Holden Matthews has been arrested in connection with fires that destroyed three Louisiana churches in the span of two weeks, local news outlet KATC reports.... On a Facebook page that appears to belong to Matthews, he was active in black metal and pagan pages. Although both scenes are predominately apolitical, both have large neo-Nazi fanbases. Matthews commented on two memes abou Varg Vikernes, a far-right (and self-described former neo-Nazi) metal musician who served 15 years in prison for burning churches in Norway and killing a fellow metal musician. Vikernes, a practitioner of pagan beliefs, described the arsons as having been 'revenge' for Christian actions against pagan Viking graves."

Texas. Ed Kilgore: A "Texas bill introduced by Republican State Representative Tony Tinderholt ... would make abortion a criminal act of homicide.... This bill is best understood as representing the logical end of the strong belief in Right-to-Life circles that a fetus, and even an embryo, are indistinguishable metaphysically, and should be indistinguishable legally, from adult human beings -- including very specifically the pregnant women involved. Indeed, as supporters of the bill have pointed out, it reflects the Texas GOP's party platform, notes the Dallas Morning News: '[T]he state party platform adopted last year calls on lawmakers to enact legislation 'stopping the murder of unborn children and to ignore and refuse to enforce any and all federal statutes, regulations, executive orders, and court rulings that would deprive an unborn child of the right to life."'" Women who have abortions would be subject to the death penalty.

Way Beyond

Israel. Oliver Holmes of the Guardian: "Benjamin Netanyahu is set to serve a fifth term as Israel's prime minister after his main rival conceded that he had lost the election. With 97% of votes counted, Netanyahu's Likud party and the Blue and White party, led by former army general Benny Gantz, had tied with 35 seats each in the 120-seat house, the Knesset. However, the rightwing bloc that Netanyahu is part of had 65 in total, a comfortable majority." ...

... Zack Beauchamp of Vox: "The consequences of [Netanyahu's] victory for both Israelis and Palestinians could very well be catastrophic. The past several years of Netanyahu's time in office have been characterized by drift in two illiberal, anti-democratic directions.... Israel has survived existential threats before, including two invasions that nearly wiped out the young Jewish state. Yet the threat to Israeli democracy today is not external, but rather of Israelis' own making -- a long-running illness that could soon turn acute." --s ...

... David Halbfinger of the New York Times: "Benjamin Netanyahu's apparent re-election as prime minister of Israel attests to a starkly conservative vision of the Jewish state and its people about where they are and where they are headed."

Sudan. Arab Spring Redux. Juan Cole: "Omar Hassan al-Bashir, b. 1944, has stepped down as president of Sudan in the wake of a military coup, according to Alarabiya (United Arab Emirates). Alarabiya also says that current and former government officials have been detained by the coup-makers.... On Thursday morning, tens of thousands of Sudanese poured into the streets of Khartoum. People were saying 'The youth are well, God willing!' and praising the country's revolutionary youth, in scenes reminiscent of 2011 in Egypt and Tunisia." --s

** U.K. Kate Lyons of the Guardian: "Julian Assange has been arrested at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder was granted refuge in 2012 while on bail in the UK over sexual assault allegations against him in Sweden. At the time, Assange claimed that if he was extradited to Sweden he might be arrested by the US and face charges relating to WikiLeaks's publication of hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables.... US authorities have never officially confirmed that they have charged Assange, but in November 2018 a mistake in a document filed in an unrelated case hinted that criminal charges might have been prepared in secret." ...

... Stephen Castle & Steven Erlanger of the New York Times: "With less than 48 hours before Britain's scheduled departure, the European Union extended the exit deadline early Thursday until the end of October, avoiding a devastating cliff-edge divorce but settling none of the issues that have plunged British politics into chaos, dysfunction and recrimination."

The Commentariat -- April 10, 2019

Afternoon Update:

On [Trump's] first [choice for attorney general], the president was very clear: He's not protecting me from the investigation, so he's fired, day after the election. Second guy was hired for the same purpose, but was very temporary and was clearly unqualified. The third guy was hired for the same purpose: Protect the president from the investigation, and he's done his job. -- Jerry Nadler, to Andy Kroll of Rolling Stone ...

... Charlie Savage, et al., of the New York Times: "Attorney General William P. Barr, appearing before Congress for a second straight day on Wednesday, said the government spied on the Trump campaign and said he would look into whether any rules were violated. Mr. Barr signaled he was open sharing more information with lawmakers about the redacted Mueller report than is released to the public and that he 'hoped' to make it public 'next week.'... He said Justice Department lawyers and members of Mr. Mueller's team, who are reviewing the report for sensitive information to black ou before release, would not remove information that would harm the 'reputational interests' of Mr. Trump.... Mr. Barr also said that he ... had not discussed with the White House what he was blacking out.... Mr. Barr again declined to say whether he had briefed the White House on the fuller Mueller report, even though Justice Department officials had previously said it had not been shown to the White House.... Speaking to reporters as he left the White House on Wednesday, the president slammed the investigation as an illegal 'attempted coup.'... 'I have not seen the Mueller report,' Mr. Trump told reporters. 'I have not read the Mueller report. I won. No collusion, no obstruction. I won. Everybody knows I won.'" ...

     ... Zachary Basu of Axios: Barr clarified his "spying" remarks "at the end of the hearing: 'I am not saying that improper surveillance occurred. I am saying that I am concerned about it and I'm looking into it.'" ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: The first several minutes of this MSNBC segment are worth listening to in order to get an idea of how far out on a conspiracy limb Bill Barr is willing to shinny. During the confirmation period, news organizations repeatedly referred to Barr as an "institutional" guy. But Barr proved in the 1980s & has proved again since his recent confirmation that he is not interested in preserving the "institution" of the Justice Department, but rather in preserving the political hides of Republican officials. You might say he's a political hack. ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "At a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday morning, Barr confirmed that he is looking into what he called 'spying' on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.... When pressed by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) on whether he indeed viewed it as 'spying' on Trump's campaign, Barr said, 'I think spying did occur.'... That is a highly disputed term when it comes to what the FBI did relative to the Trump campaign in 2016.... The idea that [FISA-warranted surveillance] constituted 'spying on a political campaign,' as Barr put it, is highly contentious. One reason is the nefarious connotations of 'spying,' and another is the idea that it was specifically 'directed at the Trump campaign,' as Barr said, rather than at potential Russian interference in the 2016 election.... [Barr's testimony Wednesday] lends legitimacy to what, at this point, is essentially a Trump conspiracy theory."

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "James Baker, the former top lawyer of the FBI, said senior bureau officials -- including at least one deemed to be free of anti-Trump bias -- discussed the possibility in May 2017 that ... Donald Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey 'at the behest of' the Russian government. In testimony to two Republican-led committees last October, Baker described mounting concerns that crystallized in the frantic days after the FBI director's ouster, days that were punctuated by Trump's on-air declaration that he fired Comey because of the Russia probe and his chummy Oval Office meeting with senior Russian officials, at which he reportedly trashed Comey as a 'nut job.'"

Brad Reed of the Raw Story: “Prosecutors working for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York are investigating whether longtime Trump confidant Hope Hicks helped coordinate hush-money payments made to silence women who alleged to have affairs with ... Donald Trump. The Wall Street Journal reports that SDNY prosecutors 'asked Ms. Hicks about her contacts with [David] Pecker, the CEO of American Media, publisher of the National Enquirer' and also 'asked at least one other witness whether Ms. Hicks had coordinated with anyone at American Media concerning a Journal article on Nov. 4, 2016 -- days before the election -- that revealed American Media had paid $150,000 for the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal's story of an alleged affair with Mr. Trump.'... The Journal's report also reveals that SDNY 'has gathered more evidence than previously known in its criminal investigation' of the hush money payments and has also interviewed former Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller about what he knew about the payments. Additionally, the Journal reveals that prosecutors are looking at 'discrepancies' between the testimonies of [Michael] Cohen and longtime Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, as Cohen has told prosecutors that 'Weisselberg had a deeper involvement in the hush payment to Ms. Daniels than Mr. Weisselberg had indicated.'"

Rosalind Helderman & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "Attorneys for former White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig said Wednesday that he expects to face federal charges in the coming days in relationship to legal work he did for the Ukrainian government in 2012. The expected indictment -- which his attorneys called 'a misguided abuse of prosecutorial discretion' -- stems from work Craig did with GOP lobbyist Paul Manafort on behalf of the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice in 2012. At the time, Craig was a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, the law firm he joined after ending his tenure as White House counsel for President Barack Obama."

Jesse Drucker of the New York Times: "The Trump International Hotel and Tower in Manhattan, near the southwest corner of Central Park, is a 44-story building with a mix of luxury condominiums and hotel suites that go for more than $2,500 a night. Unit 32G, a two-bedroom, 1,767-square-foot apartment with sweeping views of the park, is owned by an entity called Ecree, which bought the condo in 2014 for $7 million in cash. Documents unearthed by the nonprofit group Global Witness show that the purchase was funded by the daughter of the Republic of Congo's president, a longtime target of anti-corruption investigators. The funds for the all-cash purchase appear to have been siphoned from that country's government, according to a report by Global Witness.... Owners of units in the building -- 1 Central Park West -- pay tens of thousands of dollars a year in condo fees to Mr. Trump's company, the Trump Organization.... Mr. Trump's properties, which he and his family continue to operate, have a long history of serving as home to people with checkered pasts."

Adam Vary of BuzzFeed News: "... Donald Trump on Tuesday posted a video on Twitter that appeared to be part of his 2020 reelection campaign. In less than three hours, it had already amassed over 1 million views, but by late Tuesday night, the video was no longer available. BuzzFeed News has learned that Warner Bros. Pictures filed a copyright infringement complaint to have the video taken down because it uses part of the score from the studio's 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The Trump campaign has millions & millions of dollars in its kitty. It won't pay for copyrighted material?

~~~~~~~~~~

New York Times: "Attorney General William P. Barr will go before Congress for a second straight day on Wednesday, giving lawmakers another shot to grill him about his handling of the special counsel's report."

"Let's Go to Disneyland." Michael D. Shear & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "The Trump administration plans to aggressively push for tougher screening of asylum seekers that will make it vastly more difficult for migrants fleeing persecution in their home countries from winning protection in the United States, a senior administration official told reporters on Tuesday. The official said that President Trump ordered a shake-up of his top immigration officials in recent days because they were moving too slowly, or even actively obstructing, the president's desire to confront the surge of migrants at the southwestern border.... In his remarks on Tuesday, Mr. Trump falsely said that President Barack Obama had embraced the same policy of routinely separating migrant children from their parents at the border. 'President Obama had child separation,' Mr. Trump said during brief remarks in the Oval Office, where he was meeting with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt.... 'I'm the one that stopped it.... Now I'll tell you something, once you don't have it [i.e., family separations], that's why you see many more people coming,' Mr. Trump said. 'They are coming like it's a picnic, because, Let's go to Disneyland."'... Under Mr. Obama and President George W. Bush, immigration officials sometimes separated families when they had reason to question parentage or when there was evidence of child abuse. The Trump administration instituted a policy in which all families who crossed the border illegally were separated in order to allow the parents to be prosecuted under the administration's 'zero tolerance' policy." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: "Let's go to Disneyland" might be the most heartless remark out of Trump's piehole since he derided "shithole countries." I know Trump can't read, but this October 2018 article by Arizona Republic reporters about the arduous 2,300-mile trek from Honduras to the U.S.-Mexican border would shut up anybody but Trump & a few of his despicable sidekicks. ...

... Brian Naylor of NPR: "President Trump repeated a false claim to reporters Tuesday, wrongly blaming the Obama administration for instituting a policy in which children were separated from their parents at the Southern border.... Trump's false claim ... has been frequently refuted.... It was then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions who instituted the 'zero tolerance' policy at the Southern border in April 2018, which resulted in children being separated from their parents who were taken into custody for criminal prosecution.... Still, as NPR's Domenico Montanaro wrote last year, the Trump administration has been unwilling to take the blame for the policy of family separations because of the political optics." ...

... Julia Ainsley, et al., of NBC News: "The White House is working on plans to make it harder for immigrants at the border to receive asylum by forcing them to do more to prove they have a credible fear of returning home and putting border agents in charge of the interview process, according to multiple senior administration officials.... Currently, asylum-seekers are interviewed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services asylum officers and only need to express a fear of persecution in their home country in order to pass the first step in the process.... The administration has already tried to make it harder for asylum-seekers through a variety of measures, most of which have been stopped by courts, including the 'Remain in Mexico' policy that makes asylum-seekers wait in Mexico until their scheduled court date in the U.S.... The right to seek asylum is protected by U.S. law and international treaties. The new policies are likely to be challenged in court by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union...." ...

... David Nakamura, et al., of the Washington Post: "Trump's increasingly erratic behavior over the past 12 days -- since he first threatened to seal the border in a series of tweets on March 29 -- has alarmed top Republicans, business officials and foreign leaders who fear that his emotional response might exacerbate problems at the border, harm the U.S. economy and degrade national security. The stretch also has revealed that a president who has routinely blamed spiking immigration numbers on others -- past presidents, congressional Democrats, Mexican authorities, federal judges, human smugglers -- is now coming to the realization that the problems are closer to home. Though his aides have taken the fall, and it is unlikely that Trump will blame himself, the president is facing an existential political crisis ahead of his 2020 reelection bid over the prospect of failure on his top domestic priority.... 'He has no plan except to talk about immigration as a political piñata to score points with the far right. But illegal immigration has increased in the two years he has been president,'... said Domingo Garcia, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens...." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: WTF happened to "I alone can fix it"? ...

... Eric Levitz of New York: "Stephen Miller is personally responsible for the most xenophobic policies of the most xenophobic presidency in modern American history.... In response to [Miller's past policy proposals] and other reports of Miller's growing influence in the White House, Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar tweeted Monday, 'Stephen Miller is a white nationalist. The fact that he still has influence on policy and political appointments is an outrage.'... It seems both fair to describe Miller as a white nationalist and nearly impossible to ascribe a non-racist motivation to his political behavior.... [Republicans accused Omar of anti-Semitism for attacking Miller.] It is true that Stephen Miller is Jewish, and that white nationalists have historically targeted Jews for persecution. But this does not mean that Miller cannot be a white nationalist.... 'White people' is not a coherent biological or ethnic category. It is a social caste with semi-porous borders. And by all appearances, Miller identifies with that caste. More to the point, there is no evidence whatsoever that Omar directed her criticism toward Miller because of his Jewish heritage...." Levitz provides plenty of examples of Miller's white nationalist policies & remarks.

The Usual Trump Scandals, Ctd.

Hypocrite-in-Chief. Mirian Jordan, et al., of the New York Times: "Alongside the [legal] foreign guest workers and the sizable American staff [at Donald Trump's South Florida resorts] is another category of employees, mostly those who work on the pair of lush golf courses near Mar-a-Lago.... They have been picked up by Trump contractors from groups of undocumented laborers at the side of the road; hired through staffing companies that assume responsibility for checking their immigration status; or brought onto the payroll with little apparent scrutiny of their Social Security cards and green cards, some of which are fake.... Facing growing questions about its employment of undocumented workers, the [Trump Organization] has quietly begun to take steps to eliminate any remaining undocumented workers from its labor pool in South Florida." In about 2016, the Trump properties began using staffing companies to supply some of its undocumented workers, rather than directly hiring them. (Also linked yesterday.)

Chris Strohm & Billy House of Bloomberg News: "Attorney General William Barr has assembled a team to review controversial counterintelligence decisions made by Justice Department and FBI officials, including actions taken during the probe of the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016, according to a person familiar with the matter. This indicates that Barr is looking into allegations that Republican lawmakers have been pursuing for more than a year -- that the investigation into ... Donald Trump and possible collusion with Russia was tainted at the start by anti-Trump bias in the FBI and Justice Department."

Katie Benner of the New York Times: "Attorney General William P. Barr vowed on Tuesday to release a redacted version of the Mueller report 'within a week,' defending his handling of the special counsel investigation's findings as a bid for transparency as Democrats accused him of politically motivated behavior. Mr. Barr said he would explain his redactions and was open to negotiating with lawmakers about revealing some of the delicate information that he and law enforcement officials are blacking out from the highly anticipated report before he sends it to Congress and the public.... But he was less forthcoming about aspects of his review, declining to say whether President Trump had been briefed on the report after Justice Department and White House officials had said for weeks that the president has not been updated on its contents. And he did not explain why he cleared Mr. Trump of committing an obstruction-of-justice offense when Mr. Mueller's team declined to make a decision.... Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said that once he received the redacted report, he would issue a subpoena for the complete document and petition a court for the grand jury testimony. 'If it doesn't have everything we require to do our work, which is to say the entire report and underlying evidence in it, we will issue subpoenas forthwith,' Mr. Nadler told reporters on Tuesday."

Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told lawmakers on Tuesday that White House lawyers had been in touch with his department about a congressional request for President Trump's tax returns but said he had not personally spoken to Mr. Trump about how the matter was being handled. Mr. Mnuchin, who is testifying before two congressional committees on Tuesday, said it would be 'premature' to comment on how Treasury would respond to a formal request by House Democrats for six years of Mr. Trump's personal and business tax returns. 'It is our intent to follow the law,' Mr. Mnuchin said. 'It is being reviewed by the legal departments and we look forward to responding to the letter.'... Mr. Mnuchin suggested he believed that Congress was overreaching its authority and defended Mr. Trump's right not to release his tax returns. 'The general public when they elected President Trump made the decision to elect him without his tax returns being released,' Mr. Mnuchin said, adding that the president complied with requirements to release financial disclosure form." (Also linked yesterday. The story has been updated.) ...

... Damian Paletta of the Washington Post: "Mnuchin had not previously revealed that the White House was playing any official role in the Treasury Department's decision on releasing Trump's tax returns. Democrats are asking for six years of Trump's returns, using a federal law that says the treasury secretary 'shall furnish' the records upon the request of House or Senate chairmen. The process is designed to be walled off from White House interference, in part because of corruption that took place during the Teapot Dome scandal in the 1920s.... At a separate congressional hearing in the afternoon, Mnuchin said Treasury officials did not seek the White House's 'permission' as to whether to release the tax returns, and he also said he didn't view the meeting as 'interference.' But congressional Democrats signaled concern with any White House involvement in the process at all, with Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) saying the White House should be not be playing any role in the release of tax records." ...

... Steve lips off to black female committee chair, because the black and female parts supercede the chair of House committee chair part. Tells her to "take the gravel (not a typo) and bang it." Not surprisingly, Rep. Maxine Waters holds her own:

... Oops! Arthur Delaney of the Huffington Post: "Accusing Democrats of having 'political' ― as opposed to legitimate oversight ― reasons for wanting to see Trump's tax returns is the GOP's main talking point these days. And as talking points go, it's an awkward one. Republicans themselves used private tax returns for political purposes just a few years ago, and they used the very same law that Democrats are now relying on to request the last six years of Trump's tax returns. Back in 2013, Republicans thought the Internal Revenue Service under President Barack Obama was mistreating conservative groups that wanted to be recognized as tax-exempt nonprofits. So they asked the IRS to hand over tax information for conservative groups such as Crossroads GPS as well as a few liberal groups such as Priorities USA.... In 2014, after getting the documents on the groups they requested, plus tax info relating to several dozen other organizations..., Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee made it all public.... It ultimately turned out that the IRS had improperly picked on both conservative and liberal organizations."

DOJ Lawyers Thought Trump Obstructed Justice. Kyle Cheney of Politico: "James Baker, the former top lawyer of the FBI, told lawmakers last fall that there were widespread concerns inside the FBI that ... Donald Trump had attempted to obstruct the bureau's investigation into his campaign's links to Russians, according to a newly released transcript of Baker's testimony. Under questioning in 2018 from a Democratic committee lawyer, Baker described numerous officials who were distressed that the president may have obstructed justice when he fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017. Baker said he had personal concerns and that they were shared by not just top FBI brass but within other divisions and at the Justice Department as well.... In the transcript of his testimony, Baker added that he was briefed on conversations between former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe -- who assumed leadership of the FBI after Comey's firing -- and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein about whether Rosenstein could wear a wire to gather evidence in an obstruction probe. Though officials close to Rosenstein have called his suggestion a joke, Baker told lawmakers ..., 'This was not a joking sort of time. This was pretty dark.'..." ...

... Two Trump Cabinet Members Thought Trump Was Unfit. Zachary Basu of Axios: "Former FBI general counsel James Baker told the House Judiciary Committee last October that it's his understanding that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said there were 2 members of President Trump's Cabinet who were willing to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office." Mrs. McC: Guess what? Trump is worse now that he was then. ...

     ... Update: John Gartner in a USA Today op-ed: "If Donald Trump were your father, you would run, not walk, to a neurologist for an evaluation of his cognitive health. You don't have to be a doctor to see something is very wrong.... To mental health professionals like me, the red flags are waving wildly.... Trump, 72, seemed to hit a new inflection point last week when he said, 'My father is German. Right? Was German. And born in a very wonderful place in Germany.' In fact, his father was born in the Bronx and it was his grandfather who was from Germany. Dementia Care International says a 'person may start to mix up relationships and generations' in the second stage of dementia.... In Alzheimer's, as language skills deteriorate, we see two types of tell-tale speech disorders, or paraphasias [both of which Trump has demonstrated numerous times].... Trump's speech patterns appear even more disordered when you ... look at a whole speech. He careens from one thought to the next in a parade of non sequiturs, frequently interrupting himself in the middle of a sentence to veer into another free association. When commentators described his two-hour speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month as 'unhinged,' they were referring in large part to this quality."

Vicki Divoll, in a New York Times op-ed: "The House and Senate Intelligence Committees should already have certain investigative materials relating to Russian election meddling, in unredacted form, collected by the special counsel, Robert Mueller. This legal structure was created by a provision in the Patriot Act combined with the notification provisions of the National Security Act. The intelligence committees have a lawful right, virtually unbounded. to foreign intelligence information in the possession of the intelligence agencies of the executive branch. Federal law requires that the attorney general provide to the director of national intelligence any foreign intelligence information collected during a criminal investigation. Then the director must by law provide it to the intelligence committees of Congress -- either by sending a notification or acting in response to a request from the committees.... By design or by ignorance, the executive branch agencies may not have followed the laws they have sworn to uphold. And the congressional committees may have failed to fulfill their oversight responsibilities. The House Intelligence Committee should demand immediate attention to the mandates of the Patriot and National Security Acts." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Something else that should be in Mueller's tens of thousands of pages of appendices: Trump's tax returns.

It's Fun to Go to the Movies at the White House. Ruth Graham of Slate: “The White House is hosting a screening of the gory 2018 anti-abortion film Gosnell on Friday, according to an invitation sent to pro-life activists and others last week. The film depicts second- and third-trimester abortions in gruesome detail.... Gosnell ... tells the story of the 2013 prosecution of Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia abortion doctor found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder in botched abortions that prosecutors said resulted in live births. Gosnell's clinic catered to poor women, and prosecutors described it as a 'house of horrors' rife with health code violations. The indie drama, which made its debut in October, became a cause célèbre among conservatives after producers accused the mainstream media and Hollywood of bias against it."

Nein, Nein, Nein. Burgess Everett of Politico: "Senate Republicans are warning the White House that [Herman Cain] ... will face one of the most difficult confirmation fights of Donald Trump's presidency and are making a behind-the-scenes play to get the president to back off [nominating Cain to the Federal Reserve Board], two GOP senators said.... Some GOP senators said that Cain's difficult path might have eased Stephen Moore's confirmation to the Fed, despite Moore's own problems with unpaid taxes and his partisan reputation..., in part because Republicans will be reluctant to reject two of Trump's Fed nominees, given their desire to protect their already shaky relationship with the president.... Neither Moore nor Cain has been officially nominated. A senator familiar with the nominations said Trump is 'full speed' ahead on Cain even though FBI background checks and documentations of sexual harassment allegations have not yet been submitted to the Senate. A person familiar with the process expects the background check to raise more questions about Cain." ...

... Profile in Courage, Ha Ha Ha. Bryan Lowry of the Kansas City Star: "One of the GOP senators from Kris Kobach's home state said Tuesday that the Senate would not be able to confirm the Kansas Republican if ... Donald Trump taps him for a cabinet post. Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state, has been mentioned as a potential candidate for an array of immigration-related positions since ... Donald Trump pulled his nominee for the director of Immigration Customs Enforcement and announced the departure of Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen. But Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, said he doesn't believe the Republican-controlled Senate could confirm his fellow Kansan, who has gained national notoriety for championing stronger restrictions on immigration. 'Don't go there. We can't confirm him,' Roberts whispered to The Kansas City Star when asked about Kobach Tuesday on his way into a Senate vote. 'I never said that to you,' Roberts added, despite the fact that another reporter was present and The Star had not agreed to an off record conversation.... Roberts blamed Kobach's difficult path to confirmation on Senate Democrats in a longer statement released by his office Tuesday afternoon.... Republicans control 53 seats in the 100-member Senate, which makes it difficult to block any of Trump's nominees unless multiple Republicans buck the president." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Note that Roberts is retiring, so there's no reason for him to keep secret his opinion that Kobach would be a bad nominee who could not be confirmed. He's in a perfect position to diss & vote down every stupid Trump move. But no. What a gutless wonder.

Justin Elliott of ProPublica: "Just in time for Tax Day, the for-profit tax preparation industry is about to realize one of its long-sought goals. Congressional Democrats and Republicans are moving to permanently bar the IRS from creating a free electronic tax filing system. Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee ... passed the Taxpayer First Act, a wide-ranging bill making several administrative changes to the IRS that is sponsored by Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Mike Kelly, R-Pa. In one of its provisions, the bill makes it illegal for the IRS to create its own online system of tax filing. Companies like Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, and H&R Block have lobbied for years to block the IRS from creating such a system.... Under an existing memorandum of understanding with the industry group, the IRS pledge not create its own online filing system and, in exchange, the companies offer their free filing services to those below the income threshold [of $66,000].... The [bill in progress] would codify the status quo.... Intuit and H&R Block last year poured a combined $6.6 million into lobbying related to the IRS filing deal and other issues. Neal, who became Ways and Means chair this year after Democrats took control of the House, received $16,000 in contributions from Intuit and H&R Block in the last two election cycles." (Also linked yesterday.)

Republicans Sabotage House White Supremacy Hearing. Dana Milbank: "The new Democratic House majority held a hearing Tuesday on the rise of white nationalism, following the mosques massacre in New Zealand, the Pittsburgh synagogue killings and the deadly neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville. Republicans invited Candace Owens to testify.... Owens said the Republicans' Southern strategy 'never happened.' She said the rise in hate crimes was fake, from 'manipulating statistics.' She called the Ku Klux Klan a 'Democrat terrorist organization.' She mocked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.); proclaimed that 'the Russian collusion hoax has fallen apart'; declared that Trump is 'bringing everybody together'; and said the real 'separation' crisis is 'black babies separated from the wombs of black mothers.'... Owens's presence turned a serious inquiry -- there were representatives from civil rights groups, social media and a Muslim man whose daughters were killed in a hate crime -- into farce.... They also invited to testify Morton Klein of the far-right Zionist Organization of America, who ... recently wrote of 'evil murders by your filthy Arab Islamist despicable brethren.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: You'll have to read Milbank's column to get the full effect. But it's hard not to conclude that Owens & Klein's Congressional hosts are white supremacists themselves.

The Woes of Devin, Ctd. #YachtCocaineProstitutes. Alexandra Hutzler of Newsweek: "California Representative Devin Nunes is being mocked on Twitter after filing a $150 million lawsuit over a May 2018 story featuring the headline: 'A yacht, cocaine, prostitutes: Winery partly owned by Nunes sued after fundraiser event.' The article detailed a lawsuit by a former female employee of Alpha Omega, a Napa Valley winery, in which Nunes is an investor. The employee alleged that while working for the winery during a charity cruise she saw some of the guests using cocaine and procuring sex workers, some of whom were underage. Nunes was not apparently on the cruise or knew it was happening. As a result of Monday's lawsuit against The Fresno Bee, the McClatchy Company and others, the hashtag #YachtCocaineProstitutes began trending on the social media platform on Tuesday."

Alexander Nazaryan of Yahoo! News: "On Nov. 17, 2017, President Trump added five names to the list of potential Supreme Court nominations his administration might make. One of those names ... [was] Patrick R. Wyrick.... Nominated for the United States District Court..., Wyrick could soon join the dozens of activist judges remaking the federal government, and American society.... Yet as Wyrick's confirmation ... nears, critics say he should be disqualified because he has failed to disclose that while suing the Obama administration over the Affordable Care Act as Oklahoma's solicitor general, he was also involved in [a] health care company [his wife runs].... [A] letter [from Earthjustice to the Senate Judiciary Committee] also reprises long-standing allegations that Wyrick -- a close associate of former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt -- improperly collaborated with the oil and gas industry in blocking the Obama administration's environmental regulations.... The revelation that Wyrick was a 'registered agent for [his wife's business] means that he not only had a potential conflict of interest in Oklahoma, but that he was not truthful in his written testimony to the U.S. Senate, a potentially disqualifying development." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Sounds like a typical Trumpie to me: conflicts of interest, lying under oath. Definitely Supreme Court material.

Presidential Race 2020

Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "Senator Bernie Sanders, whose $18 million fund-raising haul has solidified his status as a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, said Tuesday that he would release 10 years of tax returns by Tax Day on Monday and acknowledged that he has joined the ranks of the millionaires he has denounced for years. 'April 15 is coming,' Mr. Sanders, whose refusal to release his full past returns has become an issue in the campaign, said in an interview in his office. 'We wanted to release 10 years of tax returns. April 15, 2019, will be the 10th year, so I think you will see them.'... 'I wrote a best-selling book,' he declared. 'If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: It's sort of silly to call someone Bernie's age -- especially a married someone -- a millionaire because he & his wife have built a retirement nest egg. Even without the book sales, Bernie & his wife Jane -- both of whom have had decently-paying careers -- apparently were prudent enough to save at least a million dollars for retirement. As I recall, Jane also recently received an inheritance that included a substantial piece of property. This is hardly comparable to the "millionaires & billionaires" Bernie decries, many of whom don't acquire less than a million a year.

Kate Taylor of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors brought new money laundering charges against the Hollywood actress Lori Loughlin and 15 other parents in the college admissions case on Tuesday, raising the legal stakes for parents who have not said they would plead guilty in the case. Prosecutors said on Monday that 13 of the 33 parents charged in the case, including the actress Felicity Huffman, would plead guilty. In all but one case, those parents will plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest service mail fraud. On Tuesday, the prosecutors indicted most of the other parents on the fraud charge but also on an added charge of money laundering conspiracy."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Isabel Kershner & David Halbfinger of the New York Times: "Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's conservative prime minister for the past decade, appeared poised to win a fourth consecutive term in office, and a fifth overall, according to preliminary results early on Wednesday. Both Mr. Netanyahu and his chief rival, Benny Gantz, a centrist former military chief, declared victory after Tuesday's parliamentary election, appearing to win the same number of seats in the Israeli parliament. But a count of the broader blocs needed to form a coalition government appeared to give Mr. Netanyahu's Likud party a clear advantage over Mr. Gantz's Blue and White."

... The New York Times is updating Israeli election results: "Exit polls show a dead heat in the race between Benjamin Netanyahu, the polarizing, right-wing prime minister, and his main rival, Benny Gantz, a newcomer to electoral politics who is seen as a centrist. Both men claimed victory."

News Lede

New York Times: "Charles Van Doren, a Columbia University English instructor and a member of a distinguished literary family who confessed to Congress and a disillusioned nation in 1959 that his performances on a television quiz show had been rigged, died on Tuesday in Canaan, Conn. He was 93."