;)
The Commentariat -- March 23, 2019
The Trump Scandals, Ctd. -- Friday Night Mueller Dump
Sharon LaFraniere & Katie Benner of the New York Times: "The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has delivered a report on his inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election to Attorney General William P. Barr, according to the Justice Department.... Mr. Barr told congressional leaders in a letter late Friday that he may brief them within days on the special counsel's findings. 'I may be in a position to advise you of the special counsel's principal conclusions as soon as this weekend,' he wrote in a letter to the leadership of the House and Senate Judiciary committees.... Only a handful of law enforcement officials have seen the report, a Justice Department spokeswoman, Kerri Kupec, said. She said a few members of Mr. Mueller's team would remain to close down the office. Mr. Mueller will not recommend any new charges be filed, a senior Justice Department official said.... In a joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York..., warned Mr. Barr not to allow the White House a 'sneak preview' of the report before the public views it." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: What this means to me is that Donald Trump, Donnie Junior & Jared Kushner (and others, like K.T. McFarland & Julian Assange) escaped indictment for the Trump Tower meeting, Trump Tower Moscow negotiations, & their other attempts at getting help from Russia. This looks to me like a huge win for Trump. He can't be an unindicted co-conspirator in or the director of a criminal conspiracy with Russians to manipulate a U.S. election if there are no co-conspirators. And there are not. Trump's talent for skating consequences is truly awesome. ...
... Update. The Unindicted. Devlin Barrett, et al., of the Washington Post: "A senior Justice Department official said the special counsel has not recommended any further indictments.... [AG William] Barr said there were no instances in the course of the investigation in which any of Mueller's decisions were vetoed by his superiors at the Justice Department.... Around 4:35, White House lawyer Emmet Flood was notified that the Justice Department had received the report. About a half-hour after that notification, a senior department official delivered Barr's letter to the relevant House and Senate committees and senior congressional leaders, officials said. One official described the report as 'comprehensive,' but added that very few people have seen it.... Immediately after the news of Mueller's report broke, Democrats demanded that its contents be made public." ...
... Here's Barr's letter to Congress, via NPR. ...
... Josh Gerstein of Politico has a helpful annotation of Barr's letter. Gerstein appeared on Rachel Maddow's show Friday & said he had "just come" from the DOJ, where he was assured the report Barr received was "comprehensive."
... Ellen Nakashima & Rachael Bade of the Washington Post: "The Democratic chairs of the six House committees investigating potential abuse of power by President Trump and his campaign's business and alleged foreign ties will ask several executive branch agencies to preserve information they provided to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as he investigated Russia's interference in the 2016 election, according to congressional aides.... The six House leaders and their Senate Democratic counterparts have signed a letter that will be sent to the Department of Justice, FBI and White House Counsel's Office, among other agencies, shortly after Mueller submits his report to Attorney General William P. Barr, signaling the investigation's conclusion."
Natasha Bertrand of the Atlantic runs down some of the significant matters Mueller has left dangling. In addition, "former FBI agents have expressed surprise that Mueller ended his probe without ever personally interviewing its central target: Donald Trump." Mrs. McC: Unless Mueller's report satisfactorily addresses these issues, and Barr makes that part of the report public, I'd say Mueller did not earn his paycheck. It was fairly disconcerting to watch a bunch of former prosecutors & other G-men go on the teevee Friday night & praise Mueller for "upholding the rule of law." We'll see. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton must be mighty pissed off, after his having to discuss blow jobs with a grand jury, to know that Donald Trump never had to answer for matters profoundly affecting national security.
On what looks like a dark day for democracy, David Remnick of the New Yorker reminds us of the stakes: "The Trump Presidency has, from the first, represented a threat to truth, liberal democracy, and the rule of law. Donald Trump's contempt for basic norms of governance is accompanied by a lack of decency, empathy, and psychological stability. This was never more evident than this week, when Trump, seemingly rattled by the imminence of the Mueller report, set off a fusillade of unhinged tweets, called the spouse of one of his senior advisers a 'whack job,' raged about the late Senator John McCain in front of a military audience..., and pronounced the Democratic Party 'anti-Jewish,' deepening, at every turn, the impression that he is unfit for government work. The perils of such instability are incalculable.... Trump has the psyche of an emotionally damaged toddler.... Given Trump's skills in the dark arts of campaigning and the general public satisfaction with the economy, no matter its inequities or vulnerabilities, it would be foolhardy to discount his chance of winning reëlection." ...
... Andrew Sullivan of New York: "Trump is showing his foes and friends that he can say anything, abuse anyone, lie about anything, break every norm of decency, propriety and prudence -- and suffer no consequences at all. It's all a dominance ritual." Mrs. McC: I'm no fan of Sullivan's, but he's right in every particular here.
Friday is a day ending in "y', so Donald Trump said offensive, stupid things:
... Tal Axelrod of the Hill: "President Trump suggested the public would view special counsel Robert Mueller's expected report on possible collusion between Trump's campaign and Moscow as illegitimate. 'A deputy, that didn't get any votes, appoints a man, that didn't get any votes, he's going to write a report on me,' Trump told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, referring to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.... 'For two years we've gone through this nonsense. There's no collusion with Russia ... and there's no obstruction. They'll say, "oh, well wait, there was no collusion, that was a hoax, but he obstructed in fighting against the hoax,"' he said." Mrs. McC: Huh. Maybe Trump already knows the gist of Mueller's findings. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Friday renewed his attacks on Democrats as anti-Jewish' in response to a number of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates deciding to skip the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual conference in Washington. 'I don't know what happened to them but they are totally anti-Israel,' Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. 'Frankly, I think they are anti-Jewish.' Trump's comments come one day after he said the U.S. should recognize Israeli control of the disputed Golan Heights territory." Mrs. McC: This is of course the same guy whose "closing argument" in 2020 was one long anti-Semitic screed., said the white supremacists in Charlottesville who chanted "Jews will not replace us" were "good people," and so forth. (Also linked yesterday.)
Trump Does Kim Another Favor. Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "President Trump undercut his own Treasury Department on Friday by announcing that he was rolling back North Korea sanctions that it imposed just a day ago. The move, announced on Twitter, was a remarkable display of dissension within the Trump administration and represented a striking case of a White House intervening to reverse a major national security decision made only hours earlier by the president's own officials.... Sarah Huckabee Sanders ... said the decision was a favor to ... Kim [Jong-un]. 'Trump likes Chairman Kim, and he doesn't think these sanctions will be necessary,' she said.... Treasury and State Department officials, including career staff members and political appointees, spend months carefully crafting sanctions based on intensive intelligence gathering and legal research. Current and former Treasury Department officials were stunned by Mr. Trump's decision on Friday.... The department did issue a new round of sanctions against Iran on Friday, targeting a research and development unit that it believes could be used to restart Tehran's nuclear weapons program. It also announced new sanctions on Bandes, Venezuela's national development bank, and its subsidiaries, as part of its effort to topple the government of President Nicolás Maduro." ...
... Caitlin Oprysko & Andrew Restuccia of Politico: "... "Donald Trump on Friday declared he would reverse new sanctions on North Korea that his administration rolled out just a day before, deepening concerns that the ostensible leader of the free world is at odds with his own team as he makes American foreign policy in spontaneous 280-character bursts. The sudden move left the White House groping for an explanation, telling reporters only that Trump 'likes' North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.... Trump's announcement surprised many of his senior aides, and even some Treasury Department officials were caught off guard, according to a person familiar with the matter." ...
... Margaret Talev & Saleha Mohsin of Bloomberg News: "'This is utterly shocking,' John Smith, a former director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control at Treasury, which issues and polices sanctions, said in an email. 'The president of the United States actively undercut his own sanctions agency for the benefit of North Korea.' Smith left the agency in May. A second former OFAC official, Sean Kane, said in an email that Trump's announcement was 'unprecedented' and 'calls any OFAC action into question when no one can be sure whether they're speaking for the administration.'"
Rukmini Callimachi of the New York Times: "A four-year military operation to flush the Islamic State from its territory in Iraq and Syria ended on Saturday, as the last village held by the terrorist group was retaken, erasing a militant theocracy that once spanned two countries. Cornered in Baghuz, Syria, the last 1.5-square-mile remnant of the group's original caliphate in the region, the remaining militants waged a surprisingly fierce defense and kept the American-backed forces at bay for months. They detonated car bombs and hurled explosives from drones. Suicide bombers ran across the front line under cover of darkness to attack the sleeping quarters of the American-backed coalition. In the last weeks, the militants' families fled for their lives, their black-clad wives streaming into the desert by the tens of thousands, some of them defiantly chanting Islamic State slogans and lobbing fistfuls of dirt at reporters." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: It probably didn't help U.S.-backed forces that Presidunce* Blabber T. Mouth pulled a Geraldo* & told reporters on Wednesday that ISIS "will be gone by tonight." *In case you've forgotten Geraldo Rivera. The Unindicted President* remains the nation's greatest security threat.
All the Best People, Ctd.
Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "President Trump said on Friday that he had offered a position on the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors to Stephen Moore, a conservative economic adviser who has become an outspoken critic of the Fed's interest rate policy. Mr. Moore has blamed the Fed's rate increases over the past year for slowing economic growth and recently began calling on the central bank to begin cutting rates. An economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, Mr. Moore helped draft Mr. Trump's tax proposals in the 2016 campaign and has served as an informal adviser ever since. As a nominee, Mr. Moore, 59, would face intense criticism in the Senate from Democrats, with whom he has clashed on several economic issues in his career as a commentator and policy advocate." ...
... Jonathan Chait: "Stephen Moore's career as an economic analyst has been a decades-long continuous procession of error and hackery. It is not despite but precisely because of these errors that Moore now finds himself in the astonishing position of having been offered a position on the Federal Reserve board by President Trump. Moore's primary area of pseudo-expertise -- he is not an economist -- is fiscal policy. He is a dedicated advocate of supply-side economics, relentlessly promoting his fanatical hatred of redistribution and belief that lower taxes for the rich can and will unleash wondrous prosperity. Like nearly all supply-siders, he has clung to this dogma in the face of repeated, spectacular failures."
León Krauze in Slate: "Trump is expected to nominate D.C. attorney Christopher Landau as the next ambassador to Mexico. While an accomplished lawyer, Landau's credentials for the Mexico assignment are virtually nonexistent. Other than being the son of former American ambassador to Paraguay, Chile, and Venezuela, George Landau, Trump's potential nominee has no practical foreign policy experience to speak of. He has never held any sort of diplomatic post, nor is he an expert on Mexico, its politics, its culture, or its current troubles.... If confirmed, Landau would be the least experienced American diplomat to occupy the Mexican ambassadorship in a generation, an indefensible decision at a crucial juncture for the two countries. On the other hand, perhaps Landau's appointment is merely symbolic. After all, when it comes to Mexico, the Trump administration seems to trust only one man: Jared Kushner."
A Hurricane Took Your Home; FEMA Took Your Personal Identity. Joel Achenbach, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Federal Emergency Management Agency shared personal addresses and banking information of more than 2 million U.S. disaster survivors in what the agency acknowledged Friday was a 'major privacy incident.' The data mishap, discovered recently and the subject of a report by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General, occurred when the agency shared sensitive, personally identifiable information of disaster survivors who used FEMA'S Transitional Sheltering Assistance program, according to officials at FEMA. Those affected included the victims of California wildfires in 2017 and Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, the report said. In a statement, Lizzie Litzow, FEMA's press secretary, said, 'FEMA provided more information than was necessary' while transferring disaster survivor information to a contractor." Mrs. McC: Um, yeah.
Devin Nunes Cowed. Rory Appleton of the Fresno Bee: "The Fresno County Republican Party canceled plans for its Lincoln Reagan dinner next month featuring Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare, as its keynote speaker after social media calls for people to crash the event. The local GOP is working to reschedule the event, organizers confirmed to The Bee on Friday.... The event was removed from the Republicans' website and Facebook on Thursday."
Brian Lyman, et al., of the Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser: "Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen said in a statement Friday he has asked the board of the troubled organization ... 'to immediately launch a search for an interim president in order to give the organization the best chance to heal,' and took responsibility for problems that have swept out the senior leadership of the group in just a week." Cohen will step down. Mrs. McC: I hope you got a chance to read Bob Moser's takedown of the SPLC, linked yesterday. It was an eye-opener for me.
Beyond the Beltway
Pennsylvania. Adeel Hassan of the New York Times: "A [white] former police officer in Eas Pittsburgh, Pa., was acquitted Friday on all counts in connection with the shooting death of a black teenager who fled during a traffic stop last summer. The verdict in the death of Antwon Rose II came after a four-day trial in downtown Pittsburgh and less than four hours of jury deliberation.... Antwon, who was unarmed, ran after [Officer Michael] Rosfeld pulled over the car he was riding in with another teenager. The car ... matched the description of one involved in a nearby drive-by shooting about 10 minutes earlier.... Prosecutors say Mr. Rosfeld, 30, gave inconsistent statements about the shooting, including whether he thought Antwon had a gun.... Mr. Rosfeld had been on the East Pittsburgh police force for about three weeks and had been officially sworn in just hours before the shooting. Previously, he had been a member of the University of Pittsburgh police force, but he left the job after discrepancies were found between one of his sworn statements and evidence in an arrest, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has reported."
Texas. Thank You, San Antonio. Josh Israel of ThinkProgress: "The San Antonio City Council, on a 6-4 vote, removed a planned Chick-fil-A location from an airport concession agreement on Thursday, after a councilman flagged the company's anti-LGBTQ activity. Local media reported that the move followed a ThinkProgress report on Wednesday which noted the company's foundation gave $1.8 million in 2017 to tax exempt groups with anti-LGBTQ records."
Way Beyond
Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "... despite its reforms, Interpol [is] still vulnerable to manipulation by strongmen, despots and human rights violators."
Finally, some good news from London:
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Reader Comments (8)
While two completely different calamities, it's been morbidly fascinating to watch the Brexit clusterfuck crescendo in parallel to the Mueller investigation. That two of the world's supposed greatest democracies engaged in such fateful "democratic" decisions through outright manipulation by mendacious liars, corporate greed, and malign foreign influence, is a resounding testament to the state of the world today. And to make things worse, both cases are quickly careening into the Worst Case Scenario and all their collective, concerned citizens can do is watch on mouth agape and pat each other on the back that "justice was served" and "the people have spoken."
As Rachel was somewhere fishing and Lawrence was somewhere other than N.Y., both were called and told that Bobby 3sticks had finally finished and the report was out. Both hurried back to their stations in order to posit endless possibilities of what was contained or not in this long- awaited -for report. I soon tired of the "what ifs" and "let's sees" and watched Kamila Harris giving a long interview at Georgetown U. and learned about her background, her family, her career and liked very much that she laughs ––a lot––. I finished off the evening by listening to the Supreme Court Flowers case which to me and hopefully the Supremes, find that Flowers, a black man, who had the same Prosecutor for all 6 of his trials and who made sure the jurors were white, was racist and wrong and the case should be overturned.
@Marie: I, too, was taken aback by the Southern Poverty Law Center story. Yesterday I received a notice from the ACLU–-I am a member–– that disturbs me. Haven't read anything about this so wonder if you have:
"The FBI is grouping unconnected Black people under the label "Black Identity Extremists" for surveillance and investigation – despite the fact that no such group exists...
The bureau has refused to provide critical information we requested to learn why this classification exists, and which Black people and Black-led organizations have been targeted as a result. So today, we and the Center for Media Justice sued the FBI."
Stephen Moore????? good god–-he was instrumental in the policy making along with Laffer in the Brownback economic disaster in Kansas. But gee, makes sense for the monster man's choice picks for whatever––has nothing to do with suitability.
So––until we get the full monty from Mueller's report, get the Southern District's findings in N.Y., see what the House committees will uncover, we will have to wait and cross our little fingers that Humpty Dumpty will indeed fall off his goddamn wall and maybe we can start putting this country back together again.
My daughter thinks it is significant that Twitter Bird is silent today, no screeching No Collusions, no told-you-sos, and so forth. I am so pessimistic that I have turned it all off. Disappointed deeply that that sniveling weasel Don Jr. and the whole damn family seem to be getting off lightly, if not entirely... I find it incredibly impossible to believe that people BELOW the pinnacle and all those Russians have been indicted, and the kingpin remains free to damage all our lives further. There truly IS no silver lining. Even if the SDNY people are working diligently to bring down the Crime Kings and Queens, we can't wait, and yet, no impeachment and removal. They are free to rake in the cash and ruin our standing in the world...WTF about North Korea, our new best friends... Unless I am badly mistaken, our trust in Mueller has been violated. No recommendations for impeachment/removal and no jail time asked for-- I don't get it. I guess we really ARE completely down the rabbit hole and the world is a rotting carcass. Feel free to party, friends-- indentured servitude beckons and it won't matter a bit what happens now.
Will keep my emotions (tending toward the negative, I must say) on both the Mueller report (what we know of it) and the Moser revelations about the SPLC in check for now. Will withhold judgement (Mueller) and donations (SPLC) as I did for the ACLU for a few years following its egregious opinion on "Citizens United," tho' admit my very shallow assessment, based on appearance only, of Mr. Barr--an emblem of well-fed Republicanism self-regard--does have me worried.
To maintain the calm I have achieved I have decided I won't be having three cups of tea either.
Instead, decided to pick on Mr. Stephens NYTimes piece this AM. It was so easy, it didn't upset me at all.
"More false equivalence, Mr. Stephens.
You do OK as long as you criticize the president for his bad behavior, though sanity would agree it's an easy target. By attacking someone who lies constantly and obviously, cozies up to dictators, exhibits racial animus toward people of color, demonstrates personal pettiness to a degree that rivals little but his general ignorance, a pundit can hardly go wrong.
The challenge is finding something to praise him for. That demands real creativity.
And you're right about his supine party. It is his party and it is supine. That, too, is obvious.
What is equally obvious is that you don't seem to know the difference between lying, cheating, taking advantage of the weak and the vulnerable, despoiling the environment. lowering taxes on the rich and oh. by the way, forcing women to bring all potential babies to term (pretty much the R's platform) and the social programs Democrats support that actually help people.
You still believe the R's eight years of lies about healthcare (repeal and replace--with nothing)? No one else does.
You actually like a country in which one percent of the people control more than half of the nations wealth?
You think that's good for democracy?
Anyone who uses "socialism" as a swear word these days hasn't been paying attention to what American capitialism has done to the country in the last fifty years.
And is surely paying no attention to where we're heading."
@Ken: Here's a piece that you can tag on to yours:
Billionaires May Pose the Single Greatest Threat to American Democracy:
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/billionaires-may-pose-the-single-greatest-threat-to-american-democracy/
And I can list a bunch of other things that muddy up that democracy issue, but the rich guys with the $$$$ are front and center, for sure.
The initial news about the Mueller Report left me despondent . Then I read this (long) twitter thread from Seth Abramson. It's in 2 sections. Read both.
First thread:
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1109203639581712386
Second thread.
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1109212699823620140
It's worth remembering that Ken Starr did not indict anyone or recommend any prosecutions. So, to the extent that Mueller indicted 34 people, I guess he's already done more than Starr did.
In his sensational report, Starr did lay out what he considered grounds for impeaching Bill Clinton, some of which were mighty farfetched. I don't have any reason to think Mueller will enumerate grounds for impeachment, though he could provide a "road map" for impeaching Trump. (I don't think he will.)
It ain't over until the fat lady sings! Would that be Sarah H. Sanders?