;)
The Commentariat -- March 7, 2019
Late Morning Update:
** GOOD GRIEF! Judge T.S. Ellis gives Paul Manafort a sentence of only 47 months when the sentencing guidelines were 19-1/2 to 24 years. No link. Manafort spoke briefly before the sentencing and expressed no remorse but said the last couple of years had been difficult for his family and him.
The Last Parse (Maybe). Lucien Bruggeman of ABC News: "Michael Cohen ... asked one of his attorneys last summer to inquire with an attorney representing the president about receiving a pardon, Cohen's spokesman Lanny Davis told ABC News Thursday.... Cohen, at the time, was part of a joint defense agreement with the president and many of his advisers. 'Prior to Michael Cohen's decision to leave the "Joint Defense Group" and tell the truth on July 2, 2018, Michael was open to the ongoing "dangling" of a possible pardon by Trump representatives privately and in the media,' Davis said. 'During that time period, he directed his attorney to explore possibilities of a pardon at one point with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani as well as other lawyers advising President Trump. But after July 2, 2018, Mr. Cohen authorized me as a new lawyer to say publicly Mr. Cohen would never accept a pardon from President Trump even if offered,' Davis said, adding, 'That continues to be the case.' Davis' revelation appears to contradict testimony Cohen provided to the House Oversight Committee last week. 'I have never asked for it, nor would I accept a pardon from President Trump,' Cohen told the panel in his opening statement. Davis pointed to nuances in Cohen's testimony.... 'But the sentence was also literally true,' Davis argued. '[Cohen] never asked President Trump for a pardon. His lawyer explored the disingenuous "dangle" repeatedly floated by Rudy and Trump in one meeting and never followed up.'"
The Last Flip-Flop (Maybe). Cristina Marcos of the Hill: "The House is expected to vote Thursday on a resolution broadly condemning hate in the wake of freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) speaking critically of Israel. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) announced at a closed-door whip meeting that the resolution would come up later in the day. Legislative text is expected to be released Thursday morning."
The Last Lie for the Next Hour (Maybe). Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Thursday doubled down on his assertion he did not break the law when he involved himself in a scheme to pay two women who alleged in the lead-up to the 2016 election that they had extramarital affairs with him. 'It was not a campaign contribution, and there were no violations of the campaign finance laws by me. Fake News!' Trump tweeted."
"Nothing Ever Happened." Noah Bierman & Chris Megerian of the Los Angeles Times: "The president's legal team has prepared a roughly 80-page counter-report that could be released in whole or in part depending on what Mueller alleges [in his anticipated report], according to Rudolph W. Giuliani.... For example, Giuliani said, if Mueller mentions the notorious June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in New York involving three top Trump aides -- his son Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign chairman Paul Manafort -- and a Kremlin-linked lawyer promising dirt on Hillary Clinton, 'we would point out that nothing ever happened and it never went anywhere.'"
Opheli Lawler of New York: Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen "Nielsen's responses seemed to indicate that the secretary was either not aware of the severity of the treatment of migrants in the United States -- particularly children -- or she was intentionally giving misleading answers to obfuscate the endless reports of abuse against Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol.... 'There was no parent who has been deported to my knowledge without multiple opportunities to take their children with them,' Nielsen said. Nielsen's statement directly contradicts multiple news reports detailing traumatic deportations of parents who were separated from their children at the border and may never be reunited. Later, when being questioned by Representative Lauren Underwood, about the research showing that family separation can be traumatizing for children, Nielsen again claimed to be unaware of the specific effects of Trump's zero-tolerance policies."
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The Biggest Loser. David Nakamura, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump proclaimed in a freewheeling speech to a conference of conservatives last weekend that 'America is winning again.' But his administration has been on a pronounced losing streak over the past week. Trump is losing ground on top priorities to curb illegal immigration, cut the trade deficit and blunt North Korea's nuclear threat -- setbacks that complicate his planned reelection message as a can-do president who is making historic progress.... Yet as he has struggled to fulfill some of his signature campaign promises, Trump has consistently blamed others for his woes. He has criticized the administrations of Barack Obama and George W. Bush for not reforming the immigration system or reining in North Korea. He has railed at Democrats for failing to support his proposed border wall and implored them to ratify new trade deals. And he has even attacked fellow Republicans, obliquely slamming former House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) during a Rose Garden news conference last month for not having pushed faster to get a deal on the wall.... 'Not my fault I inherited this mess, but we're fixing it,' he said during the [CPAC] speech."
The Trump Scandals, Ctd. -- I Beg Your Pardon Edition
Rebecca Ballhaus of the Wall Street Journal: "Michael Cohen ... directed his attorney [Stephen Ryan] last spring to inquire about the possibility of a presidential pardon, weeks after federal agents raided his properties, Cohen's lawyer said Wednesday.... In testimony before the House Oversight Committee last week, Cohen said: 'I have never asked for, nor would I accept, a pardon from Mr. Trump.' Lanny Davis, a lawyer for Cohen, said Wednesday that in the months after the FBI raid, Cohen was open to a pardon from the president. 'During that time period, he directed his attorney to explore possibilities of a pardon at one point with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani as well as other lawyers advising President Trump,' Davis said. He referred to the discussions with the president's lawyers as the 'ongoing dangling' of a possible pardon.'" This is a short version of the WSJ report. The full, firewalled report is here. ...
... Robert Costa of the Washington Post, in a tweet, writes that Lanny Davis told him that Ballhaus's story "has it right."
... Mary Jalonick & Eric Tucker of the AP: "Asked about the pardon issue Tuesday evening, another Cohen attorney, Lanny Davis, said his client was speaking carefully during his public testimony. He acknowledged on MSNBC that Cohen 'was certainly looking at the option of a pardon' before he decided to come clean and turn on Trump. But since then, Davis said, Cohen has been clear that he wouldn't accept a pardon." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: It's pretty hard to square Cohen's sworn public testimony with Davis's assertion here. Asking one's attorney to "inquire about the possibility of a pardon" sounds a helluva lot like "asking for a pardon." I suppose one could argue that "exploring" the possibility of a pardon, while mulling one's options, is not exactly the same as asking for a pardon -- kind of like the young man who asks his girlfriend, "Would you consider marrying me?" & claims later when he gets cold feet that it was an academic question, not a proposal. But that is splitting hairs. In any event, it would seem it was not Trump who was "dangling a pardon" in front of Cohen but Cohen who was "dangling cooperation/lying" in front of Trump. Unless there are some mitigating factors. ...
... One possible mitigating factor: who was paying Cohen's lawyers? digby: "Cohen and his legal team at that time [April - May 2018] had an unusual relationship. The Trump Organization had agreed to pay both the law firm representing him and the special master who had been assigned to review the thousands of documents seized in the raids on Cohen's office and homes to remove those that would involve attorney-client privilege. The bills piled up quickly and Trump reportedly balked at paying them (of course,) so Cohen's attorneys decided to leave the case last June. By July, Cohen had hired new lawyers and had decided to cooperate. Those few weeks in which they were all sharing information is when Cohen's lawyer, Stephen Ryan, allegedly spoke to Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, about a pardon. Ryan isn't talking.... [AND] Those search warrants were served on Michael Cohen on April 9. Just 10 days before that, the New York Times had reported that Trump attorney John Dowd had discussed pardons with the lawyers for Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort, so the issue was already in the air when Cohen got nabbed." ...
... Michael Schmidt, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump's lead lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, said Wednesday that lawyers for several people facing scrutiny from the Justice Department ... had contacted him to see whether the president would pardon their clients. Mr. Giuliani declined to identify the lawyers who broached the subject with him or their clients. He made his statement in response to questions about Mr. Trump's former lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, who has told federal prosecutors in Manhattan about pardon discussions last year that involved Mr. Giuliani and a lawyer who was expressing interest in representing Mr. Cohen, according to people briefed on the matter.... Mr. Giuliani ... said he always insisted to defense lawyers that Mr. Trump would not consider granting pardons until the investigations were long over.... 'I would say with a few lawyers: You shouldn't make any decision based on the assumption of a pardon,' Mr. Giuliani said in recounting the discussions.... Mr. Cohen recently provided information to federal prosecutors in Manhattan about the pardon discussions as part of his effort to assist the authorities and potentially reduce his lengthy prison sentence." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: In an interview with the New York Post in November 2018, Trump said, "It was never discussed, but I wouldn't take it off the table," regarding a pardon for Paul Manafort. "Why would I take it off the table?"
... Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "Michael Cohen has claimed to the House Intelligence Committee that he discussed the subject of a pardon with President Trump's attorney Jay Sekulow, bringing another of Trump's representatives into an ongoing dispute over precisely who opened discussions about the matter. Under penalty of perjury, Cohen alleged to lawmakers that he discussed pardons with Sekulow in addition to Rudolph W. Giuliani, another of Trump's lawyers, according to four people familiar with Cohen's testimony who spoke on the condition of anonymity.... Cohen appeared before the committee for about eight hours Wednesday, concluding a closed-door interview that began last week.... The people ... declined to provide specifics, including the dates or substance of his alleged conversations with Sekulow and Giuliani." ...
... ** The WashPo story has been updated, with Robert Costa added to the byline. New Lede: "Michael Cohen's former legal team reached out to President Trump's lawyers seeking a pardon, Cohen's current attorney said late Wednesday, largely settling speculation about who initiated conversations about the matter but raising new questions about whether Cohen was honest in his public testimony to Congress last week.Cohen's lawyer Lanny J. Davis said in an interview that Cohen directed his former attorney, Stephen Ryan, to contact Trump's representatives after they 'dangled' the possibility of pardons 'in their public statements.'" Also: "On Wednesday, Cohen gave the House Intelligence Committee documents that purportedly illustrate how the president's lawyers edited his 2017 statements to Congress.... The committee has not made those documents public. According to people familiar with what's contained in the documents, the changes were plentiful.... But one of these people said that the changes were not substantive and that there had been no direct changes made to Cohen's original claims about the timeline along which Trump pursued the real estate project in Russia." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: IOW, the "new & reformed" Michael Cohen is still telling tales under oath. Other than "a leopard doesn't change its spots," I don't get it. There is zero upside to his falsely volunteering he didn't ask for a pardon & very little downside to staying silent on the matter or admitting upfront that he did consider continuing to conspire with Trump but ultimately decided not to do so. ...
... ** Eliana Larramendia, et al., of ABC News: "In the weeks following the federal raids on former Michael Cohen's law office and residences last April..., [Cohen] was contacted by two New York attorneys who claimed to be in close contact with Rudy Giuliani, the current personal attorney to Trump, according to sources with direct knowledge of the discussions. The outreach came just as Cohen ... was wrangling with ... whether to remain in a joint defense agreement with the president and others, or to flip on ... [Trump]. The sources described the lawyers' contact with Cohen as an effort to keep him in the tent.... The sources ... said the two lawyers first reached out to Cohen late in April of last year and that the discussions continued for about two months. The attorneys, who have no known formal ties to the White House, urged Cohen not to leave the joint defense agreement, the sources told ABC News..., and also offered a Plan B. In the event Cohen opted to exit the agreement, they could join his legal team and act as a conduit between Cohen and the president's lawyers.... The sources tell ABC News that during the multiple conversations between Cohen and the attorneys, there was no explicit discussion or offer of a presidential pardon for Cohen. But the sources said there was an implicit message that if Cohen hired these lawyers, it could preserve or increase his chances of a pardon down the road...." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Read the whole story, especially if you'd like some insight into how mobsters work. These unnamed attorneys (Biscuits & Books?) are cutouts for a cutout (Rudy). ...
... Manu Raju & Jeremy Herb of CNN: "Michael Cohen on Wednesday provided the House Intelligence Committee with new documents showing edits to the false written statement he delivered to Congress in 2017 about the Trump Organization's pursuit of the Trump Tower Moscow project into the 2016 campaign season, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. The documents Cohen provided are intended to further explain his public testimony last week, in which Cohen said that ... Donald Trump's then-personal lawyer Jay Sekulow made changes to his statement to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, and that it was reviewed ahead of time by lawyers like Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner....It's unclear what Cohen's documents show was specifically changed in the statement. Cohen is testifying Wednesday behind closed doors at the House Intelligence Committee." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Nicholas Fandos & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Michael D. Cohen on Wednesday provided new documents to the House Intelligence Committee that he said illustrated changes made at the request of President Trump's lawyers to a knowingly false written statement that he delivered to Congress in 2017.... Mr. Cohen ... brought multiple drafts of his 2017 statement along with emails with Mr. Trump's lawyers about its drafting, hoping to back up claims that he made last week at an open hearing before the House Oversight and Reform Committee ... [when he] testified that there were 'changes made, additions' to the original written statement, including about the length of negotiations over a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign.... Two of the people familiar with the documents and Mr. Cohen's testimony ... said that at least some of the changes appeared to play down the knowledge of ... Ivanka Trump, about the project."
Anita Kumar of Politico: "... Donald Trump's strategy on congressional investigations has amounted to a two-pronged strategy: dodge requests -- and attack, attack, attack. The White House launched a fire-breathing public relations response to House Democrats while the Trump administration has refused or delayed turning over documents in 30 investigations by a dozen different committees, according to House Democrats." (Also linked yesterday.)
Jim VandeHei & Mike Allen of Axios: "Even without seeing Robert Mueller's report, or knowing what prosecutors with the Southern District of New York have unearthed, or what congressional investigators will find, we already have witnessed the biggest political scandal in American history." VandeHei & Allen draw parallels -- where they exist -- to historic scandals.
Carol Lee of NBC News: "Former White House chief of staff John Kelly said he disagreed with some Trump administration policies -- particularly on immigration -- but dodged questions Wednesday about the president reportedly intervening to secure top-secret security clearances< for his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Kelly, in an appearance at Duke University, did not deny reports that ... Donald Trump circumvented the usual process to grant the security clearances or that he later wrote a memo outlining his concerns about it. He simply said he believes any such conversations with the president would be privileged and that he's not at liberty to discuss security clearances.... Relatively subdued and cautious, Kelly landed some gloved swipes on his former boss -- at one point saying if [Hillary Clinton] ... had won the presidency and asked him to serve, he would have worked for her." Lee cites numerous instances where Kelly said he disagreed with Trump.
Joshua Partlow, et al., of the Washington Post: Juan "Quintero, 42, was so trusted by the Trumps that he had not one but two jobs working for the family. He was a greenskeeper at the Trump National Golf Club Hudson Valley in Hopewell Junction, N.Y., where he would work eight-hour shifts on weekdays. Then he would put in five more hours each day as a contractor at the 171-acre hunting retreat called Leather Hill Preserve, which serves as a private weekend playground for President Trump's sons and the property's co-owners. He also was an immigrant from Mexico who had crossed the border more than two decades ago and was working illegally in the United States. In January, Quintero lost his golf course job after 18 years of employment -- part of a purge of undocumented workers from Trump's businesses amid revelations that the company relied on illegal labor for years.... Gone, too, was his side job at the hunting retreat.... Quintero said he never directly told Eric Trump about his immigration status. But he said he remained employed by the hunting lodge for more than a year after not providing the owners with a Social Security number when they sought to issue him a debit card." (Also linked yesterday.)
Trump Hides CIA Killings. Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "President Trump on Wednesday weakened a rule that required the government to annually make public its estimates of civilian bystanders killed in airstrikes outside conventional war zones -- increasing the secrecy that cloaks one of the most contentious aspects of the fight against terrorists. In an executive order, Mr. Trump revoked a disclosure requirement that President Barack Obama imposed in July 2016. The change was the latest in a series of ways that Mr. Trump has dismantled the architecture that Mr. Obama built over time to constrain the use of drone strikes and commando raids targeting Islamist militants in places like tribal Pakistan and rural Yemen.... Mr. Trump's executive order noted that since 2016, Congress has enacted a law that separately requires the Pentagon to issue annual reports about bystander deaths from all of its operations.... Still, the law ... does not extend to airstrikes by the C.I.A., which has carried out its own drone campaign...."
Ana Swanson & Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "The United States trade deficit in goods ballooned to its largest level in history, reaching $891.3 billion in 2018, despite President Trump's repeated promise to reduce that figure. The gap between the goods that the United States sells to China and what China sells to America rose to a record $419 billion, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. That gap has been a particular source of ire for Mr. Trump, who has imposed steep tariffs on Chinese goods to try and slow imports into America. In December, the overall goods and services deficit rose to $59.8 billion, up 19 percent from the previous month. It was the highest monthly trade deficit in a decade. The trade deficit, or the gap between value of goods and services imported into the country and exported out of it, expanded mainly because of the strong American economy, which allowed Americans to purchase more from abroad. A strong dollar, which weighed on American exports, and a continued shortfall in American savings also helped to buoy the metric." (Also linked yesterday.)
Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "In her first congressional appearance since Democrats took control of the House, [Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen] Nielsen was defiant in the face of criticism of the administration for its treatment of migrant families at the border, especially its decision last summer to separate children from their parents.... Democrats demanded that Ms. Nielsen address the chaos that followed the family separation decision, the deaths of migrant children in federal custody and Mr. Trump's claim of a national emergency at the border that he has said requires construction of a border wall.... 'Ou capacity is already severely strained, but these increases will overwhelm the system entirely,' Ms. Nielsen told members of the House Homeland Security Committee. 'This is not a manufactured crisis. This is truly an emergency.'... Ms. Nielsen applauded the president's demand for a wall. She also urged lawmakers to pass legislation that would allow the indefinite detention of families and to more easily turn back claims of asylum by migrants from Central America, who have been arriving in record numbers at the southern border." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... This is the Trump administration. Nielsen argues with Democratic committee members about the definition of "cage." Watch to the end:
... Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "Customs and Border Protection has compiled a list of 59 mostly American reporters, attorneys and activists for border agents to stop for questioning when crossing the U.S-Mexican border at San Diego-area checkpoints, and agents have questioned or arrested at least 21 of them, according to documents obtained by NBC station KNSD-TV and interviews with people on the list. Several people on the list confirmed to NBC News that they had been pulled aside at the border after the date the list was compiled and were told they were being questioned as part of a 'national security investigation.'" ...
... Tom Jones, et al., of NBC 7 San Diego: "In addition to flagging the individuals for secondary screenings, the Homeland Security source told NBC 7 that the agents also created dossiers on each person listed. 'We are a criminal investigation agency, we're not an intelligence agency,' the Homeland Security source told NBC 7 Investigates. 'We can't create dossiers on people and they're creating dossiers. This is an abuse of the Border Search Authority.'"
Joshua Eaton of ThinkProgress: "The FBI failed last year to complete 276,000 gun background checks within a three-day time window meant to prevent the sale of firearms to individuals not legally allowed to own them, data obtained by ThinkProgress showed. The data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which has not been previously published, shows how many gun background checks in 2018 took longer than three business days. If a background check is not completed within three days, federal laws allow a gun dealer make the sale anyway, even though many gun dealers -- including some large retailers -- choose not to." --s
Fred Barbash of the Washington Post: "Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross acted in 'bad faith,' broke several laws and violated the constitutional underpinning of representative democracy when he added a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. In finding a breach of the Constitution's enumeration clause, which requires a census every 10 years to determine each state's representation in Congress, the 126-page ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco went further than a similar decision on Jan. 15 by Judge Jesse Furman in New York. The Supreme Court has already agreed to review Furman's narrower decision, with arguments set for April 23, but may now need to expand its inquiry to constitutional dimensions.... Unable to find any expert in the Census Bureau who approved of his plan to add the citizenship question, Seeborg wrote, Ross engaged in a 'cynical search to find some reason, any reason' to justify the decision. He was fully aware that the question would produce a census undercount, particularly among Latinos, the judge said. That would have probably reduced the representation in Congress -- and thus in the electoral college that decides the presidency -- of states with significant immigrant populations, notably California. Because census data is used to apportion distribution of federal funds, an undercount would also have cheated these same jurisdictions, the judge said." ...
... John Bowden of the Hill: "A federal judge [Richard Seeborg] ruled against the Trump administration Wednesday, blocking the Commerce Department from adding a question on citizenship to the 2020 U.S. Census. In a ruling, a judge for the Northern District of California wrote that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross's search for a plausible reason to add a citizenship question to the census fell under the umbrella of an 'arbitrary and capricious' decision by the government.... 'Moreover, Secretary Ross's conclusion that adding the citizenship question would enable the Census Bureau to obtain more "complete and accurate data" in response to the [Justice Department's] request is not only unsupported, it is directly contradicted by the scientific analysis contained in the Administrative Record,' Seeborg continued." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Brian Feldman of New York: "Democratic members of Congress today put forward legislation to reinstate rules upholding the principle of net neutrality. The Save the Internet Act of 2019 is a brief piece of legislation that restores the Democrat-controlled FCC's Open Internet Order of 2015, and throws out the Republican-controlled FCC's 2017 undoing of said regulation." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Sheryl Stolberg & Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "House Democratic leaders have put off a vote on a resolution condemning anti-Semitism and bigotry after a backlash from rank-and-file lawmakers who said Representative Ilhan Omar, whose comments gave rise to the measure, was being unfairly singled out. Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat, told reporters on Wednesday morning that the language of the resolution was still being drafted and no date for a vote had been set. But by Wednesday afternoon, the uproar over Ms. Omar had spread beyond the House, to the White House and the Senate. As House Democrats questioned why their leaders had not moved earlier to condemn President Trump for his own racially charged comments, Mr. Trump weighed in on Twitter. Seeking to exploit divisions among Democrats, he ... [wrote,] 'It is shameful that House Democrats won't take a stronger stand against Anti-Semitism in their conference. Anti-Semitism has fueled atrocities throughout history and it's inconceivable they not act to condemn it!'... But Mr. Trump has been accused repeatedly of trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes." ...
... Adrienne Masha Varkiani of ThinkProgress: "Republican lawmakers continue to criticize Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) after recent comments she made about Israel, which many say involved rhetoric playing on anti-Semitic tropes. But it seems few remember that Republicans have a poor track record when it comes to anti-Semitism, voting in February to reject one of their own proposals that would have condemned it.... In February, 177 House Republicans voted against a bill that included a motion to combat anti-Semitism -- an amendment they had introduced themselves.... The amendment was tacked onto a bill that would end U.S. military assistance for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.... In the end, every Democrat voted in favor of the amendment, which unanimously passed. And nearly every House Republican voted against the final bill[.]" --s
Maggie Astor of the New York Times: "The House Oversight and Reform Committee is investigating allegations of voter suppression in Georgia under Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who has since become governor. The investigation was revealed in letters that the committee's Democratic leaders sent on Wednesday to Mr. Kemp and his successor as secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger. The letters instructed Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger -- both Republicans -- to provide by March 20 a wide range of documents concerning voter roll purges; holds placed on voter registration applications; polling site changes and closings; and other voting-related issues. The committee also requested all documents related to the potential conflict of interest Mr. Kemp faced in administering an election in which he was a candidate." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This investigation is something the Justice Department should be doing (and should have begun, on an expedited schedule, well before the election). But no. I hope the committee ends up sending a criminal referral against Kemp to the DOJ & the referral lands on the desk of a career attorney.
#McSallyToo. Yvonne Sanchez of the Arizona Republic: "A year after saying she was sexually abused in high school, Sen. Martha McSally revealed during a congressional hearing Wednesday that she was raped by a superior officer while she was in the Air Force. McSally, an Arizona Republican, said only that an attack happened and implied that it occurred early in her military career that spanned more than two decades. The personal disclosure came during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel intended to prevent and better respond to sexual assaults in the military in the future. McSally has been a tireless advocate for the military, which she says should include a system that protects women and men who have faced sexual assault and abuse."
Presidential Race 2020
Paul Farhi of the Washington Post: "The Democratic National Committee has decided to exclude Fox News Channel from televising any of its candidate debates during the 2019-2020 cycle as a result of published revelations detailing the cable network's close ties to the Trump administration. In a statement Wednesday, DNC Chairman Tom Perez cited a story in the New Yorker magazine this week that detailed how Fox has promoted President Trump's agenda. The article, entitled 'The Making of the Fox News White House,' [also linked here Monday] suggested that the news network had become a 'propaganda' vehicle for Trump.... Numerous networks, including Fox, have submitted proposals to the DNC to televise one of the 12 scheduled debates, which will start in June. So far, the organization has only awarded rights to the first two — to NBC (along with sister networks MSNBC and Telemundo) and to CNN." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Here's an edited, condensed transcript of David Remnick's interview of Jane Mayer. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Update. Tal Axelrod of the Hill: "President Trump on Wednesday responded to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) refusing to let Fox News host a Democratic primary debate by threatening to 'do the same thing' with other networks during the general election. 'Democrats just blocked @FoxNews from holding a debate. Good, then I think I'll do the same thing with the Fake News Networks and the Radical Left Democrats in the General Election debates!' Trump tweeted Wednesday." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. Ken sez Trump is "still a little confused about the limitations of his role" in operating & promoting state TV while squelching competing networks. ...
Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: "Kamala D. Harris was [San Francisco]'s top prosecutor, running to become California's elected attorney general, when a scandal stunned her office and threatened to upend her campaign. One of Harris's top deputies had emailed a colleague that a crime lab technician had become 'increasingly UNDEPENDABLE for testimony. Weeks later, the technician allegedly took home cocaine from the lab, possibly tainting evidence and raising concerns about hundreds of cases. Neither Harris nor the prosecutors working for her had informed defense attorneys of the problems -- despite rules requiring such disclosure. Harris 'failed to disclose information that clearly should have been disclosed,' Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo wrote in a scathing decision in May 2010.... Now this episode, which undercut Harris's image as a polished leader and raised questions about her management style, has taken on new relevance as the senator seeks the Democratic nomination for the presidency."
Steve M. anticipates a scenario in which voters overwhelmingly elect Trump's Democratic opponent, Trump refuses to accept defeat, and McConnell, Fox "News" & Trumpbots back up Trump. Mrs. McC: I know this sounds doomsday conspiracy nuts, but Steve describes what increasingly seems like a plausible scenario. I can't forget that my second thought at learning of Antonin Scalia's death was, "Ah, Obama gets another Supreme Court pick."
A view of Aaron Schock's Congressional office.... Andy Kravetz & Chris Kaergard of the Peoria, Illinois, Journal Star: “After four years, legal twists and turns that rise to the level of either high comedy or incredible drama, the public corruption case of former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock is over. The Peoria Republican, who resigned from office four years ago amid allegations of fiscal misconduct, entered a plea on behalf of his campaign committee to a Federal Election Commission violation for inadequately keeping paperwork. Schock himself didn't plead to anything. The committee, as an entity, was found in violation. To be dropped were what's left of nearly two dozen allegations against him claiming years of misconduct. His plea isn't typical for federal court. Instead of a conviction, Schock entered a program known as 'pretrial diversion.' A $25,000 fine was levied and the period of supervision under the pretrial diversion is to last for six months. Also Schock, 37, must repay his main campaign committee and the IRS money as outlined in the agreement." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Luke Barnes of ThinkProgress: "Ever since the violent 'Unite the Right' rally that rocked Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, the far-right has been on the defensive.... One group, however, responded to the increased scrutiny by hiding its overt far-right sympathies and attempting to rebrand itself as a GOP-friendly organization -- actively encouraging its members to join local chapters of the Republican Party. 'Identity Evropa leadership *strongly* encourages our members to get involved in local politics,' the group's leader, Patrick Casey, wrote in November 2017 message, obtained by the autonomous media collective Unicorn Riot. 'The GOP is essentially the White man's party at this point ... so it makes far more sense for us to subvert it than to create our own party.'" --s
Kate Briquelet of the Daily Beast: "Famed attorney Alan Dershowitz was accused of involvement in billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's alleged sex-trafficking ring by an attorney for one of Epstein's victims, who claimed in federal court on Wednesday that the release of sealed documents will prove it. Paul Cassell, who represents Virginia Roberts Giuffre, told the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that the testimony of other witnesses will show Dershowitz's involvement in the alleged trafficking of 'his close friend Jeffrey Epstein.'... The hearing came nearly two weeks after a Florida judge ruled federal prosecutors violated the law when they inked a non-prosecution deal with Epstein in 2007 -- and concealed that agreement from more than 30 of Epstein's victims. The Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the secret deal, which was handled by Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta, who was U.S. Attorney in Miami at the time. Dershowitz ... was one member of Epstein's legal team that helped broker the unusual non-prosecution agreement. For his part, Dershowitz and his lawyers are also requesting the court release the trove of documents to the public — but they say it's in order to prove his innocence."
** Jessica Glenza & Oliver Milman of the Guardian: "A century-long war to remove lead from Americans' daily lives has been successful on some fronts, but a lack of regulation, political will and funding has meant the contamination of drinking water remains a public health crisis.... Even low levels can impair a child's IQ, academic achievement and ability to pay attention. US studies have shown lead-exposed children are more likely to be aggressive, leading to bullying, truancy and even jail.... Elevated levels of lead have been found in schools across the US in the wake of the toxic water scandal that has roiled Flint, Michigan, since 2014.... Across the US, four in 10 school districts did not test for lead in the previous 12 months, a 2017 report by the US Government Accountability Office found. Of the 43% of districts that had tested, which cover 35 million students, more than one-third found lead.... Estimates of how many billions of dollars it would take to gradually remove lead from schools vary widely, but experts believe the investment could save as much as $84bn annually -- the estimated cost of healthcare, education and incarceration of children harmed by lead annually." --s
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Reader Comments (10)
The Pretender, still a little confused about the limitations of his role:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/432961-trump-threatens-to-block-networks-from-hosting-debates-after-dems
@safari: Here we are inundated with the myriad malodorous shit storms that come at us every day and yet, according to the story you linked about lead contamination, this is, in my opinion, a far greater problem. I'm always taken aback by those that appear to value the unborn but don't give a rat's ass about them once they ARE born. This piece––and I thank you for it–-is scary and depressing and those that are effected should be screaming bloody murder. I liked this paragraph:
"In June, the Natural Resources Defense Council launched a lawsuit against the city, joined by a group of Newark public school teachers, seeking to force its hand in confronting the problem. Mayor Ras Baraka has called on President Trump not to build a wall – but to use that money to fix water infrastructure in places like Newark."
You want an emergency? You got it !
Watch our idiot- in- chief call Tim Cook "Tim Apple" in his face.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a26741785/tim-apple-donald-trump-ceo-meeting-tim-cook/
Bad Limerick Time
The time it hath come for some fun.
Malefactors, they seem on the run.
Bad limericks we need,
Our souls to be freed,
For the nation is very near done.
Mike Cohen 'fore Congress stepped up,
Testifying 'bout Trump and wassup.
Of crimes and obstruction and lies he did preach,
All very helpful, the prez to impeach,
But now the guy just won't shut up.
Comeuppance time doth commence.
Obstruction, the Russians, the fence.
The walls they close in,
And R's must begin
Considering li'l mikey pence.
Trump, right out of the box
Took his marching orders from Fox.
Shine, Sean, and Friends,
From their fake news playpens,
Give the country a dose of smallpox.
@AK––oh, thou art such a poet! So good! We needed that.
Here is also something we need: A frank discussion about human rights. This Vox piece is excellent: The IIhan Omar controversy shows how little we care about Palestinian lives.
https://www.vox.com/first-person/2019/3/7/18253521/israel-ilhan-omar-antisemitism
Human rights are universal––OR they are not.
The Trouble With Michael
Liar. Check. Convicted liar. Double check. Career liar for an even bigger liar. Triple check.
So what's to like about his ongoing (apparently never ending) testimony before congressional committees?
A lot. He's filled in some blanks and clarified some other areas. He's produced documentary evidence of serious campaign finance law violations. But he won't shut up. This is, as Marie points out, somewhat befuddling. What does he think he's gaining here? Nothing. He's hurting himself. There are very good reasons for Cohen not to lie to Congress (more jail time, for one).
But, as they used to say in the computer graphics world, way back when, WYSIWYG. The wizzywig rule still applies. What you see is what you get. Look, Trump would never have hired the guy and kept him by his side for more than a decade if Cohen wasn't a cheap, crooked liar. Any sign of being on the up and up and abiding by the rule of law is anathema to Trump. A crooked con artist doesn't hire Clarence Darrow as his personal attorney.
What Democrats need to do, as any prosecutors relying on the testimony of a convicted felon must, is to provide due diligence. Corroboration is key. Anything that can't be corroborated might be useful as backfill material or to provide some direction, but without a tight case, it ain't worth diddly in any court, or in impeachment proceedings.
Luckily, Trump has provided plenty of evidence himself, but as Democrats are now finding, he's trying to ensure that no one else can back up Cohen's testimony by stonewalling. Subpoenas will be necessary and then the whole megillah will probably land in the laps of Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts for final adjudication. One can only hope that Roberts does not awaken from his state of jurisprudential rationality by then.
In any event, Cohen is damaged goods. But everyone knew that going in. If his stories are wavering here and there it's largely because Cohen is Cohen. The watchword here is Don't trust. Verify. Same as with any crook. Like Trump.
Tim Apple? I wonder if he'll ever invite Warren Berkshire-Hathaway to lunch some day. Probably won't be inviting Jeff Amazon anytime soon. But I hear that he talks to Rupert Fox quite a bit. What if he wanted to invite that electric car guy? Would he send an invitation to Elon Tesla, Elon SpaceX, Elon Neuralink, Elon Boring, or Elon PayPal?
Maybe I'll ask Trump to dinner some time. I'll send my invite to Donald Closed By Court Order.
Here is a picture of a WWE Cage Match. And here is a picture of migrant detention center. Do you see the difference?
@RAS: Yes. There's no lock on the gate in the picture of the WWE cage match.
Re Manafort, we should not fret about the token sentence imposed by Judge Ellis. Judge Amy Berman Jackson in DC will not be so easily swayed by Manafort’s sob story and likely will throw the proverbial book at him.