The Commentariat -- April 22, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The Supreme Court has agreed to take up a set of high-profile cases involving gay rights and the rights of transgender people in the workplace. The justices announced Monday that they will consider whether existing federal law banning employment-related sex discrimination also prohibits discriminating against individuals on the basis of sexual orientation or because they are transgender.... The cases are expected to be argued in the fall."

Katie Galiato of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Monday insisted that 'nobody disobeys my orders,' apparently disputing the assertion from special counsel Robert Mueller's report that that his former White House counsel twice refused to follow through on the president's order to dismiss Mueller. Trump issued the declaration ... during a brief exchange with reporters a Monday's White House Easter egg roll. It was the first time the president has answered reporters' questions since Mueller released his report ... last week." Mrs. McC: "Nobody disobeys my orders" is the best authoritarian statement coming out of the White House since then Secretary of State Al Haig, following the shooting of Ronald Reagan, declared "I am in control here." Congratulations, Donald. And BTW, you were both lying.

Chuck Todd, et al., of NBC News: "The Mueller report makes a damning case about Trump's dishonesty: One of the unmistakable takeaways after reading the Mueller report is how the president of the United States wasn't honest with the American public when it came to Russia and the entire Russia probe. During the 2016 campaign and afterward, Trump raised doubts that Russia really interfered in the election.... Trump denied that Putin and Russia wanted him to win.... Trump said he had no business ties with Russia.... Trump and his team said former FBI Director James Comey was fired because of his handling of the Clinton email investigation.... And Trump wasn't forthcoming -- especially early on -- about that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians."

Politico: "... Donald Trump said Monday that he would not nominate Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve.... Senate Republicans had warned the White House against naming the businessman and 2012 presidential hopeful to serve on the body's board of governors. 'My friend Herman Cain, a truly wonderful man, has asked me not to nominate him for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board,' Trump tweeted. 'I will respect his wishes. Herman is a great American who truly loves our Country!'" ...

... Andrew Kaczynski & Paul LeBlanc of CNN: "One of ... Donald Trump's picks to serve on the Federal Reserve Board has written that women should be banned from refereeing, announcing or beer vending at men's college basketball games, asking if there was any area in life 'where men can take vacation from women.' Stephen Moore ... made those and similar comments in several columns reviewed by CNN's KFile that were published on the website of the conservative National Review magazine in 2001, twice in 2002 and 2003. In a 2000 column, Moore complained about his wife voting for Democrats, writing, 'Women are sooo malleable! No wonder there's a gender gap.' In another column in 2000, Moore criticized female athletes advocating for pay equality, writing that they wanted 'equal pay for inferior work.'... Moore told CNN's KFile in an email, 'This was a spoof. I have a sense of humor.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: There's no indication in Moore's writings from the early 2000s that these were jokes or "spoofs." He later defended some of his written remarks by making more super-sexist comments.

Special Shoutout to confederate opinionator Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner, who writes, "In the escalating battle of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates to see who can offer the most free stuff, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has taken the extraordinary step of calling for having the government forgive student loan debt. This pander ... will be a slap in the face to those who have already struggled to pay off their student loans without government assistance." That's similar to saying that the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery was "a slap in the face to those who" escaped slavery by some other means or were born subsequent to passage of the Amendment. A big reason people are "conservative" is they just can't stand the idea of other people getting breaks they didn't get.

Rebecca Shabad of NBC News: "Lawyers for ... Donald Trump and the Trump Organization are suing House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings to block a subpoena for years of financial records from accounting firm Mazars USA.... Earlier this month, Cummings, D-Md., issued the subpoena to Mazars regarding Trump's finances to corroborate the testimony of his former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, in February."

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Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: If House Democrats ever get the guts to get off the dime, we are facing the rare prospect of the best of all possible worlds vis-a-vis Trump's comeuppance. Here's what I have in mind. (1) The House impeaches Trump. (2) The Senate fails to convict him. This is essential, because it keeps pence out of the presidency & therefore unable to pardon Trump. (3) A Democrats wins the presidency next year. (4) A prosecutor brings criminal charges against Trump on January 21, 2021. (5) A jury convicts Trump & a judge sentences him to prison. It's true Trump would probably try to pardon himself, so that would give us a 2a -- Trump pardons himself -- and a 2b -- the Supremes laugh his self-pardon out of court.

Giuliani for the Defense. Tim O'Donnell of the Week: "President Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani made the talk show rounds on Sunday to defend his client.... Giuliani told [Jake] Tapper on CNN's State of the Union that 'there's nothing wrong with taking information from the Russians,' saying that campaigns get information on their opponents from so many different sources. On NBC's Meet the Press, Giuliani told [Chuck] Todd that using material stolen by foreign adversaries in a campaign isn't fundamentally a problem -- it just depends on the material itself.... Giuliani -- who said that much of the Mueller report is questionable -- argued that it's 'hard to believe' Russian interference did much to sway the 2016 election.... Giuliani told [Chris] Wallace [of Fox 'News"] that even if Trump had fired the special counsel, it would not have been obstruction. Giuliani's point was that Trump had good reason to replace Mueller because he hired 'very, very questionable' people to investigate Trump." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: So it looks as if Trump is planning to get Vlad to do his hacking again next year. Once again, Giuliani slides easily from ethical relatavism into flat-out unethical assertions. Note to Democratic candidates: tell all your staff to write zillions of e-mails trashing Trump & nothing that even hints of a complaint about your candidate or other staff members. ...

The idea that it is okay -- separate and apart from it being a criminal offense -- that we should be telling future candidates in the run-up to an election in 2020 that if an adversary, a foreign adversary, is offering information against a political opponent, that it's okay and right and proper and American and patriotic, it seems he's saying, to take that information and that's okay -- that's an extraordinary statement and I would hope he would retract it. -- Preet Bharara, on "State of the Union," reacting to Giuliani's assertions that it's okay for campaigns to use stolen material from hostile foreign governments

... Ben Kamisar of NBC News: "Rudy Giuliani ... suggested Sunday that the American people had a 'right to know' about the private Democratic emails released during a state-sponsored hack by the Russian government aimed at bolstering Trump's 2016 election." Mrs. McC: Okay, Rudy, open up all the Trump campaign's & the RNC's e-mail accounts. The American people have a right to know. ...

... Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "Fox News anchor Chris Wallace confronted Trump attorney ... Rudy Giuliani over Donald Trump's claim of 'no obstruction' following the release of the Mueller report, flatly declaring 'That's not true!'... 'They're having a good day, I'm having a good day too,' Trump said during an event to honor wounded warriors, to laughter from some in the crowd. 'It was called no collusion, no obstruction.' 'But Mayor, that's not true!' Wallace told Giuliani following the clip. 'The Mueller report makes clear, especially on the issue of collusion -- obstruction, rather, that he's leaving it to Congress.' 'I agree with that,' Giuliani said, as Wallace cited portions of the report that indicated this. That's a key admission, and contradicts what ... William Barr said both in his four-page memo, and his pre-release press conference.... Wallace confronted Giuliani on several other aspects of the Mueller report, including the 37 times Trump said he couldn't recall something in his written responses to Mueller, and Trump's attempts to get Mueller fired, and Giuliani largely responded by going into lengthy digressions that ran the clock out on the interview."

Emily Cochrane & Katie Edmondson of the New York Times: "Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said on 'Meet the Press,'... [that] some of the president's actions detailed in the Mueller report, if proved, might warrant impeachment. But asked about beginning an impeachment inquiry, he said that 'we may get to that, we may not,' adding that his committee's task at hand was 'to go through all the evidence, all the information and to go where the evidence leads us.' Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, conceded on 'Face The Nation' that Democrats must be 'very careful' in weighing whether to begin impeachment proceedings.... Even if the House voted to impeach Mr. Trump but the Senate failed to remove him, Mr. Cummings said, 'I think history would smile upon us for standing up for the Constitution.' With representatives back home in their districts on a recess, House Democrats will convene on Monday on a caucus conference call in the hopes of getting on the same page. [In one of many similar Easter messages, Trump tweeted,] 'How do you impeach a Republican President for a crime that was committed by the Democrats?' he tweeted on Sunday evening. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!'"

Nadler Says Ignorance of the Law Is No Excuse. Michael Burke of the Hill: "Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that he doesn't understand why special counsel Robert Mueller didn't charge Donald Trump Jr. and others involved in the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with criminal conspiracy. Nadler, appearing on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' noted that Mueller said he didn't bring charges against those in the meeting because he couldn't prove they willfully intended to commit a crime. 'Well, you don't have to prove that,' Nadler continued. 'All you have to prove for conspiracy is that they entered into a meeting of the minds to do something wrong and had one overt act. They entered into a meeting of the minds to attend a meeting to get stolen material on Hillary. They went to the meeting. That's conspiracy right there.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Not only that, Junior later agreed to cover up the purpose of the meeting, although according to the Mueller report, his first instinct was to come clean. People get convicted of crimes & misdemeanors all the time, whether or not they know they've committed a crime. Tail-light out? "Sorry, officer, I didn't know." "Okay, buddy, here's your $100 ticket. Hope it doesn't raise your insurance premiums too much."

Matt Ford of the New Republic (April 19): "One can't help but notice that all of the people listed by Mueller [as failing to following Trump's direction to end or obstruct the Russia investigation] no longer directly work for him. Would their replacements also be willing to stand up to the president?... The question is no less urgent now that the Russia investigation is over. Other inquiries are still active that could draw the president's ire. Foremost among them is the Southern District of New York's ongoing investigation into the Trump Organization.... Over time..., staffers [who defied Trump's worst impulses] have left Trump's orbit after losing his favor.... Trump's experiences with the Russia investigation don't seem to have deterred him from trying to interfere in the Justice Department's affairs. In February, the Times reported that Trump called acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker last fall to ask if he could place Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, back in charge of the Trump Organization investigation. Berman had already recused himself from the case, and Whitaker apparently did not follow through on the president's thinly veiled request. The Times noted that Trump 'soured' on Whitaker soon thereafter. Trump also now has an attorney general who may be more amenable to his meddling: Bill Barr...."

Peter Baker & Annie Karni of the New York Times: "As the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, made clear last week, Mr. Trump has an allergy to written records of meetings and conversations, some of which have now come back to haunt him. Time and again, Mr. Trump's advisers took notes of their interactions with the president or drafted memos immediately afterward to maintain real-time records, in some cases simply to have an accurate understanding to do their jobs better, but in other cases for self-preservation. While aides in past administrations recognized that notes could become public and shied away from recording sensitive information in writing to protect the president, many of Mr. Trump's aides took pen to paper to protect themselves from the president." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Here again, Trump brought on this problem himself because all his aides realized he was a nasty, vindictive liar who would throw anyone under the bus & they needed to protect themselves from self-serving lies he might later tell about their conversations.

Another Notetaker. Deb Riechmann & Susannah George of the AP: "Two months before special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed in the spring of 2017..., Donald Trump ... called the head of the largest U.S. intelligence agency. Trump told Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, that news stories alleging that Trump's 2016 White House campaign had ties to Russia were false and the president asked whether Rogers could do anything to counter them. Rogers and his deputy Richard Ledgett, who was present for the call, were taken aback. Afterward, Ledgett wrote a memo about the conversation and Trump's request. He and Rogers signed it and stashed it in a safe.... The call to Rogers and others like it were uncovered by Mueller as he investigated possible obstruction.... On March 22, 2017, Trump asked then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo and National Intelligence Director Dan Coats to stay behind after a meetin at the White House to ask if the men could 'say publicly that no link existed between him and Russia,' the report said. In two other instances, the president began meetings to discuss sensitive intelligence matters by stating he hoped a media statement could be issued saying there was no collusion with Russia."

... Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: "... as [Michael] Cohen prepares to head to prison in two weeks, dozens of previously unreported emails, text messages and other confidential documents reviewed by The New York Times suggest that his falling out with Mr. Trump may have been avoidable.... Mr. Cohen held out hope for a different outcome until the very end, when he pleaded guilty and confessed to paying the illegal hush money to avert a potential sex scandal during the presidential campaign. Just hours earlier, wracked with indecision, he was still seeking guidance, looking, as one informal adviser put it, 'for another way out.'... Looming large [in the break-up] were Mr. Giuliani's and Mr. Trump's failures to understand the threat that Mr. Cohen posed, and their inability -- or unwillingness -- to put his financial and emotional insecurities to rest."

Fox Moscow. Lachlan Markay of the Daily Beast: "Russian state media is ... trumpeting the reaction of U.S. conservatives to the [Mueller] report.... And it's using at least one prominent American conservative voice to do so. The Russian government-owned Rossiya 1 news channel recently broadcasted excerpts from Fox News primetime host Sean Hannity's on-air monologue, which hammered 'media hysteria' over the report and allegations of campaign 'collusion' with the Russian government. In its own editorializing, Rossiya 1 described the report as 'bestseller about the absence of collusion between Trump and Russia,' and blamed the political press and U.S. intelligence agencies for 'hounding Trump' over the allegations, according to a translation by journalist and Daily Beast contributor Julia Davis."

Edward Wong & Clifford Krauss of the New York Times: "The Trump administration is poised to end a program that has allowed five large nations, including China and India, to buy Iranian oil despite American sanctions, two senior American officials said on Sunday, a decision that is intended to squeeze Tehran's government but could lead to higher oil and gasoline prices. The move to choke off all exports of Iranian oil is part of an increasingly aggressive pressure campaign by the Trump administration to starve Iran of revenue with the goals of forcing political change among its ruling clerics and getting it to rein in its military actions across the Middle East. But the decision also risks increasing frictions with other nations, including some major American allies, and hindering other policy priorities, particularly trade talks with China and cooperation from Beijing on containing North Korea." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yes, but I'm sure the Trumpies have thought through the consequences, because they always do. ...

... Another Stupid Trump Trick. Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "President Trump's decision to impose tariffs on imported washing machines has ... raised prices on washing machines, as expected, but also drove up the cost of clothes dryers, which rose by $92 last year.... Research to be released on Monday by the economists Aaron Flaaen, of the Fed, and Ali Hortacsu and Felix Tintelnot, of Chicago, estimates that consumers bore between 125 percent and 225 percent of the costs of the washing machine tariffs.... And while the tariffs did encourage foreign companies to shift more of their manufacturing to the United States and created about 1,800 new jobs, the researchers conclude that those came at a steep cost: about $817,000 per job.... The president, who has also imposed tariffs on imported steel, aluminum, solar panels and a wide variety of products from China, has repeatedly -- and falsely -- asserted that America's trading partners foot the bill." Besides drastically raising the costs of washers & dryers, the tariffs also boosted corporate profits.

All the Best People, Ctd. Annie Snider of Politico: "Interior Secretary David Bernhardt began working on policies that would aid one of his former lobbying clients within weeks of joining the Trump administration, according to a Politico analysis of agency documents -- a revelation that adds to the ethics questions dogging his leadership of the agency. Bernhardt's efforts, beginning in at least October 2017, included shaping the department's response to a key portion of a water infrastructure law he had helped pass as a lobbyist for California farmers, recently released calendars show. The department offered scant details at the time about meetings that Bernhardt, then the deputy secretary, held with Interior officials overseeing water deliveries to the farmers, leading many observers to believe he was steering clear of the issues he had previously lobbied on.... Bernhardt's ethics agreement barred him from participating in any 'particular matters' involving Westlands [-- a water district for which he had lobbied --] until August 2018, one year after he arrived at the agency.... But the newly released information shows that Bernhardt had weighed in on discussions around Westlands' policy priorities for nearly a year by that point." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Presidential Race 2020

Cheyenne Haslett & Jeffrey Cook of< ABC News: "Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts announced he's mounting a bid for president in 2020, expanding the Democratic field to 19 candidates.... Moulton, a former Marine who served in Iraq and an outspoken critic of his own party, was elected to the House in 2013 and has served three terms.... Asked how he will set himself apart, Moutlon said his campaign would focus on service, security and patriotism -- points where Trump is weakest."

Avenatti Stiffs a Barista. Big Time. Daniel Politi of Slate: "When Miami Heat center Hassan Whiteside wired $2.75 million to celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti in January 2017 it was supposed to cover most of the settlement to prevent a potential lawsuit that had been threatened by his former girlfriend, Alexis Gardner. In the end, most of the cash -- $2.5 million -- went to help Avenatti buy a share of a private jet, according to the Los Angeles Times. Gardner, an actress and barista, had hired Avenatti to help her reach a settlement with Whiteside and the two quickly came to agree on a $3 million deal. That January 2017 transfer was supposed to be the first payment. Avenatti was entitled to take a little more than $1 million in legal fees, but he did not tell Gardner about the cash. Instead, he told her client she would receive 96 monthly payments over the following eight years. Avenatti then allegedly proceeded to make 11 payments to Gardner, totaling around $194,000 before those stopped and he began claiming that Whiteside was not coming through on his end of the deal." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Too bad Avenatti isn't still running for president. This should really help with the women's vote. Avenatti always seemed like an ambulance chaser. Now he won't be able to do even that because he'll almost certainly lose his law license(s). What a lowdown creep.

Beyond the Beltway

Kentucky. Matt Bevin & Betsy DeVos Are Awesome. Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: Student journalists at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, a public school in Lexington, Ky., went to an "open-press" roundtable hosted by Gov. Matt Bevin & featuring Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. But they couldn't get in "... because they had not sent in an RSVP to an invitation they had never received and didn't realize was required.... [So] they penned an editorial flaying the education secretary and the Kentucky governor, accusing them of paying lip service to the needs of students while excluding them from the conversation." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Paul Laurence Dunbar was a 19th-century black American poet, so I was betting the student journalists were mostly black. However, Wikipedia advises otherwise: In the 1960s, "Dunbar High School, also named after the poet, was the city's lone surviving black high school ... and one of the main cornerstones of Lexington's black community. When Fayette County's schools integrated in 1967, Dunbar High was closed, with its students being bused to four previously white schools. Eventually, the county school board agreed that the next high school to open in Lexington would bear Dunbar's name, principally at the urging of the Rev. William Augustus Jones, Sr., senior minister of Lexington's oldest and largest black church and a civil rights leader whose five oldest children had graduated from Dunbar and embarked on careers of distinction. To the board's credit, it kept its word, even though a full generation had passed since the original agreement." Today PLD's student body is about 5/6ths white. PLD is one of the largest public schools in Kentucky, so one has to wonder why the high school reporters were never invited in the first place, much less not allowed in when they showed up.

Way Beyond

Sri Lanka. New York Times liveblog: "The Sri Lankan police have arrested 24 people in connection with a series of devastating suicide bombings at hotels and churches on Easter Sunday that left nearly 300 people dead and more than 500 injured. The government on Monday blamed National Thowheeth Jama'ath, a little-known radical Islamist organization, for the bombings. An official said the group, which had not carried out any serious attacks before, had help from 'an international network.' Sri Lanka's security forces were warned at least 10 days before the bombings that the group planned suicide attacks against churches, but apparently took no action against it, indicating a catastrophic intelligence failure. Top government officials say the warning never reached them."; ...

... Dharisha Bastians, et al., of the New York Times: "Within a few hours on Sunday, suicide bombings hit three Catholic churches and three upscale hotels in the Indian Ocean island nation of Sri Lanka, still recovering from a quarter-century civil war in which the suicide bomb was pioneered. The death toll in the attacks rose to 290, with about 500 people wounded, a police spokesman, Ruwan Gunasekera, said...." Yesterday, I linked an earlier version of this report.

Ukraine. David Stern of Politico: "Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a comedian with no political experience, scored a crushing victory over incumbent Petro Poroshenko in Ukraine's runoff presidential vote Sunday, according to exit polls. The national exit poll, which consisted of results from a number of polling agencies, showed Zelenskiy winning 73.2 percent of the vote compared to Poroshenko's 25.3 percent -- a margin of nearly 48 percentage points." Mrs. McC: So I'm thinking Stephen Colbert. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Andrew Higgins & Iuliia Mendel of the New York Times: "A comedian best known for playing the role of an accidental president on television, easily won the real-life election for president in Ukraine on Sunday, exit polls indicated, putting a political neophyte at the helm of a country at the center of the West's geopolitical struggle with Moscow.... [Volodymyr] Zelensky's victory, if confirmed by official results, would give Ukraine its first Jewish leader and deliver a stinging rebuke to a political and business establishment represented by [Petro] Poroshenko, a billionaire candy tycoon who campaigned on the nationalist slogan 'Army, language, faith.'"

The Commentariat -- April 21, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Giuliani for the Defense. Tim O'Donnell of the Week: "President Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani made the talk show rounds on Sunday to defend his client.... Giuliani told [Jake] Tapper on CNN's State of the Union that 'there's nothing wrong with taking information from the Russians,' saying that campaigns get information on their opponents from so many different sources. On NBC's Meet the Press, Giuliani told [Chuck] Todd that using material stolen by foreign adversaries in a campaign isn't fundamentally a problem -- it just depends on the material itself.... Giuliani -- who said that much of the Mueller report is questionable -- argued that it's 'hard to believe' Russian interference did much to sway the 2016 election.... Giuliani told [Chris] Wallace [of Fox 'News"] that even if Trump had fired the special counsel, it would not have been obstruction. Giuliani's point was that Trump had good reason to replace Mueller because he hired 'very, very questionable' people to investigate Trump."

All the Best People, Ctd. Annie Snider of Politico: "Interior Secretary David Bernhardt began working on policies that would aid one of his former lobbying clients within weeks of joining the Trump administration, according to a Politico analysis of agency documents -- a revelation that adds to the ethics questions dogging his leadership of the agency. Bernhardt's efforts, beginning in at least October 2017, included shaping the department's response to a key portion of a water infrastructure law he had helped pass as a lobbyist for California farmers, recently released calendars show. The department offered scant details at the time about meetings that Bernhardt, then the deputy secretary, held with Interior officials overseeing water deliveries to the farmers, leading many observers to believe he was steering clear of the issues he had previously lobbied on.... Bernhardt's ethics agreement barred him from participating in any 'particular matters' involving Westlands [-- a water district for which he had lobbied --] until August 2018, one year after he arrived at the agency.... But the newly released information shows that Bernhardt had weighed in on discussions around Westlands' policy priorities for nearly a year by that point."

David Stern of Politico: "Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a comedian with no political experience, scored a crushing victory over incumbent Petro Poroshenko in Ukraine's runoff presidential vote Sunday, according to exit polls. The national exit poll, which consisted of results from a number of polling agencies, showed Zelenskiy winning 73.2 percent of the vote compared to Poroshenko's 25.3 percent -- a margin of nearly 48 percentag points." Mrs. McC: So I'm thinking Stephen Colbert.

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"From 'Total Exoneration' to 'Total Bullshit.'" Kevin Liptak & Kaitlan Collins of CNN: "Instead of the 'total exoneration' Trump had proclaimed earlier, the [Mueller] report portrayed the President as deceitful and paranoid, encouraging his aides to withhold the truth and cross ethical lines in an attempt to thwart a probe into Russia's interference in US elections.... Perhaps more angering to a leader who detests weakness -- but doesn't necessarily mind an amoral reputation -- were the number of underlings shown ignoring his commands, privately scoffing at the 'crazy sh[it]' he was requesting and working around him to avoid self-implication. Now, those close to him say Trump is newly furious at the people -- most of whom no longer work for him -- whose extensive interviews with the special counsel's office created the epic depiction of an unscrupulous and chaotic White House. And he's seeking assurances from those who remain that his orders are being treated like those of a president, and not like suggestions from an intemperate but misguided supervisor.... The President was aware ahead of its public release what was contained in the Mueller report.... Trump grew angry as he watched cable news coverage." ...

      ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The most troublesome parts of this & similar stories are that (1) Trump can't read even something on a topic that has obsessed him, and (2) none of his staff will level with him when the news is bad. There were copies of Mueller's redacted report floating around the White House in the days leading up to the public release. Apparently Trump didn't grab a copy & take it upstairs for bedtime reading, & neither his personal lawyers nor the White House counsel briefed him about the report's contents. It doesn't much matter what Trump knows about the Mueller report, but it matters a great deal that he never finds out anything that he might not like unless he hears it on "fake news." One reason -- and it's a good one -- that Trump thinks all the legitimate media are fake is that they aren't saying & writing the same things he hears at the office. ...

... "Worst Exoneration Ever." Maureen Dowd: "Donald Trump's dirtbag machinations are driven by insane vanity. The First Narcissist's all-consuming blend of braggadocio and insecurity has turned Washington and its rickety institutions into a dystopian outpost of his id.... He did not want people to think that the Russians were responsible for his election and that he was an illegitimate president ... because he thinks he is an illegitimate president.... He never expected to win. The report counts as the Worst Exoneration Ever."

Josh Marshall: "The image [the Mueller report projects] is one of weakness, someone who blusters but is actually surprisingly, paradoxically conflict averse."

David Smith in the Guardian: "If the tone of [the] secret conversations, revealed in Mueller's long-awaited report this week, remind you of Tony Soprano -- the amoral, brooding, charismatic, philandering, thuggish crime boss in the eponymous TV drama -- ... you are not alone. Over 448 pages, Mueller ... portray[s Trump] as a serial liar willing to abuse power, shred norms and bend the rule of law in a White House rotten to the core.... 'The demands for loyalty and fealty are like an organised crime network. Instead of the John Gotti family, it's the Trump family and his solders are the Republican members of Congress who protect him.' [said Kurt Bardella, former spokesperson and senior adviser for the House oversight and government reform committee].... As faithfully chronicled in The Sopranos, the most skilled crime bosses manage to remain untouchable even as their captains and footsoldiers are picked off. " --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Many have made the observation about Trump's Mafia-like behavior. Of the many things Trump complains about, that characterization is not among them. What he's so angry about now is not that he's being compared to a mob boss but that he's being compared to a feeble, ineffectual mob boss.

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Trump has boasted at various points that he has 'one of the great memories of all time' or even 'the world's greatest memory.' But the world's greatest memory failed him repeatedly when prosecutors asked him those classic questions from decades of presidential scandals -- what did he know and when did he know it?... Even ... with the help of his lawyers..., more than 30 times, he told the prosecutors that he had no memory of what they were asking about, employing several formulations to make the same point.... Prosecutors said such selective memory tended to make them suspicious."

Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "... according to the special counsel's report..., the Kremlin [made a broad effort] to establish ties to Mr. Trump that began early in the campaign and shifted into high gear after Mr. Trump's victory. Those efforts were channeled largely through people in the business world in both countries. Especially after the election, they led to a conflation of diplomatic and financial interests that was a stark departure from the carefully calibrated contacts typically managed by an incoming administration in the United States. Mr. Trump's on-the-fly campaign, lack of preparation for victory and disorganized transition created a vacuum that, as Russia sought out avenues of access and influence, was quickly filled by a number of people from outside established foreign policy circles, many of whom appeared eager to portray themselves as access brokers or to generate business opportunities.... [Mueller's] report made clear how vigorously Mr. Putin sought to find points of contact and influence with Mr. Trump's team -- and how many people on the American side were willing to participate to one degree or another in discussions that touched on topics as varied as Mr. Trump's desire to build a Moscow hotel to United States policy toward Ukraine."

New York Times Editors: "... the real danger that the Mueller report reveals is not of a president who knowingly or unknowingly let a hostile power do dirty tricks on his behalf, but of a president who refuses to see that he has been used to damage American democracy and national security. Since the publication of the report, Vladimir Putin and his government have been crowing that they, too, are now somehow vindicated, joining the White House in creating the illusion that the investigation was all about 'collusion' rather than a condemnation of criminal Russian actions."

Jennifer Taub in Slate: No, White House staff did not prevent Trump from committing crimes. "An attempt to obstruct that fails is still a crime.... Llet's explore one of the obstruction provisions that Mueller referenced, 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2). This passage provides that 'Whoever corruptly .. obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both' (emphasis added [by Taub]).... The Mueller report provides proof of all three elements needed to establish obstruction on several potential counts of obstruction.... The report sets out 10 potentially obstructive episodes. In nearly all of them, it establishes a nexus to an official proceeding." One major problem facing Mueller was proving "corrupt intent." "It's partially why he was so meticulous in documenting Trump lie after Trump lie, which in several cases pointed to evidence of a guilty conscience."

Susan Hennessey & Quinta Jurecic of Lawfare: "The Mueller Report describes, in excruciating detail..., a candidate and a campaign aware of the existence of a plot by a hostile foreign government to criminally interfere in the U.S. election for the purpose of supporting that candidate's side. It describes a candidate and a campaign who welcomed the efforts and delighted in the assistance. It describes a candidate and a campaign who brazenly and serially lied to the American people about the existence of the foreign conspiracy and their contacts with it.... The Mueller Report describes a president who, on numerous occasions, engaged in conduct calculated to hinder a federal investigation. It finds ample evidence that at least a portion of that conduct met all of the statutory elements of criminal obstruction of justice.... If [the House] wants to actually confront the substance of the report, it will introduce a resolution to begin an impeachment inquiry."

Michael Scherer of the Washington Post: "House Democrats ... plan to take on the ... task of trying to distill and publicize the most alarming parts of the Mueller report in hopes of making the president's behavior in office feel consequential for more voters. They are preparing a rival reality show of their own through hearings with Attorney General William P. Barr and others. Democrats privately say their models are the Watergate hearings into President Richard M. Nixon's misdeeds and the Republican hearings about the 2012 Benghazi attack, which were designed to damage Clinton's reputation. 'We will have major hearings. Barr and Mueller are just the first,' said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), in a radio interview Friday. 'We will call many other people.'... Ultimately, to fight back, Democrats in Congress will have to find a way to engage Trump on his own terms, with clear messaging and repeated talking points, something they struggled to do in the first days after the Mueller report."

Quint Forgey of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Saturday ridiculed Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) for his loss to former President Barack Obama in the 2012 election -- one day after Romney said he was 'sickened' by Trump's actions as detailed in special counsel Robert Mueller's report. 'If @MittRomney spent the same energy fighting Barack Obama as he does fighting Donald Trump, he could have won the race (maybe)!' Trump tweeted. Attached to the president's post was a 40-second video contrasting election night footage and CNN news coverage from Romney's White House loss six-and-a-half years ago to Obama with Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016." ...

I guess I'd be prepared to concede that Romney was prescient about Russia had he said in 2012 that the big Russian threat was that the GOP would decide to embrace complicity with Russian computer crimes in order to secure partisan advantage, but that's not how I remember it. -- Matt Yglesias of Vox, in a tweet

Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: "Immigrants who use marijuana or who work in the cannabis industry can be denied citizenship, even if they are doing so in states where it is legal, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said Friday. The guidance, issued ... just before pot advocates' national celebration of their 4/20 holiday, confirms what immigration and marijuana advocates have cautioned is a legal gray area that penalizes would-be citizens because they've broken a federal law. Although recreational marijuana use is legal in 10 states and decriminalized in 14 more, it is still classified as an illegal substance federally."

Sam Levin of the Guardian: "A member of an armed rightwing militia group accused of illegally detaining migrants at the US-Mexico border has been arrested, officials said on Saturday. The FBI arrested Larry Mitchell Hopkins, 69, for alleged unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition, days after his group posted videos that appeared to show armed men stopping migrants at the border in New Mexico, ordering them to sit on the ground and coordinating with US border patrol agents to have them taken into custody. Today's arrest by the FBI indicates clearly that the rule of law should be in the hands of trained law enforcement officials, not armed vigilantes,' the New Mexico attorney general, Hector Balderas, said in a statement."

E. A. Crunden of ThinkProgress: "President Donald Trump's controversial onslaught of environmental rollbacks faced two major setbacks this week, as legal action continues to prove a winning strategy for opponents of the administration's deregulation agenda. In a boon to environmental advocates, court decisions on Friday rebuked the Trump administration's coal ambitions, in addition to setting a deadline for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban a common and hazardous pesticide [chlorpyrifos]. Judge Brian Morris of the U.S. District Court in Montana ruled late Friday that the Interior Department under former Secretary Ryan Zinke acted illegally when it sought to overturn a 2016 ban on coal mining on public lands. More than 40% of U.S. coal is currently mined from federal lands and the Obama administration imposed the ban on most federal coal sales three years ago. While Morris' ruling does not go so far as to reinstate the Obama-era ban, legal experts said it would likely force officials to revise their justification for the decision." --s

Reuters: "Several airstrikes and explosions shook Tripoli overnight in an escalation of an assault on the Libyan capital by the warlord Khalifa Haftar.... Haftar's Libyan National Army started an offensive two weeks ago but has been unable to breach the government's southern defences.... The violence spiked after the White House said on Friday that ... Donald Trump spoke by telephone with Haftar earlier in the week. The disclosure of the call and a US statement that it 'recognized Field Marshal Haftar's significant role in fighting terrorism and securing Libya's oil resources' has boosted the commander's supporters and enraged his opponents. Western powers and the Gulf have been divided over a push by Haftar's forces to seize Tripoli, undermining calls by the United Nations for a ceasefire." --s ...

... David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times (April 19): "President Trump on Friday abruptly reversed American policy toward Libya, issuing a statement publicly endorsing an aspiring strongman in his battle to depose the United Nations-backed government. The would-be strongman, Khalifa Hifter, launched a surprise attack on the Libyan capital, Tripoli, more than two weeks ago. Relief agencies said Thursday that more than 200 people had been killed in the battle, and in recent days Mr. Hifter's forces have started shelling civilian neighborhoods." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Thanks, Donald! Libya should do very well under the "leadership" of a warlord. Remember how people loved that other strongman Gaddafi?

Presidential Race 2020

Frank Dale of ThinkProgress: "Although she was one of the most outspoken critics of Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch during their nomination processes, [Sen. Amy] Klobuchar, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has voted 'yes' on over 63% of Trump's judicial nominees who were eventually confirmed -- a higher rate than 35 of the other 46 senators who are members of or caucus with the Democratic Party.... Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) have each voted 'yes' on fewer than half of Trump's judicial nominees, while Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) is slightly over that mark at 50.6%." --s

Armando Garcia & Matt Gutman of ABC News: "In 2000, then a senior in high school, [Pete] Buttigieg was voted 'most likely to become president' at St. Joseph High School.... Looking through the rest of his high school yearbooks, he moved from appearing in a single photo his freshman year -- sporting shaggy hair and large glasses -- to showing off a dizzying array of activities in the following years, including the National Honor Society, Junior Leaders and Philosophy Club. He was often pictured wearing a white shirt, tie and no jacket, which has also become his current political uniform. His senior year, he was also voted most likely to succeed and eventually became his class valedictorian."

During Holy Week, Franklin Graham Proves He Is Not a Real Christian. Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist: "... evangelist Franklin Graham..., in a Facebook post purported denouncing people heckling Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, Graham managed to work in the verse that condemns gay people to death.... '... The Bible makes it very clear that homosexuality is a sin. "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination..." (Leviticus 20:13). That's what God says and that settles it for me.'" Mrs. McC: Also too if you eat lobster, Franklin (Leviticus 11:9-12). That's what God says and that settles it for me. Pass the clarified butter.

Natalie Kitroeff & David Gelles of the New York Times: "When Boeing broke ground on its new factory near Charleston in 2009, the plant was trumpeted as a state-of-the-art manufacturing hub, building one of the most advanced aircraft in the world. But in the decade since, the factory, which makes the 787 Dreamliner, has been plagued by shoddy production and weak oversight that have threatened to compromise safety. A New York Times review of hundreds of pages of internal emails, corporate documents and federal records, as well as interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees, reveals a culture that often valued production speed over quality. Facing long manufacturing delays, Boeing pushed its work force to quickly turn out Dreamliners, at times ignoring issues raised by employees. Complaints about the frenzied pace echo broader concerns about the company in the wake of two deadly crashes involving another jet, the 737 Max. Boeing is now facing questions about whether the race to get the Max done, and catch up to its rival Airbus, led it to miss safety risks in the design, like an anti-stall system that played a role in both crashes."

** German Lopez of Vox: "Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting, in which two students killed 13 people and themselves on April 20, 1999. But the US has not solved its mass shooting problem in those 20 years -- the country now averages nearly one mass shooting a day, based on one group's definition of mass shooting.... Since the Sandy Hook shooting, there have been more than 2,000 mass shootings in which four or more people, excluding the shooter, were shot but not necessarily killed. Nearly 2,300 people have been killed and almost 8,400 have been wounded. Since 2013, there has been only one full calendar week -- the week of January 5, 2014 -- without a mass shooting." --s

Beyond the Beltway

The Anti-Vaxxer Party. Amanda Gomez of ThinkProgress: "Amid a nationwide measles outbreak, Republicans in Washington and other states across the country are opposing efforts to do something about the public health crisis, citing civil liberties and espousing anti-vaccine views." --s

Michigan. E. A. Crunden: "Judge Linda Parker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruled April 18 that people in Flint [Michigan] are free to sue the federal government over its mishandling of the city's water problems. '[The court] can today state with certainty that the acts leading to the creation of the Flint Water Crisis, alleged to be rooted in lies, recklessness and profound disrespect have and will continue to produce a heinous impact for the people of Flint,' Parker wrote in her order." --s

Washington. Jason Wilson of the Guardian: "A Washington state Republican politician took part in private discussions with rightwing figures about carrying out surveillance, 'psyops' and even violent attacks on perceived political enemies, according to chat records obtained by the Guardian. State representative Matt Shea, who represents Spokane Valley in the Washington state house, participated in the chats with three other men. All of the men used screen aliases.... The chats on the messaging app Signal took place in the days leading up to a supposed 'Antifa revolt' on 4 November 2017.... The men proposed to confront leftists ... with a suite of tactics, including violence.... The men extensively discussed tactics of surveillance and intimidation.... Shea, the elected Republican legislator, did not demur from any of these suggestions. He also appeared willing to participate directly in surveillance of activists. In response to a request in the chat for background checks on Spokane residents, Shea volunteered to help.... Shea, a six-term legislator and military veteran, came to international attention in 2018 after a document he authored surfaced laying out a 'biblical basis for war', which appeared to be a plan for an apocalyptic battle with people who practiced 'same sex marriage' and 'abortion', and instructed: 'If they do not yield, kill all males.'"

Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "A group calling itself Genesis II Church of Health and Healing plans to convene at a hotel resort in Washington state on Saturday to promote a 'miracle cure' that claims to cure 95% of all diseases in the world by making adults and children, including infants, drink industrial bleach.... The 'church' is asking attendants of the meeting to 'donate' $450 each, or $800 per couple, in exchange for receiving membership to the organization as well as packages of the bleach, which they call 'sacraments'. The chemical is referred to as MMS, or 'miracle mineral solution or supplement'.... The FDA issued ... blunt advice: 'Consumers who have MMS should stop using it immediately and throw it away.'" --s

Way Beyond

Sri Lanka. The Guardian has a live blog on at least 8 bombings targeting hotels and churches, causing at least 157 deaths so far. No group has yet claim responsibility. --s ...

... Dharisha Bastians, et al., of the New York Times: "A series of coordinated bombings ripped across Sri Lanka on Sunday morning, striking hotels and churches, killing almost 200 people and shattering the relative calm that the war-torn nation had enjoyed in recent years. The targets of the attacks were Catholic worshipers attending Easter Mass and guests at high-end hotels that are popular with foreign tourists.... Sri Lanka, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, suffered decades of civil war that ended in 2009. Since then, there has been some political instability and sporadic attacks, but nothing on this scale.... A senior presidential aide said early investigations suggested that the attacks had been carried out by suicide bombers."

The Commentariat -- April 20, 2019

Trump Can't Handle the Truth

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Before we get started today, it is worth pointing out how remarkable the obstruction-of-justice part of Mueller's report is, inasmuch as obstruction was not specifically part of Mueller's mandate. In his order appointing Mueller as special counsel, Rod Rosenstein wrote that the special counsel was to investigate "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and ... any matters than arose or may arise directly from the investigation." The entire obstruction part of Mueller's final report therefore is a matter "arising from the investigation." Were Mueller as by-the-book as nearly everyone describes him, he could have conducted a narrow investigation that ignored Trump's many "obstructive acts" altogether. In all of the coverage of the Mueller report over the past two days, I haven't heard or read a single recollection of Rosenstein's directive.

Peter Baker & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "... Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts became the most prominent Democrat to call for impeachment. But most Republican lawmakers remained silent on the report, meaning any effort to force Mr. Trump from office faced long odds.... One of the exceptions was Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, who said he was' appalled' that the president's campaign welcomed help from Russia.While Mr. Trump had initially greeted the report as an exoneration, he spent at least part of the day in Florida stewing about disloyal aides who talked with investigators and sounded more defensive than celebratory.... The subpoena issued on Friday by Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, escalated a fight with Mr. Barr.... Mr. Nadler asked for all evidence obtained by Mr. Mueller's investigators, including summaries of witness interviews and classified intelligence -- and indicated that he intended to air it to the public.... '... Congressman Nadler's subpoena is premature and unnecessary,' said Kerri Kupec, a [DOJ] spokeswoman." (More on Nadler's subpoena linked below.) ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: In several tweets, Trump goes after the media. Here's one: "The Washington Post and New York Times are, in my opinion, two of the most dishonest media outlets around. Truly, the Enemy of the People!" Rachel Maddow pointed to daily newspapers across the country, many of which ran banner headlines featuring Mueller's findings on obstruction. I guess journalists, editors, & headline writers are all "dishonest." And let's point out that it isn't up to Bill Barr to decide what Congress finds "necessary." If the Judiciary Committee wishes to pursue an investigation of Trump's bad acts, it must have all documentation available, not just Mueller's conclusions. It would be irresponsible to rely on a report of the facts without actually having seen the facts contained in supporting documents. Barr's refusal to fully cooperate with Congress is, IMO, an impeachable act of obstruction.

So the Whiny Baby Sonata in B Flat Begins. Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: “... Donald Trump on Friday called 'total bullshit' on the damaging information his former aides offered to special counsel Robert Mueller, suggesting investigators skewed his staffers' words and that some of his aides just wanted to make him look bad. 'Statements are made about me by certain people in the Crazy Mueller Report, in itself written by 18 Angry Democrat Trump Haters, which are fabricated & totally untrue. Watch out for people that take so-called "notes," when the notes never existed until needed,' he wrote in a string of tweets. Trump complained that he was unable to push back on the claims made by his aides in Mueller's report because of his decision not to sit down with Mueller in person. He also suggested he was unfairly thrown under the bus by those who had spoken freely to investigators. 'Because I never agreed to testify, it was not necessary for me to respond to statements made in the 'Report' about me, some of which are total bullshit & only given to make the other person look good (or me to look bad),' he continued in another tweet.... In one tweet, which trails off and has not been completed by Trump, he condemned the investigation once more as an 'Illegally Started Hoax that never should have happened.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Baker & Fandos write that Trump finished the "thought" eight hours later: "'...big, fat waste of time, energy and money.' He went on to vow to go after his pursuers, whom he called 'some very sick and dangerous people who have committed very serious crimes, perhaps even Spying or Treason.'" ...

... Maggie Haberman of the NYT points out in a tweet that the aides who spoke candidly to investigators because the White House told them to do so now are "facing Trump's wrath for a position the WH put them in." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Isn't it sad when everybody lies except the guy who's told nearly 10,000 lies since taking office a couple of years ago? Gosh, I hope Trumpelthinskin doesn't, like, get so enraged he tears himself in half. Oops. My mistake. Turns out Trump started whining yesterday:

... Matthew Choi of Politico: "'I had the right to end the whole Witch Hunt if I wanted,' Trump wrote on Twitter [Thursday afternoon]. 'I could have fired everyone, including Mueller, if I wanted. I chose not to. I had the RIGHT to use Executive Privilege. I didn't!'... In a separate tweet later Thursday, Trump continued distancing himself from Russian interference in the election, saying it occurred while Barack Obama was president. Trump falsely said Obama did not respond to the threats of Russian meddling, though the FBI did investigate links between Russia and Trump months before the election. 'Anything the Russians did concerning the 2016 Election was done while Obama was President,' he wrote. 'He was told about it and did nothing! Most importantly, the vote was not affected.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Mrs. McCrabbie: It's pretty clear that as late as the day before the Mueller report's public release, Trump still didn't understand that the report would shred him. He told a confederate radio host Wednesday, "You'll see a lot of very strong things come out tomorrow. Attorney General Barr is going to be giving a press conference. Maybe I'll do one after that; we'll see." I'd guess the White House sycophants were pushing the fantasy of a rose-colored (as opposed to multi-color-coded) report so they might enjoy one last day of relative calm before the predictable Trumperstorm, a storm which, BTW, is taking place off-site in Florida on a holiday weekend far away from most White House staff. ...

... Shannon Pettypiece & Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg News: "After musing that he might hold a news conference the day before [Bill Barr released the Mueller report, Donald Trump] took no questions from reporters. [Melania Trump discouraged him from stopping for his customary chopper chat as they left for Florida Thursday, & Trump took that advice.]... At Palm Beach International Airport Thursday evening..., he again ignored questions shouted by reporters traveling with him. He golfed with Rush Limbaugh on Friday.... Trump's legal team issued an initial statement on Mueller's report but decided not to publish a fuller counter-report they had spent months compiling to rebut the special counsel.... The president's irritation grew as he watched coverage of the report Friday morning. He and his allies are particularly angry with former White House Counsel Don McGahn and former Staff Secretary Rob Porter, both of whom spoke extensively with Mueller. Many of the events Mueller chronicled were reported contemporaneously in the news media and declared 'fake news' by the president at the time. That claim is less credible following the Justice Department's release of Mueller's report, since people he interviewed could be charged wit perjury if they weren't truthful. Many of them corroborated their accounts with notes or other materials." ...

... Retribution. Nancy Cook of Politico: "The Trump campaign has hired its own in-house attorney for its 2020 reelection bid -- shifting future business away from Jones Day, the law firm, that has represented Trump since his first run for president.... Close Trump advisers say the decision also stems from disappointment with the White House's former top attorney and current Jones Day partner, Don McGahn.... Taking business away from Jones Day is payback, these advisers say, for McGahn's soured relationship with the Trump family and a handful articles in high-profile newspapers that the family blames, unfairly or not, on the former White House counsel.... The Mueller report ... seems only to have fueled Trump's anger. It portrayed McGahn as one of the key officials who stopped Trump from taking actions that might be deemed to have obstructed justice. In one especially colorful passage, McGahn is quoted as saying that the president had asked him to do 'crazy shit.' In another, Trump berates his White House counsel for taking too many notes, comparing him unfavorably to his longtime consigilere, the late Roy Cohn. On Friday, Trump seemed to take aim at McGahn on Twitter, writing, 'Watch out for people that take so-called "notes," when the notes never existed until needed.' The decision to shift law firms has been in the works for weeks, however, and predates release of the Mueller report."

Rebecca Shabad of NBC News: "House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., on Friday subpoenaed the Justice Department for the full, unredacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's report as well as the underlying evidence. In a statement, Nadler said that the Justice Department must comply by May 1." (Also linked yesterday.)

Chris Kahn of Reuters: "The number of Americans who approve of ... Donald Trump dropped by 3 percentage points to the lowest level of the year following the release of a special counsel report detailing Russian interference in the last U.S. presidential election, according to an exclusive Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll.... According to the poll, 37 percent of adults in the United States approved of Trump's performance in office, down from 40 percent in a similar poll conducted on April 15 and matching the lowest level of the year. That is also down from 43 percent in a poll conducted shortly after U.S. Attorney General William Barr circulated a [Mrs McC: fake] summary of the report in March."

Sanders Defends Her Own Lies. Annie Karni & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "After admitting to investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, that she delivered a false statement from the White House podium, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, defended herself in Trumpian fashion on Friday morning. She counterattacked.... Some of Mr. Trump's aides and allies acknowledged on Friday that it was problematic for the president's chief spokeswoman to spend airtime defending her own credibility. But White House officials -- some of whom think Ms. Sanders is taking an unfair beating in the press -- do not expect Mr. Trump to be fazed by the controversy. Unlike previous administrations, in which officials feared blows to their credibility in public, Mr. Trump's press aides are generally performing for an audience of one -- the president." ...

... Jonathan Chait: Caught in several lies by Mueller's team, Sarah Sanders can't stop lying. "Appearing on CBS This Morning, Sanders was asked, if the lie [about countless FBI personnel calling her to say how glad they were Trump dumped Comey] was a slip of the tongue, what did she mean to say? Sanders refused to answer, instead dissembling: 'Look, I've acknowledged that the word "countless" was a slip of the tongue. But it's no secret that a number of FBI, both current and former, agreed with the president's decision.' Pressed about the lie on ABC, Sanders kept repeating that the statements were made 'in the heat of the moment.' George Stephanopoulos noted that she repeated the same lie twice the next day." Mrs. McC: I'll bet every hound dog Mike Huckabee ever had was a voracious homework-eater. (Also linked yesterday.)

Katie Benner & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "The long-awaited report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, released on Thursday painted a portrait of law enforcement leaders more fiercely under siege than previously known. They struggled to navigate Mr. Trump's apparent disregard for their mission through a mix of threats to resign, quiet defiance and capitulation to some presidential demands. While their willingness to stay quiet might have protected their institutions, it also helped empower Mr. Trump to continue his attacks.... The president sought to undermine the Justice Department's leaders and thwart the Russia investigation from his first days in office. He demanded that Mr. Comey publicly say that he was not under investigation, and he asked Dana J. Boente, who was briefly the acting attorney general before Mr. Sessions was confirmed in February 2017, to let him know whether the F.B.I. was investigating the White House, according to the special counsel's report."

Michael Daly of the Daily Beast: "In a morning press conference before the release [of the Mueller report], Attorney General William Barr [said]..., 'I would also like to thank Special Counsel Mueller for his service and the thoroughness of his investigation, particularly his work exposing the nature of Russia's attempts to interfere in our electoral process.'... A few breaths later, Barr committed one of the great public betrayals of our history. The country's most senior law enforcement officer actually sought to justify President Trump's mendacious attacks against Mueller.... 'As the special counsel's report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the president was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks,' Barr said. In fact, the report acknowledges no such thing.... [Mueller's] one mistake was to trust his supposed friend Barr." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Barr has been an ass throughout his terms of government service, and his assholery always has been in the direction of helping his boss dishonor the nation (see Bush, George H.W.). When that boss is Donald Trump, "helping" means throwing his own friends under the proverbial bus. In this, we see the Trumpification of a Lifelong Ass.

Mitt Romney Only GOP Senator Who Read Mueller Report. Marianne Levine & Katie Galioto of Politico: "Sen. Mitt Romney said Friday that he was 'sickened' by ... Donald Trump's actions described in ... Robert Mueller's report. In a statement, the Utah Republican said that while it was 'good news' there was not enough evidence to bring criminal charges related to conspiring with Russia and that there was no conclusion of obstruction of justice, he blasted the White House and Trump campaign officials for their actions.... 'I am sickened at the extent and pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection by individuals in the highest office of the land, including the President,' Romney said. 'I am also appalled that, among other things fellow citizens working in a campaign for president welcomed help from Russia.... Reading the report is a sobering revelation of how far we have strayed from the aspirations and principles of the founders,' Romney said. The Utah Republican broke ranks with much of his party in condemning Trump.... Like his GOP colleagues, however, Romney called for the government to move on now that the 22-month probe has concluded." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yeah, that's right, Mittsky. You know the POTUS* engages in treacherous behavior on a daily basis, but let's forget about it. Apparently, Trump's nefarious activity is something else best discussed in "quiet rooms." ...

     ... Also, too, how sad that Romney must then face pushback like this: "Know what makes me sick, Mitt? Not how disingenuous you were to take @realDonaldTrump $$ and then 4 yrs later jealously trash him & then love him again when you begged to be Sec of State, but makes me sick that you got GOP nomination and could have been @POTUS," [former governor, fake-cures-huckster & Mrs. Liarbee's dad Mike] Huckabee tweeted. ...

... Okay, Susan Collins Read the Report. Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Friday that ... Robert Mueller's report gives an 'unflattering portrayal' of President Trump, including an effort to oust the former FBI director from his special counsel role." Mrs. McC: Wow, Susan. Very tough! Maybe Mueller should have been more gracious.

New York Times Editors: "... the real danger that the Mueller report reveals is not of a president who knowingly or unknowingly let a hostile power do dirty tricks on his behalf, but of a president who refuses to see that he has been used to damage American democracy and national security."

Consevo-columnist David French in Time: The Mueller report "takes the traits we already knew [Trump] exhibited -- his mendacity, his propensity to surround himself with crooks and grifters, and his single-minded self-focus -- and places them in the context of a sweeping narrative about a presidential campaign and presidency devoid of ethics, honor or even strength. The stories paint a picture of a president who is both petty and small.... When ... Donald Junior learned that the New York Times was about to break the news of his now-infamous June 9, 2016, meeting in Trump Tower with Russian lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya, his first instinct was to come clean.... But his father said no.... Donald Jr. complied and misled America.... President Trump threw his son under the bus. He made his son transmit his own deceptions.... It's difficult to overestimate the extent to which Trump's appeal to his core supporters is built around the notion that ... he possesses a core strength.... But now, thanks to the Mueller report, his 'fights' look more like temper tantrums.... President Trump is weak -- too weak even to commit the acts of obstruction he desired." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: One example: Trump's insistence that Corey Lewandowski, who was a private citizen, deliver a message to Jeff Sessions ordering Sessions to "unrecuse" himself from the Russia investigation, then change the special counsel's mandate to cover only "future election interference." Lewandowski was to tell Sessions he would be fired if he didn't carry out this bizarre order. When Lewandowski failed to make contact with Sessions, Trump ordered him to try again. Why didn't Trump call Sessions directly? Or Rosenstein -- and tell him to change Mueller's job? Did Trump think that no one would notice his own fingerprints on the note if somebody else was the messenger? Was he planning to make Lewandowski the fall guy? Lewandowski probably thought so. This is so Stupid Mob Boss-y. And, as French points out, so lame.

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "It’s a national disgrace that Trump sleeps in the White House instead of a federal prison cell, but it has been a while since I had any expectation that the special counsel Robert Mueller's findings ... could set things right.... Several weeks before Trump was inaugurated, America's intelligence agencies reported that Russia had engaged in cyberoperations to help him win. In the months that followed, there was one staggering revelation after another about secret conversations between Trump's circle and various figures linked to Russian intelligence. At the same time, the new administration unleashed on the public a degrading cacophony of lies, of the sort many of us associate with authoritarian countries like Russia.... Mueller has given us the truth of what Trump has done, and in that sense the hokey faith the Resistance put in him was not misplaced. But right now only a political fight can make that truth matter."

Adrienne Varkiani of ThinkProgress: "Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Friday called on the House to begin impeachment proceedings against ... Donald Trump, joining fellow 2020 presidential candidate Julián Castro, who said he supported the idea earlier in the afternoon." ...

... Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "As the political world digests the shocking scale of corruption, misconduct and skirting of criminality detailed in the Mueller report, Democrats have been pushing back on the idea that it's time to initiate an inquiry into the impeachment of President Trump. But there's a key tell lurking in all this pushback: Democrats are not seriously arguing that all the misconduct that has now come to light does not merit an impeachment inquiry. This is creating a situation that's shaping up as a moral and political disaster. Yet there&'s no indication that Democrats are reckoning with the problems this poses. This, even though the basic dynamics of the situation strongly suggest that initiating an inquiry will grow harder to resist over time, not easier.... Democrats [have put themselves] in the impossible position of hoping the case for impeachment weakens, while simultaneously moving aggressively to establish more wrongdoing, which would strengthen that case." Sargent reviews -- and knocks down -- Democrats' lame excuses for not opening an impeachment inquiry, noting that their dithering only emboldens Trump to do more harm. ...

... ** Alex Pareene in the New Republic: "Democrats who preemptively declare impeachment off the table are mistakenly (or intentionally) conflating one possible end result of the impeachment process for the process itself. What [House Majority Leader Steny] Hoyer [who said Thursday that impeachment wasn't 'worthwhile'] and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (who ruled out impeachment well before anyone read the Mueller Report) want is to write op-eds about how many bills they are passing, despite the fact that those bills (like, uh, impeachment) will never get through the Senate. Democratic leadership seemingly believes that the party can't let its candidates campaign on promises to materially improve the lives of voters while also letting its elected officials carry out the responsibilities of their offices. They also believe, deep in their bones, that the country is not on their side.... Once again, we can celebrate a modern example of bipartisanship: a deep conviction, on both sides, that the only legitimate force in American politics is white grievance." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Like about 12 other Americans, I favored the House's impeachment of Bill Clinton but not necessarily his conviction in the Senate. I thought his behavior was despicable and that he should pay for it with more than a cold shoulder from his wife, although I'll admit that the Starr report was pretty good payback. If the Senate had convicted Clinton, we might never have been stuck with President Dubya. Clinton's bad behavior was personal in nature; Trump has engaged in hundreds of acts of public malfeasance, constantly putting himself before the nation's interests, constantly undermining the rule of law & constantly engaging in dangerous national security breaches. Trump's behavior is far, far more impeachable than that time Lewinsky gave Clinton a blow job while he was on the phone to Yasser Arafat. Pelosi's tut-tuts and committee hearings are not enough.

What's wrong with this picture? "Nothing," says the French ambassador to the U.S.Julian Borger of the Guardian: "The outgoing French ambassador to the US has compared the Trump administration to the court of King Louis XIV, filled with courtiers trying to interpret the caprices of a 'whimsical, unpredictable, uninformed' leader. Gérard Araud, who retires on Friday after a 37-year career that included some of the top jobs in French diplomacy, said Donald Trump's unpredictability and his single-minded transactional interpretation of US interests was leaving the administration isolated on the world stage." (Also linked yesterday.)

What Are MOCs up to Today?

Aris Folley of the Hill: "Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) still has plans to visit Kentucky despite one of her GOP colleagues walking back an invitation for her to visit his district. A spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez told CNN on Friday that the congresswoman has since received another invite to visit the state and plans to follow through on the offer. 'Luckily, we still have open borders with Kentucky, we are free to travel there,' the spokesman, Corbin Trent, said. 'We hope to visit and have a town hall, listen to concerns of workers in Kentucky,' he added." Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) had invited Ocasio-Cortez to meet with coal miners in his district, but when she accepted his invitation, he seems to have realized that the miners might actually like her ideas, so he dreamed up an excuse to disinvite her.

Gaetz "Very Proud" to Hire White Supremacist. Sarah Ferris of Politico: "Rep. Matt Gaetz -- one of ... Donald Trump's most avid supporters in Congress -- has hired a former White House speechwriter who was forced out last year amid scrutiny over his ties to white nationalists. The Florida Republican announced Friday that former Trump administration aide, Darren Beattie, will join his Capitol Hill office. 'Very proud to have the talented Dr. Darren Beattie helping our team as a Special Advisor for Speechwriting. Welcome on board!' Gaetz tweeted Friday. Beattie was fired from the White House in August 2018 after reports that he had delivered remarks at a 2016 conference, dubbed an 'active hate group' by the Southern Poverty Law Center, alongside a well-known white nationalist, Richard Spencer."

Hunter Fakes Easy Mexican Crossing in Violation of Parole. Ken Stone of the Times of San Diego: "Rep. Duncan Hunter [R-Indicted] posted a video Thursday showing himself at the 'grand border wall in Yuma, Arizona.' He says: 'It looks pretty tough to cross. Let me see if I can do it.' He swings his legs over a horizontal rail less than waist high and declares: 'There you go. That's how easy it is to cross the border in Yuma, Arizona.' Only he didn't. The actual U.S.-Mexico border is the Colorado River 75-100 feet away, said a Border Patrol spokesman. In any case, Hunter's Facebook clip caught the eye of Ammar Campa-Najjar, the Democrat making a second run against the indicted Republican in the 50th Congressional District. Thursday, Campa-Najjar sent Times of San Diego email with the subject line: 'Hunter breaks the law violates parol,' meaning parole.... In August, federal Judge William Gallo set terms of Hunter and his wife's release on bail in their campaign spending case, including an order not to leave the continental United States or travel to Mexico." Mrs. McC: Lying about border security is a must for every indicted Republican.