The Commentariat -- April 16, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Julian Barnes & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "As she approaches her first full year on the job, [CIA Director Gina] Haspel has proved an adept tactician, charming the president with small gestures and talking to him with a blend of a hardheaded realism and appeals to emotion. A career case officer trained to handle informants, she has relied on the skills of a spy -- good listening, empathy and an ability to connect -- to make sure her voice is heard at the White House. But ... dor all of Ms. Haspel's ability to stay in Mr. Trump's good graces, there is little evidence she has changed his mind on major issues, underscoring the limits of her approach.... Unusually for a president, Mr. Trump has publicly rejected not only intelligence agencies' analysis, but also the facts they have gathered. And that has created a perilous situation for the C.I.A." ...

     ... Trump A-OK with Assassinations. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: “One detail in paragraph 15 [of the NYT report] stands out: 'Last March, top national security officials gathered inside the White House to discuss with Mr. Trump how to respond to the nerve agent attack in Britain on Sergei V. Skripal, the former Russian intelligence agent. London was pushing for the White House to expel dozens of suspected Russian operatives, but Mr. Trump was skeptical. He had initially written off the poisoning as part of legitimate spy games.... Some officials said they thought that Mr. Trump, who has frequently criticized 'rats' and other turncoats, had some sympathy for the Russian government's going after someone viewed as a traitor.' The story goes on to say Haspel was able to prevail upon President Trump to offer a tough response, after showing him images of children [Mrs. McC: and dead ducks!] who had come into contact with the same nerve agent.... Put plainly: Trump's default mode seems to border on indifference toward strongmen and their political assassinations." Blake goes on to cite numerous other instances in which Trump downplayed assassinations carried out by subordinates of dictators. Emphasis added.

Of Course Trump Is OK with Inciting Violence against a Muslim Woman. Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "... Donald Trump has no regrets about posting a video that spliced together footage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks with Rep. Ilhan Omar, telling a Minneapolis ABC affiliate that the congresswoman is 'extremely unpatriotic and disrespectful to our country. She is somebody that doesn't really understand, I think, life, real life, what it's all about. It's unfortunate -- she's got a way about her that's very, very bad, I think, for our country,' he told local TV station KSTP during a visit to Minnesota on Monday.... Trump tore into [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi on Monday for her continued support of Omar, imploring her in a tweet to 'look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made.'"

Marianne Levine of Politico: "Rick Scott campaigned on standing up for Puerto Rico. But with ... Donald Trump warning senators not to provide more aid to the island, the Florida Republican is caught between his party and his promises. And Democrats are eager to exploit that tension -- blasting Scott for sticking with the president on a critical disaster relief bill and throwing the freshman senator into the middle of a broader fight over stalled assistance for millions of Americans devastated by wildfires, flooding and hurricanes. Scott, meanwhile, is lashing out at his Democratic critics, feuding in particular with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in increasingly personal terms.... Schumer responded [in a tweet]..., 'How can you say you're Puerto Rico's voice in the Senate while supporting a disaster bill that strips needed help from the island and is opposed by PR's Governor? Why not stand up for both PR & Florida, and have the courage to tell @realDonaldTrump to leave no community behind?'"

~~~~~~~~~~

The Usual Trump Scandals, Ctd.

Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department expects to release on Thursday a redacted version of specialcounsel Robert S. Mueller III's report on President Trump, his associates and Russia's interference in the 2016 election, setting the stage for further battles in Congress over the politically explosive inquiry. Kerri Kupec, a spokeswoman for the department, said Monday that officials plan to issue the report to Congress and the public on Thursday morning." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Danielle McLean of ThinkProgress: "As ... Donald Trump publicly boasts that ... Robert Mueller's anticipated 400-page report 'totally exonerated' him, White House officials are completing a counter-report that rebuts its findings.... The White House has been briefed 'in broad-brush strokes' on the report and it will not invoke executive privilege to get further redactions, ABC News reported Sunday. Despite all this, Trump's legal team has been working on a counter-report for months, which will attack the legitimacy of the investigation and focus on obstruction of justice claims the special counsel lays out in his report, according to Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani. The counter-report is reportedly 140 pages long, and Giuliani said the team is trying to cut it down to around 50 pages." ...

... White House Staff Worried Because They Told the Truth. Carol Lee, et al., of NBC News: "Some of the more than one dozen current and former White House officials who cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller are worried that the version of his report expected to be made public on Thursday will expose them as the source of damaging information about ... Donald Trump, according to multiple witnesses in the investigation. Some of the officials and their lawyers have sought clarity from the Justice Department on whether the names of those who cooperated with Mueller's team will be redacted or if the public report will be written in a way that makes it obvious who shared certain details of Trump's actions that were part of the obstruction of justice probe, people familiar with the discussions said. But, they said, the Justice Department has refused to elaborate." ...

... Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "The top two members of the House intelligence committee have said Special Counsel Robert Mueller 'must' brief them on his investigation, according to a letter obtained by The Daily Beast. The letter, signed by Democratic Chairman Adam Schiff and Republican Ranking Member Rep. Devin Nunes, was sent on March 27, shortly after Attorney General Bill Barr released a short letter summarizing Mueller's findings. They sent it to Barr, FBI Director Chris Wray, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The letter asked for Mueller and other senior members of his team to brief the committee on their work. It also asked for all the materials Mueller gathered during his probe: 'all materials, regardless of form and classification, obtained or produced by the Special Counsel's Office in the course of the investigation, including but not limited to any addenda or annexes to the full report, or separate intelligence or counterintelligence-related reports; scope-related materials regarding the investigation's parameters, areas of inquiry, and subjects; investigative records and materials,' as well as raw reporting and finished analysis related to his work. The letter was a rare moment of bipartisan concord on the notoriously fractured committee, and suggests Schiff and Nunes will work together to extract as much information and detail as possible from Mueller's team." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Devin Nunes' Cow must have been munching on some cannibis plants. And Devin's got milk.

... Bill Barr Has Only One Songbook. Ryan Goodman in Just Security: "On Friday the thirteenth October 1989..., news leaked of a legal memo authored by William Barr. He was then serving as head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). [The memo] ... concluded that the FBI could forcibly abduct people in other countries without the consent of the foreign state. The headline also noted the implication of the legal opinion at that moment in time. It appeared to pave the way for abducting Panama's leader, Gen. Manuel Noriega. Members of Congress asked to see the full legal opinion. Barr refused, but said he would provide an account that 'summarizes the principal conclusions.'... When the OLC opinion was finally made public long after Barr left office, it was clear that Barr's summary had failed to fully disclose the opinion's principal conclusions." (Also linked yesterday.)

Emily Flitter & David Enrich of the New York Times: "Congressional investigators on Monday issued subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and numerous other banks, seeking information about President Trump's finances and the lenders' business dealings with Russians, according to several people with knowledge of the investigation. The subpoenas, from the House's Intelligence and Financial Services committees, were the latest attempts by congressional Democrats to collect information about the finances of Mr. Trump and his family-owned company.... The committees that issued subpoenas on Monday are jointly investigating Deutsche Bank's relationship with Mr. Trump. Over the past two decades, Deutsche Bank was the only mainstream bank consistently willing to do business with Mr. Trump, who has a long history of defaults and bankruptcies. The bank has lent him well over $2 billion, and Mr. Trump had more than $300 million in outstanding loans from Deutsche Bank by the time he took office, making the German bank the president's biggest creditor." ...

... Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "... Donald Trump's attorneys are warning of potential legal action if an accounting firm turns over a decade of the president's financial records to the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Trump attorneys William S. Consovoy and Stefan Passantino are urging Mazars USA not to comply with a subpoena that Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) plans to issue on Monday for Trump's financial documents, calling it a politically motivated scheme to take down the president." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Eric Levenson of CNN: "In attacking the fight to obtain Trump's tax returns, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders argued that members of Congress aren't smart enough to understand them anyway. But three Democratic members of Congress are trained as certified public accountants -- professionals licensed by their states to do just that. The Congressional Research Service said there are 10 accountants in this Congress, including two senators and eight House members.... [For instance,] Rep. Brad Sherman of California is a tax law specialist and a CPA, and he was an instructor at Harvard Law School's International Tax Program, according to his biography. He sits on the House Committee on Financial Services." (Also linked yesterday.)

"I Alone." Manu Raju, et al., of CNN: "Republicans on Capitol Hill are raising alarms at the White House's resistance to congressional demands, fearing ... Donald Trump is bolstering the power of his office at the expense of Congress. The White House has stonewalled House Democrats on nearly all aspects of their sprawling investigations into the President, refusing to provide documents as requested by committee chairmen, preventing former White House officials from complying with Democratic demands and fighting subpoenas pertaining to the US Census and the administration's handling of the security clearance process.... In the past few months, Trump pushed for [Republicans] to return to the politically risky fight to replace the Affordable Care Act. He considered nominees key Republican senators don't want for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. And he pulled another -- Ron Vitiello to lead US Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- that Republicans actually liked.... The White House has also ignored the growing concerns from GOP senators over Trump's reliance on acting secretaries to run his Cabinet, a move that allows them to avoid the Senate confirmation process and his officials to temporarily escape nomination hearings intended to get their positions on the record and accountable to oversight." (Also linked yesterday.)

Matt Stieb of New York: "According to the White House, [former president Jimmy] Carter wrote Trump 'a beautiful letter about the current negotiations with China,' after which the two spoke over the phone on Saturday. By Monday, the White House was ready to share the good news: 'The President has always liked President Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter and extended his best wishes to them on behalf of the American people.'... President Trump ... has previously called Carter 'the worst President in the history of the United States.' Carter, for his part, told the Washington Post in 2017 that the Trump presidency was 'a disaster' in terms of 'human rights and taking care of people and treating people equal.'"

Peter Nicholas of the Atlantic examines what it takes to have staying power in Trump's tumultuous White House. "No one risks getting fired for being too effusive in praise of Trump.... Perhaps the most obsequious of all the president's men and women is his No. 2, present and past White House staff members say. 'I'd like my wife to look at me just for one day the way Mike Pence looks at President Trump every day they're together. That would be special,' Kenneth Adelman, an official in Reagan's administration, told me."

Ted Hesson of Politico: "The White House is weighing travel restrictions for nationals of countries with high rates of overstaying visas in the United States, according to a Department of Homeland Security official. Some of the countries with the highest rates of overstaying temporary visas are in Africa. Chad, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Eritrea, Liberia, Somalia, and South Sudan have among the highest overstay rates for short-term tourist and business visas, although they send relatively small numbers of travelers to the U.S. each year. During a meeting in January 2018..., Donald Trump reportedly referred to Haiti and some African nations as 'shithole countries' and questioned why their nationals should be admitted to the U.S.... The White House could issue a related presidential proclamation as soon as this week, a Homeland Security Department official told Politico." ...

... Somebody at ICE Can Be Shamed. Daniel González of the Arizona Republic: "Immigration officials deported the spouse of a U.S. soldier killed in Afghanistan last week, leaving the couple's 12-year-daughter in Phoenix, then abruptly reversed its decision on Monday when the deported man was allowed to return to the U.S. Jose Gonzalez Carranza, 30, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers last Monday on his way to his welding job and then deported to Nogales, Sonora, early Thursday morning, according to Gonzalez Carranza and his attorney, Ezequiel Hernandez. Gonzalez Carranza was married to Army Pfc. Barbara Vieyra, who was killed on Sept. 18, 2010, while serving in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. She was& 22.... ICE officials offered no explanation for the decision to allow Gonzalez Carranza to return to the U.S. But Hernandez believes the reversal was triggered by media attention the deportation received."

Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Interior Department's internal watchdog has opened an investigation into ethics complaints against the agency's newly installed secretary, David Bernhardt. Mr. Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for the oil and agribusiness industries, was confirmed by the Senate last week to head the agency, which oversees the nation's 500 million acres of public land and vast coastal waters. He has played a central role in writing policies designed to advance President Trump's policy of 'energy dominance' and expanding fossil fuel exploration. He has been dogged by allegations of ethics violations since joining the Trump administration as the Interior Department's deputy secretary in 2017. Eight senators, all Democrats, and four government ethics watchdog groups have requested that the Interior Department's inspector general open formal investigations into various aspects of Mr. Bernhardt's conduct."

Hey, These Guys Weren't Complete Idiots -- Back in 2015. Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "... Donald Trump's pick to serve on the Federal Reserve Stephen Moore once criticized Trump's positions on immigration, describing them as 'extreme nativist' and calling them 'crazy' and 'dangerous.' Moore made the comments in an August 2015 radio interview with Larry Kudlow, who now serves as the President's top economic adviser. In that interview, Kudlow compared Trump's immigration plans to the worst parts of World War II -- in an apparent reference to the Holocaust -- and said Trump's only real supporters came from 'the nativist fringe.' In a statement to CNN, Kudlow said he should have never made the comments about Trump's immigration proposal."

Paul Krugman: "... while today's G.O.P. can't do policy, it commands a powerful propaganda machine. And this machine is now dedicated to a strategy of portraying Democrats as extremists. It might work -- but it shouldn't, because Democrats aren't extremists, but Republicans are."

Presidential Election 2020

Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont disclosed 10 years of tax returns on Monday, providing a more detailed look at his finances than he offered when he ran for president in 2016. The returns show that Mr. Sanders's earnings shot up after his first presidential bid, when he built up a vast national following. His income topped $1 million in 2016 and 2017, lifted by proceeds from his books. Mr. Sanders and his wife, Jane O'Meara Sanders, had an adjusted gross income of $561,293 in 2018.... Mr. Sanders had about $393,000 in book income last year, and he and his wife reported giving $18,950 to charity. Their federal taxes came to $145,840, for an effective federal tax rate of 26 percent. Mr. Sanders's higher income in recent years creates some political awkwardness for the senator, who in his 2016 presidential campaign frequently railed against 'millionaires and billionaires' and their influence over the political process." ...

... Holly Otterbein of Politico: "Bernie Sanders entered the Fox's den on Monday night -- and he not only survived the hour-long encounter, but often dominated. Appearing at a Fox News-hosted town hall smack dab in the middle of Trump Country [-- Bethlehem, Pa. --], the Democratic presidential front-runner played the part, swatting down tough questions from the hosts about health care, defense spending, and his newfound wealth. At one point, the Vermont senator even led the network's audience in a call-and-response that found them cheering loudly for his policies.... The image of an audience on Fox News rallying behind the democratic socialist and his left-wing platform gave Sanders the appearance of strong support in an area that was key to the president's victory in 2016." ...

... Backfire! Bret Baier tried a gotcha question on Medicare for All to the Sanders town hall audience:

So a reporter with French-language channel BFMTV asked Pete Buttigieg about his reaction to the Notre Dame fire. Here's his response:

« Au peuple de France je voudrais dire que la cathédrale Notre Dame, c’était comme un cadeau à l’espèce humaine. Nous partageons la douleur mais nous vous remercions aussi de ce cadeau à la civilisation. » @PeteButtigieg à @BFMTV
Et en français! 🇫🇷🇺🇸#NotreDame pic.twitter.com/0xbf5lGhYH

— Cédric Faiche (@cedricfaiche) April 15, 2019

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I have no idea how good Mayor Pete's French is, but it sure beats Donald Trump's, who can't even say, "Oui, oui." When he tries, it comes out "Me, me."

Steve Brusk & Kate Sullivan of CNN: "Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld announced Monday he is officially entering the race for president, becoming the first Republican to challenge ... Donald Trump in the 2020 race.... In 2016, Weld was the vice presidential nominee on the Libertarian Party ticket with former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson. He previously served two terms as the governor of Massachusetts in the early 1990s. Weld ran for Senate in Massachusetts in 1996 and lost against John Kerry. He later moved to New York and in 2005 unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for governor. Weld told CNN's Jake Tapper on 'The Lead' that it would be a 'political tragedy' and he would 'fear for the Republic' if the country had six more years of Trump as President."

Jennifer Medina of the New York Times: "The actress Lori Loughlin, one of the most high-profile defendants in the college admissions bribery case, has pleaded not guilty to the charges against her, court documents showed on Monday. Ms. Loughlin's not guilty plea comes a week after 13 other parents, including the actress Felicity Huffman, indicated that they would plead guilty in what prosecutors have described as the largest-ever college admissions prosecution."

So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet Monday

Hundreds of firemen of the Paris Fire Brigade are doing everything they can to bring the terrible #NotreDame fire under control. All means are being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral. -- @SecCivileFrance

... Caleb Ecarma of Mediaite: "Fox News anchor Shep Smith kicked a French media figure off the network today after he began conspiring [theorizing] about the supposed malicious cause of the fire at Notre Dame. Smith's guest, Philippe Karsenty -- the deputy mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine -- was at the scene at the star of the Paris fire. 'It's like a 9/11, it's a French 9/11. It's a big shock,' Karsenty said, before wildly claiming that 'we've had churches desecrated each and every week all over France' over the past few years." ...

... Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "Fox News' Neil Cavuto had to hang up on Catholic League president Bill Donohue during live coverage of the Notre Dame fire when the conservative activist refused to stop speculating about the cause of the blaze." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Good calls, gentlemen. To avoid such incidents in the futue, you'll have to get better guests. ...

... A YouTube Algorithm Is a Conspiracy Theorist, Too. Craig Timberg & Drew Harwell of the Washington Post: "A new YouTube tool for battling misinformation failed in a highly public way on Monday, wrongly linking video of the flaming collapse of the spire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. As images of the iconic tower falling played on newscasts around the world -- and on the YouTube channels mirroring those newscasts -- 'information panels' appeared in boxes below the videos providing details about the collapses of New York's World Trade Center after the terrorist attack, which killed thousands of people. There appeared to be few injuries in the Paris fire. The 9/11 tragedy is a frequent subject of hoaxes, and the information panels were posted automatically, likely because of visual similarities that computer algorithms detected between the two incidents. YouTube began rolling out the information panels providing factual information about the subjects of frequent hoaxes in the past few months.... Monday's incident shows the weaknesses of computerized systems."

Olivia Solon & Cyrus Farivar of NBC News: "Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg oversaw plans to consolidate the social network's power and control competitors by treating its users' data as a bargaining chip, while publicly proclaiming to be protecting that data, according to about 4,000 pages of leaked company documents largely spanning 2011 to 2015 and obtained by NBC News. The documents, which include emails, webchats, presentations, spreadsheets and meeting summaries, show how Zuckerberg, along with his board and management team, found ways to tap Facebook's trove of user data -- including information about friends, relationships and photos -- as leverage over companies it partnered with. In some cases, Facebook would reward favored companies by giving them access to the data of its users. In other cases, it would deny user-data access to rival companies or apps."

Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "The National Rifle Association sued one of its largest and most enduring contractors late last week and raised concerns about the contractor's relationship to the association's own president, Oliver North, in a stunning breach within the normally buttoned-up organization. The suit was filed late Friday by the N.R.A. in Virginia, where it is based, against Ackerman McQueen, the Oklahoma ad firm that operates NRATV, the group's incendiary online media arm. The suit asserts that Ackerman has concealed details from the N.R.A. about how the company is spending the roughly $40 million that it and its affiliates receive annually from the association. The suit creates uncertainty about Mr. North's future at the organization. And it leaves the future of NRATV in doubt.... [NRATV] has ... taken on an apocalyptic tone, warning of race wars, calling for a march on the Federal Bureau of Investigation and portraying the talking trains in the children's show 'Thomas & Friends' in Ku Klux Klan hoods.... The complaint details a peculiar standoff with Ackerman over Mr. North, who took over as president last year...." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Let's hope these people eat each other alive, on maybe both lose in a shootout at the Not-OK Corral.

The Commentariat -- April 15, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

The redacted Mueller report will be released to the public & the Congress Thursday morning, per MSNBC. This is the day before the Easter holiday, the day before Passover, and Congress will be adjourned. Just coincidental, I'm sure. ...

     ... Update. Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department expects to release on Thursday a redacted version of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's report on President Trump, his associates and Russia's interference in the 2016 election, setting the stage for further battles in Congress over the politically explosive inquiry. Kerri Kupec, a spokeswoman for the department, said Monday that officials plan to issue the report to Congress and the public on Thursday morning."

... Bill Barr Has Only One Songbook. Ryan Goodman in Just Security: "On Friday the thirteenth October 1989..., news leaked of a legal memo authored by William Barr. He was then serving as head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). [The memo] ... concluded that the FBI could forcibly abduct people in other countries without the consent of the foreign state. The headline also noted the implication of the legal opinion at that moment in time. It appeared to pave the way for abducting Panama's leader, Gen. Manuel Noriega. Members of Congress asked to see the full legal opinion. Barr refused, but said he would provide an account that 'summarizes the principal conclusions.'... When the OLC opinion was finally made public long after Barr left office, it was clear that Barr's summary had failed to fully disclose the opinion's principal conclusions."

"I Alone." Manu Raju, et al., of CNN: "Republicans on Capitol Hill are raising alarms at the White House's resistance to congressional demands, fearing ... Donald Trump is bolstering the power of his office at the expense of Congress. The White House has stonewalled House Democrats on nearly all aspects of their sprawling investigations into the President, refusing to provide documents as requested by committee chairmen, preventing former White House officials from complying with Democratic demands and fighting subpoenas pertaining to the US Census and the administration's handling of the security clearance process.... In the past few months, Trump pushed for [Republicans] to return to the politically risky fight to replace the Affordable Care Act. He considered nominees key Republican senators don't want for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. And he pulled another -- Ron Vitiello to lead US Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- that Republicans actually liked.... The White House has also ignored the growing concerns from GOP senators over Trump's reliance on acting secretaries to run his Cabinet, a move that allows them to avoid the Senate confirmation process and his officials to temporarily escape nomination hearings intended to get their positions on the record and accountable to oversight." ...

... Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "... Donald Trump's attorneys are warning of potential legal action if an accounting firm turns over a decade of the president's financial records to the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Trump attorneys William S. Consovoy and Stefan Passantino are urging Mazars USA not to comply with a subpoena that Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) plans to issue on Monday for Trump's financial documents, calling it a politically motivated scheme to take down the president." ...

... Eric Levenson of CNN: "In attacking the fight to obtain Trump's tax returns, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders argued that members of Congress aren't smart enough to understand them anyway. But three Democratic members of Congress are trained as certified public accountants -- professionals licensed by their states to do just that. The Congressional Research Service said there are 10 accountants in this Congress, including two senators and eight House members.... [For instance,] Rep. Brad Sherman of California is a tax law specialist and a CPA, and he was an instructor at Harvard Law School's International Tax Program, according to his biography. He sits on the House Committee on Financial Services."

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Many Happy Returns of the Day

Democrats Are So Stupid. Michael Burke of the Hill: "White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Sunday that she doesn't think members of Congress are 'smart enough' to look through President Trump's tax returns. 'Frankly I don't think Congress -- particularly not this group of congressmen and women -- are smart enough to look through the thousands of pages that I would assume that President Trump's taxes will be,' she said on 'Fox News Sunday. My guess is that most of them don't do their own taxes and I certainly don't trust them to look through the decades of success that the president has and determine anything'..." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Apparently Democrats are so dumb they don't know to hire tax experts to review the returns. Maybe that's because they are so many Democratic members of Congress who are women & minorities, the "type" of people who throw their hands up when it comes to managing money. BTW, Sarah, you ignorant slut, freshman Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) wrote a textbook on"Modern Consumer Law," so I'll bet she, among some other members, can read & analyze a tax return -- even a complicated one. ...

... Chas Danner of New York: "It's not yet clear what purpose Sander's guessing game and lawmaker-intelligence assessment was intended to serve. She called the endeavor 'a dangerous, dangerous road' and championed the protection of Trump's privacy, yet also leaned back on his absurd ongoing claim that his tax returns remain in some perpetual state of audit, and that's why he continues to be the only president in decades to hide his taxes ... (but would totally share them if he could)." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: IOW, Trump would love to share his returns with the guy at the end of the bar, but Congressional Democrats are too dumb to read & interpret them.

Thomas Kaplan, et al., of the New York Times: "Senator Kamala Harris of California disclosed 15 years of tax returns on Sunday, providing a detailed picture of her finances. Several other Democratic presidential candidates have also released years of returns, and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has pledged to release 10 years of returns by Monday." The reporters compare the 2018 returns of candidates Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand & Jay Inslee. "The returns showed that in recent years, they earned substantially more than a vast majority of American households."

Alexandre Tanzi of Bloomberg: "Newly available net worth data from the Federal Reserve suggests that the 'left-behind' contagion has spread to all Americans aside from the top 10 percent. While still wealthier overall than most other groups, even the upper-middle class is feeling the pinch of income stagnation. The growth rate of this group's incomes is lagging behind that of those both lower and higher on the socioeconomic ladder.... As of the end of 2018, net worth as a share of the U.S. total had shrunk considerably for the upper middle class." --s

Other Trump Scandals, Ctd.

John Bresnahan & Heather Caygle of Politico: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday that the U.S. Capitol Police and the House sergeant-at-arms 'are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman [Ilhan] Omar, her family and her staff' after a tweet by ... Donald Trump. Trump on Friday shared an edited video of Omar superimposed over images of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. 'We will never forget,' the president wrote on Twitter.... Pelosi's announcement highlighted what has become an extraordinary situation -- the speaker of the House is worried about the safety of one of her members after a statement by the president of the United States. An Omar aide said on Sunday that 'there has been an increase in threats' against the Minnesota Democrat after Trump's tweet." ...

... Ian Kulgren of Politico: "... Donald Trump has 'no moral authority' to talk about 9/11, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Sunday. 'He stole $150,000 from some small businessperson who could have used it to help rehabilitate himself. And that's why we appropriated it, why I got Congress to appropriate that money,' Nadler said on 'State of the Union' on CNN. 'To use it for his own small business of 40 Wall Street, he has no moral authority to be talking about 9/11 at all.' Nadler was referencing how Trump's company accepted post-9/11 funding for a building that had not sustained any damage. Trump said the building qualified because his company had suffered economic losses in the aftermath of the terrorist attack. The funding came from the Empire State Development Corp., New York's economic development agency, and was intended for small businesses. Trump targeted Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) last week for comments she made about discrimination of Muslim Americans after 9/11. Conservative pundits latched on to one portion of Omar's comments -- in which she referred to the attacks by saying that 'somebody did something' -- to argue that Omar was minimizing tremendous human loss. Trump responded by tweeting a graphic video of the Twin Towers collapsing juxtaposed with Omar's comment, earning criticism from Democrats for targeting a Muslim woman." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "As long as President Trump has focused on what he said was the danger lurking at the southwestern border, he has also talked about the supposed threat from one specific group already in the country: Muslims.... Now..., Mr. Trump is seeking to rally his base by sounding that theme once again. And this time, he has a specific target: Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota and one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress. Mr. Trump and his team are trying to make Ms. Omar, one of a group of progressive women Democratic House members who is relatively unknown in national politics, a household name, to be seen as the most prominent voice of the Democratic Party, regardless of her actual position.... On Monday, Mr. Trump will visit Minnesota -- ... [his] decision to appear there is a calculated choice." ...

... it's a good thing that the president is calling her out for those comments. -- Sarah Sanders, on ABC News' "This Week," Sunday

... Chris Wallace Shares Pelosi's Concerns. Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "Donald Trump's attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MI) was so 'horrible' that Fox News' Chris Wallace did not feel 'comfortable' playing more than 5 seconds of it as he interviewed White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. On this week's edition of Fox News Sunday, Wallace interviewed Sanders on a range of subjects, including the inflammatory video that Trump posted in order to attack Omar, which many have called an incitement to violence.... 'Why is the president comfortable putting out horrible images like that,' Wallace asked [Sanders], and added 'does he worry at all about inciting violence against Muslims in general, or Ilhan Omar in specific?' Sanders replied that 'nothing could be further from the truth,' but went on to call Rep. Omar's remark 'disgusting and abhorrent.'"

Bloviator-in-Chief Completely Exonerates Himself. Annie Karni & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The case was closed for President Trump on March 24, the day Attorney General William P. Barr delivered to Congress his four-page summary of the special counsel's 300-plus page report. 'No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION,' Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter that day. And in the weeks that followed, the president's message of vindication and revenge on his political antagonists has only intensified, as he has expressed no interest in reading the full report and leveled charges of treason against Democratic lawmakers. Mr. Barr's letter effectively emboldened Mr. Trump, aides said, even as they prepare for new details to emerge from a redacted version of the report -- expected this week -- that could renew questions about the president's fitness for office, and even as some of them cringe at Mr. Trump's choice of the word 'exonerate.' (Privately, they admit, they would prefer he use the word 'vindicate.')" ...

Oh Noes! Will the villainous black guy jump out of the bushes & attack the nice old, fat, white supremacist guy?... Devlin Barrett & Rachel Bade of the Washington Post: "For two years, President Trump's most devoted allies have struggled to legitimize their accusations that the FBI conducted political spying on the Trump campaign in 2016 -- at times openly feuding with Republican leaders over their grievances with the investigation of Russia's election interference. But on Wednesday, those assertions received their biggest boost yet, and from an unlikely source: Attorney General William P. Barr, who told a Senate subcommittee, 'I think spying did occur, yes.'... Trump's allies in Congress have seized on Barr's testimony to once again demand an 'investigation of the investigator.' The president's reelection campaign, meanwhile, is selling T-shirts depicting former president Barack Obama lurking in thick green shrubbery with a set of spy glasses. An advertisement circulated Friday night read: 'AG Barr believes the Obama Admin illegally spied on Pres Trump. We Need Answers! Fight Back!'... For those who worked on the Russia probe and other high-profile political investigations, Barr's words were a below-the-belt attack. Current and former law enforcement officials have denied engaging in political spying, and they've said the investigation was conducted professionally based on available evidence." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: What more ideal Trump campaign ad than one with a scary black man lurking in the bushes?

David Corn, et al. of Mother Jones: "When Yujing Zhang, the Chinese woman arrested for allegedly sneaking into President Trump's Mar-a-Lago club on March 30, appeared in court on Monday, a portion of the proceedings focused on a mysterious Chinese businessman named Charles Lee, who has ties to the Communist Party and the Chinese government and who appears to be at the center of this episode. A Mother Jones investigation of Lee has uncovered more questions about his business ventures and background." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Rachel Frazin of the Hill: "President Trump tweeted on Saturday night that his administration has the legal right to send undocumented immigrants to sanctuary cities and demanded it happen. 'Just out: The USA has the absolute legal right to have apprehended illegal immigrants transferred to Sanctuary Cities,' he wrote. 'We hereby demand that they be taken care of at the highest level, especially by the State of California, which is well known or its poor management & high taxes!'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... The Confederate Presidunce*. Josh Israel of ThinkProgress: "President Donald Trump confirmed Friday he was considering 'placing' undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities as political retribution for Democrats opposing his immigration policies.... This isn't the first time Trump has tried to target blue districts.... [S]o far, acts that attempt to favor states and localities that backed him in 2016 and disfavor those that did not, have been a hallmark of his presidency.... In January 2017, he issued Executive Order 13768 which attempted to ensure that [so-called 'sanctuary cities'] 'are not eligible to receive Federal grants.' The order was deemed to be an illegal overreach in a 2 to 1 decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last year. Trump's 2017 tax bill...included provisions that favored Trump states over Clinton states.... Trump has frequently targeted California.... Earlier this year, amid massive forest fires, he tweeted that he was instructing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to stop providing assistance. (It's not clear whether he has actually done this, despite the threats.).... Trump attempted to block all emergency funding from going to Puerto Rico, according to a January 2019 article in The Washington Post, attempting to send their disaster relief money to Florida and Texas instead." --s (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Also too, isn't it lovely to reminded on Tax Day that Trump's tax "reform" bill also targeted Americans living in mostly-blue states by drastically reducing the deduction for local & state taxes. ...

... Chris Rodrigo of the Hill: "Homeland Security chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said Sunday that he sees no way for President Trump's idea to transfer detained migrants to 'sanctuary cities' to be legal.... 'More importantly, this is again his manufactured chaos that he has created over the last 2 years on the border.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: This New York Times story by Eileen Sullivan & Michael Shear is ostensibly about Donald Trump's "frustration" with his own appointees who aren't out there slapping around enough immigrant children. But clearly the reporters' sources have had it with white supremacist Stephen Miller,. His portrait, as drawn, is of a monster. ...

... Mike DeBonis, et al., of the Washington Post: "House Democrats are sharpening their focus on White House immigration adviser Stephen Miller, with key lawmakers saying he should be brought before congressional committees to testify about his role in recent policy controversies.... 'Steve Miller, who seems to be the boss of everybody on immigration, ought to come before Congress and explain some of these policies,' [Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY)] said in a CNN interview.... Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.), chairwoman of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on border security, facilitation and operations, said in an interview that Miller needs to come before her panel to 'make his case for these terrible policies to the American people instead of being this shadow puppeteer.'"

Conor Finnegan of ABC News: “When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the Trump administration would designate a branch of Iran's military as a foreign terrorist organization Monday, he said, 'The Trump administration is simply recognizing a basic reality.' But critics say they are concerned that it may also be part of an effort to bend reality enough to provide legal justification for armed conflict with Iran.... The foreign terrorist organization, or FTO, designation [may be] part of laying the groundwork for strikes on Iranian forces, especially in Iraq or Syria where they may encounter U.S. troops." Mrs. McC: You know Trump wants to be a war president*.

Alex Emmons of The Intercept: "President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that if the U.S. does not sell weapons to the Saudis, they will turn to U.S. adversaries to supply their arsenals.... But a highly classified document produced by the French Directorate of Military Intelligence shows that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are overwhelmingly dependent on Western-produced weapon systems to wage their devastating war in Yemen..., meaning that the Saudis and UAE would have to replace large portions of their arsenals to continue with Russian or Chinese weapons.... The catalogue of weapon systems is just one revelation in the classified report ... being published in full by The Intercept, Disclose, and four other French media organizations. The report also harshly criticizes Saudi military capabilities in Yemen.... And it suggests that U.S. assistance with Saudi targeting in Yemen may go beyond what has previously been acknowledged." --s

Trump's Swamp, Ctd. Ben Lefebvre & Annie Snider of Politico: "The National Archives and Records Administration gave the Interior Department until late April to address Democrats' allegations that newly confirmed Secretary David Bernhardt may have been destroying his official calendars, according to a letter Politico obtained Friday.... Bernhardt's existing daily schedule shows that the former fossil fuel and agriculture lobbyist has met with representatives of former clients who stood to gain from Interior's decisions, but the department has released few details about his activities during about one-third of his days in office. House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) requested the NARA probe.... The Senate confirmed Bernhardt as Interior secretary by a 56-41 vote Thursday, overriding Democrats' questions about his ethics." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Trump's Swamp, Ctd. David Dayen of The Intercept: "Betsy Devos's Education Department quietly dropped requirements for risky for-profit colleges to set aside funds in case the schools closed, according to documents from a lawsuit filed last year. Two of the for-profit networks subsequently shut down without owing the Education Department any money; in one case, the department actually gave $10 million back to a for-profit on the brink of bankruptcy. Not only did this deprive taxpayers an offset to costs associated with refunding loans, but it also extended the life of the for-profit colleges, allowing them to enroll more students into a doomed enterprise that wasted time, money, and effort, and delivered them nothing of value." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Allyson Chiu of the Washington Post: "President Trump lashed out at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Sunday night on Twitter following a CBS '60 Minutes' interview during which she recounted standing up to him and reiterated her opinion that he is unfit for office and knows it. 'There's nobody in the country who knows better that he should not be president of the United States than Donald Trump,' Pelosi told CBS's Lesley Stahl.... In the wide-ranging interview, Pelosi touted Democrats' achievements in their first 100 days in control of the House of Representatives while also discussing last December's heated Oval Office showdown over funding for Trump's border wall, her now-famous State of the Union clap and the power she holds in her current position.... 'Such a "puff piece" on Nancy Pelosi by @60minutes, yet her leadership has passed no meaningful Legislation,' he tweeted, accusing Democrats of only investigating 'crimes that they instigated & committed.' It is unclear exactly what 'crimes' Trump was referring to, but in the past he has suggested Hillary Clinton and Democrats be investigated for colluding with Russia. 'The Mueller No Collusion decision wasn't even discussed-and she was a disaster at W.H.,' Trump added, referencing last year's fiery border wall spat.... The scathing tweet is a departure from Trump's usual approach to Pelosi, one of his most vocal critics." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: "A puff piece"? I watched parts of the interview, & I thought Stahl was so aggressive that I didn't link or embed the video. Stahl repeatedly asked Pelosi why Democrats hadn't gotten anything done, pretending (I hope) that she (Stahl) had no idea that Mitch McConnell was sitting on stacks of legislation Pelosi passed in the House, & of course Trump wouldn't sign it even if McConnell pushed it through the Senate. Stahl's performance was embarrassingly harsh, IMO, bordering on stupid.

Presidential Race 2020

Zeke Miller of the AP: "... Donald Trump's reelection campaign is set to report that it raised more than $30 million in the first quarter of 2019, edging out his top two Democratic rivals combined, according to figures it provided to The Associated Press. The haul brings the campaign's cash on hand to $40.8 million, an unprecedented war chest for an incumbent president this early in a campaign." Mrs. McC: The better to produce more of those nice racist T-shirts.

Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "Pete Buttigieg, the young Midwestern mayor whose presidential bid has been an unlikely early focus of attention from Democratic voters and donors, kicked off his campaign on Sunday and proclaimed his hometown's revival was the answer to skeptics who ask how he has the 'audacity' to see himself in the White House. At a rally inside a partly rebuilt factory, once owned by the automaker Studebaker and now being turned into glass-sheathed offices for tech and other businesses, Mr. Buttigieg said, 'I ran for mayor in 2011 knowing nothing like Studebaker would ever come back, but that we would, our city would, if we had the courage to reimagine our future.' If elected, Mr. Buttigieg, a 37-year-old Rhodes scholar and veteran of the war in Afghanistan, would represent a series of historic firsts: the youngest president ever and the first who is openly gay."

Mark Townsend of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon advised Italy's interior minister Matteo Salvini to attack the pope over the issue of migration.... During a meeting in Washington in April 2016, Bannon -- who would within a few months take up his role as head of Trump's presidential campaign -- ... 'advised Salvini himself that the actual pope is a sort of enemy...,' said a senior League insider with knowledge of the meeting[.] ... After the meeting, Salvini became more outspoken against the pope.... Bannon has steadily been building opposition to Francis through his Dignitatis Humanae Institute, based in a 13th-century mountaintop monastery not far from Rome. In January 2017, Bannon became a patron of the institute, whose honorary president is Cardinal Raymond Burke, an ultra-conservative who believes organised networks of homosexuals are spreading a 'gay agenda' in the Vatican. The institute's chairman is former Italian MP Luca Volontè, on trial for corruption for accepting bribes from Azerbaijan." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Beyond the Beltway

Italy. Rachel Donadio of The Atlantic: "I've seen this movie before, but not about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on President Donald Trump's ties to Russia. No, I saw the one that was set in Italy and starred Silvio Berlusconi. Like so many other American remakes, the one with Trump is bigger and louder, and the male lead wears rather ill-fitting suits. But the version I witnessed foreshadowed the current American predicament and offers some insights into what can happen to a democracy when image becomes disconnected from reality.... From the outset, Berlusconi faced judicial investigations.... While ordinary people didn't have the time or interest to follow Berlusconi's legal tangles, the press became obsessed with them. So much so that it lost track of -- or maybe never had any interest in -- covering the country's underlying problems.... What finally drove Berlusconi from office wasn't a political opposition ... or legal trials.... It was the European debt crisis." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

News Ledes

New York Times: "Notre-Dame cathedral, the iconic symbol of the beauty and history of Paris, was scarred by an extensive fire on Monday evening that caused its delicate spire to collapse, bruised the Parisian skies with smoke and further disheartened a city already back on its heels after weeks of violent protests.... Around 500 firefighters battled the blaze for nearly five hours. By 11 p.m. Paris time, the structure had been 'saved and preserved as a whole,' the fire chief, Jean-Claude Gallet, said. The two magnificent towers soaring above the skyline had been spared, he said, but two-thirds of the roof was destroyed." ...

... Guardian: "Notre Dame cathedral in Paris has been devastated by a ferocious blaze that has destroyed the spire of the centuries-old landmark. Firefighters were rushing to try to contain a fire that has broken out at the cathedral, which police said began accidentally and was linked to building work at the site. Flames burst through the roof of the cathedral -- one of France's most visited places -- and quickly engulfed the spire, which collapsed. Smoke could be seen billowing from the top of the medieval cathedral, considered one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in France and one of Paris's most-visited monuments. A huge plume of smoke wafted across the city and ash fell over a large area. Flames leapt into the air beside the two bell towers said a Reuters correspondent who witnessed the fire."

The Commentariat -- April 14, 2019

Late Morning Update:

Ian Kulgren of Politico: "... Donald Trump has 'no moral authority' to talk about 9/11, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Sunday. 'He stole $150,000 from some small businessperson who could have used it to help rehabilitate himself. And that's why we appropriated it, why I got Congress to appropriate that money,' Nadler said on 'State of the Union' on CNN. 'To use it for his own small business of 40 Wall Street he has no moral authority to be talking about 9/11 at all.' Nadler was referencing how Trump's company accepted post-9/11 funding for a building that had not sustained any damage. Trump said the building qualified because his company had suffered economic losses in the aftermath of the terrorist attack. The funding came from the Empire State Development Corp., New York's economic development agency, and was intended for small businesses. Trump targeted Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) last week for comments she made about discrimination of Muslim Americans after 9/11. Conservative pundits latched on to one portion of Omar's comments -- in which she referred to the attacks by saying that 'somebody did something' -- to argue that Omar was minimizing tremendous human loss. Trump responded by tweeting a graphic video of the Twin Towers collapsing juxtaposed with Omar's comment, earning criticism from Democrats for targeting a Muslim woman. Nadler said he didn't have a problem with Omar's remarks. 'She characterized it only in passing,' Nadler said. 'She was talking about discrimination against Muslim Americans. And she just said that, after that happened, it was used as an excuse for lots of discrimination and for withdrawal of civil liberties.'"

Democrats Are So Stupid. Michael Burke of the Hill: "White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Sunday that she doesn't think members of Congress are 'smart enough' to look through President Trump's tax returns. 'Frankly I don't think Congress -- particularly not this group of congressmen and women -- are smart enough to look through the thousands of pages that I would assume that President Trump's taxes will be,' she said on 'Fox News Sunday.' 'My guess is that most of them don't do their own taxes and I certainly don't trust them to look through the decades of success that the president has and determine anything,' Sanders continued." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Apparently Democrats are so dumb they don't know to hire tax experts to review the returns. Maybe that's because they are so many Democratic members of Congress who are women & minorities, the "type" of people who just throw their hands up when it comes to managing money.

Rachel Frazin of the Hill: "President Trump tweeted on Saturday night that his administration has the legal right to send undocumented immigrants to sanctuary cities and demanded it happen. 'Just out: The USA has the absolute legal right to have apprehended illegal immigrants transferred to Sanctuary Cities,' he wrote. 'We hereby demand that they be taken care of at the highest level, especially by the State of California, which is well known or its poor management & high taxes!'" ...

... Chris Rodrigo of the Hill: "Homeland Security chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said Sunday that he sees no way for President Trump's idea to transfer detained migrants to 'sanctuary cities' to be legal.... 'More importantly, this is again his manufactured chaos that he has created over the last 2 years on the border.'"

David Corn, et al. of Mother Jones: "When Yujing Zhang, the Chinese woman arrested for allegedly sneaking into President Trump's Mar-a-Lago club on March 30, appeared in court on Monday, a portion of the proceedings focused on a mysterious Chinese businessman named Charles Lee, who has ties to the Communist Party and the Chinese government and who appears to be at the center of this episode. A Mother Jones investigation of Lee has uncovered more questions about his business ventures and background." --s

The Confederate Presidunce*. Josh Israel of ThinkProgress: "President Donald Trump confirmed Friday he was considering 'placing' undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities as political retribution for Democrats opposing his immigration policies.... This isn't the first time Trump has tried to target blue districts.... [S]o far, acts that attempt to favor states and localities that backed him in 2016 and disfavor those that did not, have been a hallmark of his presidency.... In January 2017, he issued Executive Order 13768 which attempted to ensure that [so-called 'sanctuary cities'] 'are not eligible to receive Federal grants.' The order was deemed to be an illegal overreach in a 2 to 1 decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last year. Trump's 2017 tax bill...included provisions that favored Trump states over Clinton states.... Trump has frequently targeted California.... Earlier this year, amid massive forest fires, he tweeted that he was instructing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to stop providing assistance. (It's not clear whether he has actually done this, despite the threats.).... Trump attempted to block all emergency funding from going to Puerto Rico, according to a January 2019 article in The Washington Post, attempting to send their disaster relief money to Florida and Texas instead." --s ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Also too, isn't it lovely to reminded on Tax Day that Trump's tax "reform" bill also targeted Americans living in mostly-blue states by drastically reducing the deduction for local & state taxes.

Trump's Swamp, Ctd. Ben Lefebvre & Annie Snider of Politico: "The National Archives and Records Administration gave the Interior Department until late April to address Democrats' allegations that newly confirmed Secretary David Bernhardt may have been destroying his official calendars, according to a letter Politico obtained Friday.... Bernhardt's existing daily schedule shows that the former fossil fuel and agriculture lobbyist has met with representatives of former clients who stood to gain from Interior's decisions, but the department has released few details about his activities during about one-third of his days in office. House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) requested the NARA probe.... The Senate confirmed Bernhardt as Interior secretary by a 56-41 vote Thursday, overriding Democrats' questions about his ethics." --s

Mark Townsend of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon advised Italy's interior minister Matteo Salvini to attack the pope over the issue of migration.... During a meeting in Washington in April 2016, Bannon -- who would within a few months take up his role as head of Trump's presidential campaign -- ... 'advised Salvini himself that the actual pope is a sort of enemy...,' said a senior League insider with knowledge of the meeting[.] ... After the meeting, Salvini became more outspoken against the pope.... Bannon has steadily been building opposition to Francis through his Dignitatis Humanae Institute, based in a 13th-century mountaintop monastery not far from Rome. In January 2017, Bannon became a patron of the institute, whose honorary president is Cardinal Raymond Burke, an ultra-conservative who believes organised networks of homosexuals are spreading a 'gay agenda' in the Vatican. The institute's chairman is former Italian MP Luca Volontè, on trial for corruption for accepting bribes from Azerbaijan." --s

Trump's Swamp, Ctd. David Dayen of The Intercept: "Betsy Devos's Education Department quietly dropped requirements for risky for-profit colleges to set aside funds in case the schools closed, according to documents from a lawsuit filed last year. Two of the for-profit networks subsequently shut down without owing the Education Department any money; in one case, the department actually gave $10 million back to a for-profit on the brink of bankruptcy. Not only did this deprive taxpayers an offset to costs associated with refunding loans, but it also extended the life of the for-profit colleges, allowing them to enroll more students into a doomed enterprise that wasted time, money, and effort, and delivered them nothing of value." --s

Rachel Donadio of The Atlantic: "I've seen this movie before, but not about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on President Donald Trump's ties to Russia. No, I saw the one that was set in Italy and starred Silvio Berlusconi. Like so many other American remakes, the one with Trump is bigger and louder, and the male lead wears rather ill-fitting suits. But the version I witnessed foreshadowed the current American predicament and offers some insights into what can happen to a democracy when image becomes disconnected from reality.... From the outset, Berlusconi faced judicial investigations.... While ordinary people didn't have the time or interest to follow Berlusconi's legal tangles, the press became obsessed with them. So much so that it lost track of — or maybe never had any interest in -- covering the country's underlying problems: the economy, unemployment, financial insecurity.... What finally drove Berlusconi from office wasn't a political opposition ... or legal trials.... It was the European debt crisis." --s

~~~~~~~~~~

Government by Sabotaging Ordinary People. Eric Levitz of New York: "On Friday..., Trump vouched for a Washington Post report that specifically suggested that the White House had repeatedly implored Immigration and Customs Enforcement to dump undocumented immigrants in Nancy Pelosi's congressional district -- as a means of coercing House Democrats into granting the administration concessions in budget negotiations. In other words, the president is ostensibly threatening to deliberately inflict harm on Americans who live in areas controlled by Democrats until a coequal branch starts taking his marching orders." The move fits a pattern. "Less than three months into his presidency, Trump threatened to deliberately sabotage America's individual insurance market until Democrats agreed to support repealing and replacing Obamacare[.]... A few months later, the Trump administration canceled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, thereby subjecting 700,000 Dreamers to the threat of deportation ... because he believed that he could ransom the Dreamers' security for concessions on immigration policy.... And, of course, the president recently shuttered the federal government for more than a month -- deliberately inflicting economic hardship and governmental dysfunction on ordinary Americans -- in a doomed attempt to force Nancy Pelosi to fund his border wall."

One More Way Trump Is Inviting Central American Refugees. Kirk Semple of the New York Times: "... [Central American] farmers, agricultural scientists and industry officials say a new threat has been ruining harvests, upending lives and adding to the surge of families migrating to the United States: climate change.... Gradually rising temperatures, more extreme weather events and increasingly unpredictable patterns -- like rain not falling when it should, or pouring when it shouldn't -- have disrupted growing cycles and promoted the relentless spread of pests. The obstacles have cut crop production or wiped out entire harvests, leaving already poor families destitute. Central America is among the regions most vulnerable to climate change, scientists say. And because agriculture employs much of the labor force -- about 28 percent in Honduras alone, according to the World Bank -- the livelihoods of millions of people are at stake.... The United States has allocated tens of millions of dollars in aid in recent years for farmers across Central America, including efforts to help them adapt to the changing climate. But President Trump has vowed to cut off all foreign aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador because of what he calls their failure to curb the flow of migrants north."

Laurence Tribe to Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post on Donald Trump's reported order to CBP commissioner (now acting DHS secretary) Kevin McAleenan to close the U.S.-Mexican border, & if McAleenan got in legal trouble for it, a promise of a presidential pardon: "If carried out, this offer to pardon high immigration officials if they will break the law on his behalf is the most obviously impeachable action President Trump has taken to date: It would mean this president has seized the power to put not just himself but all who do his bidding beyond the reach of law. That doing so is a high crime and misdemeanor is beyond dispute. Any president guilty of such conduct cannot be permitted to remain in office.... Therefore, the House Judiciary Committee needs to include this matter within its investigatory ambit, subpoenaing all those who may have relevant knowledge unless they appear voluntarily.... It seems unrealistic to expect the blatantly compromised Attorney General William Barr to appoint a special counsel to pursue the issue even if, as appears to be the case, the president has credibly been charged with promising a pardon as a bribe for illegal conduct."

Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "A Democratic House chairman on Saturday castigated the Treasury Department for failing to meet his deadline to furnish President Trump's tax returns, arguing that the administration's apparent concerns over his use of powers outlined in the Internal Revenue Service's tax code 'lack merit.' The chairman, Representative Richard E. Neal, Democrat of Massachusetts, set a new deadline for compliance, April 23, and warned that if the Trump administration did not reply by then, its 'failure will be interpreted as a denial of my request.' The tone of Mr. Neal's letter suggested Democrats are prepared to take their request -- made through a little-known provision in the federal tax code -- to court if necessary, initiating what could be a protracted legal fight over Congress's oversight powers. In it, he cited legal precedent that he argued clearly showed the law is on the committee's side, and said that the executive branch had no right to 'second guess' its motivations."

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "House Democrats are crying foul over a plan by the Intelligence Committee's top Republican, Rep. Devin Nunes, to meet privately with Attorney General William Barr to push the Justice Department to pursue criminal charges against officials involved in the investigation of ... Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia.... Nunes has in recent days foreshadowed plans to send eight 'criminal referrals' -- informal requests for the Justice Department to investigate -- directly to Barr.... Before seeing its contents, Nunes labeled Mueller's report a 'partisan document' and said 'we can just burn it up,' even as most of Trump's supporters were celebrating the news -- as described publicly by Barr -- that Mueller 'did not establish' a conspiracy between the campaign and the Russian government."

Kyle Cheney: "Roger Stone, the longtime political ally and confidant of ... Donald Trump, issued a series of Hail Mary legal arguments late Friday to dismiss the indictment against him from special counsel Robert Mueller that is pending before a federal judge in Washington D.C. The longshot arguments, some of which have already been considered and rejected by judges in the same courthouse, suggest that Mueller's appointment was unconstitutional because he wasn't commissioned directly by ... Donald Trump. Stone also argues that the Justice Department improperly funded Mueller's investigation because the pot of money supporting his probe wasn't explicitly authorized by Congress. He separately contends that he has been selectively targeted by Mueller because of his closeness to Trump." ...

... Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "... Roger Stone is connected to investigations Robert Mueller sent to other prosecutors and that continue despite the special counsel having finished his work, the Justice Department said Friday in a new court filing. The Justice Department told the federal court in Washington, DC, on Friday afternoon that it shouldn't allow the public release of search warrants being used in Stone's criminal case in DC federal court. The warrants 'concern investigations that remain ongoing,' the filing says. There's so much sensitive information still in the search warrants that they should not even be released with redactions, the Justice Department argues.... A media coalition, including CNN, had asked to unseal the Stone warrants."

Conservo-columnist Bret Stephens of the New York Times compares the role of shame in the American culture of the 1950s to its role today. Had [Charles] Van Doren come along a few decades later, there would have been no big scandal in fabricating reality and no great shame in participating in it. The lines between fame and infamy would have blurred, and both could be monetized.... In days bygone, the prescribed method for avoiding shame was behaving well. Or, if it couldn't be avoided, feeling deep remorse and performing some sort of penance. By contrast, the Trumpian method for avoiding shame is not giving a damn. Spurious bone-spur draft deferment? Shrug. Fraudulent business and charitable practices? Snigger. Outrageous personal invective? Sneer. Inhumane treatment of children at the border? Snarl. Hush-money payoffs to a porn-star and centerfold mistresses? Stud!... It was once the useful role of conservatives to resist these sorts of trends -- to stand athwart declining moral standards, yelling Stop. They lost whatever right they had to play that role when they got behind Trump, not only acquiescing in the culture of shamelessness but also savoring its fruits." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: For those of you too young to remember Van Doren, I can tell you that the quiz show scandals were front-page news all over the U.S. in the late 1950s. BTW, the film "Quiz Show" is quite good. It's available on Netflix with a subscription, on Amazon Prime & YouTube for $3 (and up) & elsewhere.

Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times highlights a former multimillionaire (and once a big Democratic donor) who "orchestrat[ed] a scheme that defrauded banks of nearly $300 million" & recently was released from prison under the new First Step Act, a prison reform bill that "offered prisoner rehabilitation programs and overhauled sentencing policies that supporters claimed had a disproportionate effect on poor defendants, especially minorities.... But [Hassan] Nemazee left prison under a less publicized part of the bill that allows certain offenders who are over 60 and not considered a threat to others to be released into home confinement if they have completed two-thirds of their sentence.... That Mr. Nemazee ... qualified for home confinement showed that programs that weigh a prisoner's risk to society give white-collar offenders a distinct advantage, said Douglas A. Berman, a law professor and sentencing expert at Ohio State University." So far, only 10 prisoners have been released under this home confinement provision. Mrs. McC: Call me a cynic, but whoever wrote this provision -- and I do think it's sensible -- had a particular prisoner in mind: some fatcat miscreant who was a friend of the provision's author.

Ann Jones of TomDispatch, in truthdig, reprises the works of Thorstein Veblen, who catalogued the lives of the predatory class of the Gilded Age. "America has once again been gripped by the heavy hands of the predators and of the legislators they buy. Veblen's leisure class is now eclipsed by those even richer than rich, the top 1% of the 1%, a celestial crew even more remote from the productive labor of working men and women than were those nineteenth-century robber barons." Thanks to PD Pepe & Whyte O. for the link.

Zack Whittaker of TechCrunch: "A hacker group has breached several FBI-affiliated websites and uploaded their contents to the web, including dozens of files containing the personal information of thousands of federal agents and law enforcement officers, TechCrunch has learned. The hackers breached three sites associated with the FBI National Academy Association, a coalition of different chapters across the U.S. promoting federal and law enforcement leadership and training located at the FBI training academy in Quantico, VA. The hackers exploited flaws on at least three of the organization's chapter websites -- which we're not naming -- and downloaded the contents of each web server. The hackers then put the data up for download on their own website, which we're also not naming nor linking to given the sensitivity of the data." Mrs. McC: You might think sites associated with the FBI would be pretty hack-proof. Apparently not.

News Ledes

New Your Times: “Paul Greengard, an American neuroscientist whose 15-year quest to understand how brain cells communicate provided new insights into psychological diseases and earned him a Nobel Prize, and who used his entire $400,000 award to create an academic prize in memory of the mother he never knew, died on Saturday in Manhattan. He was 93."

New Your Times: "Bibi Andersson, the luminous Swedish actress who personified first purity and youth, then complexity and disillusionment, in 13 midcentury Ingmar Bergman films, died on Sunday in Stockholm. She was 83."