The Commentariat -- December 17, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Scott Shane & Sheera Frenkel of the New York Times: "The Russian influence campaign on social media in the 2016 election made an extraordinary effort to target African-Americans, used an array of tactics to try to suppress turnout among Democratic voters and unleashed a blizzard of activity on Instagram that rivaled or exceeded its posts on Facebook, according to a report produced for the Senate Intelligence Committee.... Using Gmail accounts with American-sounding names, the Russians recruited and sometimes paid unwitting American activists of all races to stage rallies and spread content, but there was a disproportionate pursuit of African-Americans, it concludes.... The most popular of the Russian Instagram accounts was @blackstagram, with 303,663 followers. The Internet Research Agency also created a dozen websites disguised as African-American in origin, with names like blackmattersus.com, lacktivist.info, blacktolive.org and blacksoul.us. On YouTube, the largest share of Russian material covered the Black Lives Matter movement and police brutality...."

Katelyn Polantz & Marshall Cohen of CNN: "Two former business associates of former national security adviser Michael Flynn were charged with trying to influence American politicians to seek the extradition of a Turkish cleric, according to an indictment filed in the Eastern District of Virginia. Bijan Rafiekian, also known as Bijan Kian, and a Dutch-Turkish businessman Kamil Alptekin, who also uses the first name Ekim, were charged with conspiracy and acting as an agent of a foreign government. Alptekin was also charged with making four false statements in a May 2017 FBI interview.... US authorities said the goal of the lobbying project was to press for the extradition of the Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999.... The alleged plot, the Justice Department said in a news release, involved using a company founded by Kian and Flynn to 'delegitimize the Turkish citizen in the eyes of the American public and United States politicians' to pave the way for his extradition. US authorities allege that high-level members of Turkey's government approved financing for the gambit...." ...

... Marcy Wheeler: "While not explicitly stated, the reference to Mike Flynn throughout the indictment as Person A -- the only unindicted co-conspirator so identified -- makes it clear that the government believes that's what Flynn was doing, acting as an agent of Turkey. And the timeline for the conspiracy goes up to March 2017. One of Trump's top foreign policy advisors and, for almost a month, his National Security Advisor, was an agent of Turkey." Wheeler outlines why she thinks Mueller's prosecutors "were able to move towards sentencing without his testimony in court: because he may not need to give testimony in court. The government has secured other, more reliable witnesses for that testimony." ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Trump backers last week found their (latest) smoking gun in a supposedly vast law-enforcement conspiracy to take down President Trump: A judge asked for more information about Michael Flynn's guilty plea after Flynn's attorney implied his client had been tricked into lying.... Just two days later, the Flynn-as-innocent-dupe narrative suffered a major setback [with the indictment of Flynn's business partner].... The indictment ... implicates his own eponymous business in an illegal lobbying operation. The Flynn Intel Group is referred to as 'Company A' in the filing, and Flynn is referred to as 'Person A.'... In Flynn's plea, the government said his lies and omissions included 'falsely stating that [Flynn Intel Group] did not know whether or the extent to which the Republic of Turkey was involved in the Turkey project....' ... This isn't just about Flynn having lied about his contacts with Russia's ambassador; there is a pattern of behavior that suggests he wasn't just some heroic general who misspoke once or twice and has been railroaded. At the worst, it suggests someone who was doing quite a bit of double-dealing and saw the need to cover it up by lying repeatedly."

Jonathan Chait: "In an interview yesterday, George Stephanopoulos asked ... Rudy Giuliani if Roger Stone ever gave Trump a 'heads-up' about forthcoming WikiLeaks email publications. 'No, he didn't, no,' he replied. But then Giuliani ... softened his denial -- 'I don't believe so' -- before immediately transitioning into a conditional defense of the very charge he had been asked to deny: 'But again, if Roger Stone gave anybody a heads-up about WikiLeaks' leaks, that's not a crime.... One the -- the crime, this is why this thing is so weird, strange. The crime is conspiracy to hack; collusion is not a crime; it doesn't exist.' If you understand the facts and the law in this case, this much should be clear: Trump is almost certainly guilty of both collusion and a crime. And Giuliani's backpedalling defense reveals that he is no longer confident Trump's denials will hold.... Giuliani's comments seem to indicate that he knows that Trump did have a heads-up from Stone, but does not know if Mueller will be able to prove it. Hence his competing impulses to deny the accusation but to prepare a fallback defense in case that denial becomes inoperable.... Giuliani's defense has retreated right up to the line where it crosses into a confession of guilt."

Nick Schwellenback of The Daily Beast: "In April 2018, Tracey Valerio, the top official in charge of 'all agency contracting' at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, resigned. Within months, she was recruited as a paid expert witness in a lawsuit to defend ICE's biggest contractor -- a large, private prison and immigrant detention company known as the GEO Group. The lawsuit charged Florida-based GEO with violating minimum wage laws by paying the same immigrants now being locked up in record numbers by the Trump administration as little as $1 a day for menial work such as cleaning toilets.... Valerio, the top ICE contracting official who became GEO's paid witness, not only went spinning through her agency's revolving door, she was accused of violating the law and an agency rule in the process.... Last year, as The Daily Beast first reported, Valerio's former boss Daniel Ragsdale left as ICE's deputy director to work as a GEO executive. In 2012, David Venturella -- formerly head of ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations -- joined GEO as an executive vice president...[and so on.]" --s

** Clive Irving in The Daily Beast: "Even if Russia didn't succeed in swinging the election to Trump (and we can't be sure that it didn't), [mitch mcconnell] blocking a protest [by Obama and Joe Biden] at that critical moment [before the election] on partisan grounds approaches 9/11 levels of dereliction, and you have to wonder if all of this had not been shrewdly anticipated in Putin's playbook, the fruit of long and careful study of Republican tactics.... Over several decades the Republicans have partly created and expertly exploited a broken system that regularly gives them a majority in the Electoral College.... Now it is McConnell who, more than any other Republican, is the supreme technician of the system, quietly loading the courts with judges who pass his smell test. If there is a model for the McConnell method, it is the apparatchiks of the Soviet machine.... It's a form of power that doesn't advertise its power, and McConnell thrives at it. There is no ethical foundation. It is barren of moral underpinnings. Sooner or later a president would arrive who was as barren. Trump is that, with bells on." --s

Joel Ebert of the Tennessean: "After roughly a quarter century in elected office, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander will retire. The former Republican governor, who has served in the Senate since first being elected in 2002, said Monday that he will not seek a fourth term in the upper chamber."

Andrew Wasley & Natalie Jones of the Guardian: "The Guardian's findings [of unethical chicken processing in the U.S.] have fuelled concerns that a post-Brexit trade deal with the US could see the UK flooded with chicken produced to lower welfare standards. This follows last year's transatlantic row over chlorinated chicken, which prompted political interventions in both countries. The records include hundreds of instances in which groups of chickens and turkeys were bludgeoned, suffocated, scalded, frozen or heated to death.... The USDA dictates rules for humane slaughter, but these only apply to 'livestock', which the US government considers separate from 'poultry'. There are 'good commercial practice' guidelines, but they are largely voluntary and not enforced. The USDA is not obliged to take any action against plants that violate these practices, other than writing up a report." --s

Juan Cole: "The decision of the Australian government of PM Scott Morrison to recognize 'West Jerusalem' as the capital of Israel but to hold off moving its embassy there until there is a peace settlement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might look on the face of it like a victory for Israel. It is quite the opposite, a sign of how even strong allies of Israel are increasingly constrained by rising Muslim powers.... Australia badly wants a free trade deal with its neighbor across the waters, Indonesia, which is the most populous Muslim country in the world, and where conservative Muslims are strong supporters of Palestinian rights.... That even an anti-immigrant, pro-Trump right winger like Scott Morrison felt he could not risk absolutely alienating Jakarta, and so was forced to craft a Jerusalem policy that satisfied no one but definitely disappointed the Likud, is a sign of the future." --s

Ammar Kalia, et al. of the Guardian: "The domination of Facebook by Italy's two populist political leaders, Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio, is revealed in previously unseen data that shows how they exploited video and live broadcasts to bypass the mainstream media and foment discord during the country's general election. The data, reviewed by the Guardian, reveals how the leaders massively expanded their reach with inflammatory and visually arresting posts earlier this year, eclipsing their main rival, the centre-left former prime minister Matteo Renzi, on Facebook.... There is growing academic interest in the relationship between social media and populist movements on both the left and right. Facebook and Twitter have transformed western democracies, enabling politicians to bypass traditional gatekeepers and communicate directly with their base." --s

*****

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

** Craig Timberg & Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "A report prepared for the Senate that provides the most sweeping analysis yet of Russia's disinformation campaign around the 2016 election found the operation used every major social media platform to deliver words, images and videos tailored to voters' interests to help elect President Trump -- and worked even harder to support him while in office. The report, a draft of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is the first to study the millions of posts provided by major technology firms to the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), its chairman, and Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), its ranking Democrat. The bipartisan panel ... plans to release [the report] publicly along with another study later this week.... 'What is clear is that all of the messaging clearly sought to benefit the Republican Party -- and specifically Donald Trump,' the report says.... The Russians aimed particular energy at activating conservatives on issues such as gun rights and immigration, while sapping the political clout of left-leaning African American voters by undermining their faith in elections and spreading misleading information about how to vote." ...

... Donie O'Sullivan & Kate Sullivan of CNN: "The Senate Intelligence Committee has been advised that social media companies might have provided the 'bare minimum' amount of data to aid the panel's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, according to a person familiar with a report commissioned by the committee. The committee hired an online intelligence firm to review data on Russian social media accounts that posed as American accounts. The data, much of which has not yet been made public, was provided to lawmakers by Facebook, Twitter and Google, which owns YouTube. New Knowledge, the firm hired by the committee, tracks online disinformation. In its report to lawmakers, the firm said that the social media companies could have provided more valuable data to the committee and also could have presented it in a more accessible format. The firm advised lawmakers that there are likely more Russian accounts that the social media companies failed to identify, according to person familiar with the report." The New Knowledge report is separate from the Senate report covered the WashPo story linked above. ...

... ** Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. More Powerful Than a Russian Loco Motive. Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "The most powerful print publication in America might just be The National Enquirer. It functioned as a dirty-tricks shop for Donald J. Trump in 2016, which would have been the stuff of farce -- the ultimate tabloid backs the ultimate tabloid candidate -- if it hadn't accomplished its goal. The Enquirer's power was fueled by its covers. For the better part of the campaign season, Enquirer front pages blared sensational headlines about Mr. Trump's rivals from eye-level racks at supermarket checkout lanes across America.... The Enquirer's racks, under the current chief, David J. Pecker, were given over to the Trump campaign. This was a political gift even more valuable than the $150,000 that The Enquirer paid in a 'catch-and-kill' deal with the former Playboy model Karen McDougal for her story of an affair with Mr. Trump.... The Enquirer spread false stories about Hillary Clinton -- illnesses concealed, child prostitution, bribery, treason.... It refused to unlock its vault of Trump tips and stories as it promoted him as America's savior.... As the campaign wore on, The Enquirer's covers favored stories similar to those coursing through Infowars, Russian trolldom and, increasingly, your uncle's Facebook feed."

Rudy Implicates Trump Again. Daily Beast: "Rudy Giuliani claimed in an ABC interview that ... Donald Trump knew that his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was working on the Trump Tower Moscow deal 'all the way up to ... November of 2016.' Cohen ... told a federal judge that the discussions stopped in June 2016.... Giuliani [said,] 'according to the answer that he gave, it would have covered all the way up to ... November of 2016' apparently in reference to Trump's written answers to Robert Mueller's questions about potential Russian collusion in the election.... The President's personal lawyer, who also just said that President Trump would be interviewed in person by the Special Counsel's Office 'over his dead body,' made the statement during an interview with George Stephanopoulos on This Week ABC." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is remarkable. It's what happens to a client whose spokesperson-lawyer is over the hill. So now we know that Trump was working on a deal with Russia throughout the campaign. During this period, he publicly claimed numerous times he had "nothing to do with Russia." ...

... digby highlights "more of Rudy's trainwreck of an appearance[.]... It's very ironic that Trump now says Cohen was just a PR guy and a lousy lawyer. That might be true but if so, Giuliani proves that Trump is continuing the practice." ...

... AND A Noun, a Verb, and 9/11.

[Michael Cohen has] changed his story four or five times. -- Rudy Giuliani

So has the president. -- George Stephanopoulos

The president's not under oath. And the president tried to do the best he can to remember what happened back at a time when he was the busiest man in the world. And I can't -- I was with him most of that time, I can't remember a lot of the stuff that goes on there. But ... But boy, if it's -- same way, if I go under oath, then I really think about it and I really say -- you know, I can't remember that. I -- I was wrong about who was with me on September 11th. I always thought the Fire Commissioner was with me in the building we were trapped in. Turns out later, he tells me, I met you after. That happens when you're in the middle of difficult events; you know that from experiencing it. -- Rudy 9/11 Giuliani

New Rule. It's okay for the President* to lie to the American people when he's not under oath. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

** That Time a Black Man Arrested a Sitting President. Michael Rosenwald of the Washington Post: "In 1872, while president, [Ulysses S.] Grant was arrested at the corner of 13th and M streets in Washington. This was not a high crime, but it was -- at least theoretically speaking -- a misdemeanor. The man who led the North to victory in the Civil War was busted for speeding in his horse-drawn carriage. The story of his arrest -- confirmed a few years ago by Cathy L. Lanier, who was then the District's police chief -- was told in a remarkable but obviously forgotten story in the Sept. 27, 1908, edition of the Washington Evening Star under the headline: 'Only Policeman Who Ever Arrested a President.' That policeman was William H. West, a black man who had fought in the Civil War." ...

     ... Dear Bob Mueller, When you send FBI agents in to the White House to arrest Trump, please make sure the officer who cuffs him is a Black Muslim woman. And, for once, do alert the press. We all want to see that epic perp walk.

Erica Werner, et al., of the Washington Post: "The White House and a number of federal agencies have started advanced preparations for a partial government shutdown, as President Trump and congressional Democrats appear unlikely to resolve their fight over a border wall before some government funding lapses at week's end. GOP leaders are scrambling to find a short-term alternative that could stave off a shutdown, which would start on Dec. 22 absent a deal. But White House officials signaled to lawmakers Friday that they would probably not support a one- or two-week stopgap measure. Some congressional Republicans support such a 'continuing resolution,' but the White House rejection has dramatically increased the odds of a spending lapse." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Ben Kamisar of NBC News: "Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Sunday said ... Donald Trump is preventing a deal to avert a partial government shutdown because of a 'temper tantrum' over his demand for more funding to build a border wall. Appearing on NBC's 'Meet the Press' just five days before funding deadline to keep several key federal agencies open, Schumer, D-N.Y., said that he and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., are standing firm in their offers to Trump and that it's up to the president to come to the table." ...

... Dereliction of Duty. Julie Davis & Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "... House Republican leaders are also confronting a more mundane and awkward problem: Their vanquished and retiring members are sick and tired of Washington and don't want to show up anymore to vote. Call it the revenge of the lame ducks. Many lawmakers, relegated to cubicles as incoming members take their offices, have been skipping votes in the weeks since House Republicans were swept from power in the midterm elections, and Republican leaders are unsure whether they will ever return.... While Mr. Trump insisted that he had the votes to push $5 billion in wall spending through the House, Republican leaders in the chamber are keenly aware that their rank-and-file members are in no mood to return to Washington days before Christmas to battle over his long-unfulfilled signature campaign promise.... Mr. Trump and top Republicans appear to have no definite plan to keep the doors open. In the absence of any road map, House leaders shuttered the chamber Thursday for a six-day weekend, putting lawmakers in standby mode and [tentatively] scheduling the next votes for Wednesday evening, two days before the shutdown deadline."

Reuters: "... Donald Trump has told his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan that Washington is working on extraditing a U.S.-based Muslim cleric [Fethullah Gulen] accused of orchestrating a failed Turkish coup in 2016, Turkey's foreign minister said on Sunday.... Trump said last month he was not considering extraditing the preacher[.]" --s (Also linked yesterday.)

He Is Not Amused. Michael Brice-Saddler of the Washington Post: "The day after a 'Saturday Night Live' sketch depicted what life might be like had Donald Trump never been elected [video embedded in yesterday's Commentariat], the president criticized what he called the show's 'one sided coverage' and suggested without any basis that it was defamation. 'A REAL scandal is the one sided coverage, hour by hour, of networks like NBC & Democrat spin machines like Saturday Night Live,' Trump wrote Sunday on Twitter. 'It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can't be legal? Only defame & belittle! Collusion?'..." ...

     ... Mrs. McC: As we all know, He Trvmpvs wants to ditch the First Amendment, especially as it applies to criticism of He Trvmpvs. Never mind he swore an oath (see Rudy Giuliani's new rule) to uphold the Constitution. Trvmpvs also fails to understand that people are apt to ridicule, spurn & excoriate an asshole, particularly an asshole who does great damage to them, their friends & their country. In fact, he fails to understand reality, some of which parody ironically exposes. Rather than "test in courts," Trump would do well to take criticism to heart. As if he had one. A heart, that is. He's the Tinman, if the Tinman were fat, cruel, narcissistic & wholly unsympathetic.

The von Trump Family Grifters, Ctd. Legalized Corruption. Jeff Horwitz & Stephen Braun of the AP: "A real estate investment firm co-founded by President Donald Trump's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, is betting big on the administration's Opportunity Zone tax breaks but isn't that interested in steering its investors to the poorest, most-downtrodden areas that the program seeks to revitalize. New York-based Cadre, in which Kushner still holds at least a $25 million passive stake, made it clear to potential investors in recent marketing materials that it doesn't plan to look for development deals in most of those zones because of their 'unfavorable growth prospects.'... Anthony Scaramucci ... is trying to raise as much as $3 billion for Opportunity Zone projects.... One measure of how much the zones overlap with developers' pre-existing interests is how much they overlap with their current holdings. An AP review of Kushner's holdings found that he holds stakes in 13 Opportunity Zone properties, all in locations deemed by the Urban Institute to be showing indications of rapid change or full-out gentrification.... Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, both helped push for the program and as a couple stand to benefit financially from it." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

A Very Grifter's Christmas. Kate Riga of TPM: "The White House has been pushing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to quit for weeks.... Zinke's counter-request? To host his Christmas party, graced by lobbyists and conservative bigwigs, before being booted. Per the Post, he donned a Santa hat and posed with a stuffed polar bear at the event." --s (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Julie Turkewitz of the New York Times: "When [Ryan] Zinke was forced to resign as interior secretary on Saturday, he joined a line of officials who have left the Trump administration under a cloud of ethics inquiries. But the investigations into Mr. Zinke's actions are likely to continue, according to Delaney Marsco, the ethics counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group. And if those inquiries turn out badly for him, Mr. Zinke still faces the threat of criminal penalties that could hobble his political future. 'It's not a Get Out of Jail Free card to just quit,' Ms. Marsco said. The most damaging could be a Justice Department examination of a real estate deal in Montana involving Mr. Zinke's family and a development group backed by David J. Lesar, the chairman of Halliburton, the giant energy services company. If the department finds that Mr. Zinke willfully used his official position to influence the deal and benefit himself, he could be prosecuted under a federal conflict of interest law and, if convicted, face a sentence of up to five years in prison and a $50,000 fine for each violation. The attorney general has discretion over whether to bring the charges."

The Commentariat -- December 16, 2018

Late Morning Update:

Erica Werner, et al., of the Washington Post: "The White House and a number of federal agencies have started advanced preparations for a partial government shutdown, as President Trump and congressional Democrats appear unlikely to resolve their fight over a border wall before some government funding lapses at week's end. GOP leaders are scrambling to find a short-term alternative that could stave off a shutdown, which would start on Dec. 22 absent a deal. But White House officials signaled to lawmakers Friday that they would probably not support a one- or two-week stopgap measure. Some congressional Republicans support such a 'continuing resolution,' but the White House rejection has dramatically increased the odds of a pending lapse."

Reuters: "U.S. President Donald Trump has told his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan that Washington is working on extraditing a U.S.-based Muslim cleric [Fethullah Gulen] accused of orchestrating a failed Turkish coup in 2016, Turkey's foreign minister said on Sunday.... Trump said last month he was not considering extraditing the preacher[.]" --s

The von Trump Family Grifters, Ctd. Legalized Corruption. Jeff Horwitz & Stephen Braun of the AP: "A real estate investment firm co-founded by President Donald Trump's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, is betting big on the administration's Opportunity Zone tax breaks but isn't that interested in steering its investors to the poorest, most-downtrodden areas that the program seeks to revitalize. New York-based Cadre, in which Kushner still holds at least a $25 million passive stake, made it clear to potential investors in recent marketing materials that it doesn't plan to look for development deals in most of those zones because of their 'unfavorable growth prospects.'... Anthony Scaramucci ... is trying to raise as much as $3 billion for Opportunity Zone projects.... One measure of how much the zones overlap with developers' pre-existing interests is how much they overlap with their current holdings. An AP review of Kushner's holdings found that he holds stakes in 13 Opportunity Zone properties, all in locations deemed by the Urban Institute to be showing indications of rapid change or full-out gentrification.... Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, both helped push for the program and as a couple stand to benefit financially from it." --s

A Very Grifter's Christmas. Kate Riga of TPM: "The White House has been pushing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to quit for weeks.... Zinke's counter-request? To host his Christmas party, graced by lobbyists and conservative bigwigs, before being booted. Per the Post, he donned a Santa hat and posed with a stuffed polar bear at the event." --s

*****

Brad Plumer of the New York Times: "Diplomats from nearly 200 countries reached a deal on Saturday to keep the Paris climate agreement alive by adopting a detailed set of rules to implement the pact. The deal, struck after an all-night bargaining session, will ultimately require every country in the world to follow a uniform set of standards for measuring their planet-warming emissions and tracking their climate policies. And it calls on countries to step up their plans to cut emissions ahead of another round of talks in 2020. It also calls on richer countries to be clearer about the aid they intend to offer to help poorer nations install more clean energy or build resilience against natural disasters. And it builds a process in which countries that are struggling to meet their emissions goals can get help in getting back on track. The United States agreed to the deal despite President Trump's vow to abandon the Paris Agreement.... The United States cannot formally withdraw from the agreement until late 2020."

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: "Two years after Donald Trump won the presidency, nearly every organization he has led in the past decade is under investigation.... The mounting inquiries are building into a cascade of legal challenges that threaten to dominate Trump's third year in the White House.... Trump has been forced to spend his political capital -- and that of his party -- on his defense. On Capitol Hill this week, weary Senate Republicans scrambled away from reporters to avoid questions about Trump and his longtime fixer Michael Cohen...." The reporters summarize All the President's Messes.

... As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap. Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "President Trump, more isolated than at any point in his presidency, is scheduled to leave Washington at the end of this week for a holiday respite: two-plus weeks at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago. When he returns in January, he will be girding for what is likely to be the most difficult year yet of his tumultuous presidency. His approval ratings aren't much different than they were when he took office. His hardcore supporters haven't budged. GOP elected officials remain hesitant to break with him. But his party took a beating in the midterm elections, and the legal process continues to move closer to him. Newly empowered House Democrats are preparing to challenge his authority with hearings and investigations.... Trump's ... search for a replacement for outgoing White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly is symptomatic of his situation.... Yet potential contenders walked away from the job until the president tweeted on Friday afternoon that he was naming budget director Mick Mulvaney as his acting chief of staff, not his permanent one."

Daniel Politi of Slate: "... Donald Trump went on Twitter Saturday to put forward a story line that is clearly misleading, pushing an argument that makes a software error sound like a grand anti-Trump conspiracy theory. Considering his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, did the same thing, it all looked like part of a coordinated strategy to plant doubts about the ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. 'Wow, 19,000 Texts between Lisa Page and her lover, Peter S of the FBI, in charge of the Russia Hoax, were just reported as being wiped clean and gone,' Trump tweeted. 'Such a big story that will never be covered by the Fake News. Witch Hunt!'... An investigation by the Justice Department's watchdog said the missing texts had nothing to do with any kind of malicious intent by former investigators Lisa Page and Peter Strzok. Instead, the missing texts -- thousands of which were ultimately recovered by the way -- had to do with a technology failure by the software the FBI used to sweep up the messages. The report by the inspector general said there was no evidence either Strzok nor Page purposefully tried to get around any kind of protocol by deleting messages."

The von Trump Family Grifters, Ctd. Beach Haven Blues. Russ Buettner & Susanne Craig of the New York Times: "In October, a New York Times investigation into the origins of Mr. Trump's wealth revealed, among its findings, that the future president and his siblings set up a phony business to pad the cost of nearly everything their father ... purchased for his buildings. The Trump children split that extra money. Padding the invoices had a secondary benefit for the Trumps, allowing them to inflate rent increases on their father's rent-regulated apartments.... For tenants, the insidious effects of the scheme continue to this day. The padded invoices have been baked into the base rent used to calculate the annual percentage increase approved by the city.... Donald Trump, contrary to his lifelong claim of being a self-made billionaire, received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father. That fortune was greatly increased by dubious schemes -- including instances of outright fraud -- designed to dodge gift and estate taxes, the investigation found. Mr. Trump was a central player in the formulation of those strategies, which included grossly undervaluing his father's apartment complexes in tax filings, interviews and records showed. He also received tens of millions of dollars in gifts from his father that were disguised as loans or business investments."

Philip Ewing, NPR's national security editor, writes that Mueller a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/12/15/676765398/the-russia-investigations-an-unfinished-case-looks-weaker-than-ever" target="_blank">has bupkus on Trump-Russia collusion. Mrs. McC: Ewing seems awfully good at looking past redactions & what-all the Mueller investigators may be holding back. Anyway, his post should please Trump. (Also linked yesterday.)

Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "President Trump made an unscheduled visit to Arlington National Cemetery on a rainy Saturday, following weeks of criticism for skipping ceremonial visits in the United States and abroad that other presidents have made and for his lack of meetings with U.S. troops in combat zones. The president spent 15 minutes at the storied Virginia cemetery, walking with two military officers dressed in camouflage and a tour guide, looking at the thousands of grave markers that had been decorated with holiday wreaths. The visit was not on Trump's public schedule, which often signals a last-minute decision."

... And the Horse He Rode in on. Julie Turkewitz & Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, a key figure in President Trump's sweeping plan to reshape the nation's environmental framework, will leave his post at the end of the year, Mr. Trump said on Saturday. Mr. Zinke's departure comes amid numerous ethics investigations into his business dealings, travel and policy decisions. 'Secretary of the Interior @RyanZinke will be leaving the Administration at the end of the year after having served for a period of almost two years,' Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. 'Ryan has accomplished much during his tenure and I want to thank him for his service to our Nation.' The president said he would name a replacement this coming week.... In one of the final acts of [John] Kelly's tenure as White House chief of staff, his team told Mr. Zinke that he should leave by year's end or risk being fired in a potentially humiliating way, two people familiar with the discussion said." Thanks to Ken W. for the lead & to Patrick for the headline. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Zahra Hirji of BuzzFeed News: Trump's "tweet came minutes after Bloomberg News reported Zinke would be leaving." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

Ryan Zinke has notified the White House he intends to step down as interior secretary. Concern about legal costs and scrutiny of his travel, political activity and potential conflicts of interest were factors in Zinke's decision, I'm told. Plan is to announce Wednesday. -- Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg ...

... Robinson Meyer of the Atlantic: "In resigning, Zinke reveals the power of Democrats' new ability to oversee the Trump administration. Zinke is the first casualty of the 2018 blue wave: the first Cabinet official who stepped down in the face of subpoenas. He left, in fact, to avoid facing subpoenas. Yet in resigning, he also shows the limits of that same new power. Democrats can no longer use Zinke's hubris to get people to pay attention to the Trump administration's larger set of policies at Interior.... David Bernhardt, the current deputy secretary and a former oil lobbyist, will take over the department. Little is likely to change under Bernhardt." ...

... "The Ultimate DC Swamp Creature." Rebecca Leber of Mother Jones (October 9): "As Zinke ticked off the accomplishments of his first year [at a Department of Interior event] -- fulfilling the president's vision for 'energy dominance,' selling off public lands, and taking on the Endangered Species Act -- he might as well have been naming feathers in [David] Bernhardt's cap. This stout, unobtrusive, middle-aged man in square glasses has been one of the most effective officials in the Trump administration, and after 14 months on the job, he appears to be within striking distance of taking over the department that oversees a fifth of the nation's landmass. Smart and generally well-liked by his colleagues, Bernhardt is regarded, with grudging respect from environmentalists, as the 'brains behind the agency.'... Bernhardt is the ultimate DC swamp creature. Zinke is relatively new to Interior; Bernhardt, who spent eight years at the department earlier in his career, knows the ins and outs of its labyrinthine bureaucracy. And while Zinke has been mired in scandals and faces at least six active ethics investigations -- including inspector general inquiries into possible Hatch Act lobbying violations and a Halliburton land deal in his hometown of Whitefish, Montana -- Bernhardt has been largely invisible."

Mike Allen, acting chief of DC gossip, on Mick Mulvaney's appointment as acting chief of staff: "President Trump had a meeting scheduled Monday with a possible candidate for White House chief of staff. Guess that guy ain't getting it.... Trump blurted out his decision with a 5:18 p.m. Friday tweet, amid coverage of how few top people wanted the job.... Trump announced Mulvaney as 'Acting' chief of staff, a puzzling wrinkle which prolongs the instability that a new chief of staff presumably would be tasked with vanquishing.... Trump keeps control and doesn't fully empower his guy, reminding Mulvaney who the real chief of staff is: No funny business like General John Kelly tried to pull, restricting enablers' access to POTUS. This is exactly why some other candidates didn't take the job or didn't get the job.... A senior administration official ... said: 'There's no time limit.' Asked why Mulvaney was named 'acting,' the official said: 'Because that's what the president wants.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: NBC News reports that the "acting" prefix was Mulvaney's idea; he doesn't want to get stuck in the job.

Trump is very  happy at the prospect of millions of Americans losing health care coverage. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... BUT Congressional Republicans Don't Feel So Cheery. Paul Demko & Adam Cancryn of Politico: "... Friday night's ruling by a federal judge in Texas that the Affordable Care Act must be scrapped once again puts the law front and center when Democrats take back the House just weeks from now. The ruling is sure to be appealed, and the Trump administration says it's business as usual in the meantime. But the decision spells bad news for Republicans, by allowing Democrats to replay a potent health care message that helped them flip 40 House seats: the GOP remains hellbent on gutting Obamacare and rolling back protections for pre-existing conditions.... [There] is likely to be a split GOP caucus that draws flak from both the right and the left. Republicans who survived the midterm election by vowing to protect people with pre-existing conditions will find themselves in a particularly tough spot.... [And Republicans who] voted to gut Obamacare's individual mandate as part of the tax bill, argued Brad Woodhouse, executive director of [a] pro-Obamacare group..., effectively [laid] the groundwork for the Texas lawsuit's winning argument." ...

... Manny Fernandez of the New York Times: "In the 11 years Judge Reed O'Connor has been on the federal bench, he has become a favorite of Republican leaders in Texas, reliably tossing out Democratic policies they have challenged. The state's Republican attorney general appears to strategically file key lawsuits in Judge O'Connor's jurisdiction, the Northern District of Texas, so that he will hear them. And on Friday, the judge handed Republicans another victory by striking down the Affordable Care Act, the signature health law of the Obama era. Judge O'Connor, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, has been at the center of some of the most contentious and partisan cases involving federal power and states' rights, and has sided with conservative leaders in previous challenges to the health law and against efforts to expand transgender rights.... His rulings illustrate the ways in which the federal district courts have become politically weaponized, as Republicans and Democrats alike try to handpick judges they see as ideologically friendly to their cases." ...

... ** Jonathan Adler & Abbe Gluck, in a New York Times op-ed: "In a shocking legal ruling, a federal judge in Texas wiped Obamacare off the books Friday night. The decision, issued after business hours on the eve of the deadline to enroll for health insurance for 2019, focuses on the so-called individual mandate. Yet it purports to declare the entire law unconstitutional -- everything from the Medicaid expansion, the ban on pre-existing conditions, Medicare and pharmaceutical reforms to much, much more. A ruling this consequential had better be based on rock-solid legal argument. Instead, the opinion by Judge Reed O'Connor is an exercise of raw judicial power, unmoored from the relevant doctrines concerning when judges may strike down a whole law because of a single alleged legal infirmity buried within." Read on. Adler & Gluck explain most of what you need to know about the decision & where it goes from here.

George Packer, now of the Atlantic: "The corruption of the Republican Party in the Trump era seemed to set in with breathtaking speed. In fact, it took more than a half century to reach the point where faced with a choice between democracy and power, the party chose the latter. Its leaders don't see a dilemma -- democratic principles turn out to be disposable tools, sometimes useful, sometimes inconvenient. The higher cause is conservatism, but the highest is power."

In case you thought Wall Street bankers were the most immoral corporate operators in the U.S., the New York Times introduces us to McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm that advises some of the worst politicians & businesses in the world.

The Commentariat -- December 15, 2018

Late Morning Update:

... And the Horse He Rode in on. Julie Turkewitz & Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, a key figure in President Trump's sweeping plan to reshape the nation's environmental framework, will leave his post at the end of the year, Mr. Trump said on Saturday. Mr. Zinke's departure comes amid numerous ethics investigations into his business dealings, travel and policy decisions. 'Secretary of the Interior @RyanZinke will be leaving the Administration at the end of the year after having served for a period of almost two years,' Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. 'Ryan has accomplished much during his tenure and I want to thank him for his service to our Nation.' The president said he would name a replacement this coming week.... In one of the final acts of [John] Kelly's tenure as White House chief of staff, his team told Mr. Zinke that he should leave by year's end or risk being fired in a potentially humiliating way, two people familiar with the discussion said." Thanks to Ken W. for the lead & to Patrick for the headline. ...

... Zahra Hirji of BuzzFeed News: Trump's "tweet came minutes after Bloomberg News reported Zinke would be leaving." ...

Ryan Zinke has notified the White House he intends to step down as interior secretary. Concern about legal costs and scrutiny of his travel, political activity and potential conflicts of interest were factors in Zinke's decision, I'm told. Plan is to announce Wednesday. -- Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg

Mike Allen, acting chief of DC gossip, on Mick Mulvaney's appointment as acting chief of staff: "President Trump had a meeting scheduled Monday with a possible candidate for White House chief of staff. Guess that guy ain't getting it.... Trump blurted out his decision with a 5:18 p.m. Friday tweet, amid coverage of how few top people wanted the job.... Trump announced Mulvaney as 'Acting' chief of staff, a puzzling wrinkle which prolongs the instability that a new chief of staff presumably would be tasked with vanquishing.... Trump keeps control and doesn't fully empower his guy, reminding Mulvaney who the real chief of staff is: No funny business like General John Kelly tried to pull, restricting enablers' access to POTUS. This is exactly why some other candidates didn't take the job or didn't get the job.... A senior administration official who spoke to reporters at the White House said: 'There's no time limit.' Asked why Mulvaney was named 'acting,' the official said: 'Because that's what the president wants.'"

Trump is very happy at the prospect of millions of Americans losing health care coverage.

Philip Ewing, NPR's national security editor, writes that Mueller has bupkus on Trump-Russia collusion. Mrs. McC: Ewing seems awfully good at looking past redactions & what-all the Mueller investigators may be holding back. Anyway, his post should please Trump.

*****

Abby Goodnough & Robert Pear of the New York Times: "A federal judge in Texas struck down the entire Affordable Care Act on Friday on the grounds that its mandate requiring people to buy health insurance is unconstitutional and the rest of the law cannot stand without it. The ruling was over a lawsuit filed this year by a group of Republican governors and state attorneys general. A group of intervening states led by Democrats promised to appeal the decision, which will most likely not have any immediate effect. But it will almost certainly make its way to the Supreme Court, threatening the survival of the landmark health law and, with it, health coverage for millions of Americans, protections for people with pre-existing conditions and much more. In his ruling, Judge Reed O'Connor of the Federal District Court in Fort Worth said that the individual mandate requiring people to have health insurance 'can no longer be sustained as an exercise of Congress's tax power.'... At issue was whether the health law&'s insurance mandate still compelled people to buy coverage after Congress reduced the penalty to zero dollars as part of the tax overhaul that President Trump signed last December. When the Supreme Court upheld the mandate as constitutional in 2012, it was based on Congress's taxing power. Congress, the court said, could legally impose a tax penalty on people who do not have health insurance." O'Connor is a Bush II appointee. ...

... Ezra Klein of Vox: "The Texas ruling finding the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional is ludicrous in its reasoning and unlikely to survive appeal. It argues, in short, that since Congress removed the penalty from the individual mandate, the individual mandate is no longer a tax; because the individual mandate is not a tax, it is no longer constitutional; and if the mandate is no longer constitutional, the entire law must be judged unconstitutional. To do anything else would be, of course, immodest. As Judge Reed O'Connor writes, courts 'are not tasked with, nor are they suited to, policymaking.' Yes, he is literally writing that as he tries to overturn Obamacare with a stroke of his pen. You can almost hear the 'lol' he must've deleted from the first draft. 'If you were ever tempted to think that right-wing judges weren't activist ... this will persuade you to knock it off,' wrote law professor Nicholas Bagley. 'This is insanity in print, and it will not stand up on appeal.'... But if you want to know why Democrats are suddenly dotting the landscape with new proposals for Medicare-for-all and Medicaid-for-all, this ruling is a useful artifact."

Matt Phillips of the New York Times: "For the first time in decades, every major type of investment has fared poorly, as the outlook for economic growth and corporate profits is dampened by rising trade tensions and interest rates. Stocks around the world are getting pummeled, while commodities and bonds are tumbling -- all of which have left investors with few places to put their money.

This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.

Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "The special counsel's office rejected on Friday a suggestion from Michael T. Flynn, President Trump's former national security adviser, that he had been tricked into lying to F.B.I. agents investigating Russia's election interference and ties to Trump associates. Prosecutors laid out a pattern of lies by Mr. Flynn to Vice President Mike Pence, senior White House aides, federal investigators and the media in the weeks before and after the presidential inauguration as he scrambled to obscure the truth about his communications during the presidential transition with Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States at the time.... 'A sitting national security adviser, former head of an intelligence agency, retired lieutenant general and 33-year veteran of the armed forces knows he should not lie to federal agents,' prosecutors wrote in court papers. 'He does not need to be warned it is a crime to lie to federal agents to know the importance of telling them the truth.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: the linked "court papers" -- "The Government's Reply to Defendant's Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing" -- are interesting reading.

Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The FBI released for the first time Friday night a two-page summary former FBI Director James Comey used to brief President-elect Donald Trump nearly two years ago on a so-called dossier about Trump's ties to Russia.... Comey has said he did not show or give Trump the memo, but used it as a reference when briefing him on the dossier, which U.S. intelligence officials feared Russia might try to use as blackmail against Trump. The synopsis was also used to brief President Barack Obama.... The document was released Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by a Politico reporter and the James Madison Project, a pro-transparency group." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: "Released" is an overstatement. The substance of the summary is redacted. The unredacted part includes some background information about Christopher Steele, who is unnamed. So thanks, FBI!

Pamela Brown of CNN: "Special counsel Robert Mueller's team continues to be interested in interviewing ... Donald Trump, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN."

George T. Conway III, Trevor Potter & Neal Katyal in a Washington Post op-ed: Having benn caught in multiple attempts to lie his way out of the campaign finance felonies, "Now Trump and his acolytes have turned to two other excuses: They point to an earlier case involving former senator John Edwards to argue that what Trump did wasn't a crime; and they say, even if it was a crime, it wasn't a biggie -- there are lots of crimes, so what, who cares. The former is a very weak legal argument, and the latter a dangerous one.... The [Edwards] case is actually harmful for Trump.... Edwards repeatedly argued that the payments were not campaign contributions because they were not made exclusively to further his campaign. The judge rejected this argument as a matter of law, ruling that a payment to a candidate's extramarital sexual partner is a campaign contribution if 'one of' the reasons the payment is made is to influence the election.... [And] there's good reason to believe that the evidence in a criminal case against Trump would be much stronger.... The grievous minimization of serious campaign finance violations by members of Trump's political party further corrode our commitment to our age-old ideal of being a 'government of laws, and not of men.'" The authors run down the significant differences in evidence in Edwards' & Trump's cases. Interesting. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: However, Conway, et al., are not taking into account Rudy's latest defense of Trump:

Nobody got killed, nobody got robbed…. This was not a big crime. -- Rudy Giuliani, to the Daily Beast (linked below)

I think Sec. Clinton would disagree with that statement. As well as a few million American voters. -- Dan L., in today's commentary

>... Here's the transcript of George Stephanopoulos' interview of Michael Cohen. (Also linked yesterday.)

Clare Foran & Manu Raju of CNN: "Sen. Orrin Hatch, the outgoing Utah Republican and most senior GOP senator, issued a statement on Friday expressing regret for telling CNN 'I don't care' when asked about ... Donald Trump being implicated in crimes by Michael Cohen.... Ha[t]ch went on to say [in his Friday statement] that 'when we see Mueller's full report and the complete filings from the New York U.S. Attorney's office, we can determine the path forward. While I believe the President has succeeded in a number of important policy areas, that success is separate from the validity of these investigations, which I believe should be allowed to run their course." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Hatch accurately stated his initial remarks were delivered in "an unplanned hallway interview." Yeah But. A high-profile pol who's been talking with the press for half-a-century maybe shouldn't complain Raju ambushed him. While you might think Hatch's statement represents his rethinking of the importance of the rule of law, it more likely represents the fact that his "I don't care" comment was the prominent feature of numerous media reports ridiculing the GOP response to revelations that Trump was implicated in a felony.

Murray Waas of Vox: "Paul Manafort ... provided advice to the president and senior White House officials on the FBI's Russia investigation during the earliest days of the Trump administration. He gave guidance on how to undermine and discredit the FBI's inquiry into whether the president, his campaign aides, and family members conspired with the Russian Federation and its intelligence services to covertly defeat Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign.... In short, Manafort and Trump were working together to discredit the investigators as well as potential witnesses.... Manafort wanted nothing less than to 'declare a public relations war on the FBI,' this same person said." --safari: The alignment between Manafort's and Putin's interest is astounding.

Oops! Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "U.S. prosecutors on Friday asked a federal judge for permission to move Maria Butina to and from jail for ongoing interviews, including potentially to testify before a grand jury, in a filing intended to be sealed that appeared on the public docket for her case."

Mystery Witness. Darren Samuelsohn & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Special counsel Robert Mueller appeared to be locked in a subpoena battle with a recalcitrant witness Friday in a sealed federal appeals courtroom, the latest development in a mystery case that has piqued the curiosity of Mueller-obsessives and scoop-hungry journalists. Oral arguments in the highly secretive fight played out behind closed doors under tight security. Officials at the U.S. Courthouse in Washington, D.C. even took the extraordinary measure of shutting down to the public the entire fifth floor, where the hearing was taking place. More than a dozen reporters who had been staked out in the hallway adjacent to the courtroom -- in the hopes of eyeballing attorneys for Mueller or the mystery appellant's lawyers -- were kicked off the floor...."

The von Trump Family Grifters, Ctd. Ilya Marritz & Justin Elliott of ProPublica: "When it came out this year that ... Donald Trump's inaugural committee raised and spent unprecedented amounts, people wondered where all that money went. It turns out one beneficiary was Trump himself. The inauguration paid the Trump Organization for rooms, meals and event space at the company's Washington hotel, according to interviews as well as internal emails and receipts reviewed by WNYC and ProPublica. During the planning, Ivanka Trump, the president-elect's eldest daughter and a senior executive with the Trump Organization, was involved in negotiating the price the hotel charged the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee for venue rentals. A top inaugural planner emailed Ivanka and others at the company to 'express my concern' that the hotel was overcharging for its event spaces, worrying of what would happen 'when this is audited.' If the Trump hotel charged more than the going rate for the venues, it could violate tax law.... 'The fact that the inaugural committee did business with the Trump Organization raises huge ethical questions about the potential for undue enrichment,' said Marcus Owens, the former head of the division of the Internal Revenue Service that oversees nonprofits." ...

... Christina Wilkie of CNBC: "On Thursday..., The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that the feds are probing where the record-breaking $107 million the committee raised actually came from, and where it all went.... Yet even before Trump was inaugurated, there were already signs of scattered mistakes and systemic failures in the way the fund's money was being raised and spent.... The first sign that Trump's inaugural fundraising committee was moving into uncharted political waters was the announcement, in late 2016, that it would accept unlimited corporate and personal contributions. This was unprecedented.... Barack Obama's first inaugural committee in 2009 had prohibited corporate money and limited individual gifts to $50,000. George W. Bush's 2001 inaugural committee capped all contributions at $100,000.... The committee then spent nearly all of this money, $104 million, on far fewer official events than Obama or Bush had held.... The first official report that the Trump inaugural committee filed with the Federal Election Commission in April 2017 was riddled with errors.... Despite the committee having filed an amended report to the FEC in the summer of 2017, to this day, there remain dozens of donors to the inaugural committee whose real identities are still shrouded in mystery.... The 990 Form that the nonprofit committee submitted to the IRS in October of last year sheds little light on where the money actually went." ...

... Steve M.: "This seems ... corrupt. And illegal. But as I regularly say, President Trump will probably weather all scandals until his poll numbers start to drop from the levels where they've been for months; they're holding steady despite a wave of recent revelations.... It's self-dealing and palm-greasing. Ordinary people can understand that. Unfortunately, I'm not sure it will strike most Americans as worse than the usual level of corruption (even though it is).... The inaugural isn't one of the patriotic ceremonies we cherish. If Trump were to skim profits off a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, then maybe the national conscience would be shocked. But inaugural corruption doesn't rise to that level." ...

... Yeah, 'Cause All This Inauguration Hoohah Is the Democrats' Fault. Nicole Lafond of TPM: "... Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday evening waved off concern over a new report that President Trump's inauguration committee is under criminal investigation by blaming Democrats for the probe.... 'I think this is a perfect example of Democrats recognizing that all the accusations they made and the information that came out of the Michael Cohen case has nothing to do with the President,' she continued. 'So now they're going to -- I would say plan B, but this is more like plan D or E or F to take this President down.'" ...

... Tom Hamburger & Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: "The incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Friday that his panel plans to investigate possible 'illicit foreign funding or involvement in the inauguration' of President Trump, an event that was supported by more than $100 million in private donations. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said that the committee has examined allegations about improper inaugural funding and that the topic remains 'a matter of interest and concern,' while declining to provide specifics. 'Whenever a foreign nation uses its financial wealth to violate the laws of our country, it undermines our democracy,' Schiff said in a statement. 'When another country does so in concert with U.S. persons, it carries the additional risk of compromising them and presents a particularly acute counterintelligence risk.'" ...

... Mark Follman & Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "The intelligence committee is one of two Senate committees with ongoing investigations into the possibility that additional Russian money flowed through the NRA. Two probes into NRA-Russia matters are also ramping up in the House as Democrats prepare to take control of the chamber in January. The House Intelligence Committee, soon to be chaired by California Rep Adam Schiff, plans to scrutinize 'two major threads' regarding the NRA, a committee aide said. Those include whether [Russians Alexander Torshin and [Maria] Butina were part of efforts to establish a backchannel to the Kremlin, and 'whether Russian money was flowing into the NRA for the purpose of supporting Trump's election.'" --s (Also linked yesterday.) ...

Jeff Toobin in the New Yorker: "In an interview with the Times in July, 2017, [Donald Trump] asserted that if Robert Mueller, the special counsel, sought to investigate the Trump family's business dealings he would be crossing a 'red line.'... On a recent weekend..., [Rep. Adam] Schiff [D-Calif.] talked about his plans for conducting an investigation that will be parallel to Mueller's, probing Trump's connections to Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other places around the world. As Schiff described his approach, it became clear that he wasn't just planning to cross Trump's red line -- he intended to obliterate it.... Schiff hypothesizes that Trump went beyond using his campaign and the Presidency as a vehicle for advancing his business interests, speculating that he may have shaped policy with an eye to expanding his fortune." This is a longish profile of Schiff.

After two days of not showing up to work until noon, Trump got to work "early" Friday: 11:43 am. Mrs. McC: If President Obama had kept the kind of "work" schedule Trump has been keeping for weeks, Republicans would have impeached him for dereliction of duty. (In fairness to Trump, Obama probably didn't spend two hours a day fixing his hair. Plus Obama's tan came naturally; he didn't have to lie around in a machine. So, you know, Trump has unusually time-consuming grooming needs. BTW, women who have to primp daily just get up early.)

Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Friday named White House budget director Mick Mulvaney as his Acting chief of staff. Trump said in a pair of Twitter posts that Mulvaney would begin at the beginning of next year after outgoing chief of staff John Kelly leaves his post." Mrs. McC: This makes zero sense according to Trump's rationale: supposedly the reason he couldn't come to an agreement with Nick Ayers was that Ayers would commit to serving only a number of months. So now, after Trump claimed he had bunches of fabulous willing candidates, he settles on someone who will serve in an "acting" -- that is, temporary -- chief. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Michael Tackett & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "'For the record,' the president tweeted later Friday evening, 'there were MANY people who wanted to be the White House Chief of Staff. Mick M will do a GREAT job!' At the beginning of the week, the president said there were 10 to 12 candidates actively vying for the position, but that list seemed to shrink by the day during what was often a highly public audition. Mr. Trump met with members of his family and one of his top political advisers, Brad Parscale, before making his decision on Mr. Mulvaney.... Mr. Mulvaney was one of the few prospects for the chief of staff job who was seen as openly campaigning for it over most of the year.... Sarah Huckabee Sanders ... said Mr. Mulvaney was not resigning from his job at the budget office, but would spend all of his time as chief of staff. He will turn over running the department to Russ Vought, the office's deputy director, at a somewhat precarious time.... A senior administration official ... said there would be no end date to Mr. Mulvaney's role despite his 'acting' title." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: No end date? Really? Then why is Mulvaney's title "acting"? Is this Trump's way of keeping his thumb on Mulvaney or a means of diminishing his effectiveness & perceived importance? Or is it just another Trumpy lie & that Trump will continue to look for a "real" chief? The entire firing of Kelly & search for his replacement has been another Trumpy fiasco.

... Hope Trump enjoys watching his new chief of staff dissing him:

     ... Jackie Kucinich & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "During a debate with his then-congressional challenger, Democrat Fran Person, on Nov. 2 of 2016, less than a week before Trump was elected president, then- congressman Mulvaney was blunt with those gathered at York Middle School in York, South Carolina."

... Thanks But No Thanks. Nancy Cook & Matthew Choi of Politico: "Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on Friday that he doesn't want to be Donald Trump's next chief of staff, leaving the president with a dwindling list of candidates and underscoring the chaos of the search for the top West Wing aide. Christie, an early Trump supporter who led the White House transition effort before being ousted, made the announcement just a day after he met with the president to discuss possibly taking the role. Christie's firm statement also came shortly after reports emerged that he was the front-runner for the job, showing how quickly contenders' odds can rise and fall." Mrs. McC: As I wrote yesterday, Christie's "job interview" with Trump was a ruse to bolster Trump's claim that he was interviewing multiple willing candidates. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "Twenty-seven hours before she died at an El Paso children's hospital, 7-year-old Jakelin Caal walked across the U.S. border with her father and 161 other migrants outside Antelope Wells, N.M. It was 9:15 p.m. on Dec. 6, and the small, remote U.S. border crossing was closed for the night. There were four Border Patrol agents on duty, and no medical staff.... That night..., U.S. agents ... radioed the nearest Border Patrol station in Lordsburg, 90 minutes away, to request a bus, the only one available along that barren desert span of the New Mexico boot heel. What unfolded over the next eight hours, as Jakelin's condition deteriorated but went unnoticed by agents and perhaps her father, is now the subject of an internal investigation at the Department of Homeland Security, and congressional Democrats are demanding a full accounting and meetings with Customs and Border Protection officials." ...

... Rebekah Entralago of ThinkProgress: "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responded Thursday night to a Washington Post story about a 7-year-old immigrant child who had died of severe dehydration while in the custody of U.S. Border Patrol. The statement, which invokes 'drug cartels' and 'human smugglers,' effectively blamed the child and her father for making the dangerous journey to the United States in the first place. It did not address the fact that the pair may have been trying to enter the country legally through a border port of entry and that the girl was apparently denied care for hours before her death.... DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen [on Friday] ... also expressed sympathy for DHS itself — and not the girl's family -- saying that her 'heart goes out to [the agency].'" --s

Aris Folley of The Hill: "The Education Department on Thursday announced that it will be canceling $150 million in student loans, upholding an Obama-era policy that Secretary Betsy DeVos has long fought to overhaul.... [A] federal judge ruled in September that DeVos's efforts to nix the 2016 regulations from taking effect was illegal.... Out of the $150 million in student loans the department has announced will be automatically discharged, $80 million is attributable to loans taken out by borrowers who attended Corinthian Colleges -- which was a for-profit educational chain that closed its schools back in 2015." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Confederate VA Secretary Wilkie Misled Senate in Confirmation Hearings. Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie gave inaccurate answers to senators during his confirmation process about pro-Confederate speeches he delivered in 2009. In response to questions about remarks he made at Confederate memorial events, Wilkie downplayed his participation in a June 2009 event at the Confederate memorial in Arlington National Cemetery as simply introducing a keynote speaker. He also said he didn't have copies of remarks because he had not delivered a speech to such groups in '15-20 years.' But Wilkie's comments stand in contradiction to what his spokesman told CNN's KFile team last week, when he confirmed that Wilkie delivered a speech extolling the legacy of Robert E. Lee at that June 2009 ceremony at the Confederate memorial. The speech was the same one that he gave to another group in December 2009, which was also published in the Confederate Veteran magazine."

He's in the Navy Now. CBS/AP: "President Trump's first chief of staff is on track to join the Navy Reserve, buoyed by a recommendation from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Reince Priebus, 46, served as chief of staff for about six months, beginning at the start of the Trump administration in January 2017. Priebus also was chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2011 to 2017." Mrs. McC: I feel safer already, knowing that Prince Rebus is protecting me.

Chavie Lieber of Vox: "CBD, the non-psychoactive cannabinoid of marijuana ... just got a big boost thanks to US lawmakers. On Wednesday, Congress voted to pass the US Farm Bill, legalizing hemp, a species of cannabis that CBD can be extracted from but that isn't psychoactive. Historically, hemp has been illegal to sell or grow in the US, although it's legal to buy from international sources.... With the growing and selling of hemp now legal, greater access to CBD could mean more substantial trials and more definitive research into its purported health benefits. And it will certainly be a boon to the CBD industry." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jordan Barab of D.C.Report: "In one of the first moves of the soon-to-be Democratic Majority in the House of Representatives, Virginia Congressman Bobby Scott has been elected chair of the newly christened House Education and Labor Committee. Yes, you read that right: (Re)Introducing the House Education and Labor Committee. The House Education and Workforce Committee is no more. What's in a name? A lot. It means that the committee will once again be addressing the needs of working people rather than just their employers." --s

Yvonne Sanchez of the Arizona Republic: "U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl will resign from the U.S. Senate on Dec. 31, The Arizona Republic has confirmed, setting up a second appointment by Gov. Doug Ducey to the seat once occupied by the late John McCain. Ducey is required under law to name another Republican to the seat." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Casey Michel of ThinkProgress: "A former head of a Texas nonprofit [Kemal Oksuz] pleaded guilty this week to concealing the funding behind a scandal-plagued Congressional trip to Azerbaijan in 2013.... The trip ... became a case study in how foreign governments seek to influence American legislators without disclosing their role, including using nonprofits to mask the actual funding, and then lying about who is bankrolling the travel.... There remains no indication that any Congressional representatives on the trip -- which included Reps. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM), Ted Poe (R-TX), and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) -- committed any wrongdoing.... The trip is a clear example of post-Soviet kleptocracies seeking to influence American politics, long before Russia decided to throw its weight behind Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. After the Congressional representatives returned to the U.S., for instance, many of them began advocating for Azerbaijan's interests in Washington." --s

Peter Granitz of NPR: "Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen warned party leaders that what she sees as the GOP's focus on conservative, white, male voters harms its electoral prospects. In an interview with Morning Edition host Rachel Martin, Ros-Lehtinen said Republicans would 'lose this whole generation' if it did not 'aggressively pursue' young voters.... Ros-Lehtinen has had a historic career, as the first Latina and first Cuban-American in Congress, as well as being the first woman to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee.... However, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in Ros-Lehtinen's district by nearly 20 points in 2016, and her House seat flipped to Democrats in 2018." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

"I Speak for the Trees." Stephanie Ebbs of ABC News: "A federal judge on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals quoted Dr. Seuss' beloved environmental warrior [the Lorax] in a decision calling for the U.S. Forest Service to revisit its approval for a natural gas pipeline on the East Coast to go forward. 'We trust the United States Forest Service to "speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues,'" Judge Stephanie Thacker wrote, quoting Dr. Seuss' 1971 book 'The Lorax.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

"Annals of Journalism," Ctd. Kyla Mandel of ThinkProgress: "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently promoting its recent environmental rollback using an op-ed published in a news outlet owned by a Republican megadonor. The column, published by The Las Vegas Review-Journal Editorial Board with the headline 'There goes another one,' was sent around to journalists by the EPA press office on Thursday.... The Review-Journal is owned by American casino magnate Sheldon Adelson who, with his wife ... also had a close relationship with the agency during former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's tenure. As Politico reported in March, Pruitt met with Israeli company Water-Gen at the 'request of Adelson.' Shortly after, the agency signed a research agreement with the company." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Lisa Girion of Reuters: "[Johnson & Johnson] has been compelled to share thousands of pages of company memos, internal reports and other confidential documents with lawyers for some of the 11,700 plaintiffs now claiming that the company's talc caused their cancers -- including thousands of women with ovarian cancer.... A Reuters examination of many of those documents ... shows that from at least 1971 to the early 2000s, the company's raw talc and finished powders sometimes tested positive for small amounts of asbestos, and that company executives, mine managers, scientists, doctors and lawyers fretted over the problem and how to address it while failing to disclose it to regulators or the public.... The earliest mentions of tainted J&J talc that Reuters found come from 1957 and 1958 reports by a consulting lab." --s

Alex Hurn of the Guardian: "A Facebook bug let app developers see photos users had uploaded but never posted, the social network has disclosed." --s

Stefan Nicola et al., of Bloomberg: "The U.S. has been pushing governments for months to block Huawei Technologies Co. from telecom networks. That strategy is now taking hold in Europe, where the Chinese technology giant is losing allies by the day.... While there have been no outright bans, the outlook is dimming for Huawei in its biggest market outside China.... In France, Orange SA said Wednesday it won't use Huawei gear to build fifth-generation wireless networks, after BT Group Plc in the U.K. pledged to rip out some of the company's equipment. In Germany on Thursday, Deutsche Telekom AG raised the prospect of dropping Huawei. Then Friday, the Norwegian government said it's weighing concerns with using suppliers from countries with which there's no security policy cooperation -- an oblique reference to China.... Troubles in Europe for Huawei come on top of bans of its equipment in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S." --s

R.I.P. Oliver Darcy of CNN: "The Weekly Standard, the magazine that espouses traditional conservatism and which has remained deeply critical of ... Donald Trump, will shutter after 23 years, Clarity Media Group, the owner of its publisher announced Friday morning. It will publish its final issue on December 17." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Beyond the Beltway

California. AP: "California moved Friday to eliminate climate-changing fossil fuels from its fleet of 12,000 transit buses, enacting a first-in-the-nation mandate that will vastly increase the number of electric buses on the road. The California Air Resources Board voted unanimously to require that all new buses be carbon-free by 2029. Environmental advocates project that the last buses emitting greenhouse gases will be phased out by 2040." --s

Washington. Meet your GOP, Ctd. Kelly Weill of The Daily Beast: "A Washington state lawmaker who wrote a manifesto justifying murder in 'biblical warfare' is accused of violating campaign finance law to donate to an anti-Muslim group and promote his radio show on a conspiracy website associated with a far-right secessionist movement. Republican Rep. Matt Shea is a conspiracy-peddling religious fundamentalist with ties to the extremist Christian Identity movement, fringe militias, and secessionist groups. Years of minor notoriety in Washington lead to national headlines last month when he was revealed to have published document outlining apocalyptic Christian warfare. Days after the document circulated, Shea won reelection. But watchdogs in the state say he may have violated campaign finance law with payments to a number of fringe groups." --s

** Wisconsin. Scott Walker Is Still a Jerk. Mitch Smith & Monica Davey of the New York Times: "Scott Walker, the outgoing Republican governor of Wisconsin, on Friday signed into law measures that diminish the power of his Democratic successor and expand the authority of Republican lawmakers who teamed up with him over the last eight years to move the state firmly to the right. Mr. Walker approved the measures over the vehement objections of the incoming governor and despite fierce protest in the State Capitol as Republican lawmakers rushed the bills through in a hastily-called session last week. Tony Evers, the Democrat who beat Mr. Walker in the November election, has suggested that he may file suit over the changes and said that Mr. Walker had chosen 'to ignore and override the will of the people of Wisconsin.'... Participating in what many Democrats consider a legally dubious power grab also cemented another widely held view: that Mr. Walker is a bruising partisan willing to break precedent and ignore protests for political gain." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Way Beyond

Powder Keg. AP: "Serbia has talked up the possibility of an armed intervention in Kosovo after the parliament in Pristina overwhelmingly approved the formation of an army. Belgrade called the move the 'most direct threat to peace and stability in the region', while Nato's chief said it was 'ill-timed' and urged dialogue.... Serbia insists the new army violates a UN resolution that ended Kosovo's 1998-99 war of independence. It has warned bluntly that it may respond with an armed intervention in the former province.... Russia's foreign ministry denounced the Kosovan move and said the army must be disbanded. Any Serbian armed intervention in Kosovo would mean a direct confrontation with thousands of Nato-led peacekeepers, including US soldiers, stationed in Kosovo since 1999 ... Nato and the European Union ... expressed regret that Kosovo had decided to go ahead with the army formation." --safari: How are we going to explain this clusterfuck to Donny with crayons and construction paper?

Britain. Harriet Grant of the Guardian: "Plastic traces in animal feed could pose a risk to human health and urgently need to be the subject of more research, experts have told the Guardian.... More than 650,000 tonnes of unused food, from loaves of bread to Mars bars, are saved from landfill each year in the UK by being turned into animal feed. The system that strips off the plastic wrappings can't capture it all, and so in the UK a limit of 0.15% of plastic is allowed by the Food Standards Agency. The official EU level for plastic permitted in animal feed is zero although in reality many other countries operate within the same 0.15% limit.... Globally, about a third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted from the farm to the fork. Food that is ultimately lost or wasted consumes about a quarter of all water used by agriculture, requires a land area the size of China and is responsible for an estimated 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions." --s

Nicaragua. Luis Manuel Galeano of the AP: "Nicaraguan police have raided the offices of five nongovernmental organizations and an independent media outlet, alleging that they participated in seeking the government's overthrow. The raids were the latest strong-arm actions taken by the government of President Daniel Ortega. Since popular street protests destabilized his government in April, Ortega has reconsolidated power and methodically pursued perceived enemies." --s