The Commentariat -- August 26, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Trump Has a Problem Bigger than Bob Mueller. Noah Feldman of Bloomberg: "Trump is now facing a two-front war against the Justice Department. The team led by special counsel Robert Mueller is supposed to focus on Russian interference in the 2016 election. But the Southern District can investigate any aspect of Trump's behavior that took place in its jurisdiction, at any time. And unlike Mueller, who could in principle be fired, the Southern District isn't one man; it's a whole office of career lawyers. It can't be fired. Even if Robert Khuzami, the acting U.S. attorney in this case, were removed, no new U.S. attorney could realistically call off the prosecutors.... It remains to be seen how far the Southern District will go. But its opening salvo -- [Michael] Cohen's statement against the president ... made in consultation with the Southern District prosecutors ... -- already went further than any part of the Justice Department has gone since Richard Nixon's administration."

The Nastiest Candidate Ever. Morgan Gstalter of the Hill: "Arizona GOP Senate candidate Kelli Ward suggested Saturday that the Friday statement issued by Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) family about ending medical treatment for brain cancer was intended to hurt her campaign. McCain died Saturday hours after she made the suggestion on Facebook." ...

... Yesterday, James Arkin of Politico reported that on the campaign trail, Ward kept up her criticism of McCain after the family announced he was discontinuing cancer treatment. ...

... AND last summer, after McCain announced he had cancer, Ward said, "'the medical reality of [McCain's] diagnosis is grim,' and he should consider stepping down and having her take his place." Ward is in a primary race against Martha McSally -- the "establishment" candidate -- and that nice Joe Arpaio. to replace Sen. Jeff Flake (R), who is retiring. Mrs. McC: My guess is that McSally will win because Ward & Arpaio will split the white nationalist/crazy person/sadist vote.

*****

Robert McFadden of the New York Times: "John S. McCain, the proud naval aviator who climbed from depths of despair as a prisoner of war in Vietnam to pinnacles of power as a Republican congressman and senator from Arizona and a two-time contender for the presidency, died on Saturday at his home in Arizona. He was 81." ...

... Karen Tumulty wrote Sen. McCain's obituary for the Washington Post. ...

... Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "Senator John McCain ... will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda and receive a full dress funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral. Mr. McCain ... will also lie in state at the Arizona Capitol before his burial in Annapolis, Md., a Republican official involved in the planning said.... Two Republicans familiar with the planning said that Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have been asked to offer eulogies at his funeral. Under initial plans for Mr. McCain's funeral, Vice President Mike Pence was to attend, but not President Trump, who clashed repeatedly with Mr. McCain. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the top Senate Democrat, said on Saturday that he would introduce a resolution to rename the Russell Senate Office Building -- currently named for Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, who often opposed civil rights legislation -- in honor of Mr. McCain." ...

... The New Yorker features David Remnick's May 2018 reflections on John McCain. ...

... Russ Feingold, in a New York Times op-ed, remembers working with John McCain. Thanks to PD Pepe for the lead. ...

... Michael Sykes of Axios posts videos & photos of a few of "McCain's finest moments." ...

... Here are the last words of McCain's last book, titled The Restless Wave.

*******************************************************************

David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump's wall of secrecy -- the work of a lifetime -- is starting to crack.... His longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty last week to breaking campaign-finance laws and said he had arranged hush-money payments to two women at Trump's direction. A tabloid executive -- who had served Trump by snuffing out damaging tales before they went public -- and Trump's chief financial officer gave testimony in the case. All three had been part of the small circle ... who have long played crucial roles in Trump's strategy to shield the details of his personal life and business dealings from prying outsiders. But ... a growing number of legal challenges -- including the Russia investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and a raft of lawsuits and state-level probes in New York -- is eroding that barrier. The result has been a moment in which Trump seems politically wounded, as friends turn and embarrassing revelations about alleged affairs and his charity trickle out.... In coming months, certain cases could force Trump's company to open its books about foreign government customers or compel the president to testify about his relationships with women."

Michael Shear & Katie Benner of the New York Times: "In his attempt at self-defense amid the swirl of legal cases and investigations involving himself, his aides and his associates, Mr. Trump is directly undermining the people and processes that are the foundation of the nation's administration of justice. The result is a president at war with the law. 'You are dealing with a potentially indelible smearing of our law enforcement institutions,' said Neal K. Katyal, who was acting solicitor general under President Barack Obama. 'If Trump's views were actually accepted, there would be thousands of criminals who are out on the streets right now.' The president's public judgments about the country's top law enforcement agencies revolve largely around how their actions affect him personally -- a vision that would recast the traditionally independent justice system as a guardian of the president and an attack dog against his adversaries. For more than a year, he has criticized the Justice Department, questioned the integrity of the prosecutors leading the Russia investigation, and mercilessly mocked Jeff Sessions, his own attorney general.... As president, Mr. Trump is sworn to uphold the law, but he has viewed the legal system itself as an adversary, suggesting that it be circumvented to, for instance, send migrants back home." ...

... Bob Bauer in the Atlantic: "... even now we know what Trump seems unable to comprehend -- that he is a key reason why the investigation keeps going. This is ... because of what the investigation and his response have already revealed about this character: his disregard of legal limits when it is in his personal and political interest to ignore them, and his persistent failure to render an honest accounting of his actions. Although not quite in the way that he imagines, Trump is, in fact, what ties all [the] pieces [of the investigation] together and assures that the inquiry will, as it must, continue. Trump ... has failed to negotiate the boundary between legitimate self-defense and obstruction of justice, and in attacks such as those on his attorney general and his failed courtship of former FBI Director James Comey, he has indicated in no uncertain terms that he expects loyalty rather than fidelity to the law."

Philip Bump of the Washington Post on "the three illegal acts that may have helped Trump with the presidency.... [1] The hush money [to Karen McDougal & Stormy Daniels].... [2] The hackers. Last month, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III obtained an indictment against 12 Russians believed to work for the country's Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU.... [3] The trolls. In February, Mueller's team obtained indictments against 13 Russians who worked for an organization called the Internet Research Agency.... We ... do not yet have a full picture of two other key points of contact between the Trump campaign and Russian actors.... What became more clear this week is Trump's campaign was aided by many more surreptitious acts violating federal law than we realized -- and President Trump himself is now clearly implicated in aiding at least one." (Also linked yesterday.)

Conservative Peter Wehner in a New York Times op-ed: "A party that once spoke with urgency and apparent conviction about the importance of ethical leadership -- fidelity, honesty, honor, decency, good manners, setting a good example -- has hitched its wagon to the most thoroughly and comprehensively corrupt individual who has ever been elected president.... Mr. Trump and the Republican Party are right now the chief emblem of corruption and cynicism in American political life, of an ethic of might makes right.... Thanks to the work of Robert Mueller -- a distinguished public servant, not the leader of a 'group of Angry Democrat Thugs' -- we are going to discover deeper and deeper layers to Mr. Trump's corruption." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: How is it that Republican "thinkers" are shocked, shocked to discover that the leaders of their party are corrupt opportunists? My prediction is that the Never-Trumpers will get back on their high horses the minute somebody drives Trump out of Dodge. The whole lot of reprobates will once again be hailed as paragons of virtue saving us all from riffraff & "entitlements."

For What It's Worth. Ramsey Touchberry of Newsweek: "Roger Stone, a former Donald Trump aide..., said he believes one of the president's sons, Donald Trump Jr., will soon be indicted for 'lying to the FBI.' 'I [predict], based on excellent sourcing, that the special counsel is going to charge Donald Trump Jr. with lying to the FBI,' Stone told James Miller of the conservative online outlet The Political Insider." Thanks to Ken W. for the link.

Noam Scheiber of the New York Times: "A federal district judge in Washington struck down most of the key provisions of three executive orders that President Trump signed in late May that would have made it easier to fire federal employees. The ruling, issued early Saturday, is a blow to Republican efforts to rein in public-sector labor unions, which states like Wisconsin have aggressively curtailed in recent years. In June, the Supreme Court dealt public-sector unions a major blow by ending mandatory union fees for government workers nationwide.... The complaint said that the president lacks the authority to override federal law on these questions, and the judge in the case, Ketanji Brown Jackson, agreed, writing that most of the key provisions of the executive orders 'conflict with congressional intent in a manner that cannot be sustained.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Astead Herndon of the New York Times: "Democratic Party officials, after a yearslong battle between warring ideological wings, have agreed to sharply reduce the influence of the top political insiders known as superdelegates in the presidential nomination process. Under the new plan, which was agreed to on Saturday afternoon in Chicago at the Democratic National Committee's annual summer meetings, superdelegates retain their power to back any candidate regardless of how the public votes. They will now be largely barred, however, from participating in the first ballot of the presidential nominating process at the party's convention -- drastically diluting their power. Superdelegates will be able to cast substantive votes only in extraordinary cases like contested conventions, in which the nomination process is extended through multiple ballots until one candidate prevails."

Beyond the Beltway

Joe Johnson, et al., of the Raleigh News & Observer: "Police had arrested seven people by early Saturday afternoon, as protesters clashed at UNC-Chapel Hill five days after the toppling of the Silent Sam Confederate monument.... Silent Sam supporters numbered no more than a couple of dozen, while the anti-protesters had the numbers on their side, with about 200 people shouting and chanting various slogans.... The UNC-Chapel Hill Police Department on Friday filed warrants charging three people in connection with the toppling of the statue. The warrants charge the three with misdemeanor riot and misdemeanor defacing of a publi monument, according to a UNC police statement."

Way Beyond

New York Times: "On the second day of a difficult mission to win back the confidence of Irish Catholics, Pope Francis awoke on Sunday to a bombshell attack from within his own citadel. A former top-ranking Vatican official released a 7,000-word letter asserting that the pontiff had known about the abuses of a now-disgraced American prelate, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, years before they became public. The official, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a conservative critic of Francis and a former apostolic nuncio to the United States, claimed that the pope had failed to punish Cardinal McCarrick, who was suspended in June following allegations that he had coerced seminarians into sexual relationships. He was also found to have abused a teenage altar boy 47 years ago, when he was a priest in New York. In the letter, published on Saturday in Italian by The National Catholic Register and in English by LifeSiteNews, both critical of Francis, the archbishop called on the pope to resign." ...

     ... The report linked above is part of the NYT's liveblog of Francis's visit to Ireland. ...

     ... Chico Harlan, et al., of the Washington Post: "A former Vatican ambassador to the United States has alleged in an 11-page letter that Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis -- among other top Catholic Church officials -- had been aware of sexual misconduct allegations against a top American cardinal years before that prelate resigned this summer.... The letter offered no proof and Vigano on Sunday told the Post he wouldn't comment further." ...

... Chico Harlan & Amanda Ferguson of the Washington Post: "Pope Francis said Saturday that the 'failure of ecclesiastical authorities' to address sexual abuse has 'rightly given rise to outrage,' his first acknowledgment during his trip to Ireland of the traumas here that have radically diminished the Roman Catholic clergy's once-towering authority. In an address at Dublin Castle, Francis described the 'repellent crimes' and the failure to deal with them as 'a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community.' But he did not discuss concrete changes in laws or transparency or address the question of the Vatican's complicity in the abuse cases." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... The main Irish Times story is here. The front page of the Irish Times has links to numerous related stories.

News Ledes

(Jacksonville,) Florida Times-Union: "Multiple people are dead, including the lone suspect, after a mass shooting Sunday afternoon at the Jacksonville Landing during a video game tournament, a chaotic scene at a waterfront venue synonymous with downtown.... Many details about the shooting were not immediately clear, including how many people were dead and what kind of gun the suspect used. Police publicly referred to the incident as a 'mass shooting,' a term with varying definitions that often means at least three or four people have died." ...

     ... Washington Post Update: "Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams said the suspect took his own life, but he did not know details of any motive or if the suspect knew the victims. This story is developing. At least three people are dead and 14 are injured after a lone gunman opened fire Sunday during a video game tournament in Florida that drew professional players from around the world." The suspect is believed to be from Baltimore, Md.

New York Times: "Neil Simon, the playwright whose name was synonymous with Broadway comedy and commercial success in the theater for decades, and who helped redefine popular American humor with an emphasis on the frictions of urban living and the agonizing conflicts of family intimacy, died on Sunday in Manhattan. He was 91."

The Commentariat -- August 25, 2018

Late Morning Update:

Noam Scheiber of the New York Times: "A federal district judge in Washington struck down most of the key provisions of three executive orders that President Trump signed in late May that would have made it easier to fire federal employees. The ruling, issued early Saturday, is a blow to Republican efforts to rein in public-sector labor unions, which states like Wisconsin have aggressively curtailed in recent years. In June, the Supreme Court dealt public-sector unions a major blow by ending mandatory union fees for government workers nationwide.... The complaint said that the president lacks the authority to override federal law on these questions, and the judge in the case, Ketanji Brown Jackson, agreed, writing that most of the key provisions of the executive orders 'conflict with congressional intent in a manner that cannot be sustained.'"

Philip Bump of the Washington Post on "the three illegal acts that may have helped Trump with the presidency.... [1] The hush money [to Karen McDougal & Stormy Daniels].... [2] The hackers. Last month, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III obtained an indictment against 12 Russians believed to work for the country's Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU.... [3] The trolls. In February, Mueller's team obtained indictments against 13 Russians who worked for an organization called the Internet Research Agency.... We ... do not yet have a full picture of two other key points of contact between the Trump campaign and Russian actors.... What became more clear this week is Trump's campaign was aided by many more surreptitious acts violating federal law than we realized -- and President Trump himself is now clearly implicated in aiding at least one."

Chico Harlan & Amanda Ferguson of the Washington Post: "Pope Francis said Saturday that the 'failure of ecclesiastical authorities' to address sexual abuse has 'rightly given rise to outrage,' his first acknowledgment during his trip to Ireland of the traumas here that have radically diminished the Roman Catholic clergy's once-towering authority. In an address at Dublin Castle, Francis described the 'repellent crimes' and the failure to deal with them as 'a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community.' But he did not discuss concrete changes in laws or transparency or address the question of the Vatican's complicity in the abuse cases."

*****

Mark Landler & Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump said on Friday that he had asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to skip a planned trip to North Korea, abruptly canceling the next round of negotiations on the country's nuclear program in his first public acknowledgment that his diplomatic overture to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, had run into trouble.... In his tweets on Friday afternoon, Mr. Trump said the nuclear negotiations had been hampered by a lack of support from China, which he attributed to its increasingly rancorous trade dispute with the United States.... Lower-level trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing ended on Thursday with few signs of progress, raising the odds of additional American tariffs on Chinese goods. Mr. Trump also met with legislators to discuss a new law aimed at curbing Chinese investment.

When Loonytoons Meet. Asawin Suebsaeng & Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "On Thursday..., Donald Trump posed for an Oval Office photo with one of the leading promoters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims that top Democrats are part of a global pedophile cult ... [and] that Trump and the military are engaged in a high-stakes shadow war against ... [the] cult.... YouTube conspiracy theorist Lionel Lebron was in the White House for an event on Thursday, according to a video Lebron posted online. During the visit, Lebron and his wife posed for a smiling picture with Trump in the Oval Office.... Lebron claimed to have received a 'special guided tour of the White House' before posing for pictures with Trump." Lebron said he didn't discuss the anti-cult operation with Trump because, "I think we all know he knows about it." ...

... Jeet Heer: "The two possibilities are that either someone in the White House set up the meeting to help bolster QAnon or that White House security is so lax that a dubious character like LeBron could easily push his way into a photo-op. Neither possibility is reassuring."

As the Worms Turn, Ctd.

The Trump Family Is So Screwed. Tom Winter of NBC News: "The longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, was given immunity by federal prosecutors in New York during the course of the Michael Cohen investigation, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The news was first reported Friday by The Wall Street Journal. Weisselberg is 'Executive 1' on page 17 of the criminal information filed by prosecutors in the Michael Cohen case.... Weisselberg, 70, began working for the Trump Organization as an accountant in the 1970s, when ... Donald Trump's father Fred ran the company. Weisselberg was also treasurer of The Donald J. Trump Foundation, the president's charitable organization, which has been sued by the New York attorney general for alleged violations of state law." Thanks to MAG for the lead. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "... Weisselberg ... becom[es] the latest figure close to President Trump to cooperate with investigators in exchange for leniency for himself. Weisselberg follows Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos, David Pecker and, of course, [Michael] Cohen. But the latest news is potentially even bigger than its predecessors. And that's because none of these other figures can likely hold a candle to Weisselberg when it comes to knowing about any skeletons in Trump's closet.... How much Weisselberg actually knew the specific details of [the McDougal & Daniels hush-money] arrangement[s] isn't clear. But the fact that there was reason to subpoena him and make him cut an immunity deal is big. That means he personally had potential criminal liability, and he had to give something of real value to get out of that." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Natasha Bertrand of the Atlantic: "The significance of [Allen Weisselberg's] flip, paired with [Michael] Cohen's recent plea deal, cannot be overstated: It took slightly more than a year for two of the president's longest-serving employees, considered by many to be the last who would ever turn on him, to cooperate with federal investigators -- and, in Cohen's case, directly implicate Trump in a crime. But the news also marked a turning point in the legal assault on Trumpworld: SDNY prosecutors may now pose a more immediate threat to the president than Special Counsel Robert Mueller does.... Taken together, SDNY seems to be homing in on Trump.... The SDNY investigation has prompted comparisons to a mob roll-up -- of the kind, ironically, that Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani oversaw in the 1980s while he was a prosecutor in New York." ...

... Aaron Keller of Law & Crime: "Law&Crime Founder Dan Abrams tweeted that Weisselberg's deal is 'with the Southern District of NY, not Mueller's team and is likely confined to Cohen/hush payments.' Abrams believes it is likely 'not some broader deep dive into President Trump's finances.'... [But] several opinion leaders and experts [said] ... Weisselberg's decision to 'flip' carries broader implications." ...

... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Dan Goldman, formerly an SDNY prosecutor, said on MSNBC last night that Weisselberg's & Pecker's immunity deals were granted on a "compulsion" basis; that is, prosecutors compelled them to testify about specific matters & granted them immunity from prosecution on any of their admissions related to those rounds of questioning. That suggested that their immunity deals are indeed limited, as Abrams guessed. No link. ...

... Mimi Rocah & Elie Honig in the Daily Beast: Cohen, Pecker & Weissenberg: all these former President's men "work for the feds now.... We now know from the charging document (called an Information) to which [Michael] Cohen pleaded guilty, that several other people, identified but not named, were involved in [the hush-money] scheme. The Information identifies a 'Chairman of a Media Company,' and Executive-1 and Executive-2 of what is clearly the Trump Organization, as participating in this scheme. Based on reporting and the facts in the Information, it's clear that the media chairman is David Pecker< of American Media, Inc. (the National Enquirer), a longtime ally of Trump, and that Executive-1 is Allen Weisselberg, chief financial officer of the Trump Organization. And we now know, based on further reporting, that both of those men received some kind of immunity deal in exchange for their cooperation.... It seems unlikely that the Southern District of New York needed to immunize these two witness just to charge Cohen.... At least some of the individuals and entities who should be concerned: Executive-2 of the Trump Organization, the Trump Organization, and possibly 'one or more members of the campaign' who coordinated with Cohen.... This must have many people, including Trump, very concerned." ...

... Inae Oh of Mother Jones: "The news of Weisselberg's and Pecker's immunity deals comes amid Trump's recent remarks lashing out at so-called 'flippers.' In an interview that aired Thursday, the president suggested that 'flipping' -- that is, cooperating with law enforcement in exchange for leniency --; should even be 'outlawed.'"

Erica Orden of CNN: "The New York State Attorney General's Office is poised to pursue a criminal probe of Michael Cohen's potential state tax law violations, having sought a criminal referral on the matter from the state Department of Taxation and Finance, according to a person familiar with the matter. Attorney General Barbara Underwood's office sought the referral in recent days, following the criminal charges brought against ... Donald Trump's former personal attorney by federal prosecutors in the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, this person said.... The state tax department also subpoenaed Cohen earlier this week as part of a probe pertaining to the Trump Foundation...."

"No Collusion." Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "Trump and surrogates have argued that his former lawyer's and his campaign chairman’s near-simultaneous legal losses don't imperil the president himself. After all, none of the charges that Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort were convicted of this week involved Russian connections to Trump's 2016 campaign. Quoth the president: 'And what's come out of Manafort? No collusion. What's come out of Michael Cohen? No collusion.' As for the Cohen crimes that did directly implicate Trump -- the campaign finance violations -- the president and his people have argued that these are not actually crimes. After all, they're so rarely prosecuted! [But] there's plenty of precedent for prosecuting [tax crimes]. And the Cohen filings this week raise serious new questions about whether Trump has criminal tax-fraud exposure.... 'The reason to go through the shenanigans of making this transaction [-- the hush-money payment to Stephanie Clifford --] look like legal expenses, to me, is to make something not deductible look deductible,' said Johnson Ware." ...

... Even the Doorman Has Turned on Trump. of CNN: "A former Trump World Tower doorman who says he has knowledge of an alleged affair ... Donald Trump had with an ex-housekeeper, which resulted in a child, is now able to talk about a contract he entered with American Media Inc. that had prohibited him from discussing the matter with anyone, according to his attorney. On Friday, Marc Held -- the attorney for Dino Sajudin, the former doorman -- said his client had been released from his contract with AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, 'recently' after back-and-forth discussions with AMI. CNN has exclusively obtained a copy of the 'source agreement' between Sajudin and AMI, which is owned by David Pecker. The contract appears to have been signed on Nov. 15, 2015, and states that AMI has exclusive rights to Sajudin's story but does not mention the details of the story itself beyond saying, 'Source shall provide AMI with information regarding Donald Trump's illegitimate child...'.... Sajudin's allegation that Trump fathered a child out of wedlock has not been independently confirmed by any of the outlets that have investigated the story." Mrs. McC: The saddest part: they may be another little Trumpie Toddler out there. Poor kid.

William Saletan of Slate: Donald Trump is also bent out over Jeff Sessions' failure to "protect" him & to "take control of" the DOJ & "this Russia thing," and over Michael Cohen's flip. But on obstruction, White House counsel Don McGahn may have given the Mueller team everything it needs. By detailing to prosecutors Trump's actions & remarks on several matters, McGahn likely exposed Trump's "criminal intent" to obstruct the investigation, whether McGahn thinks so or not. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I think Trump's public statements, including many of his tweets, are strong evidence of his "criminal intent" to impede the investigation. Why incessantly knock Mueller's team & DOJ brass for conducting a "witch hunt" if your intent is not to delegitimize, stifle or end the "witch hunt"?

Chris Sommerfeldt of the New York Daily News: Rudy Giuliani "-- famous for coaxing New York mobsters into spilling the beans on their bosses -- took a slight jab at President Trump on Friday over his claim that the longstanding legal tactic of 'flipping' ought to be 'outlawed.' 'The President is not a lawyer,' Giuliani told the Daily News. In an unusual rebuttal of his own boss, the New York mayor-turned-top Trump attorney suggested the President might not have had a full grasp of what he was talking about when he went on Fox News on Wednesday and proposed outlawing witness cooperation agreements. 'I don't think he's against the idea of cooperation,' Giuliani, 74, said. 'He's against the idea of getting people to lie.' 'I'm not troubled by his comments,' Giuliani added."

Two victims of the notorious FBI, according to the NRA.Jonathan Chait: "NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch informs her audience that the FBI is trying to pull the same tricks on Trump that they used to entrap the beloved Prohibition-era Chicago gang leader: 'They're trying to Al Capone the president. I mean, you remember. Capone didn't go down for murder.... He went in for tax fraud. Prosecutors didn't care how he went down as long as he went down.' You might wonder why Trump's supporters believe his legal defense is aided by analogizing him to a murderous criminal. Perhaps the answer is that Capone had several qualities that recommend him to the Republican grassroots base. He was a business owner -- or, in modern Republican lingo, a Job Creator. He was an avid Second Amendment enthusiast. And, most importantly, Capone, like Trump, was a victim of the deep state." Chait goes on to have more fun with Loesch's "logic." ...

... Lawrence Douglas & Alexander George in the Guardian: "If Trump shot Michael Cohen in broad daylight, here's what Republicans would say." Mrs. McC: Funny. In fact, I suspect the authors -- who are both Amherst College law professors -- got hold of Paul Ryan's pre-written talking points. Thanks to Ken W. for the link.

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Special counsel Robert Mueller's team is shaving its estimate for the length of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's upcoming trial, projecting that the prosecution case could be completed in as little as two weeks. 'The government anticipates that its case-in-chief will last approximately ten to twelve trial days,' prosecutors wrote in a filing Friday evening in U.S. District Court in Washington. Manafort is set to go on trial there beginning September 17 on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent, money laundering and obstruction of justice."

Julian Barnes & Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "In 2016, American intelligence agencies delivered urgent and explicit warnings about Russia's intentions to try to tip the American presidential election -- and a detailed assessment of the operation afterward -- thanks in large part to informants close to President Vladimir V. Putin and in the Kremlin who provided crucial details. But two years later, the vital Kremlin informants have largely gone silent, leaving the C.I.A. and other spy agencies in the dark about precisely what Mr. Putin's intentions are for November's midterm elections, according to American officials familiar with the intelligence. The officials do not believe the sources have been compromised or killed. Instead, they have concluded they have gone to ground amid more aggressive counterintelligence by Moscow, including efforts to kill spies, like the poisoning in March in Britain of a former Russian intelligence officer that utilized a rare Russian-made nerve agent. Current and former officials also said the expulsion of American intelligence officers from Moscow has hurt collection efforts. And officials also raised the possibility that the outing of an F.B.I. informant under scrutiny by the House intelligence committee -- an examination encouraged by President Trump -- has had a chilling effect on intelligence collection." (Also linked yesterday.)

Paul Fontelo of Roll Call: Rep. "Duncan Hunter [R-Calif.] is Using Campaign Funds to Defend Himself Against ... Misusing Campaign Funds.... Hunter's legal defense is coming from the same campaign coffers he and his wife are accused of misusing, so far amounting to more than $600,000 for the lawyers.... Hunter's use of campaign funds for attorney fees is likely legal and permitted.... The Hunter campaign';s expenditures of $600,000 for the 2018 election dwarfs the campaign's previous payments for legal matters." Mrs. McC: Maybe we can rationalize this by positing that anybody who donates to Duncan there deserves to have his hard-earned money misused. AND Gloria makes an excellent point in today's Comments. ...

... There's Always More to the Story. We learned yesterday that Hunter went on the teevee to blame his wife for all the illegal campaign finance activity? (This was after he blamed the "political agenda" of "the Democrats' arm of law enforcement" for investigating him in the first place.) And there are those trysts with "Individuals 14, 15, and 18":

     ... Tina Nguyen of Vanity Fair: "They include thousands of dollars spent on a personal vacation with Individual 14 at a Tahoe ski resort; a $162.02 charge for 'a personal stay at the Liaison Capitol Hill hotel with Individual 14'; repeated trips to Individual 15's house; and a $32.27 Uber ride at 7:40 A.M., in Washington, D.C., from Individual 18's home to Duncan's office.... Whatever happened after Hunter threw his wife under the bus clearly did not bring the couple closer together: according to CNN, the two arrived at the courthouse separately, entered the courtroom separately, and 'sat four seats apart' during the hearing." Mrs. McC: If you read the complaint, which is here, there's much more because "Individual 14, Individual 15, Individual 16, Individual 17,? and ?Individual 18? lived in the Washington, DC. area and had personal relationships with DUNCAN HUNTER." The Liaison Hotel? ...

... Oh, and Hunter complained on Fox "News" about his crappy $174,000 annual salary, which is of course a lot more than most Americans pull down. Well, yeah, that's not much when you've racked "up $37,000 in insufficient funds fees thanks to over 1,100 overdrafts." If you make only $174K, you might want to be more careful about managing your bank account.

Nicholas Fandos & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Senator John McCain of Arizona, who has been battling brain cancer for more than a year, will no longer be treated for his condition, his family announced on Friday, a sign that the Republican war hero is most likely entering his final days." (Also linked yesterday.)

Election 2018

Maggie Astor of the New York Times: "The abuse already common in many women's everyday lives can be amplified in political campaigns, especially if the candidate is also a member of a minority group.... Harassment is not new for women in politics, or anywhere else -- and men face it too, especially if they are African-American or Jewish. But for women, the harassment is ubiquitous and frequently sexualized, and it has come to the fore this election cycle, partly because so many women are running and partly because more of them are discussing their experiences":

Congressional Race -- Special Election. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Republican Troy Balderson was declared the winner Friday over Democrat Danny O'Connor in a closely contested special election in a central Ohio congressional district that Republicans have held for decades. After thousands of provisional and absentee ballots were counted, the Associated Press declared Balderson, a state senator, the winner of the Aug. 7 contest.... Balderson's narrow win came in a district that President Trump won by 11 percentage points in 2016 and that the GOP has held since 1983. Balderson received the endorsements of both Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R). Balderson and O'Connor will face off again Nov. 6, competing this time for a full two-year term in Congress."

Laurence Tribe in a Washington Post op-ed: The Founding Fathers would not have wanted Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to continue. "The framers built the Constitution on the premise that men aren't angels, and they did not trust a president's nominees to the Supreme Court to be impartial in determining whether he should stay in office. At the Constitutional Convention, Virginia's George Mason thought judges 'surely' ought not preside over the impeachment trials of presidents to whom they owed their jobs; Connecticut's Roger Sherman agreed. So the framers came up with a solution: They assigned the impeachment power to the House and the power to try impeachments to the Senate.... As [the impeachment] storm and others rage, Trump has nominated an Article II maximalist to the Supreme Court -- a man who may well have been selected specifically for his antipathy to prosecution or even investigation of any sitting president. There is no need to hurry. The slowly mounting chorus of senators calling for a pause in Kavanaugh's confirmation would have resonated strongly with the framers. Their views cannot rule us from the grave, but the structure they created has served us well."

Michael Wilson of the New York Times: "Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, who ran the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for eight years under President Obama, was arrested in Brooklyn on Friday morning on a sex abuse charge after an incident in October 2017, the police said. A 55-year-old woman came forward to the police in July and said that Dr. Frieden, described by the authorities as an acquaintance, grabbed her buttocks against her will nine months earlier, on Oct. 20, at his residence ... in Brooklyn Heights, the police said." (Also linked yesterday.)

Beyond the Beltway

Some Good News. Victor Blackwell, et al., of CNN: "In a meeting that lasted less than 60 seconds, a Georgia elections board voted down a plan Friday to close seven of a majority-black county's nine polling places ahead of November's midterm elections. Critics had said the plan to consolidate polling places in Randolph County, Georgia, was a brazen attempt to suppress the black vote in Georgia's governor race, which pits former Georgia House minority leader Stacey Abrams, who is black, against Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is white.The vote came amid widespread national criticism and days after the county terminated its contract with Mike Malone, the consultant who made the recommendation. Malone had argued that closing the polling stations would save the county money, and that some of the sites suggested for closure did not comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. It's unclear whether the termination of Malone's contract impacted the vote." There are only two people on the Randolph County Board of Elections. (Also linked yesterday.)

News Lede

USA Today: "Roadways were virtually empty, stores closed, no buses are running and some buildings were boarded up as Honolulu prepared for the arrival of Lane, originally a hurricane but downgraded to a tropical storm Friday afternoon. The National Weather Service warned that even a tropical storm can bring maximum winds of 70 miles per hour and that the threat of flooding was still present through Saturday. 'We're not out of the woods yet,' Governor David Ige said at a press conference in Honolulu. The island of Oahu, home to 69 percent of Hawaii's population, has been preparing for days for the storm's slow, 5 mph approach."

The Commentariat -- August 24, 2018

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

As the Worms Turn, Ctd. The Trump Family Is So Screwed. Tom Winter of NBC News: "The longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, was given immunity by federal prosecutors in New York during the course of the Michael Cohen investigation, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The news was first reported Friday by The Wall Street Journal. Weisselberg is 'Executive 1' ... of the criminal information filed by prosecutors in the Michael Cohen case, a person with knowledge of the matter told NBC News.... Weisselberg, 70, began working for the Trump Organization as an accountant in the 1970s, when ... Donald Trump's father Fred ran the company. Weisselberg was also treasurer of The Donald J. Trump Foundation, the president's charitable organization, which has been sued by the New York attorney general for alleged violations of state law." Thanks to MAG for the lead. ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "... Weisselberg ... becom[es] the latest figure close to President Trump to cooperate with investigators in exchange for leniency for himself. Weisselberg follows Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos, David Pecker and, of course, [Michael] Cohen. But the latest news is potentially even bigger than its predecessors. And that's because none of these other figures can likely hold a candle to Weisselberg when it comes to knowing about any skeletons in Trump's closet.... How much Weisselberg actually knew the specific details of [the McDougal & Daniels hush-money] arrangement[s] isn't clear. But the fact that there was reason to subpoena him and make him cut an immunity deal is big. That means he personally had potential criminal liability, and he had to give something of real value to get out of that."

Julian Barnes & Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "In 2016, American intelligence agencies delivered urgent and explicit warnings about Russia's intentions to try to tip the American presidential election -- and a detailed assessment of the operation afterward -- thanks in large part to informants close to President Vladimir V. Putin and in the Kremlin who provided crucial details. But two years later, the vital Kremlin informants have largely gone silent, leaving the C.I.A. and other spy agencies in the dark about precisely what Mr. Putin's intentions are for November's midterm elections, according to American officials familiar with the intelligence. The officials do not believe the sources have been compromised or killed. Instead, they have concluded they have gone to ground amid more aggressive counterintelligence by Moscow, including efforts to kill spies, like the poisoning in March in Britain of a former Russian intelligence officer that utilized a rare Russian-made nerve agent. Current and former officials also said the expulsion of American intelligence officers from Moscow has hurt collection efforts. And officials also raised the possibility that the outing of an F.B.I. informant under scrutiny by the House intelligence committee -- an examination encouraged by President Trump -- has had a chilling effect on intelligence collection."

Nicholas Fandos & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Senator John McCain of Arizona, who has been battling brain cancer for more than a year, will no longer be treated for his condition, his family announced on Friday, a sign that the Republican war hero is most likely entering his final days."

Michael Wilson of the New York Times: "Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, who ran the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for eight years under President Obama, was arrested in Brooklyn on Friday morning on a sex abuse charge after an incident in October 2017, the police said. A 55-year-old woman came forward to the police in July and said that Dr. Frieden, described by the authorities as an acquaintance, grabbed her buttocks against her will nine months earlier, on Oct. 20, at his residence ... in Brooklyn Heights, the police said."

Some Good News. Victor Blackwell, et al., of CNN: "In a meeting that lasted less than 60 seconds, a Georgia elections board voted down a plan Friday to close seven of a majority-black county's nine polling places ahead of November's midterm elections. Critics had said the plan to consolidate polling places in Randolph County, Georgia, was a brazen attempt to suppress the black vote in Georgia's governor race, which pits former Georgia House minority leader Stacey Abrams, who is black, against Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is white.The vote came amid widespread national criticism and days after the county terminated its contract with Mike Malone, the consultant who made the recommendation. Malone had argued that closing the polling stations would save the county money, and that some of the sites suggested for closure did not comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. It's unclear whether the termination of Malone's contract impacted the vote." There are only two people on the Randolph County Board of Elections.

*****

Michael Gerson of the Washington Post: "There is, again, a cancer on the presidency. But the comparison to Watergate offers a caution to the advocates of impeachment. [John] Dean's testimony was not enough. Many dismissed it as the words of a disgruntled employee. It took a series of developments to turn the public decisively against Nixon. It was the White House recordings that sealed the president's fate -- including the tape on which he said he could raise $1 million in hush money. It took the firing of the special prosecutor, Archibald Cox.... And the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew. And the allegations of tax evasion. And the missing 18½ minutes on the tapes. And 'expletives deleted.' And 'I am not a crook.' It was only in June 1974 that a majority of Americans thought Nixon should resign or be impeached.... Yet Trump still has serious cause for worry [-- reasons which Gerson lists.]... Every time we gain a peek into the inner workings of Trump world, we see a leader with the ethics of an Atlantic City casino owner who surrounds himself with people chosen for their willingness to lie and cheat at his bidding. A world in which Paul Manafort is 'a very good person.' A world in which payoffs and election tampering are all in a day's work. Left to his investigation, Mueller will expose this world to the light. And the choice for Congress is likely to be clear: Impeach, or tolerate massive corruption." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: While I generally agree with Gerson on this, there is another huge difference between Nixon & Trump: Nixon hid his bad deeds from the public; Trump is trying to hide only those that put him in legal jeopardy; many others he puts on display every day. Today's news about his feud with JeffBo, his desire to pardon Manafort, his touting of white nationalism, not mention his rich-people-first & anti-environmental policies, are but a smattering of that display. Also, we know mike pence, and mike pence is no Jerry Ford. I wonder if Nixon would have been impeached if Agnew were the alternative. ...

... Frank Rich: "... the unrelenting lockstep loyalty of the feckless GOP leadership and the party's base to Trump are not indicators of his fate. An occasional outlier in the Jeff Flake vein aside, Nixon's party was wholly loyal to him too. Like today's Vichy Republicans, they remained loyal despite the indictments of Cabinet members and aides as close to Nixon as Manafort, Cohen, and Michael Flynn have been to Trump. They remained loyal after the nation was riveted by the devastating Watergate hearings of the summer of 1973, which portrayed all the president's men as counterparts to the mobsters seen in the previous year's Hollywood hit The Godfather. They remained loyal even that fall, when Nixon's firing of the special prosecutor in the 'Saturday Night Massacre' attempted to blowtorch the Constitution and the rule of law.... [Assuming that Democrats take the House in November,] the [most] plausible scenario is that Trump, even if he has to be pushed kicking-and-screaming by Ivanka and the possible jailbirds Donald Jr. and Jared, gets out of Dodge. As with Nixon, his administration is most likely not to end with impeachment but with a self-pitying and self-justifying resignation in which Trump lashes out against both Republicans and Democrats, declares another ersatz 'win,' and flees."

The Elf Strikes Back. Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, pushed back against President Trump's recent attack on him -- namely that Mr. Sessions never took control of the Justice Department.... 'While I am attorney general, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations,' Mr. Sessions said in a rare public statement released Thursday afternoon.... 'I put in an attorney general that never took control of the Justice Department,' Mr. Trump said in an interview with 'Fox & Friends' recorded on Wednesday and aired on Thursday morning. 'Jeff Sessions never took control of the Justice Department and it's a sort of an incredible thing.' He later asked: 'What kind of man is this.' Mr. Sessions appeared to answer that question: 'I demand the highest standards, and where they are not met, I take action,' he said in the statement." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Steven Dennis of Bloomberg: "Two key Republican senators signaled to ... Donald Trump that he could replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the midterm elections in November, a move that would open the way for firing Robert Mueller or constraining his probe.... 'The president's entitled to an attorney general he has faith in, somebody that's qualified for the job, and I think there will come a time, sooner rather than later, where it will be time to have a new face and a fresh voice at the Department of Justice,' Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who may be in line to head the Judiciary Committee next year, told reporters Thursday.... Graham warned against acting against Sessions before the election.... A year ago..., [Graham] warned Trump publicly that if he fired Sessions 'there will be holy hell to pay.' Senator Chuck Grassley, the current Judiciary chairman, also changed his position on Thursday, saying in an interview that he'd be able to make time for hearings for a new attorney general after saying in the past that the panel was too busy to tackle that explosive possibility." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Update. Eliana Johnson & Burgess Everett of Politico: "Top Senate Republicans sent dueling signals on Thursday about whether it would be safe for ... Donald Trump to fire the attorney general he can't stand. GOP leaders moved quickly to quell a rebellion against Jeff Sessions after Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa signaled publicly that they'd be willing to give Trump what he wants and confirm a new attorney general after the midterms -- even at the cost of betraying a former Senate colleague. 'Do we really want to go through that kind of confirmation fight? Is there anybody we can confirm? Our conference supports Jeff,' Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 GOP leader, said in an interview with Politico.... The Senate majority whip, John Cornyn of Texas echoed those concerns.... More than a half-dozen GOP senators backed Sessions publicly after Graham and Grassley's comments...." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump responded to JeffBo on Twitter this morning: "'Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by politica considerations.' Jeff, this is GREAT, what everyone wants, so look into all of the corruption on the 'other side' including deleted Emails, Comey lies & leaks, Mueller conflicts, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr...... ...FISA abuse, Christopher Steele & his phony and corrupt Dossier, the Clinton Foundation, illegal surveillance of Trump Campaign, Russian collusion by Dems - and so much more. Open up the papers & documents without redaction? Come on Jeff, you can do it, the country is waiting!" Because unjustified probes of King Donald's opponents would not constitute "political considerations." ...

     ... Update: John Wagner of the Washington Post has the story. ...

     ... Update 2: Katie Benner, et al., of the New York Times cover Trump's latest, plus a lot more. Here are two nuggets, both concerning Chuck Grassley. The first probably explains Grassley's willingness to dump Sessions: "Mr. Grassley has warred with Mr. Sessions over one of his top policy priorities, a comprehensive bipartisan criminal justice overhaul also championed by ... Jared Kushner. Mr. Grassley has said he believes that Mr. Sessions has led opposition within the administration to the legislative package. During Thursday's meeting at the White House, the president held off on backing the proposal at least until after November's midterm elections...." AND "Mr. Grassley also reached out on Thursday to lawyers representing [Michael] Cohen, inviting him to testify privately before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans on the panel have led an intermittent investigation of the Trump campaign's ties to Russia but have not sought new witness testimony in months." ...

... Felicia Sonmez, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump took his criticism of the criminal justice system to new heights Thursday, prompting alarm from national security and law enforcement officials who fear the president is seeking to protect himself from encroaching investigations at the expense of lasting damage to institutions.... Taken together, critics said, the president's actions demonstrate his shifting, inconsistent principles when it comes to law enforcement and suggest a dangerous lack of understanding about the criminal justice system that is likely to have repercussions well beyond the White House.... Patrick Cotter, a former federal prosecutor who was part of the team that convicted Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, described Trump's statements about the criminal justice system as 'the modern-day version of a particularly inarticulate mobster. If you remove all the lies, there's nothing left,' Cotter said." ...

... ** Jonathan Chait: "Trump wants to ban flipping because he is almost literally a mob boss.... Over the weekend [Trump] denounc[ed] President Nixon's lawyer John Dean as a 'rat.'... To gangsters, a rat is considered the worst kind of person because they pose the greatest danger to their ability to escape prosecution.... Trump ... has worked closely with Mafia figures throughout his business career. 'I know all about flipping, for 30, 40 years I've been watching flippers,' he tells Fox News. 'Everything's wonderful, and then they get ten years in jail and they flip on whoever the next-highest one is, or as high as you can go.' Trump's claim of expertise in his area is not some idle boast. He hired Roy Cohn, by that point a mob lawyer, worked closely with figures linked to the Russian-American mafia, Felix Sater and Michael Cohen, and made money in his properties attracting money launderers.... He also follows mafia practice of surrounding himself with associates chosen on the basis of loyalty rather than traditional qualifications.... [']The only reason I gave [Sessions] the job [is] I felt loyalty.' Trump cannot imagine that admitting he picked an attorney general solely out of the expectation of personal loyalty is a confession of an intent to corrupt law enforcement." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Chait's post is an elaboration -- and a very good one -- on what I wrote in the Comments section a couple of days ago. ...

... Mark Landler of the New York Times: "... as Mr. Trump faces his own mushrooming legal troubles, he has taken to using a vocabulary that sounds uncannily like that of [John] Gotti and his fellow mobsters in the waning days of organized crime, when ambitious prosecutors like Rudolph W. Giuliani tried to turn witnesses against their bosses to win racketeering convictions.... Mr. Trump is comfortable with the wiseguys-argot of [the Queens neighborhood where he grew up.... Nicholas] Pileggi[, who writes about the Mafia,] traced the president's language to the Madison Club, a Democratic Party machine in Brooklyn that helped his father, Fred Trump, win his first real estate deals in the 1930s. In those smoke-filled circles, favors were traded like cases of whiskey and loyalty mattered above all. Mr. Trump honed his vocabulary over decades through his association with the lawyer Roy Cohn, who besides working for Senator Joseph McCarthy also represented Mafia bosses like Mr. Gotti, Tony Salerno and Carmine Galante." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: There's a delicious irony in watching a sleazy parvenu cheat his way to the pinnacle of American renown, only to have his ill-got success expose him to the whole world as an unsavory thug from the outer boroughs. This is the stuff of classical fiction; if only we were watching Oedipus Rex instead of living a 1930s B-mob movie. (Trump's undoing, like Nixon's, also exposes the essential defect in Sophocles' play: Oedipus comprehends & acknowledges his failure. Trump, like Nixon, does not have the intellectual & emotional capacity to recognize his fundamental flaws. Real despots are irredeemable.)

** Neal Katyal, a former U.S. solicitor general, in a New York Times op-ed, on Trump's latest "defense" for conspiring to make hush money payments to women. "It is a mistake to think about Mr. Cohen's allegations as some sort of routine paperwork error. Structuring a transaction to intentionally avoid reporting it as required by the law is a very serious offense, not a technical one that can be forgiven. That is particularly true of the secret payments to the two women, which, had they been disclosed before the election, as they should have been, might have altered the outcome.... For over 500 years..., the law has ... treated conspiracy harshly.... The idea behind conspiracy liability is that when two people agree to commit a crime, it's much worse for society than when a lone actor does.... It's no surprise that Mr. Trump himself came out ... against the practice of 'flipping.'... Flipping and conspiracy charges go hand-in-hand; the latter is what enables the former."

As the Worms Turn

Jeff Horwitz of the AP: "The National Enquirer kept a safe containing documents on hush money payments and other damaging stories it killed as part of its cozy relationship with Donald Trump leading up to the 2016 presidential election, people familiar with the arrangement told The Associated Press.... The Trump records were stored alongside similar documents pertaining to other celebrities' catch-and-kill deals, in which exclusive rights to people's stories were bought with no intention of publishing to keep them out of the news. By keeping celebrities' embarrassing secrets, the company was able to ingratiate itself with them and ask for favors in return. But after The Wall Street Journal initially published the first details of Playboy model Karen McDougal's catch-and-kill deal shortly before the 2016 election, those assets became a liability. Fearful that the documents might be used against American Media, [CEO David] Pecker and the company's chief content officer, Dylan Howard, removed them from the safe in the weeks before Trump’s inauguration, according to one person directly familiar with the events. It was unclear whether the documents were destroyed or simply were moved to a location known to fewer people." ...

... Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "Federal prosecutors granted immunity to tabloid publisher David Pecker as part of their investigation into Michael Cohen's hush money payments to women, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.... According to the Journal, neither Pecker nor AMI chief content officer Dylan Howard [Mrs. McC: who apparently kept watch for anti-Trump stories so that Peter Pecker's pickled papers could head them off] will be charged in relation to the Cohen criminal investigation." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Matt Naham of Law & Crime: "The New York Times's Adam Goldman reports that COO Dylan Howard is cooperating and was 'known to have a recording device in his office.'" ...

... Kevin Breuninger & Jacob Pramuk of CNBC: "The immunity deal could hold significant consequences for Trump, as Pecker could have as much damaging information about the president as anyone in Trump's orbit." ...

... Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed News: "... looking at this week's criminal charging document in Cohen's case shows that Pecker's cooperation is key to two additional lines [besides the Karen McDougal catch-&-kill conspiracy] of inquiry that directly implicate Trump's presidential campaign in the scheme to silence the women.... Pecker would be able to discuss his 'offer' in August 2015 to 'help deal with negative stories' about Trump's 'relationships with women' by 'assisting' the campaign 'in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided.' Prosecutors say the offer was made 'in coordination with Cohen ... and one or more members of the campaign.' This is key because it would show a longstanding plan, since the opening months of Trump's campaign, to use money and secrecy to silence women -- with an expectation that such stories were expected to surface during the campaign.... Pecker also would be able to discuss details about the payment to Stormy Daniels." ...

... Josh Marshall: "The latest news is that National Enquirer chief David Pecker also 'flipped' and agreed to cooperate in the Cohen/Trump case. This was pretty clear in the Cohen Information document, though it was not stated explicitly. For what it's worth, this seems like the least surprising thing in the world.... The Enquirer would troll for Trump-damaging stories, which there were obviously going to be a lot of, buy them and then sell them to Trump.... It was a specific, standing financial arrangement. The Enquirer would essentially act as a cut-out, buying stories on Trump's behalf without the seller of the story knowing what was happening.... The Enquirer was doing this as a company, with multiple employees involved.... There is potentially real legal jeopardy for him and AMI Media. And he may have more information to share than we yet realize." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "Pecker's apparent decision to corroborate Cohen's account, and implicate Trump in a federal crime, is another vivid example of how isolated Trump is becoming as the walls close in and his former friends look for ways out. 'Holy shit, I thought Pecker would be the last one to turn,' a Trump friend told me when I brought up the news. Trump and Pecker have been close for years.... Pecker's friendship with Trump now seems to be over. According to a source close to A.M.I., Pecker and Trump haven't spoken in roughly eight months." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

MEANWHILE, in Downtown Manhattan. William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "The Manhattan district attorney’s office is considering pursuing criminal charges against the Trump Organization and two senior company officials in connection with Michael D. Cohen's hush money payment to an adult film actress, according to two officials with knowledge of the matter. A state investigation would center on how the company accounted for its reimbursement to Mr. Cohen for the $130,000 he paid to the actress, Stephanie Clifford, who has said she had an affair with President Trump, the officials said. Both officials stressed that the office's review of the matter is in its earliest stages and prosecutors have not yet made a decision on whether to proceed."

Carol Leonnig & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "President Trump asked his lawyers several weeks ago for their advice on the possibility of pardoning Paul Manafort and other aides accused of crimes, his lawyer said Thursday.... Trump's lawyers counseled the president against the idea of pardoning anyone linked to the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election, according to [Rudy] Giuliani, saying Trump should at least wait until special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has concluded his probe. Giuliani said the president agreed and did not push the issue further.... Inside the West Wing, the prospect of a Manafort pardon is met with near universal opposition." ...

... Matt Ford of the New Republic suggests Trump's & Giuliani's public hint-hint-hints to Manafort that Trump may pardon him could run afoul of bribery laws. It is unlawful to make an "official act" -- like a pardon -- in exchange for "something of value" -- like Manafort's silence. It is also unlawful for anyone to bribe a witness. "Trump and Giuliani haven't explicitly said in public that Manafort will receive a pardon if he keeps his mouth shut. But a reasonable observer could conclude that such a pardon is on the table, and that cooperating with Mueller might make the president less inclined to grant it." Mrs. McC: The thing is, mobsters usually don't break just one law -- like say, shooting a guy on Fifth Avenue; they violate a lot of laws in the course of business: -- obstruction of justice, conspiracy, bribery. And, hey, extortion. ...

... BUT. Bad News for "a Very Good Person." Jed Shugarman in Slate: "It is ironic that the one hold-out juror who caused a mistrial on some charges opened up Manafort to state retrials." Shugarman provides a long explanation of why this is. "If Trump pardons Manafort on the charges from this month's federal case alone, then he would still face prosecution in three very blue states (New York, Illinois, and California) and one increasingly blue-ish state (Virginia). Those are four jury pools that would potentially be altogether worse for Manafort. If, in this month's trial, Manafort could only persuade one juror out of 12 on about half of these charges, his chances would seem pretty low at running the table in four more trials in Manhattan, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Northern Virginia.... Ultimately, a Trump pardon wouldn't benefit Manafort..., but it would build a stronger case for impeachment and removal. Such a pardon would only add proof of Trump's obstruction, providing additional evidence of criminal corrupt intent."

American Nihilists. Lorraine Woellert of Politico: "Republican finance leaders have been flaming out amid scandals, but donors, frankly, don't give a damn. On Monday ... the Republican National Committee announced it had notched a record-breaking cash haul for July. The next day, [Michael] Cohen, a former RNC deputy finance chairman, pleaded guilty on charges of campaign finance violations and tax evasion. He is part of a troika of GOP finance officials felled by scandal this year, after Las Vegas casino giant Steve Wynn and venture capitalist Elliott Broidy left the party's leadership ranks over allegations of sexual harassment and paying off a woman, respectively. Donors, meanwhile, have mostly shrugged.... The RNC raised $14.2 million in July, the group's best-ever take for that month in a midterm cycle and almost twice what the Democratic National Committee took in." --safari

Alexander Nazaryan of Yahoo! News: "A bill that would have significantly bolstered the nation's defenses against electoral interference has been held up in the Senate at the behest of the White House, which opposed the proposed legislation, according to congressional sources. The Secure Elections Act, introduced by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., in December 2017, had co-sponsorship from two of the Senate's most prominent liberals, Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., as well as from conservative stalwart Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and ... Susan Collins, R-Me.... A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ... declined to say whether the majority leader ... was involved in efforts to hobble the Secure Elections Act.... The Trump administration has been unable to settle on how elections should be secured, and whom they should be secured against.... Lankford ... vowed to press on." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Kimon de Greef and Palko Karasz of the New York Times: "President Trump waded into South Africa’s proposal to seize land from white farmers, saying in a post on Twitter late Wednesday that he had asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to 'closely study' the 'the large scale killing of farmers' -- a claim disputed by official figures and the country's biggest farmer's group. Mr. Trump's comment ... came after the Fox News host Tucker Carlson presented a late-night program on South Africa, including land seizures and homicides, and described President Cyril Ramaphosa as 'a racist.' The tweet gives prominence to a false narrative pushed by some right-wing groups in South Africa that there have been numerous seizures of white-owned land and widespread killings of white farmers. Some of those groups have brought their claims to the United States on lobbying trips." The story goes into detail on the, you know, facts. More on this embarrassing story linked below. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump has not had time to name an ambassador to South Africa, but the Trump administration apparently did have time to tell the U.S. embassy in Pretoria not to assist President Obama, except with security, during his recent visit there. Waiting for Trump to nominate Tucker for ambassador to South Africa since he's already done a teevee show on the country & seems to know all the white people. ...

... David Nakamura, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump's promotion of a white nationalist conspiracy theory involving South Africa prompted fierce backlash there Thursday and fresh criticism in the United States that he is compromising American foreign policy to stoke his far-right political base. Former U.S. diplomats and South African leaders denounced Trump's declaration in a tweet late Wednesday that he had instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to monitor the 'large scale killing' of white farmers and the government's expropriations of their land. White nationalist groups have for years spread false claims about the murder rates, assertions that have been widely debunked. Local police data show the number of people murdered on farms has dropped by half over the past two decades -- from 140 in 2001-2002 to 74 in 2016-2017, according to the Associated Press.... The president's tweet about South Africa was his latest bid to signal common cause with nationalist movements abroad, including in Europe, where Trump and his top aides have expressed solidarity with populist governments pursuing anti-immigration agendas." ...

... When the POTUS* "Gets His Intelligence Briefings from Fox 'News.'" New York Times Editors: "Trust President Trump, following his familiar tactic of deflecting attention from yet another scandal by issuing some outrageous tweet, to come down hard on the wrong side of an issue he knows nothing about, based on no more than a slanted Fox News program."

Adam Entous & Ronan Farrow of the New Yorker: "In early 2017, some of Donald Trump's advisers ... circulated a memo ... which read like a U.S. military-intelligence officer's analysis of a foreign-insurgent network.... [H]owever, the network described in the memo consisted of former aides to President Barack Obama.... The memo is unsigned and undated, and Trump Administration officials familiar with it offered conflicting accounts of who authored it and whether it originated inside or outside the White House. The officials said that it was circulated within the National Security Council and other parts of the Trump White House in early 2017.... Some of the same conspiracy theories expressed in the memo appear in internal documents from an Israeli private-intelligence firm that mounted a covert effort to collect damaging information about aides to President Obama who had advocated for the Iran deal." --safari

Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "Opponents of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) new plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants are already gearing up for a legal fight against the Trump administration. Clean air law experts believe the EPA's new plan, dubbed the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, is filled with several problematic provisions that will give litigators a good shot at preventing the rule from getting implemented." --safari

Brian Faler of Politico: "The Trump administration on Thursday moved to knock down efforts by some blue states to get around a new limit on state and local tax deductions.... New York, Connecticut and New Jersey have adopted proposals allowing taxpayers, to varying degrees, to sidestep the SALT cap by recharacterizing their state and local tax payments as charitable contributions, which remain fully deductible. Other blue states like California and Illinois have considered similar moves.... The administration says the new rules will prevent people [from using the states' workarounds]. The move was immediately denounced by Democrats, and the issue is likely to end up in court."

Adam Harris of the Atlantic has more on Betsy DeVos's excellent plan to arm teachers with guns purchased with federal dollars. "On Thursday, Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut who became one of the most outspoken advocates for preventing gun violence after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, introduced a bill to prevent the use of Title IV funds for the purpose of arming teachers." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast: "A technical glitch kept the Justice Department from reviewing all the email accounts it was supposed to for almost a year, according to a new, previously unreported court filing. That means emails from some DOJ officials weren't examined in response to records requests and lawsuits -- so key emails that should have been made public months ago could have been inadvertently withheld. The department is now redoing records searches to try to belatedly fulfill requests. It's a revelation that concerns transparency advocates and suggests the department struggled to release internal communications as required by law." --safari

2018 Elections. Paul Krugman addresses what's really on those November ballots: "... the unindicted co-conspirator in chief will continue to be protected from the law.... But if the G.O.P. hangs on, there will also be other, bread-and-butter consequences for ordinary Americans. First of all, there is every reason to believe that a Republican Congress, freed from the immediate threat of elections, would do what it narrowly failed to do last year, and repeal the Affordable Care Act.... Longstanding programs, very much including Social Security and Medicare, would also be on the chopping block."

Rachel Bade of Politico: "Indicted Rep. Duncan Hunter told Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday that he will step down from his committee assignments after initially declining to do so, according to a letter obtained by Politico. Ryan (R-Wis.) called on the California Republican, who has been indicted with his wife for allegedly using more than $250,000 in campaign funds to enrich their family, to relinquish his committee posts, including his spot on the House Armed Services Committee. A defiant Hunter, who on Thursday pleaded not guilty to all charges and is also accusing the Justice Department of conducting a 'witch hunt' against ... Trump supporters like himself, initially refused. Ryan's office was readying a plan to strip him of those positions anyway by calling up a House panel that decides committee posts and holding a vote to remove him forcefully. The vote would have easily passed, according to multiple House Republican sources who say members are disgusted with the details in the indictment and Hunter's alleged actions." ...

... It's the Wife's Fault. John Bowden of the Hill: "California Rep. Duncan Hunter (R) says in a new interview that his wife was responsible for his campaign's spending, appearing to shift blame for potential wrongdoing to her as the two face charges for illegal use of campaign funds. Hunter told Fox News on Thursday that the trips flagged by the Justice Department as personal vacations paid for with campaign funds 'were fundraisers,' and that he and his wife are innocent of the accused wrongdoing. 'That' how we campaigned and tried to raise money, is by travelling, having dinners, meeting people,' Hunter told Fox's Martha MacCallum.... 'My campaign did make mistakes,' Hunter said. 'There was money spent on things not by me but by the campaign. And I paid that back before my last election.... [Hunter's wife Margaret] was also the campaign manager, so whatever she did, that'll be looked at too, I'm sure,' he continued. 'But I didn't do it. I didn't spend any money illegally.'" Mrs. McC: Now that's a stand-up guy.

** Minority Rule. Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress: "[Neil] Gorsuch literally has less democratic legitimacy than anyone who has ever sat on the nation's highest Court. That's the first in a series of bracing facts laid out by Trinity College political science professor Kevin McMahon in a new paper published in the Chicago-Kent Law Review.... The 45 senators who opposed Gorsuch, McMahon writes, received nearly 20 million more votes than the 54 senators who supported him -- 73,425,062 to 54,098,387. The 45 senators in the minority also represent more than 25 million more people than the senators who voted to confirm Gorsuch. By contrast, when President Obama named Chief Judge Merrick Garland to fill the Supreme Court vacancy that is currently occupied by Gorsuch, the 46 Senate Democrats represented about 20 million more people than the 54 Republicans. Also, President Obama won the popular vote. Twice. Gorsuch is unique, in that he is the only person ever confirmed to the Supreme Court by a minority coalition after being nominated by a popular vote loser." Read on --safari

Ian Millhiser: "During an interview with MSNBC’s Ali Velshi on Wednesday, [Sen. Doug] Jones [(D-Ala.) may have articulated a way for Democrats to stall the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. Jones] called for Senate Republicans to 'push a pause button' on the Kavanaugh confirmation process.... Jones cited two reasons to delay the hearing [the National Archives kerfuffle & the Trump's legal 'cloud'].... Conservative Democrats, in other words, can now offer two process-based objections to Kavanaugh that allow them to oppose his confirmation." --safari

CBS/AP: "A former government contractor who pleaded guilty to mailing a classified U.S. report to a news organization was sentenced to more than five years Thursday as part of a deal with prosecutors, who called it the longest sentence ever imposed for a federal crime involving leaks to the media. Reality Winner, 26, pleaded guilty in June to a single count of transmitting national security information. The former Air Force translator worked as a contractor at a National Security Agency's office in Augusta, Georgia, when she printed a classified report and left the building with it tucked into her pantyhose. Winner told the FBI she mailed the document to an online news outlet. In court Thursday, Winner apologized and acknowledged that what she did was wrong." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Betsy Reed of the Intercept: "Reality Winner was sentenced today to 63 months in prison for disclosing a top-secret NSA document describing a hacking campaign directed by the Russian military against U.S. voting systems. On June 5, 2017, The Intercept published a story about the document. We did not know the identity of the source who had sent it to us. Shortly after we posted our story, we learned that Winner had been arrested two days earlier. After an internal review, we acknowledged shortcomings in our handling of the document. However, it soon became clear that the government had at its disposal, and had aggressively used, multiple methods to quickly hunt down Winner." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jessica Contrera of the Washington Post: "A tenacious Navy officer in World War II, William Liebenow's acts of heroism stretched from the waters of the South Pacific to the beaches of Normandy -- evading the enemy, launching torpedoes, rescuing more than 60 men from a sinking ship on D-Day. But none of these were the tale of war that would come to define him. Everyone wanted to hear about the time he saved the life of John F. Kennedy. On Thursday, the story was remembered ... as Liebenow, who died last year at age 97, was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. Under the clear sky of an unseasonably cool August day, the former lieutenant's ashes were carried by horse-drawn carriage to a grassy hill less than a mile away from the spot where Kennedy is buried beneath an eternal flame."

News Lede

Weather Channel: "Hurricane Lane is unleashing torrential rain in parts of Hawaii and may produce disastrous rainfall flooding and landslides over much of the island chain, in addition to battering surf, coastal flooding and high winds through Saturday."