The Commentariat -- April 19, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Jennifer Jacobs & Chris Strohm of Bloomberg: "Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told ... Donald Trump last week that he isn't a target of any part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, according to two people familiar with the matter. Rosenstein, who brought up the Mueller probe himself, offered the assurance during a meeting with Trump at the White House last Thursday, a development that helped tamp down the president's desire to remove Rosenstein or Mueller, the people said. After the meeting, Trump told some of his closest advisers that it's not the right time to remove either man since he’s not a target of the probe."

Pamela Brown of CNN: "The Justice Department's inspector general has sent a criminal referral regarding former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to the US attorney's office in Washington, according to a source familiar with the matter."

David Voreacos of Bloomberg: "Special Counsel Robert Mueller's interest in former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort stemmed in part from his suspected rol as a 'back channel' between the campaign and Russians intent on meddling in the election, a Justice Department lawyer told a judge. The disclosure by U.S. prosecutors came Thursday during a hearing on whether Mueller exceeded his authority in indicting Manafort on charges of laundering millions of dollars while acting as an unregistered agent of the Ukrainian government. Manafort's lawyers say those alleged crimes have nothing to do with Mueller's central mission.... 'He had long-standing ties to Russia-backed politicians,' [DOJ attorney Michael] Dreeben [said in court].... 'Did they provide back channels to Russia? Investigators will naturally look at those things.'"

Shut Up! Cristiano Lima of Politico: "... Donald Trump threatened Thursday to cut off federal funding for the deployment of California's National Guard if Gov. Jerry Brown insists that the troops 'do nothing,' an apparent jab at the state official's insistence that they not perform immigration enforcement duties. Brown on Wednesday mobilized 400 members of the state's National Guard to fight gangs and smugglers as part of the president's push to beef up border security. The California governor said that federal authorities agreed to fund the plan, which he announced last week, but that the troops would not enforce immigration policy. 'Governor Jerry Brown announced he will deploy "up to 400 National Guard Troops" to do nothing,' Trump tweeted. 'The crime rate in California is high enough, and the Federal Government will not be paying for Governor Brown's charade. We need border security and action, not words!'" Mrs. McC: Like Jeanne (see today's Comments), I'm sick of this crap.

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Embattled attorney Michael Cohen has dropped a pair of much-touted libel suits against BuzzFeed and the private investigation firm Fusion GPS over publication of the so-called dossier detailing alleged ties between ... Donald Trump and Russia. Cohen abandoned the suits late Wednesday as he continues to fight to recover documents and electronic files seized from his home, office and hotel room last week by federal authorities as part of what appears to be a broad criminal investigation into his conduct.... Dropping the suits could help Cohen avoid being questioned by lawyers from Fusion GPS or having to turn over evidence related to the case -- both steps that could undercut his defense in the criminal probe.... The move could also bolster Cohen's effort to delay a suit brought in Los Angeles by porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had a sexual encounter with Trump about a decade ago. It could have been difficult for Cohen to convince that judge to put Daniels' case on hold while Cohen continued to press civil suits in other federal courts." Thanks to MAG for the lead.

Anthony Faiola of the Washington Post: "Cuba's National Assembly on Thursday officially confirmed 57-year-old Miguel Díaz-Canel as Cuba's new head of state, ending Castro rule after nearly 60 years and shifting power toward a younger generation born after Cuba's revolution.... Díaz-Canel's name was put forward Wednesday as the sole candidate to head Cuba's council of state, a post that effectively serves as the presidency. On Thursday, officials announced the results of the vote: 603 to 1 backing his nomination as Cuba's new leader. Díaz-Canel's selection amounts to the dawn of a new era in a country deeply identified with the Castros, who led the revolution that triumphed in 1959 and resulted in the most enduring communist system in the Wester Hemisphere.

James Wagner & Frances Robles of the New York Times: "After seven months and close to $2.5 billion, almost everybody in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico had their lights back on -- until a freak accident on Wednesday plunged the entire island once again into darkness. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority had boasted Wednesday morning that less than 3 percent of its customers remained without power, substantially concluding what some estimates called the biggest power failure in United States history. The island of 3.4 million residents was open for business again, government officials said. It was only a few hours later that an excavator working near a fallen 140-foot transmission tower on the southern part of the island got too close to a high-voltage line. The resulting electrical fault knocked out power to nearly every home and business across the storm-battered American territory, authorities said, a catastrophic failure that could take up to 36 hours to restore."

Morgan Winsor & Kelly McCarthy of ABC News: "The two black men who were arrested at a Starbucks in downtown Philadelphia last week and accused of trespassing say they were there or a business meeting that they had hoped would change their lives. Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson came forward this morning on ABC News' 'Good Morning America' to publicly share their story for the first time." Includes video of the interview.

*****

... Broken Record. David Jackson, et al., of USA Today: "President Trump said Wednesday he's been transparent and cooperative with the special counsel investigating his campaign's ties to Russia -- but wouldn't say whether he would ever fire Robert Mueller or Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general overseeing the probe. 'They've been saying I'm going to get rid of them for the last three months, four months, five months, and they're still here,' Trump said. 'So we want to get the investigation over with, done with. Put it behind us.' Repeating a well-worn mantra, Trump said his campaign did not collude with Russia to gain advantage in the 2016 election. He asserted that the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee found no evidence of collusion before voting to end its investigation into Russia last month. And he said the investigation was politically motivated. 'This was really a hoax created largely by the Democrats as a way of softening the blow of a loss,' he said." ...

... (And Now for a Commercial Break.) Sofia Perseo of Newsweek: "'Many of the world's great leaders request to come to Mar-a-Lago and Palm Beach. They like it; I like it. We're comfortable. We have great relationships. As you remember, we were here and President Xi of China was here,' [Trump] said [with Japanese PM Shinzo Abe at his side], referring to Abe's and Chinese leader Xi Jinping's visits to the resort last year -- the only two foreign leaders to be hosted at Mar-a-Lago in 2017, according to State Department records." He went on.) ...

... Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said his committee will take up legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller despite opposition from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).... With at least GOP Sens. Thom Tillis (N.C.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) joining Democrats in supporting the bill, it's expected to have the votes to clear the Judiciary Committee next week. But it faces an uphill climb to getting 60 votes in the Senate, much less passing the more conservative House." ...

... Erin Kelly of USA Today: "The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee introduced a bill Wednesday aimed at discouraging President Trump from granting pardons to anyone facing prosecution in the Russia investigation. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said he was prompted to offer the legislation after Trump's controversial pardon last week of Scooter Libby.... The Abuse of the Pardon Prevention Act does not try to strip the president of his constitutional power to grant pardons. Instead, it seeks to deter Trump -- and any future president -- from granting a pardon in any investigation where the president or a member of his family is a witness, subject or target. Trump is considered a subject of the Russia probe and ... Donald Trump Jr. ... Jared Kushner, have testified as witnesses.... The bill faces an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled Congress." ... \

     ... Mrs. McC: And the Understatement of the Day prize goes to Erin Kelly. As sensible as Schiff's bill may be, it also appears to me to be flat-out unconstitutional. If the Congress wanted to prevent Trump from pardoning his pals (and Congress does not), the chambers could each overwhelmingly pass a "sense of the Congress"-type resolution vowing to impeach & try the president if he pardons anyone under the circumstances Schiff lays out. That would not stop a president from exercising Constitutional pardon powers, but depending upon the timing of the resolution vis-a-vis the presidential term, a nearly-guaranteed impeachment proceeding would likely deter him or her from issuing such pardons. ...

... MEANWHILE. House Thugs Shake Down Rosenstein. Robert Costa & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "Two of President Trump's top legislative allies met with Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein this week to press him for more documents about the conduct of law enforcement officials involved in the Russia probe and the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server, according to three people who were not authorized to speak publicly about the discussion. Rosenstein's meeting at his office Monday with Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) came days after Meadows, an influential Trump confidant, warned Rosenstein that he could soon face impeachment proceedings or an effort to hold him in contempt of Congress if he did not satisfy GOP demands for documents." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I saw Jordan on CNN Monday night, & his behavior is frightening; his rabid-dog delivery is tantamount to abuse. If he came to my door, I'd call the cops.

When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, "You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should've won." -- Donald Trump to Lester Holt, in May 2017

I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off. I'm not under investigation. -- Donald Trump to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov & Russian U.S. Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, in May 2017 ...

** ... "This Russia Thing" Is Not "This Russia Thing," After All. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Wednesday took to Twitter to deny that he fired James B. Comey as FBI director because of the bureau's 'phony' investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, including possible interaction with the Trump campaign. Trump's tweet came shortly after an appearance by Comey on NBC's 'Today' show to promote his new book, during which Comey asserted there 'could be' an obstruction of justice case to be made against Trump given the circumstances under which he was fired. 'Slippery James Comey, the worst FBI Director in history, was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation where, by the way, there was NO COLLUSION (except by the Dems)!' Trump wrote on Twitter." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Too Late, Trumpinocchio: You done been caught on tape accidentally admitting the truth.

Brad Mielke & Kelly Terez of ABC News: "Former FBI Director James Comey was a registered Republican for most of his life, but now he believes 'the Republican Party has left me and many others.' 'I just think they've lost their way and I can't be associated with it,' Comey said in an interview on the ABC News podcast 'Start Here,' adding that he no longer considers himself a Republican. He said he believes the Republican Party began to change during the 2016 presidential campaign and has continued to change with ... Donald Trump in office. It wasn't until he was fired by Trump that Comey started to focus more on politics and realized, 'These people don't represent anything I believe in.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: We here at Reality Chex noticed it a lo-o-o-ng time ago. ...

... Digby in Salon: "There is a tremendous amount of evidence ... that [Donald Trump] has been involved with known criminals like the Russian-born Felix Sater (a longtime friend of Michael Cohen).... Trump's casinos were cited for money laundering more often than any others in the country and were known to be frequented by members of the Russian mob. Many of his overseas ventures in places like Azerbaijan, Indonesia and Brazil are linked to criminal enterprises and were brokered or arranged with the help of ... Cohen.... What would possess a man with such a shady track record in business to expose himself to the kind of scrutiny that comes with being president of the United States?... It's somehow inevitable that as Trump draws near this denouement, he would be facing off against another person who has made some disastrous choices due to an overweening confidence in his own judgment.... [James] Comey's overconfidence doesn't stem from simple narcissism, as Trump's does. He is afflicted with a vain self-regard for his moral and intellectual superiority.... Pitting a flamboyant conman against a moralistic lawman in a battle for American democracy sounds like a clichéd movie plot." ...

... Brian Beutler of Crooked: "... Comey's inadequate grappling with his own failures is a real problem.... If he were to acknowledge his errors in judgment -- and, more importantly, grapple with why he made them -- he could do something really valuable: warn public servants and the rest of us not to make the same mistakes. Don't allow bad faith critics seeking to destroy neutral authority to lead you by the nose. Learn how to recognize it, identify it for what it is, and resist it, or risk compromising yourself.... A world in which we accept that Comey made the best decisions he could in a difficult but extraordinary environment is a world in which Trump and the GOP keep gnawing and gnawing at the underpinnings of the rule of law until they snap."

Emma Brown & Beth Reinhard of the Washington Post: "Former Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal has reached a settlement with tabloid publisher American Media Inc., ending a lawsuit over the rights to the story of the affair she says she had with Donald Trump a decade ago. The settlement means McDougal is no longer bound by the contract with AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, which bought -- but never published -- her story for $150,000 in the months before the 2016 presidential election.... The tabloid company is entitled to 10 percent of any profit McDougal makes from reselling the rights to her story within the next year, up to a maximum of $75,000, according to a copy of the settlement terms. In addition, AMI has the right to publish five health and fitness columns under McDougal's byline and to feature her on the cover of Men's Journal. Cameron Stracher, general counsel for AMI, said the company intends for McDougal to appear on the September 2018 issue of the magazine." ...

... Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times (who broke the story): "The tabloid news company American Media Inc. agreed to let a former Playboy model out of a contract that had kept her from talking freely about an alleged affair with Donald J. Trump.The settlement agreement, reached on Wednesday, ends a lawsuit brought by the model, Karen McDougal, and protects the president from being drawn into a legal case involving efforts to buy the silence of women who had stories to tell about him during the 2016 campaign."

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A federal judge in Los Angeles has set a hearing for Friday on a bid by ... Donald Trump and his embattled personal attorney Michael Cohen to delay a lawsuit filed by porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had a sexual encounter with Trump about a decade ago. U.S. District Court Judge S. James Otero scheduled the hearing after attorneys for Trump and Cohen said the suit should be put on hold for 90 days because of the criminal investigation federal prosecutors in New York are pursuing into Cohen's involvement in various matters, including a $130,000 pre-election payment to Daniels." ...

... Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump turned to Twitter early on Wednesday to dismiss the sketch of the man a pornographic actress claims threatened her years ago on his behalf.... 'A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!'... His tweet accompanied a post from another Twitter user, who said the man looked like [Stephanie] Clifford's former husband.... Ms. Clifford says the man in the sketch threatened her in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011 while she was with her infant daughter." (Also linked yesterday.)

Is Cohen Practicing His Singing Voice? Darren Samuelsohn & Andrew Restuccia of Politico: "... Donald Trump and his outside advisers are increasingly worried that his longtime personal attorney might be susceptible to cooperating with federal prosecutors. Two sources close to the president said people in Trump's inner circle have in recent days been actively discussing the possibility that Michael Cohen -- long seen as one of Trump's most loyal personal allies -- might flip if he faces serious charges as a result of his work on behalf of Trump.... Jay Goldberg, a longtime Trump lawyer, told The Wall Street Journal that he spoke with Trump on Friday about Cohen and warned the president against trusting Cohen if he is facing criminal charges." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "One of the ways in which the scandals around President Trump have come to resemble a mob movie, other than the nature of the crimes themselves, is that nobody involved is putting up much of a pretense that Trump is innocent. Asked today by Katy Tur if 'there's any chance [Michael Cohen] would end up cooperating, flipping,' Anthony Scaramucci said no, because Cohen 'is a very loyal person.' You meant because Trump is innocent, right? Cohen is not going to testify against Trump because Trump did nothing wrong?... [In the Politico report linked above,] all of the sources implicitly assume both Cohen and Trump are guilty of serious crimes.”

Danny Hakim & William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman of New York is moving to change New York state law so that he and other local prosecutors would have the power to bring criminal charges against aides to President Trump who have been pardoned, according to a letter Mr. Schneiderman sent to the governor and state lawmakers on Wednesday. The move, if approved by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the Legislature, would serve notice that the legal troubles of the president and his aides may continue without the efforts of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Under the plan, Mr. Schneiderman, a Democrat, seeks to exempt New York's double jeopardy law from cases involving presidential pardons, according to the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. The current law and the concept of double jeopardy in general mean that a person cannot be tried for the same crime twice."

** Eric Levitz of New York: "Last week, the United States launched an act of war against a sovereign government because failing to do so would have cast doubt on the credibility of the statements that Donald Trump makes while livetweeting Fox & Friends. That may sound like hyperbolic snark, or the premise of an Andy Borowitz column, but it is a plain description of the rationale behind last Friday's missile strikes in Syria, according to multiple military and administration officials." Read on. Mrs. McC: Who needs a State Department when we have Steve Doocy & Brian Kilmeade? ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: If this isn't bad enough (and it is), Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said on MSNBC yesterday evening that he suspects the whole bombing campaign was a sham: that the U.S. warned Russia & Russia warned Syria of how the bombing would go down. As evidence, Menendez noted that Russia mounted no defense, & Syria sent off its missiles after the U.S.-allied bombs had landed. If Menendez is right, it was a very costly cover for a careless tweet. I was kidding when I wondered a few days ago if the U.S. & allies ever bombed Syria; Menendez suggests I unwittingly was close to the mark. ...

... Colbert explains everything. (Trump really should watch -- he might learn something people don't realize [see below for what-all people don't realize]):

Trump Doesn't Know When Pompeo Went to North Korea. Melanie Schmitz of ThinkProgress: "'Mike Pompeo met with Kim Jong Un in North Korea last week. Meeting went very smoothly and a good relationship was formed,' Trump tweeted early Wednesday morning.... According to White House officials who spoke with the Washington Post on Tuesday evening, Pompeo ... actually met with the North Korean dictator over Easter weekend, more than two weeks ago." Mrs. McCrabbie: Whenever.

Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "... the Export-Import Bank was created to help American companies compete overseas and bolster exports by providing cheap government-backed loans. But the institution, which once financed multibillion-dollar projects, has been effectively crippled by the Trump administration. The bank has been without a chairman since Mr. Trump took office and the last of the bank's five board members quit in March. Since 2015, it has not had the quorum of at least three members it needs to finance deals or projects worth more than $10 million. The effective shuttering of the bank has put American manufacturers like Boeing and General Electric at a global disadvantage, prompting a frenzied lobbying campaign by business groups worried that the White House is undermining its own trade goals.... Atop the bank's website is an image of its boardroom, with five empty chairs." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Remember that Trump thinks he's a super-expert on international trade & us-vs.-them trade imbalances. Obviously, the Ex-Im Bank is not going to wipe out trade deficits. But putting it back in business is a pretty easy way to improve U.S. companies' positions. Ex-Im loans also would increase the number of manufacturing jobs, another of Trump's empty campaign promises. Every day in every way, Trump is the Worst. President. Ever.

"People Don't Realize." The Belated Education of Donald J. Trump. Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "As President Trump announced that South and North Korean leaders have his blessing to discuss a permanent end to the military conflict between their two countries, he dropped in a quick history lesson. 'People don't realize the Korean War has not ended,' Trump said on Tuesday, his face contorting into a look that seemed to communicate surprise and bafflement. 'It's going on right now.' For Trump, people don't realize a lot of things.... Trump's public remarks are filled with dozens of similar comments.... Trump's lessons are often accompanied by raised eyebrows, widened eyes and a 'gee whiz' look that suggests perhaps the nation is witnessing the president's education in real time." Johnson provides a long list of things "people don't realize." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Put me down as one of the people who didn't realize just how little this jamoke knows. What I find most insulting about many of these "History Lessons by Donald J. Trump" is that they are often delivered to audiences who definitely "realize" whatever historical pearl he's dropping. ...

... Choe Sang-Hun & Jane Perlez of the New York Times: "South Korea confirmed on Wednesday that it had been in talks with American and North Korean officials about negotiating a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War after more than 60 years, as the United States and its ally try to establish a basis for persuading the North to give up its nuclear weapons." Mrs. McCrabbie: Fox "News" must have mentioned the peace negotiations; otherwise, how would Trump himself have "realized." (Also linked yesterday.)

They're All Corrupt, Ctd. Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "Calls for Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, to resign escalated on Wednesday when nearly 170 congressional Democrats demanded his departure." Friedman provides a guide to the numerous investigations into Pruitt's illegal & questionable activities. Mrs. McC: Of course the biggest problem isn't that Pruitt wants to drive around in fancy SUVs with accommodations to literally protect his ass; it's his policies & beliefs.

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie BTW: How can someone like Pruitt question the scientific theory of evolution (as he has done) when his raison d'être is fossil fuels? ...

... Stephanie Ebbs of ABC News: "Newly released calendars for one of the most controversial trips of ... Scott Pruitt's tenure were largely blacked out before being shared with ABC News.... Conservative congressional estimates put the cost of the trip at more than $40,000, and because of travel snags, Pruitt and his aides spent two days in Paris at high-end hotels. Pruitt did not publicly announce he was going ahead of time, did not bring reporters along, and when he finally released copies of his itinerary in response to Freedom of Information requests from ABC News and other news organizations, the bulk of the schedule was blacked out.... In Morocco, he spent at least a portion of his time promoting exports for U.S. energy firms.... At the time of the trip, the only U.S. company that exported liquid natural gas was represented by a top Washington lobbyist who arranged $50-a-night housing for Pruitt when he first moved to town."

They're All Corrupt, Ctd. Nick Schwellenbach & Adam Zagorin of the Daily Beast: "Rep. James Bridenstine (R-Okla.) is a former Navy pilot with virtually no management experience in any large organization. But the Oklahoma Republican has been tapped by ... Donald Trump to take over the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a federal agency with a budget of $18.5 billion, 18,000 federal workers, and over 60,000 contract employees.... An investigation and review of public records by the Project On Government Oversight shows that, prior to his time in Congress, Bridenstine led a small non-profit organization into hefty financial losses. Some of the losses involved the use of the non-profit's resources to benefit a company that Bridenstine simultaneously co-owned and in which he'd invested substantial sums of his own money.... 'This is a classic example of the use of a charity's assets for private benefit,' said Marc Owens, an expert on tax law ... and former head of the Internal Revenue Services's non-profit compliance division."

Tierney Sneed of TPM: "A federal judge has ordered that Kansas Secretary of State [Mrs. McC: and failed Trump voter suppression czar] Kris Kobach be held in contempt of court for disobeying her orders in the proof-of-citizenship voter registration case. Judge Julie Robinson in her decision Wednesday bashed Kobach's failure to send postcards to voters whose registrations were restored by her previous move to block the proof-of-citizenship requirement for the 2016 election.... She also took issue with Kobach's refusal to update the state's training manual for election officials to reflect her 2016 order blocking the proof-of-citizenship requirement.... She ordered that Kobach cover the attorneys fees' of the challengers in the case or the costs of their efforts to bring Kobach in compliance with her order." Mrs. McC: Judge Robinson has "deferred further remedies"; I hope these remedies involve an orange jumpsuit.

John Myers of the Los Angeles Times: "Gov. Jerry Brown formally mobilized 400 California National Guard members Wednesday for transnational crime-fighting duties, thus preventing any effort by President Trump to have the troops focus on immigration enforcement on the Mexican border. The governor announced that federal officials have agreed to fund the plan he announced last week -- a mission to 'combat criminal gangs, human traffickers and illegal firearm and drug smugglers' in locations around California, including near the border. The order Brown signed makes clear that the troops will not be allowed to perform a broader set of duties as envisioned by Trump's recent comments."

Cristiano Lima of Politico: "An attorney for former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said Wednesday that neither the Justice Department inspector general nor former FBI director James Comey 'has it right' when it comes to the agency's critical report on his disclosures to news outlets in 2016. Attorney Michael Bromwich pushed back on Comey for citing the DOJ watchdog's report to deliver remarks critical of McCabe, his former No. 2 at the FBI who was fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions last month."

Laurie Kellman of the AP: "Who doesn't like babies? No one in the Senate, apparently -- at least not enough to block a historic rules change that passed Wednesday allowing the newborns of members into the chamber. Its passage without objection came despite plenty of concern, some privately aired, among senators of both parties about the threat the tiny humans pose to the Senate's cherished decorum." Old white guys like Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) & Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), both of whom are fathers & grandfathers, are nonplussed. "... what if there are 10 babies on the floor of the Senate?” Hatch asked. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The idea isn't to turn the Senate chamber into a nursery or daycare center. Rather, it's to make sure that new mothers can walk onto the floor to vote. Rules prevent senators from dumping their newborns with staff while they take care of business on the floor.

Senate Race. Burgess Everett & Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Senate Republicans are escalating their attacks on West Virginia Senate GOP candidate Don Blankenship, increasingly worried that the coal baron and ex-prisoner will blow a winnable race against Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. Republicans see West Virginia as a prime pickup opportunity in November, given ... Donald Trump's huge popularity there. But they say the multimillionaire Blankenship, running in a tight three-way primary against Rep. Evan Jenkins (R-W.Va.) and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, is indefensible as a candidate after serving a year in prison for conspiring to violate mine safety violations. Twenty-nine miners died at his company's Upper Big Branch mine in 2010."

Samantha Schmidt of the Washington Post: Capt. Tammie Jo Shults, who skillfully landed a Southwest Airlines at Philadelphia International Airport after one of the plane's two engines exploded in-flight, throwing shrapnel into the cabin & killing one passenger -- who was nearly sucked out of the plane thru the open window -- "was among the first female fighter pilots for the U.S. Navy." As a female aviator, Shults confronted many career obstacles.

Beyond the Beltway

Ryan Reilly & Christopher Mathias of the Huffington Post: "Three right-wing militiamen from rural Kansas were found guilty on Wednesday in a 2016 plot to slaughter Muslim refugees living in an apartment complex in Garden City. Patrick Stein, Gavin Wright and Curtis Allen were found guilty on charges of weapons of mass destruction and conspiracy against civil rights. Wright was also found guilty on a charge of lying to the FBI. The defendants will face a potential life sentence when they come back to court in late June.... The men were enthusiastic supporters of Donald Trump, who vilified Muslims during his presidential campaign and has continued to do so while in office. During the plotting, Stein reportedly referred to then-candidate Trump as 'the Man.' The men had planned their attack for after the 2016 election, so as not to hurt Trump's chances of winning."

Josh Delk of the Hill: "Philadelphia authorities are investigating the death of the father of former White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster, ABC6 reports. According to the Philadelphia department of health, the former official's father, H.R. McMaster Sr., died on April 13 of blunt force trauma to the head. While health officials have ruled his death to be an accident, investigators have labeled the death suspicious, and are looking into whether there could have been institutional neglect in treating him by the retirement community where he lived. The 84-year-old Korean War veteran reportedly did not receive proper care at the Cathedral Village retirement home, where he was living after suffering a stroke."

Way Beyond

Azam Ahmed of the New York Times: "Raúl Castro, who took over from his brother Fidel 12 years ago and led Cuba through some of its biggest changes in decades, is expected to step down on Thursday and hand power to someone outside the Castro dynasty for the first time since the Cuban revolution more than half a century ago."

News Lede

New York Times: "Two years after the sudden death of Prince by accidental fentanyl overdose, one of the lingering mysteries surrounding the enigmatic musician concerned how and where he obtained the powerful synthetic opioid that killed him and whether anyone would be held responsible. On Thursday, law enforcement authorities in Minnesota closed a major part of their investigation, announcing that no one would be criminally charged in the case. The Carver County attorney, Mark Metz, said in a news conference that Prince died after unknowingly taking counterfeit Vicodin that contained fentanyl, but that there was 'no reliable evidence of how Prince obtained' the fatal drug."

The Commentariat -- April 18, 2018

Late Morning Update:

When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, "You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should've won." -- Donald Trump to Lester Holt, in May 2017 ...

** ... "This Russia Thing" Is Not "This Russia Thing," After All. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Wednesday took to Twitter to deny that he fired James B. Comey as FBI director because of the bureau's 'phony' investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, including possible interaction with the Trump campaign. Trump's tweet came shortly after an appearance by Comey on NBC's 'Today' show to promote his new book, during which Comey asserted there 'could be' an obstruction of justice case to be made against Trump given the circumstances under which he was fired. 'Slippery James Comey, the worst FBI Director in history, was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation where, by the way, there was NO COLLUSION (except by the Dems)!' Trump wrote on Twitter." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Too Late, Trumpinocchio: You done been caught on tape accidentally admitting the truth.

Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump turned to Twitter early on Wednesday to dismiss the sketch of the man a pornographic actress claims threatened her years ago on his behalf.... 'A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!'... His tweet accompanied a post from another Twitter user, who said the man looked like [Stephanie] Clifford's former husband.... Ms. Clifford says the man in the sketch threatened her in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011 while she was with her infant daughter."

Choe Sang-Hun & Jane Perlez of the New York Times: "South Korea confirmed on Wednesday that it had been in talks with American and North Korean officials about negotiating a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War after more than 60 years, as the United States and its ally try to establish a basis for persuading the North t give up its nuclear weapons."

*****

Barbara Bush in 1984. New York Times photo.** Enid Nemy of the New York Times: "Barbara Bush, the widely admired wife of one president and the fiercely loyal mother of another, died Tuesday evening. She was 92.... The Bushes had celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary in January, making them the longest-married couple in presidential history." ...

... Lois Romano of the Washington Post has a brief obituary here. ...

... Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post remembers Bush's Wellesley speech.

Jeff Stein, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Internal Revenue Service will let taxpayers submit their tax returns without penalty through the end of the day Wednesday, delaying the deadline a day after widespread failures of the agency's systems for electronically filing returns. The agency's electronic filing system came back online early Tuesday evening, but for much of the day, the agency's online channels for direct tax payments, electronic filings and submissions filed via TurboTax and H&R Block were all not working. This story will be updated. The Internal Revenue Service's online system for submitting tax returns experienced widespread failures on Tuesday, complicating filing for the millions of taxpayers attempting to meet the government's midnight deadline." Emphasis original. Mrs. McC: Just this Monday MAG wrote that she wouldn't use electronic filing. I thought that was so-o-o-o retro. Maybe not. (This is an update of a story linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... New Lede: "The agency's electronic filing system came back online early Tuesday evening. But before that, the agency's online channels for direct tax payments, electronic filings and submissions filed via widely used tax preparation services such as TurboTax and H&R Block were not going through."

... Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "The Internal Revenue Service had an unexpected message for procrastinators who waited until Tuesday to make their annual Tax Day payments through the agency's website: Come back on Dec. 31, 9999. An outage on the agency's website, which began on Tuesday morning and was unresolved by midday, crippled a crucial part of the tax collection agency's website that allows taxpayers to make their payments directly through their bank accounts instead of paying fees that come with using debit or credit cards. Those seeking to make a payment were greeted with the message: 'This service is currently unavailable.' The website said it was undergoing a 'planned outage' beginning on Tax Day that would last until Dec. 31, 9999. The error message also said tax payments were still due despite the glitch.... The crash was reminiscent of the problems that plagued the Affordable Care Act's online health insurance exchange under President Barack Obama. It came on a day when President Trump and his top advisers were trumpeting the $1.5 trillion tax cut passed by Congress late last year." ...

... Dylan Scott of Vox: "Donald Trump, our most relatable president, has filed for an extension on his 2018 taxes.... [Mrs. McC: Actually, that's on his 2017 taxes.] Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced the news on Tuesday, Tax Day, at her daily press conference."

The Man without a Compass. Alan Rappeport: "After publicly flirting last week with having the United States rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership, President Trump appeared to rebuff the idea once and for all late Tuesday. In a Twitter post at 10:49 p.m., Mr. Trump said that although Japan and South Korea would like the United States to join the 11 other nations in the multilateral trade agreement, he had no intention of doing so. The decision put an apparent end to a meandering trade policy in which Mr. Trump pulled out of the deal in his first week in office, before suggesting last week that he was having second thoughts. 'Too many contingencies and no way to get out if it doesn't work,' Mr. Trump wrote from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. 'Bilateral deals are far more efficient, profitable and better for OUR workers.' The comments confounded some trade experts on Tuesday night because South Korea is not in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Mr. Trump followed up with a shot at the World Trade Organization, which he said was 'bad' to the United States."

Shane Harris, et al., of the Washington Post: "CIA Director Mike Pompeo made a top-secret visit to North Korea over Easter weekend as an envoy for President Trump to meet with that country's leader, Kim Jong Un, according to two people with direct knowledge of the trip. The extraordinary meeting between one of Trump's most trusted emmisaries and the authoritarian head of a rogue state was part of an effort to lay the groundwork for direct talks between Trump and Kim about North Korea's nuclear weapons program, according to the two people, who requested anonymity because of the highly classified nature of the talks. The clandestine mission, which has not previously been reported, came soon after Pompeo was nominated to be secretary of state.... Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday, Trump appeared to allude to the extraordinary face-to-face meeting between Kim and Pompeo when he said the U.S. has had direct talks with North Korea 'at very high levels.' The president didn't elaborate." ...

     ... Margaret Hartmann: "... in light of Pompeo's reported meeting with Kim, what's the point of making a stand against confirming him for secretary of State? Trump has him essentially doing the job before the Senate's weighed in." Trump has rendered moot "normal channels," including the quaint Constitutional idea of Senate confirmation.

Mark Landler, et al., of the New York Times: "Nikki R. Haley, the ambassador to the United Nations, fired back at the White House on Tuesday, denying that she had been confused when she announced on Sunday that the Trump administration would impose new sanctions on Russia. 'With all due respect, I don't get confused,' she told Dana Perino of Fox News. She was responding to a comment earlier in the day by Larry Kudlow, the president's new national economics adviser who was briefing reporters in Florida before President Trump's meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. 'She got ahead of the curve,' Mr. Kudlow said. 'She's done a great job. She's a very effective ambassador, but there might have been some momentary confusion about that.'" ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: But of course you were right, Larry. She's a girl.

... "Trump [Is] Letting Haley Take Heat Despite Signing off on Sanctions." Eliana Johnson of Politico: "... Donald Trump gave approval last week for rolling out airstrikes in Syria as well as new sanctions on Russia, according to three senior administration officials -- but U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley wasn't briefed on changes to the sanctions plan before announcing it Sunday on national television. The episode marks the latest instance of members of Trump's team appearing out of sync with one another or with the president on foreign affairs."

Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "Defense Secretary Jim Mattis urged President Trump to get congressional approval before the United States launched airstrikes against Syria last week, but was overruled by Mr. Trump, who wanted a rapid and dramatic respose, military and administration officials said. Mr. Trump, the officials said, wanted to be seen as backing up a series of bellicose tweets with action, but was warned that an overly aggressive response risked igniting a wider war with Russia. Friday night's limited strikes on three targets, which lasted under two minutes, were the compromise.... In the end, the narrowly targeted strikes belied Mr. Trump's description Friday night [during his address to the nation] of a larger coordinated response that could take days or weeks." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump's wanting a super-bombastic response to impress Russia is particularly ironic considering that it appears the reason he "changed his mind about"/backed down from imposing sanctions was that Russia gently rattled a saber or two [also linked yesterday]. Trump scurried to notify the Russian embassy in Washington D.C., not to pay any attention to Haley's announcement.

Benjamin Hart of New York: "China lobbed another volley in the Sino-U.S. trade battles on Tuesday. The country imposed an extremely steep tariff -- 176.8 percent -- on sorghum, an American-made cereal grain that is used as a cattle feed and sweetener for baijiu, the popular Chinese liquor. After conducting an investigation, China concluded that the U.S. was dumping sorghum on the Chinese market, hurting its domestic producers. China imports about $1 billion a year worth of the grain from the U.S. Sorghu is mainly produced in the American South, in regions that voted heavily for President Trump." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "The FBI seizure of records from President Trump's personal attorney last week deeply rattled the president -- souring him on his long-stated preference to sit down for an interview with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and prompting him to renew efforts to hire more legal firepower, people familiar with the discussions said.... The president's lawyers are still open to talks with Mueller's office about the possibility and advisers caution that the president frequently changes his mind, but his legal team now sees a Mueller sit-down as less likely.... Trump was so upset, in fact, that he had trouble concentrating on plans that were laid out for him that day by his national security team about potential options for targeted missile strikes on Syria...."

** The Many Trumpy Lawyers of Hannity. Rosie Gray of the Atlantic: "Sean Hannity has had no shortage of lawyers. In court on Monday, his name was disclosed as the third 'mystery client' of Donald Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen. Though Hannity says he was never actually Cohen's client, he does appear to have used the legal services of other well-connected Trump-world lawyers in a different matter a year ago. On May 25, 2017, KFAQ, a radio station based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, received a cease-and-desist letter signed by two lawyers for Hannity: Victoria Toensing and Jay Alan Sekulow. Toensing's signature sits above her name and that of her husband Joseph E. diGenova, the members of diGenova and Toensing LLP, who are identified as 'Counsel for Sean Hannity,' according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Atlantic. Sekulow is also identified in the letter page as a 'Counsel for Sean Hannity.'... The letter was sent in response to accusations against Hannity made by the controversial conservative activist Debbie Schlussel. During an appearance on the Pat Campbell show on KFAQ last April, Schlussel said Hannity had been 'creepy' towards her and had invited her to his hotel room. Sekulow is now the only known personal attorney for President Trump working full-time on the response to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's inquiry. Sekulow recently announced that diGenova and Toensing had been hired to join him, before reversing course.... Sekulow, diGenova, and Toensing have frequently appeared on Hannity's program; diGenova appeared on the show as recently as Monday night." ...

... MEANWHILE. Avery Anapol of the Hill: "Fox News on Tuesday issued a statement of support for prime-time host Sean Hannity amid backlash over his previously undisclosed ties to President Trump's personal lawyer." Mrs. McC: I wonder how happy the suits are that Hannity also repeatedly invited three of his other personal lawyers to appear as guests on his show. Will they issue three more "statements of support" or just put out a blanket "Whatever (as long as your ratings & sponsorship remain high)." ...

... BFFs. Robert Costa, et al., of the Washington Post: "The phone calls between President Trump and Sean Hannity come early in the morning or late at night, after the Fox News host goes off the air. They discuss ideas for Hannity's show, Trump's frustration with the ongoing special counsel probe and even, at times, what the president should tweet, according to people familiar with the conversations. When he's off the phone, Trump is known to cite Hannity when he talks with White House advisers. The revelation this week that the two men share an attorney is just the latest sign of how Hannity is intertwined with Trump's world -- an increasingly powerful confidant who offers the media-driven president a sympathetic ear and shared grievances.... [Hannity] is so close to Trump that some White House aides have dubbed him the unofficial chief of staff.... For a president who feels, intensely, that he is under siege, Hannity offers what he prizes: loyalty and a mass audience."

... Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "The symbiotic relationship between Donald Trump and Fox News can make it difficult to discern where the Trump administration ends and the network begins. But yesterday's revelation ... that Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen's three-person client roster includes Sean Hannity, was shocking, even to those inside Fox News.... 'Everyone's first impression was the same: you only hire Cohen for one reason,' one staffer said.... [But] Hannity's closeness with Trump has given him immense power at the network, and he's not afraid to show it." ...

... Andy Borowitz (satire): "Millions of Americans were stunned and incredulous on Monday after learning of a possible incident of bias at Fox News Channel.... But some Fox viewers, like Harland Dorrinson, of Topeka, Kansas, warned of a .rush to judgment' against Fox.... 'Whenever there was a national emergency, whether it was Benghazi, Hillary's e-mails, or Obama's birth certificate, Fox News was there,' he said. 'One little mistake doesn't wash all that away.'" ...

... digby: "Did [Hannity] talk to Cohen about dealing with this [Schlussel accusation] or something else like it? Who knows? But apparently Hannity was concerned enough about this to have lawyers threaten a radio station. By the way, he never mentioned that he'd hired these lawyers when he was interviewing them constantly on his show either." According to digby, Schlussel later retracted her claim. ...

... Maybe that's because this guy approached Schlussel:

... Kate Briquelet of the Daily Beast: "On Tuesday morning, [Stormy] Daniels and her relentless barrister Michael Avenatti appeared on ABC's The View to share a forensic sketch of the alleged bully and to announce a $100,000 reward for anyone who could identify him.... She reiterated the story she shared during her 60 Minutes interview last month, when she revealed that a mystery man intimidated her in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011. The guy's threats came soon after In Touch magazine interviewed her about her alleged romp and 10-month relationship with The Donald. 'Leave Trump alone. Forget the story,' the thug warned as Daniels, who was with her baby daughter, collected a diaper bag from her car. 'That's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom,' the tough guy added, before walking away."

Ken Dilanian of NBC News: "Donald Trump's campaign paid more than $66,000 to the law firm that represents Keith Schiller, his former longtime bodyguard, newly filed campaign records show. Schiller, who left a White House job in September, testified to the House Intelligence Committee in November that someon made an offer to send five women to Trump's hotel room in Moscow in the lead-up to the 2013 Miss Universe pageant. Two people familiar with the matter told NBC News that Schiller painted the incident in a light favorable to Trump, saying he turned down the offer on Trump's behalf and treated it as a joke. It is presumed by congressional investigators that Schiller told the same story to special counsel Robert Mueller.... Federal election law allows the use of campaign money for legal fees, but only if the fees are related to a matter connected to the campaign, legal experts say."

Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "James Comey appears to have inadvertently played a role in his deputy Andrew McCabe's expulsion from the FBI." Not only did Comey insist upon an investigation into an FBI leak to the Wall Street Journal, he & McCabe "gave the inspector general vastly different characterizations of [a] conversation [in which the two discussed the leak].... The inspector general's report ultimately concluded that Comey's recollection of the Comey/McCabe conversation was the correct one, and that McCabe lacked candor with Comey about his role in the Oct. 30 article."

They're All Corrupt, Ctd. Juliet Eilperin & Brady Dennis of the Washington Post: "Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt upgraded his official car last year to a costlier, larger vehicle with bullet-resistant covers over bucket seats, according to federal records and interviews with current and former agency officials. Recent EPA administrators have traveled in a Chevrolet Tahoe, and agency officials had arranged for Pruitt to use the same vehicle when he joined the administration in February. But he switched to a larger, newer and more high-end Chevy Suburban last June. One former EPA official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation, said that Pruitt remarked that he wanted the larger car because it was similar to ones in which some other Cabinet officials rode.... Meanwhile, the 2014 Chevy Tahoe with four-wheel-drive that was used by Gina McCarthy, Pruitt's predecessor as EPA administrator, has largely sat idle at the EPA's headquarters...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... "Scott Pruitt Has Become Ridiculous." New York Times Editors: "Despite stiff competition, Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is by common consensus the worst of the ideologues and mediocrities President Trump chose to populate his cabinet. Policies aside -- and they're terrible, from an environmental perspective -- Mr. Pruitt's self-aggrandizing and borderline thuggish behavior has disgraced his office and demoralized his employees.... Any other president would have fired him. Mr. Trump praises him. 'Scott is doing a great job!' the president tweeted on April 7.... [Pruitt] didn't get everything he and his team wanted: a bulletproof sport utility vehicle, for instance, equipped with special tires designed to keep moving even when hit by gunfire; a $100,000-a-month contract to fly on private jets. But heaven help the E.P.A. staff members bold enough to challenge these demands.... One frequently overlooked truth about Mr. Pruitt amid these complaints is that for all his swagger he has actually accomplished very little in terms of actual policy -- a wholly desirable outcome, from our standpoint."

They're All Corrupt, Ctd. Scotty's "Scandal Clone." Emily Atkin of the New Republic: "Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is making headlines left and right, for all the wrong reasons. Over the past two days, the man in charge of managing the nation's public lands and resources has been accused of wasting taxpayer money on expensive travel; failing to disclose potential conflicts of interest; having an inappropriately close relationship to a top energy lobbyist; and lying about his professional credentials.... Zinke's growing scandals look eerily similar to those surrounding Scott Pruitt...." Atkin lays out Zinke's scandals of the week along with some lingering ones. They're all so Pruittesque. And she doesn't include this one:

I'm a geologist. And I don't consider myself a genius, but I'm a pretty smart guy. -- Ryan Zinke, during a Senate hearing last June ...

... Actually, No. Sarah Ganim of CNN: "Defending his decision to shrink the Bears Ears national monument to lawmakers last week, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke fell back one of his favorite credentials. 'I'm a geologist,' he said. 'I can assure you that oil and gas in Bears Ears was not part of my decision matrix. A geologist will tell you there is little, if any, oil and gas.' Since becoming leader of the 70,000-employee agency, Zinke has suggested that he was a geologist or former geologist at least 40 times in public settings, including many under oath before Congress. Zinke, however, has never held a job as a geologist. In his autobiography, Zinke wrote that he majored in geology at the University of Oregon, which he attended on a football scholarship, and chose his major at random.... Several geologists who CNN has spoken with have flagged his comments as disingenuous, saying that someone with a 34-year-old degree who never worked in the field is not considered a geologist."

They're All Corrupt, Ctd. Marisa Schultz of the New York Post: "President Trump's trade representative is spending nearly $1 million on new furniture -- and blaming the Obama administration. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer spent more than $917,000 to furnish the two trade offices near the White House, according to contracts reviewed by The Post. That's a significant increase compared to the last two trade reps.... 'The furniture purchases are the culmination of a longtime, planned project that began under the Obama Administration to replace two-decade-old furniture,' Lighthizer's office said in a statement. They said they're just sticking to the plan set in motion under Obama. 'The project to upgrade offices has been going on since 2014,' the trade office said. But Obama-era reps say they didn't sign off on any major remodeling plans."

Good News for Trump. Rebecca Shabad of NBC News: "The effort to pass legislation to protect Robert Mueller's job as special counsel appeared to hit a dead end Tuesday as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would not allow the bill to come to the floor for a full Senate vote. 'I'm the one who decides what we take to the floor. That's my responsibility as majority leader. We'll not be having this on the floor of the Senate,' the Kentucky Republican said in an interview on Fox News. Earlier in the day, Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said again that legislation to protect Mueller's position was 'unnecessary' because, based on 'the kinds of conversations we have had,' he believes that the president will not take steps to dismiss the special counsel." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "McConnell argues, as he has in the past, that such a bill is 'unnecessary' because there is 'no indication' Trump would fire the special counsel. Of course there are many indications. Innumerable news reports have described Trump raging about Mueller and demanding his firing. Trump actually ordered the firing of Mueller in June, and again in December, and has begun attacking Mueller publicly, as well as attacking the Department of Justice official who oversees and has approved his investigation, both privately and publicly. Trump has also previously fired the FBI director, with whom he closely associates Mueller. Other than that, there aren't any indications.... When McConnell refuses to act because he says he doesn't think a threat is real, it means he is happy to let the threat be carried out."

Why Pajama Boy Quit Congress. Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "The House Ethics Committee was about to rule against [Rep. Blake] Farenthold [R-Texas] in its investigation into whether he sexually harassed members of his staff, used official money for campaign purposes and lied in previous testimony to the committee, according to the office of Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.). The committee gave Farenthold a heads-up about its coming decision, so he quit, per Speier's office.... By stepping down, Farenthold was able to avoid whatever punishment the committee would have handed down."

Mike DeBonis & Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Rep. Charlie Dent (Pa.), a frequent critic of President Trump and a leader of the GOP's moderate bloc in the House, said Tuesday that he will resign from Congress within weeks. His decision could set up a costly special election if the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania orders one. Dent had already announced his retirement from Congress in September, citing personal reasons for the decision while also lamenting the marginalization of the 'governing wing' of the Republican Party as the GOP has moved further to the right." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... In a statement, Pennslyvania Gov. Tom Wolf thanked Dent for his service. "Once Governor Wolf receives an official resignation notice with an exact date, he will make a formal decision regarding scheduling the date of a special election." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "A closely divided Supreme Court struggled on Tuesday to decide whether internet retailers should have to collect sales taxes in states where they have no physical presence. Brick-and-mortar businesses have long complained that they are disadvantaged by having to charge sales taxes while many of their online competitors do not. States have said that they are missing out on tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue under a 1992 Supreme Court ruling that helped spur the rise of internet shopping. By the end of arguments on Tuesday, it was not clear whether there were five votes to overrule the 1992 decision, Quill Corporation v. North Dakota, which said the Constitution bars states from collecting sales taxes from companies that do not have a substantial connection to the state."

Jessica Gresko of the AP: "The Supreme Court said Tuesday that part of a federal law that makes it easier to deport immigrants who have been convicted of crimes is too vague to be enforced. The court's 5-4 decision — an unusual alignment in which new Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the four liberal justices - concerns a catchall provision of immigration law that defines what makes a crime violent. Conviction for a crime of violence makes deportation 'a virtual certainty' for an immigrant, no matter how long he has lived in the United States, Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her opinion for the court. The decision is a loss for ... Donald Trump's administration, which has emphasized stricter enforcement of immigration law. In this case, President Barack Obama's administration took the same position in the Supreme Court in defense of the challenged provision." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Would have posted this sooner, but I got the vapors when I read Gorsuch voted with the "liberals." ...

... Ian Millhiser: "Gorsuch's vote, and his separate opinion in Dimaya, confirms that he is ... willing to hand liberals a small victory on the path to a much larger effort to shift legal doctrines to the right.... When read in light of Gorsuch's prior record, his separate opinion in Dimaya suggests that he sees this case as one step in a broader anti-regulatory journey."

Rachel Abrams of the New York Times: "Starbucks said on Tuesday that it would close its more than 8,000 stores in the United States for one day to conduct anti-bias training after two African-American men were arrested at one of its stores last week, prompting outrage. Starbucks will close the stores May 29 to offer the training to 175,000 employees. 'I've spent the last few days in Philadelphia with my leadership team listening to the community, learning what we did wrong and the steps we need to take to fix it,' Kevin R. Johnson, the company's chief executive, said in a statement announcing the training.... The decision ... underscores the damage done to Starbucks's reputation for being a socially responsible company, one that sells fair-trade coffee and promotes its stores as a meeting place.... The employee who called the police is no longer employed by Starbucks, the company confirmed on Monday." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Pardon my failure of cynicism, but I'm glad to see Starbucks taking this single racist incident seriously & making a huge effort to prevent similar occurrences in the future. I hope the guys the Philly police arrested & held for nine hours get more than a couple of free lattes for the extreme hassle. I look for the day when being non-white in America means simply being in America. ...

... They Were in a White Space. Jamelle Bouie: "Philadelphia is a city in which 43 percent of residents are black. The Philadelphia Starbucks where two black men were arrested last Thursday, however, is located in a zip code that is 79 percent white and just 6 percent black. In all likelihood, most of the clientele there is white, which, to borrow from sociologist Elijah Anderson, makes this particular location a 'white space.'... Everyone, eventually, finds themselves out of place. But it's only some people -- raced people -- who have to move with particular care through unfamiliar spaces, lest they bring ruinous scrutiny on themselves."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Matt Yglesias of Vox has some thoughts on Richard Cohen, the Washington Post columnist whose crap, for some reason, is never linked here: "There's a phrase I learned a few years back that goes, 'When you are accustomed to privilege, equality can feel like oppression.' Cohen's career, I think, exemplifies the wisdom contained in that aphorism. He's a guy who's enjoyed a well-compensated, high-status, easy-to-do job for decades who nonetheless quite sincerely feels put upon by the fact that he lost a job to a woman sometime in the 1970s and sometimes get called a racist because he thinks young black men should be subject to discriminatory treatment. He feels, on these grounds, a profound affinity for Trump voters. And because the demographic of put-upon older white men does, in fact, exert disproportionate influence over American social and economic institutions, there continues to be a well-compensated and not very taxing job for him into his late 70s."

Beyond the Beltway

Kurt Shillinger of the Washington Post: "Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley said Tuesday that his office had evidence of a probable felony related to a donor list for a charity founded by Gov. Eric Greitens, who remained defiant despite earlier accusations and widespread calls for his resignation. Hawley said Tuesday that he turned over evidence on Greitens, a Republican, to the St. Louis circuit attorney. His actions come a week after lawmakers released a report saying Greitens initiated unwanted sexual contact with a woman who worked as his hairdresser, allegations that intensified calls for him to resign The allegations in that report are related to an invasion-of-privacy charge that had been brought against Greitens by Kim Gardner, the St. Louis circuit attorney. Hawley said Tuesday that he found evidence that Greitens, during his run for governor, had 'obtained, transmitted and used' the donor list of his charity for the purpose of political fundraising without the organization's knowledge." ...

... Get Out! Jack Suntrup of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Leaders in Missouri’s GOP-controlled House issued a stinging rebuke of Republican Gov. Eric Greitens on Tuesday evening, calling on the state's chief executive to resign as scandals continue to consume his administration. 'Leaders at all levels of government are entrusted with an incredible responsibility to the Missourians we represent,' said a joint statement from House Speaker Todd Richardson, House Majority Leader Rob Vescovo and House Speaker Pro Tem Elijah Haahr.... Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard of Joplin issued a similar statement, saying the governor should step aside. If he doesn't Richard said, 'it is my wish that we immediately start impeachment proceedings.' The governor responded on Twitter, saying he would not resign."

Sam Levin of the Guardian: "California police fired what sounded like more than 30 bullets at a packed car in a shopping store parking lot, killing a black father of three and injuring a young woman in the latest US law enforcement shooting to spark backlash. Police in Barstow, two hours outside of Los Angeles, killed 26-year-old Diante Yarber, who was believed to be unarmed and was driving his cousin and friends to a local Walmart on the morning of 5 April. Police have alleged that Yarber was 'wanted for questioning' in a stolen vehicle case and that he 'accelerated' the car towards officers when they tried to stop him, but his family and their attorney argued that the young father posed no threat and should not have been treated as a suspect in the first place."

Alex Horton of the Washington Post: "The Sacramento Police Department on Monday released dozens of videos related to the Stephon Clark killing -- new material that showed officers muting their body-worn cameras at least 16 times, raising more questions about police action in the moments after the fatal shooting of the unarmed black man. Clark, 22, was hit by eight of the 20 rounds fired by two officers on March 18 in his grandmother's back yard, according to an independent autopsy requested by his family. He was unarmed. Police have said they believed he was raising a gun at them, but only a white iPhone was found near his body. Videos show six minutes pass between shots fired and responders attempting chest compressions. Police handcuffed and searched Clark before they began first aid."

News Lede

New York Times: "Carl Kasell, an NPR newscaster who, late in his career, cast off his anchorman gravitas once a week and for years became an absurdist comedian on the popular satirical quiz show 'Wait Wait .. Don't Tell Me!,' died on Tuesday in Potomac, Md. He was 84."

The Commentariat -- April 17, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Washington Post: "The Internal Revenue Service's electronic system that allows Americans to submit their tax returns online at least partly failed on Tuesday, complicating filing for the millions of Americans attempting to meet the midnight deadline." This is a breaking story. Mrs. McC: Just yesterday MAG wrote that she wouldn't use electronic filing. I thought that was so-o-o-o retro. Maybe not.

Benjamin Hart of New York: "China lobbed another volley in the Sino-U.S. trade battles on Tuesday. The country imposed an extremely steep tariff -- 176.8 percent -- on sorghum, an American-made cereal grain that is used as a cattle feed and sweetener for baijiu, the popular Chinese liquor. After conducting an investigation, China concluded that the U.S. was dumping sorghum on the Chinese market, hurting its domestic producers. China imports about $1 billion a year worth of the grain from the U.S. Sorghum is mainly produced in the American South, in regions that voted heavily for President Trump."

Juliet Eilperin & Brady Dennis of the Washington Post: "Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt upgraded his official car last year to a costlier, larger vehicle with bullet-resistant covers over bucket seats, according to federal records and interviews with current and former agency officials. Recent EPA administrators have traveled in a Chevrolet Tahoe, and agency officials had arranged for Pruitt to use the same vehicle when he joined the administration in February. But he switched to a larger, newer and more high-end Chevy Suburban last June. One former EPA official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation, said that Pruitt remarked that he wanted the larger car because it was similar to ones in which some other Cabinet officials rode.... Meanwhile, the 2014 Chevy Tahoe with four-wheel-drive that was used by Gina McCarthy, Pruitt's predecessor as EPA administrator, has largely sat idle at the EPA's headquarters...."

Mike DeBonis & Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Rep. Charlie Dent (Pa.), a frequent critic of President Trump and a leader of the GOP's moderate bloc in the House, said Tuesday that he will resign from Congress within weeks. His decision could set up a costly special election if the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania orders one. Dent had already announced his retirement from Congress in September, citing personal reasons for the decision while also lamenting the marginalization of the 'governing wing' of the Republican Party as the GOP has moved further to the right." ...

     ... In a statement, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf thanked Dent for his service. "Once Governor Wolf receives an official resignation notice with an exact date, he will make a formal decision regarding scheduling the date of a special election."

Jessica Gresko of the AP: "The Supreme Court said Tuesday that part of a federal law that makes it easier to deport immigrants who have been convicted of crimes is too vague to be enforced. The court's 5-4 decision -- an unusual alignment in which new Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the four liberal justices -- concerns a catchall provision of immigration law that defines what makes a crime violent. Conviction for a crime of violence makes deportation 'a virtual certainty' for an immigrant, no matter how long he has lived in the United States, Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her opinion for the court. The decision is a loss for ... Donald Trump's administration, which has emphasized stricter enforcement of immigration law. In this case, President Barack Obama's administration took the same position in the Supreme Court in defense of the challenged provision." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Would have posted this sooner, but I got the vapors when I read Gorsuch voted with the "liberals."

*****

Remember Way Back Last Week When Trump Said Russia Would "Pay a Big Price" for Supporting a "Gas Killing Animal*"? Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Monday put the brakes on a preliminary plan to impose additional economic sanctions on Russia, walking back a Sunday announcement by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley that the Kremlin had swiftly denounced as 'international economic raiding. Preparations to punish Russia anew for its support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government over the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria caused consternation at the White House. Haley had said on CBS News's 'Face the Nation' that sanctions on Russian companies behind the equipment related to Assad's alleged chemical weapons attack would be announced Monday by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. But Trump conferred with his national security advisers later Sunday and told them he was upset the sanctions were being officially rolled out because he was not yet comfortable executing them, according to several people familiar with the plan." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Say, Nikki, how's the view from under the bus?

     * As Akhilleus pointed out last week, a "gas killing animal" is likely some microbe. I'm thinking if you had enough of them running around your intestines, you could eat beans without embarrassment.

     ... The New York Times story, by Peter Baker, is here. Here are White House "officials" trying unsuccessfully to cover for Trump: (1) Mrs. Huckleberry: "'The president has been clear that he's going to be tough on Russia, but at the same time he'd still like to have a good relationship with them.'" (2) Anonymous official: "Mr. Trump concluded that [sanctions] were unnecessary because Moscow's response to the airstrike was mainly bluster, the official said." A wiser head explains how it works:

Trump seems to think that if he accepts what his advisers recommend on even days of the month and rejects their recommendations on odd days, the result will be a strategy. By and large, other governments don't know whether to laugh or cry at all this. But in Russia, laughter is getting the upper hand. -- Stephen Sestanovich, former U.S. ambassador

... Oops! Looks as if It Was Macron Who Exaggerated This Time. James McAuley of the Washington Post: "French President Emmanuel Macron attempted Monday to walk back surprising comments that suggested he had convinced President Trump to keep U.S. forces in Syria 'long term.' The remarks -- during a TV debate Sunday after Western missile strikes on Syria -- hinted at a major policy shift by Trump and brought a sharp response from the White House less than a week before Macron is scheduled to visit Washington.... 'I did not say that either the U.S. or France will remain militarily engaged in the long term in Syria,' Macron told reporters after meeting with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. 'We have a military objective in Syria and one only: the war against ISIS,' he added...." Mrs. McC: Macron is meeting with Trump next week at the White House. Watch for Trump to ding him on this. (Also linked yesterday.)

Benjamin Weiser & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Monday rejected an attempt by President Trump and his longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, to block prosecutors in Manhattan from immediately reviewing a trove of materials seized in F.B.I. raids last week on Mr. Cohen's office, home, hotel room and safe deposit box. But feeling her way toward a resolution of the clash involving Mr. Trump and prosecutors investigating Mr. Cohen, the judge, Kimba M. Wood, signaled that she was considering appointing a special master to assist prosecutors if and when they cull through documents seized in the raids." (A brief version of this story was linked yesterday afternoon. The story has been expanded.)

David Voreacos of Bloomberg: "Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, says he gave legal advice to three clients in the past year, including the president and Elliott Broidy, former deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee. Cohen declined to identify the third client in a filing in Manhattan federal court...." (Open link in private/incognito window.) Mrs. McC: So some other Friend of Donald who paid off a Playboy "model"? (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Holy Update, Batman! And the Mystery Third Man Is Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Sean Hannity! Zachary Fryer-Biggs of Vox: "A federal judge forced ... Michael Cohen to reveal the identity of a secret client. It's Fox News host and Trump ally Sean Hannity. Cohen was trying to protect Hannity's name as part of a lawsuit he filed to prevent the FBI from searching through the documents agents took on April 9 during a raid on Cohen's office and hotel room.... On Monday afternoon, during a hearing, [Judge Kimba] Wood rejected the plea from Cohen's team and demanded to be told who the third client was. '"I understand that he doesn't want his name out there, but that's not enough under the law,' Wood said. After a back and forth in which Cohen's lawyers offered to tell the judge confidentially, they gave in and announced the unnamed client was Hannity." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Alan Feuer, et al., of the New York Times: Sean Hannity's "closeness with the president may not sit well with media watchdogs, but the cozy relationship has been good for the Hannity business: 'Hannity' is the most-watched cable news program, averaging 3.2 million viewers in the first quarter of 2018, up from 1.8 million in the early months of 2016.... Mr. Hannity denied on Monday that he was a client of Mr. Cohen's, saying that he had never paid him for his services and that his discussions with him centered on real estate.... Before the name was revealed, [Mr. Mr. Cohen's lawyer, Stephen] Ryan argued that the mystery client was a 'prominent person' who wanted to keep his identity a secret because he would be 'embarrassed' to be identified as having sought Mr. Cohen&'s counsel. Robert D. Balin, a lawyer for various media outlets, including The New York Times, CNN and others, interrupted the hearing to argue that embarrassment was not a sufficient cause to withhold a client's name, and Judge [Kimba] Wood agreed. After Mr. Hannity was named, there were audible gasps from the spectators." ...

... At about 11:15 minutes in, Rachel Maddow begins a sort of dramatic reading of the court proceedings that led to the outing of Hannity as Client No. 3. Entertaining:

... Michael Calderone of Politico: "Sean Hannity has wavered over the years on whether he is a journalist or conservative activist, but ethics specialists say that whichever hat the Fox News host was wearing last week when he condemned the FBI raid on attorney Michael Cohen's office, he should have disclosed that he's a client of Cohen's. 'It doesn't matter if you're a newspaper reporter or an opinion journalist,' said Indira Lakshmanan, the journalism ethics chair at the Poynter Institute. 'If you want to maintain credibility with an audience, and be honest with them, you have to disclose all facts.'" ...

... The Farce Bes with Him. Margaret Hartmann on how Hannity handled the news of his Cohen connection on his top-rated teevee show last night. Despite Hannity's brushing off the news as the product of an "insane media," Alan Dershowitz called him out for not disclosing his relationship with Cohen, and Hannity accidentally forgot to mention that another of his guests last night, Joe diGenova, represented him last year. ...

... Brian Stelter of CNN: "While his off-air relationships might be just a logical extension of Hannity's on-air cheerleading for Trump, it still came as a surprise, immediately raising questions about both Hannity and Fox. By any standards of any normal newsroom, the Cohen-Hannity relationship is a glaring conflict of interest. Fox is not a normal newsroom.... Monday's disclosure demonstrates just how tight-knit the pro-Trump media world is.... Cohen is one kind of Trump protector, Hannity is another kind.... Hannity is downplaying the extent of the lawyer-client relationship between himself and Cohen.... 'I never retained him in the traditional sense as retaining a lawyer; I never received an invoice from Michael; I never paid legal fees to Michael, but I have, occasionally, had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective,' Hannity said on the radio." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Several pundits on the teevee -- including Preet Bharara & Jeff Toobin, both legal experts -- noted the disconnect between Hannity's claims & Cohen's. When a lawyer says he has only three clients, & one of them is Hannity, it's pretty odd that Hannity is claiming he merely shot the breeze with Cohen. If that were the case, there certainly is no attorney-client privilege, Bharara & Toobin said. IMO, Cohen would not have described Hannity as a client unless he was aware that information on Hannity was included in those seized documents. But unless that info was relevant to a crime Hannity & Cohen cooked up together, I don't see why it would become part of the investigation. ...

... Andy Borowitz (satire): "One week after lambasting the F.B.I.’s raid on Michael D. Cohen's office as a 'fishing expedition,' Sean Hannity said that he 'totally forgot,' when he made those comments, that Michael D. Cohen was his lawyer." Thanks to MAG for the link.

Lordy, Is There a Pee Tape? Michelle Goldberg: "... Trump insisted to Comey that it was unimaginable that he would sleep with prostitutes. (The former Playboy model Karen McDougal ... has said that he tried to pay her the first time they had sex.) In another, he said he'd just remembered that he never even stayed overnight in Moscow: 'He claimed he had flown from New York, had only gone to the hotel to change his clothes, and had flown home that same night,' Comey writes.... This contradicts the story that Trump's former bodyguard, Keith Schiller ... said that a Russian associate offered to send five women to Trump's room, but was turned down. 'Schiller said the two men laughed about it as Trump went to bed alone,' NBC reported.... The possible existence of the tape isn't relevant because it would prove that Trump is sexually debauched and longs to desecrate everything Obama touched; we already know that. It matters because, like the former director of the F.B.I., we don't know if Trump has been compromised by Russia." Read on. Goldberg makes a case for the veracity of the pee tape. "To seriously discuss this presidency, you have to open your mind to the truly obscene."

Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump resumed his attacks Monday on James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and said that Mr. Comey, his former deputy [Andrew McCabe] and others 'committed many crimes!' The president -- in his first Twitter post since the airing of Mr. Comey's first public interview about his months serving in the Trump administration -- again accused Mr. Comey of lying to Congress, but he did not specify which other crimes he believed Mr. Comey and others committed." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Needless to say, it is inappropriate for any president to accuse American citizens of crimes for which they have not been convicted. Trump's remarks can only help McCabe's case against his 11th-hour firing. The "presumption of innocence" is not a specifically-guaranteed Constitutional right, but it is a bedrock of English-American common law, & U.S. courts usually interpret the "due process" clause of the 14th Amendment as an expression of presumption of innocence. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Update. John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Former FBI director James B. Comey is pushing back against President Trump's suggestion that he should be jailed, saying in a new interview that Trump's pronouncements on Twitter pose a 'great danger.' 'The president of the United States just said that a private citizen should be jailed,' Comey said. 'And I think the reaction of most of us was, "Meh, that's another one of those things." This is not normal. This is not okay. There's a danger that we will become numb to it, and we will stop noticing the threats to our norms.'" ...

     ... Comey made the comments in an interview by NPR's Carrie Johnson & Steve Inskeep. The full transcript of the interview is here. ...

... ** Jonathan Chait: "The most shocking-but-not-surprising aspect of James Comey's account of meeting Donald Trump is the ease with which he drew upon his experience prosecuting organized crime.... It is a pure coincidence, but a revealing one, that Comey's story has come out at the exact same time that Michael Cohen has emerged as a first-tier, and perhaps pivotal, figure in the prosecution of Trumpworld. Cohen has called himself Trump's consigliere and is the most palpably moblike character in Trump's orbit.... Organized crime is somewhere between a metaphor for the ethos that Trump has imposed upon his world and a literal description of the way his business operates.... Trump has run his business like a mafia operation because maintaining secrecy is the paramount value." ...

... Jeet Heer of the New Republic pushes backs against the notion that the raids on Cohen's records signal the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency, as Adam Davidson of the New Yorker argued (linked yesterday). Mrs. McC: I'm inclined to agree with Heer, although I will not rule out the possibility that Trump himself is so in over his head that something -- and that might include an acute physical or psychological illness -- could cause him to walk out gracelessly. ...

... Quinta Jurecic of the Atlantic: "... prosecutors can only do so much. Mueller ... may never share the whole of his findings with the public. More concerning, however, is the possibility that law comes up against the edifice of falsehoods and fails. That is, what if the special counsel unveils a catalogue of wrongdoing by the president and those around him, only to find that Trump has succeeded in undermining the idea of truth to the extent that a substantial proportion of Americans simply won't believe whatever investigators have found?" ...

... Jonathan Chait: "The Trump administration has been throwing every possible charge it can think of at James Comey, in order to scuff up the image of the fired FBI director. This morning, Kellyanne Conway made an accusation that she and her boss might not have thought through: 'This guy swung an election,' Conway told George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America. 'He thought the wrong person would win.' That is probably true, but also probably not something Conway should admit." Conway later claimed she was being sarcastic, but Chait provides evidence otherwise. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Steve M.: "Even before his interview with George Stephanopoulos aired, the knives were out for James Comey, and not just at the White House or the Republican National Committee. 'James Comey Is No Hero,' wrote Charlie Pierce. 'James Comey Is No Hero,' wrote Adam Serwer. Today, Ryan Cooper writes,'James Comey Is Not a Hero.' I get it.... But I keep thinking about the aphorism made famous by James Carville: When your opponent is drowning, throw the son of a bitch an anvil.... So if Comey is hurling a heavy object into the water, I'm inclined to step back and let him get in a good throw." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Scott LeMieux of LG&$: "The transcript for the opening show of the Most Principled Man in America world tour is up if you're so inclined [linked below]. The constant pivots between discussions of how inappropriate it would be to let politics influence his decisions and his extensive discussions of how politics influenced his decisions is remarkable.... Comey's behavior was an absolutely perfect illustration of why the rules against commenting on ongoing investigations before an election are there in the first place.... Even if you buy the argument that Comey was justified in ignoring the rules in this case, there is no possible justification for selectively informing the public about investigations into the candidates and their campaigns. Which is why history is not going to remember Comey well despite his extensive PR efforts." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... This point, which LeMieux highlights, by former U.S. ethics director Walter Shaub is a knockout punch: "Comey had to know Chaffetz would leak the letter on the reopened Clinton investigation. But if Comey had written, 'This is to inform you that the FBI is investigating both major party presidential candidates,' Chaffetz would've dug a 6-foot hole and buried it in the forest," Shaub tweeted. Mrs. McC: Comey didn't know how either the investigations of Trump (dumpster fire) or of Huma Abedin's & hubbie's computers (nothing-burger) would turn out, so there's full equivalency in terms of what was known to him in October 2016. He had, at the least, an obligation to be bipartisan, if he was going to write to Congress at all. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Carlos Lozado's review of Comey's book in the WashPo, which LeMieux also recommends, is here. Mrs. McC: I don't disagree with any of the criticisms, but I'm stick with Steve M. (linked above) on the big picture. I guess I think there are rare times when the means justify the ends, & this would be one of those rare times. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Andy Borowitz (satire): "Melania Trump said on Monday that she did not understand the controversy swirling around James Comey's new memoir, because the book she is writing is 'so much meaner.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

The Most Corrupt President Ever. Dominic Rushe of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's US businesses have raked in $15.1m in revenue from political groups and federal agencies since he began his run for the presidency, according to a report released on Monday. For the report..., Public Citizen, a Washington-based nonprofit, analyzed all the available records of political and federal taxpayer spending at Trump businesses. The report concludes that Trump, his campaign and Republican political committees have diverted millions of dollars to the president's businesses -- spending money on his airplanes, at his hotels, golf courses and restaurants, and even buying his Trump-branded bottled water.... 'Trump's propensity for travel to his own resorts and dining at his own restaurants has resulted in considerable spending of tax dollars at Trump-owned properties,' the report concludes. However, it is difficult to assess quite how much money has been spent as the information is not yet fully available. The final tally is likely to be far larger than the $15.1m identified in Public Citizen's report." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: As Chait & Comey argue (linked above), Trump operates like the capo dei capi of a crime family. Comey notes that the mafia distinguish between "your family" and "Our Family." But the men (and women) Trump hired out of the hinterlands to run the Family operations in D.C. may not understand that family distinction and thus assume they too can operate as "made men." So they do. ...

** They're All Corrupt, Ctd. The Two Faces of Ryan Zinke. Julie Turkewitz of the New York Times: "When Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was a state senator from [Whitefish, Montana]..., he drove a Prius, sported a beard and pushed President Barack Obama to make clean energy a priority. Today, the beard and Prius are gone, and Mr. Zinke has emerged as a leading figure, along with Scott Pruitt..., in the environmental rollbacks that have endeared President Trump to the fossil fuel industry and outraged conservationists. In the last year, Mr. Zinke has torn up Obama-era rules related to oil, gas and mineral extraction and overseen the largest reduction of federal land protection in the nation's history, including an effort to slash the size of Bears Ears National Monument. But ... in Montana, where support for drilling in certain beloved areas can be a career killer, Mr. Zinke has struck a different note.... An examination of his Interior Department record shows that his pro-development bent has not always applied to his home state, where he is viewed as a fiercely ambitious candidate for future office. In the past year, Mr. Zinke has halted the sale of oil and gas leases near Yellowstone National Park, opposed gold mining in that area, and urged the president to protect one national monument, Montana's Upper Missouri River Breaks, while creating another, the Badger-Two Medicine, just miles from his childhood home." ...

... They're All Corrupt, Ctd. Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "The Environmental Protection Agency violated the law when it installed a soundproof phone booth for the administrator, Scott Pruitt, at a cost of roughly $43,000, a congressional watchdog agency ruled on Monday. The congressional agency, the Government Accountability Office, said in a report that the E.P.A. had not notified Congress as required before spending more than $5,000 on office equipment. In a separate report Monday, the E.P.A.'s inspector general published records showing that Mr. Pruitt's chief of staff signed off on hires and thousands of dollars in raises for political appointees under a provision of a clean water law. That report was part of an ongoing audit of salaries and hiring practices at the agency." ...

... Washington Post Editors: "President Trump should have fired Mr. Pruitt a long time ago. The latest reports underscore the swampy behavior Mr. Trump appears willing to tolerate and excuse.... The EPA should have informed Congress it wanted to spend tens of thousands of dollars on an unnecessary security upgrade. By failing to do so and spending the money anyway, it violated two federal laws, the GAO concluded. The EPA says Mr. Pruitt required access to a secure telephone line in an appropriate setting. But there already were two secure facilities at the EPA available for just such a purpose.... Mr. Pruitt insisted he did not know about [extraordinary raises given to two of Mr. Pruitt's favorite staffers] or about the way his staffers bypassed White House objections. But his chief of staff appears to have signed the forms 'for Scott Pruitt,' suggesting that he was acting with explicit or implicit permission." ...

... 'Earth, Wind & Liars." Paul Krugman: "... there is no longer any reason to believe that it would be hard to drastically 'decarbonize' the economy. Indeed, there is no reason to believe that doing so would impose any significant economic cost.... For now, however, the problem isn't technology -- it's politics. The fossil fuel sector may represent a technological dead end, but it still has a lot of money and power. Lately it has been putting almost all of that money and power behind Republicans.... Trump and company aren't just trying to move us backward on social issues; they're also trying to block technological progress. And the price of their obstructionism will be high."

They're All Corrupt, Ctd. Nick Statt of the Verge: "A broadband advisor selected by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to run a federal advisory committee was arrested last week on claims she tricked investors into pouring money into a multi-million dollar investment fraud scheme, according to The Wall Street Journal. The advisor, Elizabeth Pierce, is the former chief executive of Quintillion, an Alaska-based fiber optic cable provider operating out of Anchorage. In her capacity as CEO, Pierce allegedly raised more than $250 million from two New York-based investment companies using forged contracts with other companies guaranteeing hundreds of millions of dollars in future revenue. Pierce resigned from Quintillion in August of last year, and she stepped down from her role in Pai's Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) the following month."

Elliott Spagat & Luis Lugo of the AP: "The Trump administration said Monday that California Gov. Jerry Brown rejected terms of the National Guard's initial deployment to the Mexican border, but a state official said nothing was decided. 'The governor determined that what we asked for is unsupportable, but we will have other iterations,' Ronald Vitiello, U.S. Customs and Border Protection's acting deputy commissioner, told reporters in Washington. Brown elicited rare and effusive praise from ... Donald Trump last week for pledging 400 troops to the Guard's third large-scale border mission since 2006. But the Democratic governor conditioned his commitment on his state’s troops having nothing to do with immigration enforcement, even in a supporting role. Brown's announcement last week did not address what specific jobs the California Guard would and would not do, nor answer the thorny question of how state officials would distinguish work related to immigration from other duties."

David Kirkpatrick & Ron Nixon of the New York Times: "The United States and Britain on Monday issued a first-of-its-kind joint warning about Russian cyberattacks against government and private organizations as well as individual homes and offices in both countries, a milestone in the escalating use of cyberweaponry between major powers. Although Washington and London have known for decades that the Kremlin was trying to penetrate their computer networks, the joint warning appeared to represent an effort to deter future attacks by calling attention to existing vulnerabilities, prodding individuals to mitigate them and threatening retaliation against Moscow if damage was done."

Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico: "The hidebound U.S. Senate is expected to soon change its rules for a member who just made history as a new mom. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who this month became the first sitting senator to have a baby while in office, has submitted a resolution that would allow senators to bring a child under one year old onto the Senate floor during votes. Senate leaders appear poised to approve the request, according to Senate sources. The Illinois Democrat has been on a campaign to change the chamber's rules, which prohibit children from the floor, arguing that the archaic ban doesn't support working parents and would make it difficult for her to vote." (Also linked yesterday.)

Rachel Siegel & Alex Horton of the Washington Post: "The chief executive of Starbucks on Monday called for 'unconscious bias' training for store managers and apologized for what he called 'reprehensible' circumstances that led to the arrest of two black men at a Philadelphia store last week. Kevin Johnson said in an interview on 'Good Morning America' that the company was reviewing the actions of the store manager who had called the police. Johnson said that 'what happened to those two gentlemen was wrong.'... Starbucks said later Monday that the store manager [who called the police] 'is no longer at that store.'... The two unidentified men were taken out in handcuffs.... They were held for nearly nine hours before being released, said ... an attorney who represented the men.... No charges were filed, authorities said." Protests continued at the store, which was "temporarily closed" by 1 pm Monday. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Not sure how "unconscious" the bias was. The woman who first posted video of the arrests -- who is white -- said in an interview that just last week she sat in the store for at least an hour without making any purchases, & employees did not ask her to leave. According to witnesses, the men did not cause any kind of disturbance but were told to get out after they asked to use the restroom. They were waiting for a (white) realtor to join them, & it's reasonable to think that since he was pitching them on an investment, they counted on him to buy their beverages, which I think are $4 or $5 a pop for anything more complicated than black coffee.

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Ren Laforme of Poynter: "Winners of the 2018 Pulitzer Prizes were announced at Columbia University in New York City on Monday." Includes list of winners & runners-up for journalism awards. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Update: The New York Times has a list with details, & includes the prizes for the arts.

News Ledes

ABC News: "One person has died after a Southwest plane engine failed in midair today, marking the first accidental domestic airline fatality in nine years, said the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Flight 1380 was en route from New York City's LaGuardia International Airport to Dallas Love Field when the engine failure forced the plane to make an emergency landing at the Philadelphia International Airport this morning. Passenger Matt Tranchin said the flight took a turn when he saw a 'huge explosion and glass shattering three rows ahead of me.'... Witnesses have described seeing a woman be partially sucked out a window near the engine. Officials have not confirmed these details."

New York Times: "Harry Anderson, an actor who starred as the kindhearted, zany Judge Harry Stone on the long-running NBC comedy 'Night Court,' was found dead early Monday at his home in Asheville, N.C. He was 65. The Asheville Police Department, which confirmed the death, did not release a cause but said no foul play was suspected."