From CNN: Attorney General Bill Barr is preparing to announce as early as next week the completion of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, with plans for Barr to submit to Congress soon after a summary of Mueller’s confidential report, according to people familiar with the plans. The preparations are the clearest indication yet that Mueller is nearly done with his almost … Read More
Trump Meddled Again With DOJ Investigation
Just out from the NY Times: As federal prosecutors in Manhattan gathered evidence late last year about President Trump’s role in silencing women with hush payments during the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump called Matthew G. Whitaker, his newly installed attorney general, with a question. He asked whether Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New … Read More
McCabe Told Gang of Eight About Counterintelligence Investigation Into Trump
I haven’t written much, if anything about former FBI director Andrew McCabe’s series interviews promoting his upcoming new book, but the big reveal from it all is that McCabe ordered a counterintelligence investigation into Trump early in the presidency. Not surprising in one sense, given Trump’s firing of James Comey, etc. But there was an interesting wrinkle to the story. … Read More
The Real Collusion May Be With Saudi Arabia
It’s becoming clear that the Trump Administration came into being seeing the United States as an asset for sale. NBC: Whistleblowers from within President Donald Trump’s National Security Council have told a congressional committee that efforts by former national security adviser Michael Flynn to transfer sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia may have violated the law, and investigators fear Trump is still considering it, … Read More
Document Dump: California v Trump Complaint
Filed yesterday in US District Court in San Francisco, seventeen states joined to bar Trump for using an emergency declaration to prevent Trump from diverting military funds to build his border wall. Paragraph 160 is where Trump’s own words are used against him.
Breaking: Trump Signs Budget Deal And Declares Emergency
Trump is live now. Trying to spin this as a win. Trump: “I didn’t need to do this. but I’d rather do it much faster”. That doesn’t sound like an emergency. Trump just said “I didn’t need to do this.” Some emergency! — Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) February 15, 2019 The optional, just-to-speed-things-up kind of emergency https://t.co/OFgU8FNrbI — Julie Davis (@juliehdavis) … Read More
Breaking: Nope, He’s Declaring A “National Emergency”
Rule of thumb: Never underestimate the stupidity of this President and his unique ability to do the worst thing. Know what's a national emergency? Having a president so stupid he can be goaded into a series of constitutional crises by the voices he hears on his tv set. — Hunter (@HunterDK) February 14, 2019 Bloomberg: President Donald Trump will sign … Read More
Trump Faces The Ire Of The Mob He Created
It turns out that it isn’t so easy to make deals with people who fundamentally disagree with you. Politics has beaten Trump and he is forced to sign a deal that gives only $1.4 billion for his stupid border wall. So what does Trump do? He tries to gaslight his supporters. At the El Paso rally this week, he implored … Read More
Former FBI Director Andrew McCabe Recounts Comey Firing
Excerpt from his new book: On Wednesday, May 10, 2017, my first full day on the job as acting director of the FBI, I sat down with senior staff involved in the Russia case—the investigation into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. As the meeting began, my secretary relayed a message that the White House was … Read More
Dealmaker, My Ass
To all the people out there who voted for Trump because he is a great dealmaker, let’s review how well he did on his first big dealmaking with a non-compliant Congress: March 2018: Democrats offer $25B in border all funding for a pathway to citizenship for the dreamers. Trump kills the deal by tacking on draconian cuts to LEGAL immigration. … Read More
Trump Lies About Whether He Was Cleared Of Collusion
On Sunday, President Trump began boasting that he’d been cleared by the Senate Intelligence Committee of any wrongdoing in the 2016 election. “Senator Richard Burr, The Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, just announced that after almost two years, more than two hundred interviews, and thousands of documents, they have found NO COLLUSION BETWEEN TRUMP AND RUSSIA!” Trump tweeted Sunday. “Is anybody … Read More
Democrats and Republicans Agree To A Border Deal, Averting Shutdown
The Washington Post has the details: The framework would provide $1.375 billion for barriers along the border, including 55 miles of new fencing,with certain restrictions on the location, according to a congressional official familiar with the agreement….Democrats backed down from their demand on tight limits on detention beds that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement could use to detain undocumented immigrants, pulling away from a push … Read More
Trump Incites Violence
Trump’s rally in El Paso last night — to shill for his border wall — was notable for many reasons. For one thing, the counter-rally (with El Paso native Beto O’Rourke) had more attendees… Numbers don’t lie.El Paso Fire Department crowd estimates::Trump: 6,500 Beto O’Rourke: 10,000 – 15,000 — Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) February 12, 2019 … although that number does … Read More
Trump’s Electoral Problem
Trump may have gotten a slight bounce from his SOTU speech (although the only post-SOTU poll is the unreliable Rasmussen), but from a 2020 re-election perspective, he should not be popping any champagne bottles. According to Morning Consult: Trump’s base remained fairly solid, with 83 percent of Republicans approving of the president. But that share of support among Republicans was … Read More
Oh Please
He also just tapped former oil lobbyist David Bernhardt to head the Interior Department following the resignation of scandal-plagued Ryan Zinke last year. Because of course he did.