Trump enters the stage

The question that have for people:

Has trump done one presidential thing in almost a full term?!?!

The answer is “no”.

You would think that it’s by definition, impossible that a president couldn’t do anything non-presidential, but trump proved everyone wrong.

You know, I hate postmodernists…

“Words are just words talking about words and don’t mean anything, however, and especially, if you have a lot of power, you can do and say anything the fuck you want”

Unfortunately for trump, words actually do refer. Not yet, but it will catch up with him.

Trump is the first post modern president (and all post modernists are trolls)

OPINION

It’s pearl-clutching Democrats who got massacred by Trump impeachment trial: Goodwin

By Michael Goodwin

February 8, 2020 | 9:38pm



Rep. Jerry Nadler, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff in JanuaryMEGA

Pearls clutched, hair on fire, heads exploding — pick your favorite image to describe the left’s latest reaction to President Trump. Once again, the end is near, he’s gone too far, this time we got him.

His outrage against all that is good and pure was to pink-slip star impeachment witnesses Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland.

“Friday Night Massacre” screamed the usual suspects, a not-very-subtle reference to Richard Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre.” The difference, unmentioned, is that Trump was already acquitted, whereas the Nixon impeachment hadn’t formally started.

Still, assuming this is not the end of the world, something more important demands attention. Namely, that conventional wisdom got it right when it declared that Trump had one of the best weeks of his presidency while Democrats had one of their worst.

He beat impeachment, they screwed up the Iowa caucuses, he gave a roaring State of the Union address and Nancy Pelosi was reduced to being a paper shredder. Friday’s boffo jobs report was the icing on Trump’s cake, then he got the cherry when a federal appeals court unanimously rejected a suit by 200 Dem lawmakers over foreign payments to his businesses.

But arrogance springs eternal in the land of nattering nabobs and expect media bigs to assure their fellow never-Trumpers that soon enough, the world will be set right. Trump, they will say with certainty, can’t sustain the momentum and Pelosi, she of the alleged brilliant political skills, will lead Dems back to their entitled supremacy.

Anything is possible and there is no denying that Trump has a bad habit of stepping on his own good stories. But the larger notion that last week was an aberration strikes me as fanciful if not delusional.

I believe the lopsided outcomes reveal something close to the actual state of play and relative strengths of the combatants. If true, that means Trump and congressional Republicans have an enormous opportunity this year.

The heart of the case is that Dems dug themselves into a hole and won’t drop the shovel. They have nothing to show for their 2018 House victory except a partisan impeachment that was rejected by the public before the Senate killed it.

The celebration over getting Sen. Mitt Romney’s vote on one article is like cheering because your team avoided a shutout. You still got crushed.

Wonder of wonders, party leaders reacted by vowing to stay the course. Pelosi, not a whit embarrassed by her shameful stunt of tearing up the president’s State of the Union address, launched into another hateful rant.

Saying Trump looked “sedated,” she called his speech a “manifesto of mistruths” and claimed he “shredded the truth in the speech, shredded the Constitution in his conduct, and so I shredded his state-of-mind address.”

Equally telling, Rep. Jerry Nadler said the Judiciary Committee likely will subpoena former national security adviser John Bolton; other Dems said the many investigations into Trump and his businesses will continue.

In other words, they learned nothing from last week, or the last three years for that matter. Blinded by their personal contempt for the president and his supporters and captive to the wacko wing of the party, Pelosi’s team still acts as if there is a magic button that will persuade even the deplorables to turn on the president.

Meanwhile, Dems obviously intend to fritter away their two years of power without producing a coherent agenda that would give swing voters a reason to reelect them. A November platform of resistance, rage and failed impeachment is a narrow base appeal, not an effort to win the middle.

The party’s presidential candidates are also lost in space and aren’t even generating the expected enthusiasm among primary voters. The counting debacle in Iowa obscured a larger problem: the caucus turnout was about 25 percent below estimates.+

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Democrats mired in chaos as 2020’s first presidential primary looms

The Friday-night debate was another pointless race to far left field, with no clear winner. The only guarantees are that Joe Biden is near the end and there will be a freakout among big donors if Sen. Bernie Sanders wins New Hampshire and becomes the clear front-runner.

With Michael Bloomberg’s billions hovering off-stage, the blood-letting is just beginning.

This is all great for Trump, but the fact that he is in his strongest position yet is not owing solely to Dems’ errors. His policy successes are undeniable, starting with the economy. Its continued expansion is simply remarkable and when the president says it is the envy of the world, he’s not exaggerating.

His poll numbers rose 10 points during impeachment and Gallup’s finding that he gets a whopping 63% approval on the economy confirms that more and more people are seeing and believing the jobs boom.

Gallup also found that 90% of Americans, the highest ever, report they are satisfied with their personal lives, and that a record 65% say they are “very satisfied.”

Those kind of numbers rip the heart out of the claim by Sanders and others that the economy is working only for the rich. In fact, wages are rising faster at the bottom of the income ladder than at the top.

While Dems are busy feuding and feeding their base, the president is broadening his outreach by stealing some of their policies. Paid family leave, curbing prescription-drug prices and prison reform all run counter to GOP orthodoxy, but Trump is embracing them while keeping near-unanimous Republican support.

And to judge from his gallery guests at the State of the Union, Trump is eager to make direct appeals to black and Latino Americans on pocketbook and family issues. He talks about an “inclusive” agenda and notably included Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King Jr. in a list of American heroes. He continued that theme in a visit to a North Carolina community college.

His approval ratings among those groups already are far above the vote totals he got in 2016. Even modest increases in November could be decisive in key states.

To be sure, the election is a long way off and events, like Trump, are unpredictable. But for now he is on a roll while the other team is stuck in a hole.

© 2020 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Ecmandu said:

"Words are just words talking about words and don’t mean anything, however, and especially, if you have a lot of power, you can do and say anything the fuck you want”

{You can, because postmodernism is formally democratic, but essentially Republican

The inversion of the material dialectic is no return to amnacceptancr of mere contradiction, it is like a snowball, it has gathered substantial material on the way, so it ispre a synthesis of pre and post synthesis.
It is above and beyond contradiction , in more then an ethical/moral sense, god does exist in the highest energy, who is self consuming, since IT knows he is as. guilty as IT’s creation.
It is really more then aesthetically beyond good and evil, it needs to repeat that mantra obsessively for the highest powers degrade, as it’s absolute form corrupts those who utilize it for the lowest purposes.
The synthesis of pre and post modernity finally balances out these seeming opposites , and permits a humble ackquiessence.)

Ecmandu said:

“Unfortunately for trump, words actually do refer. Not yet, but it will catch up with him.”

{Words have pretty much lost their meaning}

Trump vowed to not cut Social Security and Medicare — hours before proposing just that

The president is either brazenly lying about his 2021 budget or doesn’t know what’s in it.

By Aaron Rupar

on February 10, 2020 12:10 pm



President Donald Trump delivers remarks at a White House session with the state governors on February 10, 2020.

Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images

President Donald Trump posted a tweet on Saturday vowing, “We will not be touching your Social Security and Medicare in Fiscal 2021 Budget.” One day later, the Wall Street Journal published a report indicating that Trump is doing exactly that with his budget proposal.

The Journal’s report, which came a day ahead of the administration officially releasing its budget on Monday, indicates that Trump’s $4.8 trillion budget includes “steep reductions in social-safety-net programs,” including cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security:

The White House proposes to cut spending by $4.4 trillion over a decade. Of that, it targets $2 trillion in savings from mandatory spending programs, including $130 billion from changes to Medicare prescription-drug pricing, $292 billion from safety-net cuts—such as work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps—and $70 billion from tightening eligibility access to disability benefits.

That Trump is proposing cuts to these programs isn’t surprising — his 2020 budget cut all three as well. It’s a long-running contradiction for the president. He often says he won’t touch these entitlement programs, but he’s continued to employ Republican party officials who make cutting these programs center to their work.

Trump keeps proposing entitlement cuts and then denying that he did so

In 2015 and ’16, Trump differentiated himself from the rest of the Republican presidential hopefuls by campaigning on a vow to not cut entitlements.

“I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid,” Trump told the Daily Signal, a conservative publication affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, in 2015.

As his budget proposals indicate, this promise was an empty one. Trump, however, seems to realize that cutting entitlements is a political loser for him, and as a result has continued to make assertions about preserving them that are at odds with reality.

Last month, however, Trump seemed to have a moment of radical honesty when he told CNBC during an interview conducted in Davos that “at some point” entitlement cuts will be on the table.

Those comments created a negative stir, so the very next day Trump tried to walk them back.

Fast-forward less than a month, and Trump is again pushing entitlement cuts. It’s whiplash-inducing.

Democrats have already signaled Trump’s budget is going nowhere

While Trump tries to have it both ways by proposing entitlement cuts while claiming he’s not really doing that, Treasury Department spokesperson Monica Crowley was somewhat more straightforward during a Monday morning appearance on Fox Business.

Asked by host Stuart Varney if she agrees that the new budget “hits the safety net,” Crowley said the president “understands that Washington’s habit of out of control spending without consequence has to be stopped.”

But for Trump, not all spending is bad. While his budget cuts non-defense spending by 5 percent, he actually slates defense spending for an increase to $740.5 billion for fiscal year 2021.

Budget proposals are just that — proposals. And while Trump insists that Republicans are the ones trying to save entitlements from destruction, the irony is that the truth is exactly the opposite: Entitlement cuts are dead on arrival as long as Democrats control a chamber of Congress.

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The viral video of Mike Pence being grilled by an ER doctor about Medicaid cuts, explained

House Budget Committee Chair John Yarmuth (D-KY) alluded to this reality in a statement he released on Sunday blasting Trump for “proposing deep cuts to critical programs that help American families.”

The “budget reportedly includes destructive changes to Medicaid, SNAP, Social Security, and other assistance programs that help Americans make ends meet — all while extending his tax cuts for millionaires and wealthy corporations,” Yarmuth wrote. “Congress will stand firm against this President’s broken promises and his disregard for the human cost of his destructive policies.”

These New Hampshire primary voters will truly be first in the nation

Utah’s plan to send patients to Mexico to buy cheap medicines is an indictment of US health care

Biden’s “lying dog-faced pony soldier” moment, explained

© 2020 Vox Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Opinion

January 25, 2020

Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, and it is Saturday, Jan. 25, 2020. Let’s take a look back at the week in Opinion.

After coming frighteningly close to war with Iran, it feels oddly relieving to watch members of Congress explain for a week why the president poses such a grave threat to our national security and constitutional order that he must be removed from office.

Of course, it bolsters no one’s faith in government to see senators demur over considering new evidence of the commander in chief’s thuggish behavior — behavior from which only the Senate, by virtue of its power to remove him, can protect us — but I’ll take continued indifference to President Trump’s authoritarianism over another war in the Mideast. (And really, I cannot recommend enthusiastically enough Andrew J. Bacevich’s commentary on that topic, no matter how old it might be.)

So let’s ignore for a moment the frightening instability in the rest of the world so we can get a true sense of the magnitude of this moment: The president is on trial for high crimes and misdemeanors, no one can seriously dispute that Trump did everything for which he was impeached, and yet senators will almost certainly decline to exercise their oversight authority.

Most puzzling, as columnist Virginia Heffernan points out, is that Republicans were agitating for impeachment before Trump took office: “The dynamism the party once showed, when it dared to condemn Trump in 2016, is gone. In more courageous days, Republicans started this impeachment. Too bad they won’t see it through.”

Trump’s presidency won’t end with impeachment, but it won’t end well either, writes Jonah Goldberg. The reason: Character is destiny, and Trump’s character won’t allow him to govern as a servant of the people. As for those who love the way he governs, they don’t have to worry about the ugly facts of his crookedness, because their favorite news channel doesn’t mind ignoring the president’s trial, notes Brian A. Boyle. And if Democrats want the Senate to hear all the evidence of Trump’s Ukraine extortion, they should jump at the chance to accept a Bolton-for-a-Biden testimony deal, says Jon Healey.

Even under impeachment, Trump provides fresh evidence of his corruption. The president flew to south Florida this week to address the Republican National Committee at Trump National Doral Miami. Yes, that’s the president’s golf resort, where he notoriously tried to steer next summer’s G-7 summit of international leaders. “Trump’s self-dealing is of a piece with the behavior he’s been accused of in the impeachment inquiry,” says the L.A. Times Editorial Board. “It’s all about using the power of the presidency for his personal benefit.” L.A. Times

It’s 1856 all over again, and that isn’t a good thing. The first Republican Party presidential candidate, John C. Frémont, came from California, and in 1856 he was one of the most admired Americans. But Democrats’ fear of losing forever gave rise to scare-mongering and outright lies over the nascent party that would go on to put Abraham Lincoln up for election. James Buchanan beat Frémont and quickly set about entrenching his party’s pro-slavery agenda in Washington. The results were disastrous and carry ominous lessons for Americans today.

New York Times

Copyright © 2020, Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

Fox News

2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Published February 10, 2020

Last Update 22 minutes ago

Trump, looking to ‘shake up the Dems a little bit,’ hits ‘mumbling’ Pelosi in rally ahead of key NH primary

By Gregg Re | Fox News

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President Trump said he was looking to get under Democrats’ skin Monday with a rally in New Hampshire on the eve of the state’s first-in-the-nation primaries, and he wasted little time – quickly reliving his dramatic State of the Union speech with a thinly veiled shot at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

“I had somebody behind me who was mumbling terribly,” Trump mused, as chants of “Lock her up!” broke out.

“Very distracting. Very distracting,” Trump continued. “I’m speaking, and a woman is mumbling terribly behind me. There was a little anger back there. We’re the ones who should be angry, not them.”

Trump sped through his remarks unusually quickly, so that he could head to Dover Air Force base in Delaware to participate in the dignified transfer of the remains of two soldiers killed recently in Afghanistan.

The president thanked Pelosi for giving Republicans the highest poll numbers they’ve “ever” had – or at least since 2005, according to a recent Gallup survey. Pelosi, who ripped up Trump’s State of the Union address as soon as it concluded, was widely criticized especially after videos emerged showing she had visibly torn some of the pages in advance.

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Video

Trump employs lyrics for Al Wilson’s ‘The Snake’ as allegory for illegal immigration

“Nine months from now, we are going to retake the House of Representatives, we are going to hold the Senate, and we are going to keep the White House,” Trump said to thunderous applause. “We have so much more enthusiasm, it’s not even close. They’re all fighting each other. … They don’t know what they’re doing; they can’t even count their votes.”

Perhaps worst of all, Trump said, liberals and the “fake news” media simply “can’t take a joke.”

Later, he again jabbed the Democrats over the Iowa caucus debacle and the party’s treatment of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.: “The Democratic Party wants to run your health care, but they can’t even run a caucus in Iowa. … Actually, I think they’re trying to take it away from Bernie again. They’re doing it to you again, Bernie! They’re doing it to you again.”

President Trump speaking at his campaign rally Monday in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Huge crowds gathered in the overflow viewing area outside the packed Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) arena in Manchester, which can hold approximately 11,000.

Earlier in the day, Trump retweeted a post from ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl: “Cold rain, snow and lots of Trump supporters. Despite the miserable weather, there are already more people lining up outside the venue of @realDonaldTrump‘s rally tonight than you see at most of the events for the Democratic candidates. Some have been out here all night.”

At the rally, Trump remarked to applause, “We have more in this arena and outside this arena than all of the other candidates, meaning the Democrats, put together and multiplied by five. … We have never had an empty seat from the day your future First Lady and I came down the escalator.”

JOE NO! BIDEN CALLS N.H. WOMAN A ‘LYING, DOG-FACED PONY SOLDIER’ – WHAT WESTERNS WAS HE REFERRING TO, EXACTLY?

Turning to illegal immigration and “insane” sanctuary cities – just minutes after Attorney General Bill Barr announced sweeping new sanctions against sanctuary cities – the president boasted that his administration had built over 100 miles of wall on the southern border.

“You have to see – you wouldn’t believe it, when that wall goes up, the numbers change like magic,” Trump said. “Two things never change: a wheel and a wall.”

The president then delivered a dramatic reading of a 1968 Al Wilson song that he used as an allegory to illegal immigration, in which a “tender woman” let a snake inside her home, only to suffer a “vicious bite.”

“‘Now I’m going to die,’” the woman complained. “‘Shut up, silly woman,’ said the reptile with a grin; ‘You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.’” Attendees both inside and outside the SNHU arena erupted in cheers.

President Donald Trump arrives at SNHU Arena to speak at a campaign rally, Monday, Feb. 10, 2020, in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The Mexican government has played a key role in keeping illegal border crossings down, the president added, noting that he had pressured the country to do so under the threat of tariffs last year. Washington Democrats, by contrast, “want to let anyone into our country” and “give them free health care” and “free education,” Trump said.

That was a reference to a recent presidential debate, when all candidates on stage seemingly endorsed the idea of paying for illegal immigrants’ health expenses.

BARR ANNOUNCES SANCTUARY CITY CRACKDOWN

Additionally, Trump again honored House Republican Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., saying he looked “better now than when he got shot” in 2017 by a radical Sanders supporter while playing softball. Capitol Police officers took down the attacker as Scalise tried to crawl away, in a dramatic moment that Trump recounted last week at the White House.

The president, as he did during the State of the Union, further touted the historically low unemployment numbers for the country and minority groups specifically, as the crowd screamed, “USA!” Democrats’ sweeping and expensive policies and regulations, Trump argued, would crush the stock market and reverse the ongoing economic boom.

“The Democratic Party wants to run your health care, but they can’t even run a caucus in Iowa.”

— President Trump

“To support working families, we have reduced the cost of child care, expanded paid leave, and given 40 million American families an average of $2,200 more in their pockets thanks to the Republican child tax credit,” Trump asserted. “We are the party of equal opportunity for all Americans.”

He added, “While the extreme left has been wasting America’s time with this vile hoax, we’ve been killing terrorists, creating jobs, raising wages, enacting fair trade deals, securing our borders, and lifting up citizens of every race, color, religion, and creed!”

Supporters waiting for the start of President Trump’s rally Monday in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

In an apparent flub as he attempted to appeal to the hometown crowd, Trump then seemingly confused the pivotal Revoluntary War site of Concord, Mass., with the less notable Concord, N.H.

“I love Concord. … That’s the same Concord we read about all the time, right?” Trump asked. In fact, the Battles of Lexington and Concord occurred in Massachusetts.

The rally was part of a tried-and-tested tactic for Trump: scheduling counter-programming to divert attention from the Democrats’ debates and other major moments, keeping him in the spotlight and building supporters’ enthusiasm in the months before Election Day.

Though it may not be the same show of force as last week, when dozens of Trump’s surrogates, including officials from across all levels of government, flooded the state of Iowa, the Trump campaign made its presence known in New Hampshire before the state’s primaries.

TRUMP BUDGET TOUCHES OFF NEW FIGHT OVER SPENDING; BUDGET CONTAINS MAJOR CUTS

Vice President Mike Pence and Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and senior adviser, got to the state ahead of the president to do some campaigning.

Also being deployed by the president’s re-election campaign: Scalise, Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and Trump’s former campaign manager, New Hampshire resident Corey Lewandowski.

Still, the marquee event has been Trump’s rally, and supporters started lining up for it Sunday. Images of bundled-up supporters camped outside the SNHU Arena in Manchester broke through the news coverage of the Democrats’ primary.

l

The audience cheers as President Donald Trump arrives on stage during a campaign rally, Monday, Feb. 10, 2020, in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

New Hampshire has always loomed large in Trump’s political lore as the first nominating contest he won during 2016’s heated Republican primaries.

He was about to take the stage at a rally in Manchester that October

!!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!!

Unfavorable polls!

Here Comes the Twitter Tantrum: Latest 2020 Poll Shows Top 6 Democrats Shivving Trump

FEBRUARY 10, 2020 6:12 PM

If you’ve been studying Donald Trump for any period of time, you know that despite claiming to have one of the “best temperaments” of “anybody that’s ever run for the office of president,” it takes very little to set him off. Examples of things that have inspired volcanic rage in the former real estate developer include but are certainly not limited to Academy Award acceptance speeches, Snoop Dogg, Nordstrom, the Kentucky Derby, wind turbines, ads about his weight, toilets, showers, sinks, lightbulbs, and dishwashers. So the news that a new poll has the top six Democrats all beating him in a general election will almost certainly inspire the sort of outburst typically reserved for Nancy Pelosi, if not dogs and maps (his true foes).

According to the latest Quinnipiac national poll, among registered voters, Trump would lose the 2020 election to Mike Bloomberg, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg if it were held today. For a guy who seemingly only quakes in fear at the idea of going head-to-head with Bloomberg or Biden, and who is all but begging voters to nominate the senator from Vermont, that’s not great news!

The poll also puts Trump’s favorability underwater, with just 42% of registered voters reporting a favorable opinion of him and 55% thinking he sucks (or reporting an “unfavorable” view of him). Notably, this is his best favorability rating since March 7, 2017. Anyway, stay tuned for the 12-alarm meltdown!

Trump praises China’s execution of drug dealers

The president, who is currently campaigning on his alleged support of criminal justice reform, said at the White House Monday that he’d love to tackle drug issues in the U.S. by taking a page from China’s playbook, where drug dealers are executed following a “fair but quick trial.”

twitter.com/atrupar/status/1226922067523768320
“States with a very powerful death penalty on drug dealers don’t have a drug problem,” Trump said during an event with governors. “I don’t know that our country is ready for that, but if you look throughout the world, the countries with a powerful death penalty—death penalty—with a fair but quick trial, they have very little if any drug problem. That includes China.” This isn’t the first time Trump has praised an authoritarian nation for sentencing drug dealers to death. In 2017, he congratulated Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, whose “shoot to kill” policy against drug dealers had resulted in at least 7,000 people being killed for doing an “unbelievable job on the drug problem.”

Nothing to see here, just the DOJ setting up a special hotline for Rudy Giuliani’s conspiracy theories

This definitely sounds legitimate and in no way another abuse of the president’s power:

Attorney General William P. Barr acknowledged Monday that the Justice Department would evaluate material that Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney, had gathered from Ukrainian sources claiming to have damaging information about former vice president Joe Biden and his family—though Barr and other officials suggested Giuliani was being treated no differently than any tipster. At a news conference on an unrelated case, Barr confirmed an assertion made Sunday by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) that the Justice Department had “created a process that Rudy could give information and they would see if it’s verified.” Barr said he had established an “intake process in the field” so that the Justice Department and intelligence agencies could scrutinize information they were given.

A Justice Department official said Giuliani had “recently” shared information with federal law enforcement officials through the process described by Barr. Two people familiar with the matter said the information is being routed to the U.S. attorney’s office in Pittsburgh. That Giuliani would have a direct pipeline to the Justice Department for providing information on a political rival of Trump raised fears among some legal analysts that federal law enforcement was being conscripted into doing campaign work for the president. The matter is complicated, too, because Giuliani is under investigation by the Justice Department. That case already has produced campaign finance charges against two of his associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who helped in Giuliani’s Ukraine-related pursuits.

Parnas and Fruman have both pleaded not guilty. Giuliani did not return a message from the Post seeking a request for comment, probably being too busy getting his important papers and cocktail-napkin scribbles re: Biden out of a storage unit in Queens.

Kellyanne Conway casually admits more people will probably be fired for retaliating against Trump

What, you thought he was just going to let people testify against him and get away with it, jobs and kneecaps intact?

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Monday hinted that additional officials could be forced out of their roles following the ousters last week of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Ambassador Gordon Sondland—both high-profile witnesses in the impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump. Asked during an interview on Fox & Friends whether there will be more dismissals in the days to come, Conway said, “maybe,” and sought to defend Vindman’s removal from a detail at the National Security Council. Vindman’s twin brother Yevgeny, who had served as a senior lawyer on the NSC, was also forced out of the White House on Friday. “In the case of the Vindman brothers, you remember, they were detailed here,” and remain “employed today,” Conway said, agreeing with host Steve Doocy’s assessment that the two former NSC staffers “didn’t get fired” but “just got relocated.”

You know, like how people who cooperate with the government against the mob don’t get their legs cut off, they just have them relocated from their bodies to a dumpster off of the New Jersey Turnpike.

“They are working at the Army, where they were. They were detailed to the NSC. This is typical,” Conway said. “I’ve had detailees on my small staff. This is very typical in a White House to have a detailee for a temporary period of time who then returns to what their full-time job is.” Conway did not explain why Vindman’s detail to the NSC ended on Friday when it was previously slated to finish in July.

As for Sondland, Conway suggested that the former U.S. envoy to the European Union should be grateful he was given his position in the first place after not just showing disloyalty to Trump vis-à-vis the whole Ukraine affair but failing to pledge his firstborn to the president the day he announced his candidacy for office. “He wrote a big check to the inauguration but wasn’t really there before the president improbably, unsurprisingly, won, for people like that,” Conway said of Sondland, who was named to his post after donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration committee. In other words, cutting a huge check for Team Trump, which is made up of cheap whores, will certainly get you a foot in the door but blind loyalty must be adhered to at all costs. Just something for would-be donors to remember about should there be a second term.

© Condé Nast 2020

Il
This Is What an Unleashed Trump Looks Like

The president is bestowing favor on his loyal defenders, and visiting revenge on those he feels have betrayed him.

FEBRUARY 11, 2020

The Justice Department announced today that it would withdraw Roger Stone’s sentencing recommendation in favor of a lighter sentence.

Updated on February 11 at 5:51 p.m.

The Senate’s acquittal of Donald Trump elicited predictions that the president would now be “unleashed,” freed to do as he pleased. His actions over the past few days offer a first glimpse of what that might look like. With the threat of accountability gone, or at least diminished, Trump is bestowing favor on his loyal defenders, and visiting revenge on those he feels have betrayed him.

Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, who testified in the impeachment hearings, was sacked from his post on the National Security Council, in what presidential aides made very clear was revenge. For good measure, so was his twin brother, a lawyer at the NSC and a fellow Army officer. Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, was asked to resign, and when he refused, he was fired Friday night. Elaine McCusker, who had been tapped to be Pentagon comptroller but clashed with the White House over freezing military aid to Ukraine, will have her nomination withdrawn, according to the New York Post.

And today, a day after prosecutors requested seven to nine years in prison for Roger Stone, the Justice Department suddenly intervened and announced that it would withdraw the recommendation in favor of a lighter sentence, a highly irregular move. Stone was convicted in November on seven counts, including witness tampering and making false statements, in a case that grew out of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into possible collusion with Russia in the 2016 election. Trump also tweeted angrily about the proposed sentence. “This is a horrible and very unfair situation,” he wrote. “The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!” Later, at the White House, Trump asserted an “absolute right” to intervene with the Department of Justice and called the prosecution of Stone “an insult to our country,” before saying he “had not been involved with it at all.”

David A. Graham: We still don’t know what happened between Trump and Russia

The intervention by the Justice Department led to a mass resignation from the case in protest by prosecutors. First Aaron Zelinsky, a former Mueller aide, resigned from the case. (Zelinsky remains an assistant U.S. attorney, a career position, in Maryland.) Two others, Adam Jed and Mike Marando, also dropped off the case. A fourth, Jonathan Kravis, resigned from DOJ altogether in protest.

The 2020 U.S. Presidential Race: A Cheat Sheet

DAVID A. GRAHAM
A Secret Service agent at Mar-a-Lago
Why Would a Billionaire Charge the Secret Service $650 a Night?
DAVID A. GRAHAM

Charity Toward None, Malice Toward All

This Is Donald Trump’s Best Week

The president has always been obsessed with loyalty, and in particular loyalty to himself, not to rule of law. He infamously asked then–FBI Director James Comey for loyalty in January 2017, and after concluding that he was not receiving it, fired Comey in May of that year. But for the most part, Trump has been somewhat restrained about flexing his muscles to enforce loyalty. He fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions, though Sessions had gotten that job only through political fealty. He tried to fire Mueller, but then–White House Counsel Don McGahn refused, and Trump relented.

Trump has been surprisingly spare with his pardon power. He hasn’t hesitated to hand out dubious pardons—to Dinesh D’Souza, for example, and former Sheriff Joe Arpaio—but he has so far not pardoned people like Paul Manafort, the former campaign chair who refused to testify against Trump and was sent to prison. Despite widespread predictions, Manafort remains in the clink.

David A. Graham: Trump won’t just violate the rules again—he’s already doing it

The president had reason to hesitate. Though the pardon power is not reviewable, abusing it raised the risk of backlash, as did intervening in prosecutions. Voters might have gotten angry; Congress might have decided to investigate or even impeach him. But Trump has now survived impeachment, and has a good sense of how consistently Senate Republicans have his back. Some have even argued that Trump has learned his lesson from the impeachment.

The administration’s rush to aid Stone, especially set against the retributive firings, shows Trump newly willing to flex his muscles, and demonstrates how Pollyannaish the predictions of a chastened Trump were. The apology for firing Vindman goes this way: Vindman remains an officer, and Trump has a right to aides on the National Security Council whom he trusts. But Trump also said Tuesday that the military should consider disciplining Vindman, whose only offense seems to have been complying with a lawful subpoena from Congress.

The intervention on behalf of Stone is particularly disturbing because he was convicted of lying to protect Trump. Thanks to Stone’s stonewalling, we still don’t really know what happened between Trump and Russia in 2016. Stone had Trump’s back, and now Trump has his. So much for the law-and-order president.

During the Senate impeachment trial, House managers and the president’s lawyers tangled over whether a president could be impeached for actions that didn’t break specific laws. Trump’s support of Stone, even if it ends here, shows the stakes of that debate. The president isn’t breaking any laws by intervening in this case, but he is making clear that he places personal loyalty ahead of enforcing the rule of law.

DAVID A. GRAHAM is a staff writer at The Atlantic.
Connect

1 The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President

Copyright © 2020 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved

POLITICO

CONGRESS


Reining Trump in?

Senate to rein in Trump’s war powers after Iran strike

“The last thing this country should do is rush into or blunder into another war in the Middle East," says Tim Kaine.

Sen. Tim Kaine introduced a War Powers resolution that would curb President Donald Trump’s ability to launch military actions. | Jose Lui

The Senate is set to pass a bipartisan resolution this week to limit President Donald Trump’s authority to launch military operations against Iran weeks after the U.S. killed a top Iranian general.

The War Powers resolution, introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), will come to the floor Wednesday with a final expected vote Thursday. While the measure is not likely to garner enough support to overturn a likely Trump veto, its expected passage in the Senate nevertheless illustrates a rare congressional effort to rein in the president’s executive authority.

In addition to all 47 Democrats, the measure so far has support from Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Todd Young of Indiana, Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Jerry Moran of Kansas. The Democratic senators running for president are expected to be in Washington for the vote on Thursday, ensuring that the 51-vote threshold for the War Powers resolution will be met.

“The last thing this country should do is rush into or blunder into another war in the Middle East. And no matter who our president is, no president is smart enough to, on their own, make that kind of a decision without deliberation,” Kaine said in an interview. “The logic of the idea just gets more and more persuasive the more time that elapses after 9/11.”

Indeed, Congress has abdicated war-making powers to the executive branch in the years after both chambers adopted authorizations for the use of military force against al Qaeda in 2001 and against Iraq in 2002. The war powers issue rose to prominence yet again last month in the days following Trump’s Jan. 2 order of an airstrike that killed Qassim Soleimani, the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds force and a longtime target of American military operations.

If the War Powers measure is approved by both chambers as expected, it will be the second time such an effort has reached Trump’s desk. Last year, the House and Senate passed a War Powers resolution intended to cut off U.S. military support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen’s civil war — the first time both chambers of Congress used the 1973 War Powers Act to constrain presidential authority. Trump vetoed that resolution.

Iranian Major Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Kaine’s bill would require Trump to cease all hostilities targeting Iran within 30 days unless explicitly approved by Congress. He has modified the original language of the resolution to attract Republican support, including nixing references to Trump. The measure — privileged under the War Powers Act — was on hold during the Senate’s three week impeachment trial, which concluded last week.

Like the Yemen vote, Kaine’s effort will expose long-standing foreign policy divisions within the Republican Party. While the vast majority of Senate Republicans share the party’s historically hawkish positions and supported Trump’s decision to take out Soleimani, several GOP senators have teamed up with Democrats in recent years to force votes to rein in presidential war-making powers.

“I think we’ve abdicated our duty to decide whether we should still be at war or not,” said Paul, who has long opposed U.S. interventions in foreign conflicts and has worked with Democrats over the years on war powers issues. “So the War Powers Act vote for me is just an opportunity to discuss whether or not we should still be at war in Afghanistan or Iraq or any of these places.”

“I’m just ensuring that Congress fulfills our article one responsibilities, that’s all this is about,” added Young.

The views of Paul and Young run counter to those expressed by Senate GOP leaders, who have long supported giving the commander-in-chief wide latitude to order military operations abroad.

“Just as we have successfully sent Iran this strong signal of our strength and resolve, a blunt and clumsy War Powers resolution would tie our own hands,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Tuesday. “With China and Russia watching, is it really a good idea to suggest that we’re willing to let a middling power like Iran push us around?”

While Republicans acknowledge the disagreements within their own party, they have sought to portray the GOP senators supporting Kaine’s bill as outliers.

“I know there are some divisions in our conference, but I think the overwhelming majority [of Republicans] will vote against it for unnecessarily tying the hands of the president,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “I mean, we all agree that Congress plays an important role, and we’re not as nimble in actually responding to exigent circumstances.”

Congressional Republicans generally praised Trump for the strike against Soleimani, but Democrats and even some Trump allies questioned the justification for the strike as well as Trump’s authority to carry it out without congressional approval.

Emerging from an all-senators classified briefing on the Soleimani killing last month, Lee said Trump administration officials advised lawmakers to not debate presidential war powers. Lee called the suggestion “insulting and demeaning.”

“The worst briefing I’ve seen — at least on a military issue — in the nine years I’ve served” in the Senate, Lee said.

White House and Pentagon officials have repeatedly asserted that Trump had the authority to take out Soleimani, pointing to the 2001 and 2002 authorizations for the use of military force.

Trump himself has expressed disparate views on U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts. While he has campaigned on “ending endless wars,” he has steadfastly resisted congressional efforts to curb U.S. military incursions abroad. Paul, who informally advises Trump on foreign policy and national security matters, has tried to veer the president toward a more non-interventionist posture. But, he added, “We’ve just got to get him some better advisers.”

In the face of a likely veto from the president, Democrats are casting the vote as a symbolic rebuke but also a re-affirmation of Congress’ authority.

“The president will veto it, but it sends a shot across his bow that the majority of the Senate and the majority of the House do not want the president waging war without congressional approval,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. “And once again, the American people are overwhelmingly on our side.”

Kaine said that even if Trump vetoes the resolution, the measure could nevertheless influence his behavior and decision-making when it comes to U.S. policy in the Middle East.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Tuesday that he expects the House to vote on the Senate bill later this month.

© 2020 POLITICO LLC

POLITICO

CONGRESS

Senate to rein in Trump’s war powers after Iran strike

“The last thing this country should do is rush into or blunder into another war in the Middle East," says Tim Kaine.

Sen. Tim Kaine introduced a War Powers resolution that would curb President Donald Trump’s ability to launch military actions. | Jose Lui

The Senate is set to pass a bipartisan resolution this week to limit President Donald Trump’s authority to launch military operations against Iran weeks after the U.S. killed a top Iranian general.

The War Powers resolution, introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), will come to the floor Wednesday with a final expected vote Thursday. While the measure is not likely to garner enough support to overturn a likely Trump veto, its expected passage in the Senate nevertheless illustrates a rare congressional effort to rein in the president’s executive authority.

In addition to all 47 Democrats, the measure so far has support from Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Todd Young of Indiana, Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Jerry Moran of Kansas. The Democratic senators running for president are expected to be in Washington for the vote on Thursday, ensuring that the 51-vote threshold for the War Powers resolution will be met.

“The last thing this country should do is rush into or blunder into another war in the Middle East. And no matter who our president is, no president is smart enough to, on their own, make that kind of a decision without deliberation,” Kaine said in an interview. “The logic of the idea just gets more and more persuasive the more time that elapses after 9/11.”

Indeed, Congress has abdicated war-making powers to the executive branch in the years after both chambers adopted authorizations for the use of military force against al Qaeda in 2001 and against Iraq in 2002. The war powers issue rose to prominence yet again last month in the days following Trump’s Jan. 2 order of an airstrike that killed Qassim Soleimani, the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds force and a longtime target of American military operations.

If the War Powers measure is approved by both chambers as expected, it will be the second time such an effort has reached Trump’s desk. Last year, the House and Senate passed a War Powers resolution intended to cut off U.S. military support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen’s civil war — the first time both chambers of Congress used the 1973 War Powers Act to constrain presidential authority. Trump vetoed that resolution.

Iranian Major Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Kaine’s bill would require Trump to cease all hostilities targeting Iran within 30 days unless explicitly approved by Congress. He has modified the original language of the resolution to attract Republican support, including nixing references to Trump. The measure — privileged under the War Powers Act — was on hold during the Senate’s three week impeachment trial, which concluded last week.

Like the Yemen vote, Kaine’s effort will expose long-standing foreign policy divisions within the Republican Party. While the vast majority of Senate Republicans share the party’s historically hawkish positions and supported Trump’s decision to take out Soleimani, several GOP senators have teamed up with Democrats in recent years to force votes to rein in presidential war-making powers.

“I think we’ve abdicated our duty to decide whether we should still be at war or not,” said Paul, who has long opposed U.S. interventions in foreign conflicts and has worked with Democrats over the years on war powers issues. “So the War Powers Act vote for me is just an opportunity to discuss whether or not we should still be at war in Afghanistan or Iraq or any of these places.”

“I’m just ensuring that Congress fulfills our article one responsibilities, that’s all this is about,” added Young.

The views of Paul and Young run counter to those expressed by Senate GOP leaders, who have long supported giving the commander-in-chief wide latitude to order military operations abroad.

“Just as we have successfully sent Iran this strong signal of our strength and resolve, a blunt and clumsy War Powers resolution would tie our own hands,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Tuesday. “With China and Russia watching, is it really a good idea to suggest that we’re willing to let a middling power like Iran push us around?”

While Republicans acknowledge the disagreements within their own party, they have sought to portray the GOP senators supporting Kaine’s bill as outliers.

“I know there are some divisions in our conference, but I think the overwhelming majority [of Republicans] will vote against it for unnecessarily tying the hands of the president,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “I mean, we all agree that Congress plays an important role, and we’re not as nimble in actually responding to exigent circumstances.”

Congressional Republicans generally praised Trump for the strike against Soleimani, but Democrats and even some Trump allies questioned the justification for the strike as well as Trump’s authority to carry it out without congressional approval.

Emerging from an all-senators classified briefing on the Soleimani killing last month, Lee said Trump administration officials advised lawmakers to not debate presidential war powers. Lee called the suggestion “insulting and demeaning.”

“The worst briefing I’ve seen — at least on a military issue — in the nine years I’ve served” in the Senate, Lee said.

White House and Pentagon officials have repeatedly asserted that Trump had the authority to take out Soleimani, pointing to the 2001 and 2002 authorizations for the use of military force.

Trump himself has expressed disparate views on U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts. While he has campaigned on “ending endless wars,” he has steadfastly resisted congressional efforts to curb U.S. military incursions abroad. Paul, who informally advises Trump on foreign policy and national security matters, has tried to veer the president toward a more non-interventionist posture. But, he added, “We’ve just got to get him some better advisers.”

In the face of a likely veto from the president, Democrats are casting the vote as a symbolic rebuke but also a re-affirmation of Congress’ authority.

“The president will veto it, but it sends a shot across his bow that the majority of the Senate and the majority of the House do not want the president waging war without congressional approval,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. “And once again, the American people are overwhelmingly on our side.”

Kaine said that even if Trump vetoes the resolution, the measure could nevertheless influence his behavior and decision-making when it comes to U.S. policy in the Middle East.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Tuesday that he expects the House to vote on the Senate bill later this month.

© 2020 POLITICO LLC

POLITICO

CONGRESS

Senate to rein in Trump’s war powers after Iran strike

“The last thing this country should do is rush into or blunder into another war in the Middle East," says Tim Kaine.

Sen. Tim Kaine introduced a War Powers resolution that would curb President Donald Trump’s ability to launch military actions. | Jose Lui

The Senate is set to pass a bipartisan resolution this week to limit President Donald Trump’s authority to launch military operations against Iran weeks after the U.S. killed a top Iranian general.

The War Powers resolution, introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), will come to the floor Wednesday with a final expected vote Thursday. While the measure is not likely to garner enough support to overturn a likely Trump veto, its expected passage in the Senate nevertheless illustrates a rare congressional effort to rein in the president’s executive authority.

In addition to all 47 Democrats, the measure so far has support from Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Todd Young of Indiana, Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Jerry Moran of Kansas. The Democratic senators running for president are expected to be in Washington for the vote on Thursday, ensuring that the 51-vote threshold for the War Powers resolution will be met.

“The last thing this country should do is rush into or blunder into another war in the Middle East. And no matter who our president is, no president is smart enough to, on their own, make that kind of a decision without deliberation,” Kaine said in an interview. “The logic of the idea just gets more and more persuasive the more time that elapses after 9/11.”

Indeed, Congress has abdicated war-making powers to the executive branch in the years after both chambers adopted authorizations for the use of military force against al Qaeda in 2001 and against Iraq in 2002. The war powers issue rose to prominence yet again last month in the days following Trump’s Jan. 2 order of an airstrike that killed Qassim Soleimani, the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds force and a longtime target of American military operations.

If the War Powers measure is approved by both chambers as expected, it will be the second time such an effort has reached Trump’s desk. Last year, the House and Senate passed a War Powers resolution intended to cut off U.S. military support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen’s civil war — the first time both chambers of Congress used the 1973 War Powers Act to constrain presidential authority. Trump vetoed that resolution.

Iranian Major Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Kaine’s bill would require Trump to cease all hostilities targeting Iran within 30 days unless explicitly approved by Congress. He has modified the original language of the resolution to attract Republican support, including nixing references to Trump. The measure — privileged under the War Powers Act — was on hold during the Senate’s three week impeachment trial, which concluded last week.

Like the Yemen vote, Kaine’s effort will expose long-standing foreign policy divisions within the Republican Party. While the vast majority of Senate Republicans share the party’s historically hawkish positions and supported Trump’s decision to take out Soleimani, several GOP senators have teamed up with Democrats in recent years to force votes to rein in presidential war-making powers.

“I think we’ve abdicated our duty to decide whether we should still be at war or not,” said Paul, who has long opposed U.S. interventions in foreign conflicts and has worked with Democrats over the years on war powers issues. “So the War Powers Act vote for me is just an opportunity to discuss whether or not we should still be at war in Afghanistan or Iraq or any of these places.”

“I’m just ensuring that Congress fulfills our article one responsibilities, that’s all this is about,” added Young.

The views of Paul and Young run counter to those expressed by Senate GOP leaders, who have long supported giving the commander-in-chief wide latitude to order military operations abroad.

“Just as we have successfully sent Iran this strong signal of our strength and resolve, a blunt and clumsy War Powers resolution would tie our own hands,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Tuesday. “With China and Russia watching, is it really a good idea to suggest that we’re willing to let a middling power like Iran push us around?”

While Republicans acknowledge the disagreements within their own party, they have sought to portray the GOP senators supporting Kaine’s bill as outliers.

“I know there are some divisions in our conference, but I think the overwhelming majority [of Republicans] will vote against it for unnecessarily tying the hands of the president,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “I mean, we all agree that Congress plays an important role, and we’re not as nimble in actually responding to exigent circumstances.”

Congressional Republicans generally praised Trump for the strike against Soleimani, but Democrats and even some Trump allies questioned the justification for the strike as well as Trump’s authority to carry it out without congressional approval.

Emerging from an all-senators classified briefing on the Soleimani killing last month, Lee said Trump administration officials advised lawmakers to not debate presidential war powers. Lee called the suggestion “insulting and demeaning.”

“The worst briefing I’ve seen — at least on a military issue — in the nine years I’ve served” in the Senate, Lee said.

White House and Pentagon officials have repeatedly asserted that Trump had the authority to take out Soleimani, pointing to the 2001 and 2002 authorizations for the use of military force.

Trump himself has expressed disparate views on U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts. While he has campaigned on “ending endless wars,” he has steadfastly resisted congressional efforts to curb U.S. military incursions abroad. Paul, who informally advises Trump on foreign policy and national security matters, has tried to veer the president toward a more non-interventionist posture. But, he added, “We’ve just got to get him some better advisers.”

In the face of a likely veto from the president, Democrats are casting the vote as a symbolic rebuke but also a re-affirmation of Congress’ authority.

“The president will veto it, but it sends a shot across his bow that the majority of the Senate and the majority of the House do not want the president waging war without congressional approval,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. “And once again, the American people are overwhelmingly on our side.”

Kaine said that even if Trump vetoes the resolution, the measure could nevertheless influence his behavior and decision-making when it comes to U.S. policy in the Middle East.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Tuesday that he expects the House to vote on the Senate bill later this month.

© 2020 POLITICO LLC

POLITICO

CONGRESS

Senate to rein in Trump’s war powers after Iran strike

“The last thing this country should do is rush into or blunder into another war in the Middle East," says Tim Kaine.

Sen. Tim Kaine introduced a War Powers resolution that would curb President Donald Trump’s ability to launch military actions. | Jose Lui

The Senate is set to pass a bipartisan resolution this week to limit President Donald Trump’s authority to launch military operations against Iran weeks after the U.S. killed a top Iranian general.

The War Powers resolution, introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), will come to the floor Wednesday with a final expected vote Thursday. While the measure is not likely to garner enough support to overturn a likely Trump veto, its expected passage in the Senate nevertheless illustrates a rare congressional effort to rein in the president’s executive authority.

In addition to all 47 Democrats, the measure so far has support from Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Todd Young of Indiana, Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Jerry Moran of Kansas. The Democratic senators running for president are expected to be in Washington for the vote on Thursday, ensuring that the 51-vote threshold for the War Powers resolution will be met.

“The last thing this country should do is rush into or blunder into another war in the Middle East. And no matter who our president is, no president is smart enough to, on their own, make that kind of a decision without deliberation,” Kaine said in an interview. “The logic of the idea just gets more and more persuasive the more time that elapses after 9/11.”

Indeed, Congress has abdicated war-making powers to the executive branch in the years after both chambers adopted authorizations for the use of military force against al Qaeda in 2001 and against Iraq in 2002. The war powers issue rose to prominence yet again last month in the days following Trump’s Jan. 2 order of an airstrike that killed Qassim Soleimani, the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds force and a longtime target of American military operations.

If the War Powers measure is approved by both chambers as expected, it will be the second time such an effort has reached Trump’s desk. Last year, the House and Senate passed a War Powers resolution intended to cut off U.S. military support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen’s civil war — the first time both chambers of Congress used the 1973 War Powers Act to constrain presidential authority. Trump vetoed that resolution.

Iranian Major Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Kaine’s bill would require Trump to cease all hostilities targeting Iran within 30 days unless explicitly approved by Congress. He has modified the original language of the resolution to attract Republican support, including nixing references to Trump. The measure — privileged under the War Powers Act — was on hold during the Senate’s three week impeachment trial, which concluded last week.

Like the Yemen vote, Kaine’s effort will expose long-standing foreign policy divisions within the Republican Party. While the vast majority of Senate Republicans share the party’s historically hawkish positions and supported Trump’s decision to take out Soleimani, several GOP senators have teamed up with Democrats in recent years to force votes to rein in presidential war-making powers.

“I think we’ve abdicated our duty to decide whether we should still be at war or not,” said Paul, who has long opposed U.S. interventions in foreign conflicts and has worked with Democrats over the years on war powers issues. “So the War Powers Act vote for me is just an opportunity to discuss whether or not we should still be at war in Afghanistan or Iraq or any of these places.”

“I’m just ensuring that Congress fulfills our article one responsibilities, that’s all this is about,” added Young.

The views of Paul and Young run counter to those expressed by Senate GOP leaders, who have long supported giving the commander-in-chief wide latitude to order military operations abroad.

“Just as we have successfully sent Iran this strong signal of our strength and resolve, a blunt and clumsy War Powers resolution would tie our own hands,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Tuesday. “With China and Russia watching, is it really a good idea to suggest that we’re willing to let a middling power like Iran push us around?”

While Republicans acknowledge the disagreements within their own party, they have sought to portray the GOP senators supporting Kaine’s bill as outliers.

“I know there are some divisions in our conference, but I think the overwhelming majority [of Republicans] will vote against it for unnecessarily tying the hands of the president,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “I mean, we all agree that Congress plays an important role, and we’re not as nimble in actually responding to exigent circumstances.”

Congressional Republicans generally praised Trump for the strike against Soleimani, but Democrats and even some Trump allies questioned the justification for the strike as well as Trump’s authority to carry it out without congressional approval.

Emerging from an all-senators classified briefing on the Soleimani killing last month, Lee said Trump administration officials advised lawmakers to not debate presidential war powers. Lee called the suggestion “insulting and demeaning.”

“The worst briefing I’ve seen — at least on a military issue — in the nine years I’ve served” in the Senate, Lee said.

White House and Pentagon officials have repeatedly asserted that Trump had the authority to take out Soleimani, pointing to the 2001 and 2002 authorizations for the use of military force.

Trump himself has expressed disparate views on U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts. While he has campaigned on “ending endless wars,” he has steadfastly resisted congressional efforts to curb U.S. military incursions abroad. Paul, who informally advises Trump on foreign policy and national security matters, has tried to veer the president toward a more non-interventionist posture. But, he added, “We’ve just got to get him some better advisers.”

In the face of a likely veto from the president, Democrats are casting the vote as a symbolic rebuke but also a re-affirmation of Congress’ authority.

“The president will veto it, but it sends a shot across his bow that the majority of the Senate and the majority of the House do not want the president waging war without congressional approval,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. “And once again, the American people are overwhelmingly on our side.”

Kaine said that even if Trump vetoes the resolution, the measure could nevertheless influence his behavior and decision-making when it comes to U.S. policy in the Middle East.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Tuesday that he expects the House to vote on the Senate bill later this month.

© 2020 POLITICO LLC

POLITICO

CONGRESS

Senate to rein in Trump’s war powers after Iran strike

“The last thing this country should do is rush into or blunder into another war in the Middle East," says Tim Kaine.

Sen. Tim Kaine introduced a War Powers resolution that would curb President Donald Trump’s ability to launch military actions. | Jose Lui

The Senate is set to pass a bipartisan resolution this week to limit President Donald Trump’s authority to launch military operations against Iran weeks after the U.S. killed a top Iranian general.

The War Powers resolution, introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), will come to the floor Wednesday with a final expected vote Thursday. While the measure is not likely to garner enough support to overturn a likely Trump veto, its expected passage in the Senate nevertheless illustrates a rare congressional effort to rein in the president’s executive authority.

In addition to all 47 Democrats, the measure so far has support from Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Todd Young of Indiana, Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Jerry Moran of Kansas. The Democratic senators running for president are expected to be in Washington for the vote on Thursday, ensuring that the 51-vote threshold for the War Powers resolution will be met.

“The last thing this country should do is rush into or blunder into another war in the Middle East. And no matter who our president is, no president is smart enough to, on their own, make that kind of a decision without deliberation,” Kaine said in an interview. “The logic of the idea just gets more and more persuasive the more time that elapses after 9/11.”

Indeed, Congress has abdicated war-making powers to the executive branch in the years after both chambers adopted authorizations for the use of military force against al Qaeda in 2001 and against Iraq in 2002. The war powers issue rose to prominence yet again last month in the days following Trump’s Jan. 2 order of an airstrike that killed Qassim Soleimani, the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds force and a longtime target of American military operations.

If the War Powers measure is approved by both chambers as expected, it will be the second time such an effort has reached Trump’s desk. Last year, the House and Senate passed a War Powers resolution intended to cut off U.S. military support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen’s civil war — the first time both chambers of Congress used the 1973 War Powers Act to constrain presidential authority. Trump vetoed that resolution.

Iranian Major Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Kaine’s bill would require Trump to cease all hostilities targeting Iran within 30 days unless explicitly approved by Congress. He has modified the original language of the resolution to attract Republican support, including nixing references to Trump. The measure — privileged under the War Powers Act — was on hold during the Senate’s three week impeachment trial, which concluded last week.

Like the Yemen vote, Kaine’s effort will expose long-standing foreign policy divisions within the Republican Party. While the vast majority of Senate Republicans share the party’s historically hawkish positions and supported Trump’s decision to take out Soleimani, several GOP senators have teamed up with Democrats in recent years to force votes to rein in presidential war-making powers.

“I think we’ve abdicated our duty to decide whether we should still be at war or not,” said Paul, who has long opposed U.S. interventions in foreign conflicts and has worked with Democrats over the years on war powers issues. “So the War Powers Act vote for me is just an opportunity to discuss whether or not we should still be at war in Afghanistan or Iraq or any of these places.”

“I’m just ensuring that Congress fulfills our article one responsibilities, that’s all this is about,” added Young.

The views of Paul and Young run counter to those expressed by Senate GOP leaders, who have long supported giving the commander-in-chief wide latitude to order military operations abroad.

“Just as we have successfully sent Iran this strong signal of our strength and resolve, a blunt and clumsy War Powers resolution would tie our own hands,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Tuesday. “With China and Russia watching, is it really a good idea to suggest that we’re willing to let a middling power like Iran push us around?”

While Republicans acknowledge the disagreements within their own party, they have sought to portray the GOP senators supporting Kaine’s bill as outliers.

“I know there are some divisions in our conference, but I think the overwhelming majority [of Republicans] will vote against it for unnecessarily tying the hands of the president,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “I mean, we all agree that Congress plays an important role, and we’re not as nimble in actually responding to exigent circumstances.”

Congressional Republicans generally praised Trump for the strike against Soleimani, but Democrats and even some Trump allies questioned the justification for the strike as well as Trump’s authority to carry it out without congressional approval.

Emerging from an all-senators classified briefing on the Soleimani killing last month, Lee said Trump administration officials advised lawmakers to not debate presidential war powers. Lee called the suggestion “insulting and demeaning.”

“The worst briefing I’ve seen — at least on a military issue — in the nine years I’ve served” in the Senate, Lee said.

White House and Pentagon officials have repeatedly asserted that Trump had the authority to take out Soleimani, pointing to the 2001 and 2002 authorizations for the use of military force.

Trump himself has expressed disparate views on U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts. While he has campaigned on “ending endless wars,” he has steadfastly resisted congressional efforts to curb U.S. military incursions abroad. Paul, who informally advises Trump on foreign policy and national security matters, has tried to veer the president toward a more non-interventionist posture. But, he added, “We’ve just got to get him some better advisers.”

In the face of a likely veto from the president, Democrats are casting the vote as a symbolic rebuke but also a re-affirmation of Congress’ authority.

“The president will veto it, but it sends a shot across his bow that the majority of the Senate and the majority of the House do not want the president waging war without congressional approval,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. “And once again, the American people are overwhelmingly on our side.”

Kaine said that even if Trump vetoes the resolution, the measure could nevertheless influence his behavior and decision-making when it comes to U.S. policy in the Middle East.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Tuesday that he expects the House to vote on the Senate bill later this month.

© 2020 POLITICO LLC

////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\

Roger Stone

POLITICO

WHITE HOUSE

‘Really shocking’: Trump’s meddling in Stone case stuns Washington

Alarmed veterans of the Justice Department said the legal system was entering uncharted territory.

President Donald Trump’s post-impeachment acquittal behavior is casting a chill in Washington, with Attorney General William Barr emerging as a key ally in the president’s quest for vengeance against the law enforcement and national security establishment that initiated the Russia and Ukraine investigations.

In perhaps the most tumultuous day yet for the Justice Department under Trump, four top prosecutors withdrew on Tuesday from a case involving the president’s longtime friend Roger Stone after senior department officials overrode their sentencing recommendation—a backpedaling that DOJ veterans and legal experts suspect was influenced by Trump’s own displeasure with the prosecutors’ judgment.

“With Bill Barr, on an amazing number of occasions … you can be almost 100 percent certain that there’s something improper going on,” said Donald Ayer, the former deputy attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration.

The president has only inflamed such suspicions, congratulating Barr on Wednesday for intervening in Stone’s case and teeing off hours later on the prosecutors, calling them “Mueller people” who treated Stone “very badly.”

The president said he had not spoken with Barr about the matter, but Ayer called the attorney general’s apparent intervention “really shocking,” because Barr “has now entered into the area of criminal sanction, which is the one area probably more than any other where it’s most important that the Justice Department’s conduct be above reproach and beyond suspicion.”

To many of Trump’s critics, the episode was the most alarming in a series of Trump’s post-acquittal reprisals: Last week, he dismissed two officials who were key witnesses in his impeachment— Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland—and a third, NSC ethics lawyer Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, whose main indiscretion seemed to be his last name. The Vindmans, who are twin brothers, have returned to the Army.

Barr’s evident intervention in matters of personal interest to the president, particularly as they relate to former campaign advisers once at the center of Mueller’s Russia probe, has now put the reputation of an entire institution at risk, DOJ veterans said. It sent an alarming signal to hundreds of line attorneys inside the department, who may now fear that any work touching on the president’s allies will be subject to political interference, they said. And it could undo decades of post-Watergate work to separate the president from the justice system, in ways that could damage DOJ’s credibility with federal judges and with the public as a whole.

“I do have concerns regarding the independence of that office on certain matters, and to some extent, the office’s credibility, particularly with judges,” said Channing Phillips, who served as the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia from October 2015 to September 2017.

LEGAL

Roger Stone trial witness defends prosecutors from Trump’s ‘vile smear job’

BY QUINT FORGEY

The president’s campaign of retribution apparently doesn’t stop there: He also pulled former U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu’s nomination to serve in a senior Treasury Department post, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin confirmed during a hearing on Wednesday.

As the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Liu oversaw the prosecutions of Stone, Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, while the office’s case against former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe—who Trump has repeatedly lambasted—has languished without an indictment.

Mnuchin would not tell the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday why Liu’s nomination was withdrawn. Liu, who at one point was considered for the No. 3 job at the Justice Department, would likely have faced tough questions from lawmakers about the president’s conduct during her public confirmation hearing that was scheduled for Thursday.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the record on Wednesday. But DOJ veterans and other legal experts who spoke to POLITICO unanimously agreed that Tuesday’s act of protest by the career prosecutors on the Stone case was unprecedented.

“I’ve never seen anything this dramatic,” said Mary McCord, the former acting assistant attorney general for national security, who accused Barr and his deputy Jeffrey Rosen of being “willing to do the president’s bidding for political purposes in individual cases.”

The four attorneys who withdrew from the Stone case “should be seen as heroes in some respects,” said Phillips. “It was obviously a courageous action on their part.”

“It’s a pretty dramatic thing to do,” said Edward MacMahon, Jr., a veteran D.C. defense attorney who has dealt with the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office for decades. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this.”

Trump criticized the prosecutors in harsh terms in his off-the-cuff remarks on Wednesday, contrasting the high end of their recommended sentence for Stone to those doled out to “murderers and drug addicts.”

“They put him in for nine years,” Trump said. “It’s a disgrace.”

That argument angered even some Republicans, who said it amounted to a demand for favorable treatment for the president’s allies.

“There are literally tens of thousands of people in prison under such very harsh sentences,” said Charles Fried, the former solicitor general under President Ronald Reagan. “The question is: Do you get to be treated differently from this vast army of harshly punished persons because you are in fact a crony of the president? Well, I think the question answers itself.”

Nor is Stone the first Trump ally to benefit from his attempts to influence the justice system, others noted.

Eddie Gallagher, a retired Navy SEAL who had been demoted and charged with war crimes, was freed from pretrial detention and had his rank restored by Trump after being convicted of posing for a picture with a dead ISIS fighter. Richard Spencer, the Navy secretary at the time, asked Trump not to intervene further and was fired; Special Warfare Rear Adm. Collin Green, a Navy admiral who clashed with Trump over the Gallagher case, will reportedly resign his post early.

Eddie Gallagher.

Trump declared on Tuesday that he had an “absolute right” to intervene in the Stone case, though he denied doing so. And his allies cautioned that the post-Watergate model of clear boundaries between the president and the Justice Department is just an accepted norm, not a legal imperative.

John Dowd, a former DOJ attorney who was Trump’s personal lawyer for a portion of the Mueller probe, said that “this idea that DOJ is independent of the president is nonsense.”

Dowd said it appeared to him that the prosecutors, “the same crowd wedded to the Mueller agenda,” had been “grossly insubordinate” in recommending a steep sentence for Stone despite senior DOJ officials’ reported objections, and that Barr was doing the right thing by “cleaning up” the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office.

“Trump wasn’t out of line,” Dowd added. “He is the chief law enforcement officer. He has the right to react, and [the sentencing recommendation] was horrible.”

Mark Corallo, a former Bush DOJ official who also served briefly as the spokesman for Trump’s legal team, said he thought Barr had “finally done the right thing.”

“The idea that career prosecutors would ask for a 9-year sentence against Roger Stone on a process crime is the very definition of cruel and unusual punishment,” he said.

MacMahon, the defense attorney, noted that while he believes the sentencing guidelines are “out of whack,” and that the 7-9 year sentence prosecutors recommended for Stone was “heavy and unrealistic,” Trump’s comments were still inappropriate. “Should the president be intervening publicly in a criminal case?” he said. “I don’t think so.”

“Barr works for the president. That’s a matter of fact,” he added. “But that doesn’t mean DOJ’s decisions have to be political—they’re supposed to be in furtherance of the rule of law.”

Not even members of the conservative Federalist Society, whose co-chairman Leonard Leo has helped Trump stock the nation’s courts with conservative judges, seemed completely comfortable with the president’s conduct.

“I’m not super bothered in that it isn’t uncommon for senior members of DOJ to ‘interfere’ with individual prosecutions done by U.S. attorneys,” said one member of the Federalist Society who clerked for a conservative Supreme Court justice. But “from an optics perspective, sure, it is concerning,” this person acknowledged, adding that “it looks like Trump is getting involved in his friends’” cases.

The fact that Stone’s crime was related to election interference, which is what Trump was impeached over, only makes it look worse, this person said.

Another Federalist Society member and former Trump administration official acknowledged that the prosecutors’ withdrawal had damaged the image of the Justice Department, but characterized the furor over the Stone case as the result of “a horrible lack of communication” between DOJ leadership and the prosecutors on the case.

But DOJ veterans disputed that.

President Donald Trump.

“Under department policy, the sentencing recommendation would have been reached after consultation all the way up” through the attorney general, McCord said.

Former FBI general counsel Jim Baker echoed that assessment, noting that the “ethos of DOJ is to operate by consensus.”

The prosecutors’ withdrawing from the case is a sign that that didn’t happen, Baker said, and is “a very strong statement that something seriously wrong was afoot.”

Ultimately, Stone’s fate will be left to Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who Trump has attacked with unfounded accusations of political bias.

Jackson denied Stone’s motion for a new trial last week and Stone is set to be sentenced on February 20. Baker said he expects Jackson to put the lawyers on the record about the sentencing confusion, “to find out why DOJ so dramatically changed its legal position and all of the lawyers resigned from the case,” he said. The revised memo the DOJ put out on Tuesday was signed by U.S. Attorney Timothy Shea and his Criminal Division supervisor, John Crabb, Jr.

Stone’s allies, meanwhile, are still hoping for a presidential pardon. “This entire investigation was a political hit job, and we believe the MAGA movement agrees: The president should pardon Roger Stone,” said Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign adviser who founded a committee on Wednesday aimed at encouraging a pardon for Stone.

Trump has not ruled it out. But a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed hope that the president opts against it.

“It’s not necessary. Because the guy committed serious crimes,” the official said, referring to Stone. “Donald Trump is impressed when people do a good job for him and don’t make themselves the story. Oh, and don’t break the law.”

© 2020 POLITICO LLC

ABCNews

Barr blasts Trump’s tweets on Stone case: ‘Impossible for me to do my job’: ABC News Exclusive

In an exclusive interview, Attorney General Bill Barr told ABC News on Thursday that President Donald Trump "has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case” but should stop tweeting about the Justice Department because his tweets “make it impossible for me to do my job.”

Barr’s comments are a rare break with a president who the attorney general has aligned himself with and fiercely defended. But it also puts Barr in line with many of Trump’s supporters on Capitol Hill who say they support the president but wish he’d cut back on his tweets.

“I think it’s time to stop the tweeting about Department of Justice criminal cases,” Barr told ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas.

When asked if he was prepared for the consequences of criticizing the president – his boss – Barr said “of course” because his job is to run the Justice Department and make decisions on “what I think is the right thing to do.”

Attorney General William Barr speaks to ABC News’ Pierre Thomas during an interview on Feb. 13, 2020.

“I’m not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody … whether it’s Congress, a newspaper editorial board, or the president,” Barr said. “I’m gonna do what I think is right. And you know … I cannot do my job here at the department with a constant background commentary that undercuts me.”

Attorney General William Barr speaks to ABC News’’ Pierre Thomas during an interview on Feb. 13, 2020.

Barr ignited a firestorm this week after top Justice Department officials intervened in the sentencing of Roger Stone, a longtime friend and former campaign adviser to the president who was convicted of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstruction of justice.

In a stunning reversal, the Justice Department overruled a recommendation by its own prosecution team that Stone spend seven to nine years in jail and told a judge that such a punishment – which was in line with sentencing guidelines – “would not be appropriate.”

File photo: Attorney General William Barr and President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on Nov. 26, 2019, in Washington.

The about-face raised serious questions about whether Barr had intervened on behalf of the president’s friend. It also raised questions about whether Trump personally pressured the Justice Department, either directly or indirectly.

In the interview with ABC News, Barr fiercely defended his actions and said it had nothing to do with the president. He said he was supportive of Stone’s convictions but thought the sentencing recommendation of seven to nine years was excessive. When news outlets reported the seven to nine year sentencing recommendation last Monday, Barr said he thought it was spin.

Barr said he told his staff that night that the Justice Department has to amend its recommendation. Hours later, the president tweeted that it was “horrible and very unfair” and that “the real crimes were on the other side.”

“Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!” Trump tweeted.

The blowback from such an unprecedented move by the Justice Department leadership was immediate, both internally among the rank-and-file and in Congress. The entire four-man DOJ prosecution team withdrew from the case, and one prosecutor resigned from the Justice Department entirely. Sen. Lindsey Graham, chair of the Judiciary Committee that oversees the Justice Department and one of Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, said the president should not have tweeted about an ongoing case.

The Justice Department, while led by a president appointee and Cabinet member, is tasked with enforcing the law and defending the interests of the U.S. without political influence.

Barr said Trump’s middle-of-the-night tweet put him in a bad position. He insists he had already discussed with staff that the sentencing recommendation was too long.

“Do you go forward with what you think is the right decision or do you pull back because of the tweet? And that just sort of illustrates how disruptive these tweets can be,” he said.

President Donald Trump listens to questions while meeting with Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Feb. 12, 2020.

When asked directly if he had a problem with the president’s tweets, Barr responded, “Yes. Well, I have a problem with some of, some of the tweets. As I said at my confirmation hearing, I think the essential role of the attorney general is to keep law enforcement, the criminal process sacrosanct to make sure there is no political interference in it. And I have done that and I will continue to do that,” adding, “And I’m happy to say that, in fact the president has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case.”

Barr also told ABC News he was “a little surprised” that the prosecution team withdrew from the case and said he hadn’t spoken to the team.

He said it was “preposterous” to suggest that he “intervened” in the case as much as he acted to resolve a dispute within the department on a sentencing recommendation.

File photo: Roger Stone, former campaign adviser President Donald Trump, arrives for his criminal trial on charges of lying to Congress, obstructing justice and witness tampering at U.S. District Court in Washington, Nov. 13, 2019.

Trump has been pleased with Barr’s actions on Stone, praising him on Twitter. Trump on Wednesday said he was “not concerned about anything” about the resignations at the Justice Department and suggested the prosecutors “should go back to school and learn.”

“Congratulations to Attorney General Bill Barr for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought,” Trump tweeted this week, after all prosecutors assigned to the case quit.

Trump has repeatedly come under fire for trying to influence the Justice Department, including forcing out his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, in 2018 after Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation. Early in his presidency, Trump also encouraged then-FBI Director James Comey to drop a probe into Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, according to a memo Comey wrote at the time.

When asked earlier this week if he would pardon Stone, Trump said: “I don’t want to talk about that now.”

Attorney General William Barr speaks to ABC News’ Pierre Thomas during an interview on Feb. 13, 2020.

Barr told ABC that he would object if ever asked to use his power at the Justice Department to achieve political means.

“If (Trump) were to say, ‘Go investigate somebody because’—and you sense it’s because they’re a political opponent, then the attorney general shouldn’t carry that out, wouldn’t carry that out,” Barr said.

When asked if he expects the president to react to his criticism of the tweets, Barr said: “I hope he will react.”

“And respect it?” ABC’s Thomas asked.

“Yes,” Barr said.

Senior level White House sources insisted to ABC News that the president and top aides were unaware of Barr’s intentions in the interview and were informed of the content only just before it aired.

About two hours after the interview aired, the White House issued a statement.

“The President wasn’t bothered by the comments at all and he has the right, just like any American citizen, to publicly offer his opinions. President Trump uses social media very effectively to fight for the American people against injustices in our country, including the fake news. The President has full faith and confidence in Attorney General Barr to do his job and uphold the law,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said.

In an indication of how unusual the circumstances are, Chief Judge of the D.C. District Court Beryl A. Howell issued a rare statement about how the court makes sentencing decisions.

“The Judges of this Court base their sentencing decisions on careful consideration of the actual record in the case before them; the applicable sentencing guidelines and statutory factors; the submissions of the parties, the Probation Office and victims; and their own judgment and experience. Public criticism or pressure is not a factor,” Howell said.

© 2020 ABC News Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.

February 14, 2020

By David Leonhardt

Opinion Columnist

There are two plausible explanations for William Barr’s surprising criticism of President Trump yesterday.

The first is the literal one. Barr, the attorney general, lashed out at Trump — for “a constant background commentary that undercuts” the Justice Department — because Barr is legitimately upset. He’s upset not only about the perception that Trump is inappropriately interfering in investigations but also the reality of it.

The second explanation is the performative one. Barr criticized Trump, perhaps even with Trump’s approval, to shore up the Justice Department’s credibility as an independent agency that makes decisions based on the law, not the president’s whims. In this scenario, Barr is happy to use the Justice Department to help Trump but would prefer the help to be less obvious.

Which is the right interpretation? It’s impossible to know right now. (I’ve excerpted some speculation below.) But the answer will almost certainly become clear in the coming months, if not days.

If Barr meant what he said, he will begin acting more like attorneys general have been acting for decades. He will make decisions based on the law, even when they conflict with the president’s political interests. He will uphold the Justice Department’s post-Watergate tradition of being the most independent, least partisan part of the executive branch.

If Barr’s remarks were just cover, he will make more decisions like this week’s, in which he overruled career prosecutors to protect Roger Stone, a Trump ally. Barr will also likely use the department as a weapon against Trump’s political opponents, like James Comey and whomever the Democratic nominee is.

Many of Trump’s critics reacted to Barr’s statement last night with deep cynicism. Others argued that Barr deserved the benefit of the doubt. We’ll find out who was right soon enough.

Josh Barro, New York magazine: “Authorizing your subordinate to go out and push back on you to demonstrate independence that will help him operate can be a smart tactic, but it’s not really Trump’s style. His whole message the last few days has been that this is his show and he can do what he wants.”

David French, The Dispatch: “Barr is exactly right. It was time to throw down the gauntlet.”

Adam Serwer, The Atlantic: “[Absent] any substantive act of resisting political influence over the Justice Department, this is just theater meant to fabricate the appearance of independence. Since Barr is still doing whatever Trump tells him to do, it means nothing.”

Susan Hennessey, Lawfare: “Bill Barr is reportedly facing an internal revolt at the Justice Department … This is Bill Barr attempting to quell that revolt by making a big, splashy statement.”

Noah Bookbinder, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: “If Attorney General Barr doesn’t want to be accused of being influenced by the President, then he should stop intervening in cases involving the President and his associates and start behaving like an independent Attorney General.”

Stephanie Grisham, White House press secretary: “The president wasn’t bothered by the comments at all.”

February 15, 2020

Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, and it is Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020. Let’s take a look back at the week in Opinion.

A long, long time ago, just after Democrats had been swept into power in the House and none of us realized just how much we’d miss the recently fired Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, the L.A. Times Editorial Board urged the Senate to “confirm William Barr, even though it requires a leap of faith.” That leap of faith was on the question of whether Barr would protect Justice Department special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and make the contents of his report public.

If only anyone knew how long of a jump we’d need.

Since then, the attorney general has misled the public about the conclusions of the Mueller report before releasing most of its contents, alleged that the Trump campaign was the target of “spying,” appointed a U.S. attorney to examine the origins of the Russia investigation and most recently undermined his own prosecutors who recommended a seven- to nine-year prison sentence for former Trump advisor Roger Stone. Here’s what the editorial board says now about the attorney general it reluctantly supported for confirmation two years ago:

“The Justice Department said officials made the decision to change the sentencing recommendation before Trump’s tweet, and Trump himself said Tuesday that ‘I have not been involved in it at all.’ But skepticism is understandable, given Trump’s demonstrated disrespect for the impartial administration of justice and his past actions, including his documented efforts to impede the investigation of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

“That is why the Justice Department’s inspector general must investigate this episode and why Atty. Gen. William Barr needs to be open about the chain of events when he testifies before the House Judiciary Committee next month.

“On Wednesday, Trump congratulated Barr ‘for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought.’ The burden is on Barr to prove that the Justice Department wasn’t doing the president’s bidding.”

The Justice Department’s independence has been massacred. Columnist Virginia Heffernan was much more unsparing in her criticism than the editorial board, saying that this episode “confirmed Barr as nothing but a butler to the squalling Trump, adding to his cover-up of the true contents of the Mueller report, which, guess what, did not exonerate the president.” Readers have been similarly strident in response to the latest Trump administration scandal.

That feeling when a week-old editorial seems like it was written a year ago: Days after Trump was acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial, the editorial board lamented the hyper-partisanship that took root long before this president took office. Since then, it’s safe to say that concerns over worsening tribalism in politics have given way to fears of outright corruption of the Justice Department after impeachment. L.A. Times

It’s easy to forget there’s a presidential campaign going on — several of them, to be more accurate. Sen. Bernie Sanders may be heading into South Carolina and Nevada atop the crowded Democratic field with two victories (or near-victories, depending on how you tally the results in Iowa), but editorial writer Scott Martelle points out an important caveat: The “moderates” in the Democratic primary together received a much larger share of votes in New Hampshire than the self-identified democratic socialist. L.A. Times

Liberals, stop mocking Trump — it emboldens him, makes his supporters feel attacked and reduces your effectiveness at fighting his policies, writes Barry Glassner. He proposes a different line of attack: “Instead of an unflattering photo of the president, use a clip of his son Eric proclaiming in an interview last fall that ‘the government saves a fortune’ when his father stays at one of his own properties. ‘We charge them, like 50 bucks,’ he said. Juxtapose that with a headline from the Washington Post last week: ‘Secret Service has paid rates as high as $650 a night for rooms at Trump’s properties.’” L.A. Times

Copyright © 2020, Los Angeles Times

Conservatives see a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in Trump

Opinion by Merrill Brown

Updated 5:47 PM EST, Sat February 15, 2020

(CNN)While it may be easy to dismiss a significant number of President Donald Trump’s supporters as members of a worshipful cult of celebrity, underneath that storyline is a stark policy reality – one that’s inadequately understood and reported on. In Trump, politically conservative America has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fundamentally alter the direction of the nation.

It is an opportunity to abandon the US’ commitment to engaging politically and militarily around the world after World War II and alter the relationship between Americans and their government – one built in the New Deal and solidified since. Meanwhile, the press is too unprepared, under-resourced and distracted by the noise surrounding the White House to grasp the momentousness of this shift.

This opportunity also involves reshaping the judiciary, and abortion rights in particular. This issue is discussed widely among Democratic candidates and somewhat more quietly by mainstream Republicans. When Trump delivered a speech at last month’s March for Life, becoming the first US president to do so since the annual event began more than four decades ago, many supporters agreed with his own claims of being the “most pro-life president in American history.”

If Trump wins a second term, he will likely have the opportunity to add at least one justice to the Supreme Court. Trump will also continue to appoint conservative judges in the federal court system – all but guaranteeing the most concerted legal and legislative attack on abortion rights since Roe V. Wade.

In a piece written a month before Trump’s inauguration, I suggested that the media was unprepared for both the policies the Trump administration was about to unleash, and the communications strategy that would be implemented. There was an inadequate sense at the time about the level of drama and change that would characterize these years. The Trump administration has ushered in daily fact-checking challenges for journalists and policy initiatives with grave consequences that have not been sufficiently explored or analyzed.

Russia learned this lesson from the 2008 election. Have our presidential candidates?

While national media has received generally deserved plaudits for covering the scandals surrounding Trump’s presidency, it has largely fallen down on covering the administration’s impact on social policy, federal regulations and foreign affairs.

To be fair, some of the changes under President Trump have been previously unimaginable. In the run-up to the 2016 election, how seriously did the media assess the possibility of truly disruptive change in US foreign policy and the strain Trump would place on our country’s relationship with our allies?

Was the rapidly shrinking role of the State Department contemplated before Inauguration Day? And how much reporting has really been devoted to understanding the implications of that kneecapped department? How much attention in late 2016 and early 2017 was given to the possibility of a $1 trillion deficit by the end of Trump’s first term and the implications of such a quick reversal after decades of Republican orthodoxy about balanced budgets?

Then there’s Trump’s embrace of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and other strongmen, and the revolving door of the Trump cabinet (recall former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, among others, left the administration under clouds of scandal). Their policy legacies and the condition in which they’ve left their respective agencies or departments are, frankly, a bit of a great unknown. What did those three actually get done? And what did former Energy Secretary Rick Perry actually do, other than get caught up in the Ukraine debacle?

There’s little evidence that our news diets and the priorities of major news organizations reflect these critical but often uncovered events. Smaller publications and local newspapers face dwindling resources. Many of the Washington and national bureaus of once large metropolitan newspapers, news magazines and TV group bureaus are hollowed out or gone entirely.

Are Dems so worried by Trump they’re willing to let Bloomberg buy the election?

Beyond the news industry’s resource limitations, there’s also what was famously called in the government report after the September 11 attacks the “failure in imagination” and the inability of policymakers to see what might lie ahead. More than ever, the media has a responsibility to address the stories and coverage requirements ahead with renewed imagination.

Today Trump’s approval ratings are rising and despite impeachment, the prospects for a second Trump term are improving. What will a second term bring once President Trump no longer has to face the prospect of winning another election? Certainly, there’s the possibility of a further US withdrawal from global agreements. A US withdrawal from NATO has received some attention, but what about a US pullback from the United Nations? What would come of the UN, based in New York City, if the US threatens to limit funding or withdraw entirely?

What would a more dramatic restructuring of the federal environmental apparatus mean? Is there any doubt that some influential members of the Trump universe would like to see the Environmental Protection Agency shut down or folded into another federal entity with bare-bones staffing?

Then there’s regulation around public lands that have already being systematically dismantled in places like Utah. Just this week the administration gave the go-ahead to development in previously protected sites there. Pick just one piece of the national regulatory infrastructure and imagine it a target of significant disruption: What would the possible effects be in 10 years?

Do you think the GOP’s loyalty to Trump is simply about celebrity adoration? It’s not – here is a President who is willing to break the norm to fulfill the conservative agenda.

Contemplating the possibilities of a GOP control over the legislative and judicial branches, along with a second term under President Trump – and the indifference to oversight, congressional investigations and transparency, requires a media with properly deployed resources and the continued growth of new entrepreneurial news organizations that can cover both local news and underreported issues. It is no time for a “failure in imagination.”

© 2020 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Donald Trump

Trump quotes Emerson: ‘When you strike at the king, you must kill him’

President retweets quote from pre-impeachment Times article

Sat 15 Feb 2020 15.51 EST

Retweeting a New York Times piece which quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson – shortly after retweeting footage of a small-town mayor inadvertently live-broadcasting a visit to the toilet, thereby mixing low culture with high – Donald Trump seemed to confirm on Saturday that his campaign for re-election will be fuelled by “grievance, persecution and resentment”.

William Barr: how the attorney general became Trump’s enabler-in-chief

Quoting Times White House correspondent Peter Baker, Trump wrote: “Ralph Waldo Emerson seemed to foresee the lesson of the Senate Impeachment Trial of President Trump. ‘When you strike at the King, Emerson famously said, ‘you must kill him.’

“Mr Trump’s foes struck at him but did not take him down. A triumphant Mr Trump emerges from the biggest test of his presidency emboldened, ready to claim exoneration, and take his case of grievance, persecution and resentment to the campaign trail.”

Trump chose to pass his own comment only with a familiar claim about his impeachment and the Russia investigation before it, writing: “The Greatest Witch Hunt In American History!”

Baker’s piece was published on 1 February, four days before Trump’s acquittal in the third impeachment trial in US history. It was headlined: While stained in history, Trump will emerge from trial triumphant and unshackled.

Two weeks later, that prediction seems to have been born out.

Trump faced two articles of impeachment, concerning abuse of power in his attempts to have Ukraine investigate political rivals and obstruction of Congress in its own investigation of the matter.

The Republican-held Senate rejected attempts to hear testimony from witnesses and acquitted the president with only one GOP vote against, that of Mitt Romney of Utah, a longtime Trump opponent.

Since then, the president has called his impeachment “bullshit”; criticised Romney; fired a White House aide and an ambassador who gave testimony in the impeachment inquiry; and admitted sending Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden, the matter at the heart of his impeachment which he previously denied.

Trump has also seemed to interfere in the sentencing of Roger Stone, his adviser who was convicted under special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian election interference, links between Trump aides and Moscow and possible obstruction of justice by the president.

Stoking fears of a constitutional crisis, Trump has claimed the “absolute right” to interfere in justice department affairs.

Critics have said that indicates he thinks presidents are essentially kings, above the law, a view arguably reinforced by his attorney general although William Barr was moved this week to put at least tactical distance between himself and his raging president.

Emerson, a great American essayist of the 19th century, wrote his line about striking at kings when a pupil, the future supreme court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, attempted to refute Plato.

Trump’s other early retweet on Saturday was of a message which said: “THIS IS HILARIOUS Mayor of Georgetown in the US excused himself to go & use the washroom in the middle of a meeting & forgot to switch off his mic on his tie & this is what happened.”

The event in question, replete with farting noises and giggling council members, happened in Georgetown, Texas in 2016. The mayor, Dale Ross, pronounced himself “not particularly embarrassed”.

Trump was in Florida, due to attend the Daytona 500 motor race on Sunday and act as grand marshal and starter in a play to his political base. It was reported that the president was planning a lap of the circuit in the Beast, his heavily armoured limousine.

Charlotte Pence Bond: ‘Abortion and a pro-choice culture is not pro-woman’

Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer indicated one motivation for attending the famous Daytona race, as his boss George W Bush did in 2004, another election year.

“There’s a real sense of positive, overwhelming affirmation to hear the roar of the crowd,” Fleischer told the Associated Press. “What politician doesn’t want that?

“Secondly, there’s what I call the reverberation effect. People watching at home, who hear the roar of the crowd for a president, that can drive them toward some sense of approval or fondness or liking for the president.”

© 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

The beat goes on, the beaten not yet admitting defeat, but the future? Grim , New Deal undone?

=============== ==============

Or is this the alternate hypocracy for the other NWO contradictory version.

Trump Just Comes Out and Admits to Entire Ukraine Scam

FEBRUARY 14, 2020 12:03 P

Years after O.J. Simpson was found not guilty for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, he wrote a book called If I Did It, in which he basically explained exactly how the two were killed with a level of detail that only someone who participated in the murders could possibly have been privy to. Now that Donald Trump has been acquitted by Republicans for extorting Ukraine for personal gain, he’s kind of doing the same thing, except (1) he freely admitted to many of the details of the alleged crime even before his Senate trial, and (2) he’s not even doing the people who let him get away with it the courtesy of throwing an “if” in there for plausible deniability’s sake.

In a podcast interview with Geraldo Rivera that aired on Thursday, Trump was asked, “Was it strange to send Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine, your personal lawyer? Are you sorry you did that?” Rather than stick with his previous denials of ever having dispatched Giuliani to Ukraine to investigate the Bidens in the first place, Trump happily copped to it all, responding: “No, not at all…I deal with the Comeys of the world or I deal with Rudy,” the former of whom, per the president, left “a very bad taste” in his mouth due to the whole Russia investigation. “So when you tell me, why did I use Rudy, and one of the things about Rudy, number one, he was the best prosecutor, you know, one of the best prosecutors, and the best mayor,” Trump said. “But also, other presidents had them. FDR had a lawyer who was practically, you know, was totally involved with government. Eisenhower had a lawyer. They all had lawyers.” FDR and Eisenhower didn’t use their personal lawyers to uncover nonexistent dirt on their political rivals, but, sure, great history lesson.

In the new interview, Trump defended the decision to “use” Giuliani, even though U.S. diplomats previously testified that Giuliani had undermined long-standing U.S. policy toward Ukraine… Multiple witnesses described how Giuliani met with former Ukrainian officials in search of dirt against Joe and Hunter Biden. Other key players described how Giuliani and his allies pressured Ukraine to announce investigations into the Bidens. Trump’s past denials came in November, when the House of Representatives was investigating the president’s conduct with Ukraine.

Trump, of course, has insisted up to this point that he never sent Giuliani to Ukraine, claiming last year that didn’t direct the former NYC mayor to take a fact-finding trip to the Eastern European country, and that the “great corruption fighter” had taken the initiative himself.

Obviously, the president didn’t exactly try to hide his corrupt ways prior to the formal impeachment proceedings, having stood in front of the White House last October and called—on camera!—for Ukraine and China to investigate the Bidens. But now that he’s free of the fear of impeachment, he’s apparently just going for broke with the admissions, in addition to getting revenge on the individuals who had the audacity to cooperate with the House’s inquiry, like Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who was escorted out of the White House last week and whom Trump has asked the military to further punish for disrespecting the king. (In other “just coming out and saying it” news, Trump tweeted this morning that he’s never asked Attorney General William Barr to do something underhanded in a criminal case but totally could if he wanted to, which means he probably has already.)

Anyway, the many lawmakers who chose to acquit the president while insisting that he’d totally learned his lesson have not yet commented on the fresh confessions, but presumably they’re feeling pretty stupid right now (and will continue to let Trump get away with whatever his heart desires moving forward).

More Great Stories From Vanity Fair

—After acquittal, Trump plots revenge on Bolton and other impeachment enemies

© Condé Nast 2020

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He wastes no time!

AS IT HAPPENED

Trump news: President faces fresh corruption allegations, as senior Republican condemns ‘carefully staged’ Barr criticism.

Donald Trump has been accused of attempting to orchestrate a fresh quid pro quo just a week after being acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial.

This time, the accusations come after the president offered to lift travel restrictions against New Yorkers in exchange for Governor Andrew Cuomo dropping investigations into his tax records.

Mr Trump has also been hit by an unexpected rebuke from his attorney general over the Roger Stone case, with William Barr saying he will not be “bullied” and that the president’s tweeting about an active case makes it difficult for him to do his job.

However, the public rebuttal was a move that ex-Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele warned was “carefully staged” to appease disgruntled Justice Department prosecutors.

​Meanwhile, a new book on Mr Trump,​ Sinking in the Swamp, offers the bizarre detail that the president nurtures an obsession with badgers, regularly plaguing his first chief of staff Reince Preibus with questions about the animals and their characteristics.

Donald Trump celebrity president: A decade in two halves

An excerpt of the new book said Mr Trump “was never able to shed his affinity for mob‑don lingo”.

The book also said he has mob-like tendencies, including instances in which he would “repeatedly blast his former fixer and attorney, Michael Cohen, for being a snitch and a rat for cooperating with the feds and making him look bad”.

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President accused of ‘new quid pro quo’ over NY governor meeting
William Barr labelled ‘deep state’ after criticising Trump’s tweets
‘Are they mean to people?’: President’s obsessions with badgers revealed
Trump threatens to stop security officials listening in to calls

Hello and welcome to The Independent’s rolling coverage of the Donald Trump administration.

Trump threatens to stop security officials listening in to calls, compares impeachment to ‘dark days’ of Nixon

Donald Trump has compared his suffering during the impeachment process to the “dark days” of Richard Nixon’​s tenure in the White House in the 1970s and threatened to end the practice of having security officials listen in on his calls with foreign leaders.

“When you call a foreign leader, people listen. I may end the practice entirely, I may end it entirely,” the president said during a podcast interview with Fox pundit Geraldo Rivera, evidentally still in venegeful mood after an anonymous CIA whistleblower reported his attempt to extort a political favour out of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky during his “perfect” call with Kiev last summer.

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and White House staffers listened in on the offending call with Zelensky - in which he said the release of $391m (£392m) in military aid to Ukraine was conditional and depeneded on his counterpart opening a spurious anti-corruption investigation into 2020 rival Joe Biden.

As is standard practice in any administration, the staffers, working in the secure, soundproof Situation Room in the West Wing basement, chronicled the conversation. US National Security Council personnel then prepared a memorandum about the call, which serves as an official record.

Larry Pfeiffer, a 30-year US intelligence veteran who managed the Situation Room during the Obama years, told the AP that by stopping this practice, “the president only shoots himself in the foot… And one can only surmise that the president therefore has something to hide from his own staff and bureaucracy.”

Steven Aftergood, who directs the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, said that the president has the power to limit access to his conversations - but added this is a “bad idea”.

“The president requires the expertise and advice of his senior officials, and they require access to these calls in order to do their job,” he said. “Secrecy here becomes self-defeating.”

On the Watergate comparison, Trump told Rivera: “Well, it’s a terrible thing and, you know, I think of Nixon more than anybody else and what that dark period was in our country and the whole thing with the tapes and the horror show… It was dark and went on for a long time, and I watched it.”

He said he often passes portraits of past presidents which hang in the White House: “The portrait of Richard Nixon - I don’t know. It’s a little bit of a different feeling than I get from looking at the other portraits of presidents.”

“I got impeached for no reason whatsoever - totally partisan.”

So Republican senators Lamar Alexander, Susan Collins and Joni Ernst - do you still think he’s learned his lesson?

Here’s Andy Gregory on another revelation from the president - that he did send his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to Eastern Europe in search of dirt back home.

Trump admits he sent Giuliani to Ukraine to dig dirt on political opponents
Joe Sommerlad
14 February 2020 10:04
2 days ago
‘Are they mean to people?’: President’s obsessions with badgers revealed

​A new book on Trump -​ Sinking in the Swamp: How Trump’s Minions and Misfits Poisoned Washington by Daily Beast reporters Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng - offers the bizarre detail that the president nurtures an obsession with badgers, regularly plaguing his first chief of staff Reince Preibus with questions about the animals and their characteristics.

Oliver O’Connell gets to the bottom of this one.

Trump is really interested in badgers, new book claims
Joe Sommerlad
14 February 2020 10:13
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2 days ago
William Barr labelled ‘deep state’ after criticising Trump’s tweets in ‘carefully staged’ move

Trump has meanwhile been hit by an unexpected rebuke from his attorney general over the Roger Stone case, with William Barr telling ABC News yesterday that he will not be “bullied” and that the president’s tweeting about an active case (in a bid to see the Republican trickster’s sentence drastically reduced) makes it difficult for him to do his job.

Trump’s aides have been trying to get him to cut out the impulsive, reactionary tweeting ever since he took office, without success, but Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell gave his (rather limp) endorsement to Barr’s comments last night, saying the president “should listen to his advice”.

Trump’s close friend Lou Dobbs meanwhile wasted little time in lashing out at the attorney general, absurdly accusing him of being a “deep state” agitator (overlooking the fact that Trump himself brought the veteran in himself a year ago to serve as his “sword and shield” in fending off the Mueller report).

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AS IT HAPPENED

Trump news: President faces fresh corruption allegations, as senior Republican condemns ‘carefully staged’ Barr criticism

Donald Trump has been accused of attempting to orchestrate a fresh quid pro quo just a week after being acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial.

This time, the accusations come after the president offered to lift travel restrictions against New Yorkers in exchange for Governor Andrew Cuomo dropping investigations into his tax records.

Independent media

POLITICO

Trump camp finds no appeasement at Munich

The security gathering shows the U.S. and Europe have very different views on health of transatlantic relations.

02/16/2020 05:59 PM EST

MUNICH — For decades, the Munich Security Conference served as a powerful symbol of the strength of the Western alliance. The 2020 installment offered a testament to its accelerating decline.

If the three-day event, which drew to a close on Sunday, illustrated anything, it was that the divergence between the U.S. and the dominant European powers — Germany and France (the U.K. was MIA) — is greater than ever. Those who thought last year’s tense gathering represented a low point in the relationship left Munich this year chastened.

The two sides aren’t just far apart on the big questions facing the West (threats from Russia, Iran, China), they’re in parallel universes.

Most alarming: The biggest disconnect concerns the U.S. commitment to Europe, the very essence of the transatlantic alliance itself.

In speech after speech, whether in public or private, European leaders lamented what they perceive as the U.S.’s disengagement from both the region and the world at large.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier opened the conference — one of the largest annual gatherings of political leaders, military chiefs and top diplomats from around the world — by accusing the Trump administration of “rejecting the idea of the international community.”

“Every country should fend for itself and put its own interests over all others … ‘Great again’ — even at the expense of neighbors and partners,” Steinmeier said, offering a précis of how he views U.S. foreign policy.

French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking at the forum for the first time, echoed Steinmeier the next day, noting that “what Europe wants is not quite the same as the U.S.”

U.S. officials were dumbfounded.

“Let’s be straight up: The U.S. is out there fighting for sovereignty and our friends."

  • Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

“I’m here to tell you the facts,” an agitated U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the assembly on Saturday after quoting Steinmeier and similar comments other Western leaders have made in the recent past. “Those statements do not reflect reality.”

Pompeo, who served as an Army soldier protecting West Germany in the 1980s, offered a detailed rebuttal, noting the U.S. was devoting more resources to defend Europe, both in terms of personnel and money, than at any time since the end of the Cold War. He reminded the audience that he had been to Germany three times in the past four months alone.

“Is this an America that rejects responsibility?” he asked. “Let’s be straight up: The U.S. is out there fighting for sovereignty and our friends.”

Aside from representatives from Poland and the Baltics, who consider the U.S. the guarantor of their sovereignty, few of the Europeans in the room seemed open to being convinced. After the speech, a consensus formed among the Germans and French that Pompeo’s audience wasn’t the Europeans in the room, but Donald Trump. Pompeo’s insistence that the “West is winning, we’re collectively winning,” was registered by many attendees as “the U.S. is winning.”

The reaction to Pompeo reflects the toll Trump’s aggressive, often abusive, rhetoric toward European allies has taken on the relationship. Even when confronted with facts that disprove the narrative of American disengagement, European officials simply don’t believe it. In private, U.S. representatives tell their European counterparts to “ignore the tweets,” but that’s proved to be a tall order.

Confronted with that disconnect between how they see the U.S. role and how the Europeans see it, many in the American delegation, which included one of the largest Congressional contingents in the conference’s history, were nonplussed.

Republicans were particularly offended by the title the organizers gave the event — “Westlessness” — which they viewed as a taunt intended to reinforce the suggestion that the U.S. has abandoned its traditional role.

“I was a little taken aback by the tone,” said Mike Turner, a Republican congressman from Ohio and a member of the House Armed Services Committee. Turner, who has been attending the conference for a decade, said he was surprised the U.S. should have to defend its commitment to Europe in Munich even as it was spending billions more to do just that.

Europeans “should focus on what we’re doing here,” he said.

Turner said he was particularly frustrated by Germany, which despite repeated prodding by Trump and other American officials remains far from fulfilling its pledge to increase defense spending to 2 percent of its GDP. Berlin has said it won’t meet that target until 2031.

“John F. Kennedy made a commitment to go to the moon in half the time,” Turner quipped.

Even avowed American critics of Trump in Munich were dismayed by some of the signals coming from Europe’s leaders on other fronts.

Nicholas Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and longtime diplomat who is now a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, said he was concerned by Macron’s overtures toward Russia. Onstage, the French president repeated his call for Europe to pursue a rapprochement with Moscow.

Burns lamented a lack of strong condemnation of Russian bombing of the Syrian province of Idlib. Macron mentioned that crisis only briefly, saying Paris disagrees with Moscow on “what is happening in Idlib, which is unacceptable.”

Burns described the bombings as “barbaric” and noted that “they have produced 800,000 refugees, the greatest number in the Syrian civil war.”

“There’s almost a silence here in Europe about that and that’s tragic,” he said.

Global Translations

In fact, neither Macron, who received an enthusiastic response from the Munich audience, nor Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who also spoke, faced any tough questions on Syria.

The other major issue that divided Munich was China. Neither Pompeo nor U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who also spoke, left any doubt that Washington considers China to be a nefarious force in the world. That’s a view not shared by many countries in the EU.

The recent focus has been on whether the West should risk installing next-generation telecommunications hardware from China’s Huawei, a step the U.S. argues would expose countries to espionage and sabotage. But the underlying question of what posture the Western alliance should take toward China is a more fundamental one with far-reaching consequences. While there’s a bipartisan consensus in Washington that China represents a significant long-term threat — a view articulated in Munich by both Esper and Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives — Europe is deeply worried about the consequences that spurning Beijing would have on trade.

“You need to figure out when you need to cooperate with [China] and when do you need to compete,” said Burns. “The Europeans have not succeeded in any way shape or form in forming such a strategy.”

© 2020 POLITICO LLC

POLITICS

Mike Bloomberg could ‘handily beat’ Trump in 2020, says Scaramucci

PUBLISHED TUE, FEB 11 20202:25 AM ESTUPDATED TUE, FEB 11 20202:50 AM EST

U.S. President Donald Trump is going to lose the 2020 election and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg is the “best of the available” candidates to beat Trump, according to Anthony Scaramucci.

“The consensus of the elites is that President Trump is going to get re-elected and so that’s why I actually think he’s going to lose,” he said. “Elites are typically wrong about this stuff.”

Bloomberg would be the ‘best of the available candidates’ to beat Trump

Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci predicted that U.S. President Donald Trump is going to lose the 2020 election and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg is the “best of the available” candidates to win.

Scaramucci publicly fell out with his former boss in 2019. He has since been a frequent, vocal critic of the president.

“The consensus of the elites is that President Trump is going to get re-elected, and so that’s why I actually think he’s going to lose,” he told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble on Tuesday at the Milken Institute Middle East and Africa Summit.

“Elites are typically wrong about this stuff,” Scaramucci added. “They said there was no chance he can get the nomination, there was no chance that Hillary Clinton could be beaten (in 2016).”

He also argued that Trump’s chances have been hurt because he has not expanded his base since he was first elected.

“Most great presidents, in their first term, figure out a way to expand their base,” he said. “He’s hammered down consistently on the same level of people and, despite the economic data, he’s missile-locked at about 42%.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the interview, which took place in early morning hours Washington time.

Scaramucci, who is founder and managing partner at investing firm SkyBridge, said: “We need to, as investors, prepare for his electoral defeat in November.”

Likes Bloomberg ‘the best’

Based on the data analytics and money that’s been deployed, Scaramucci said he gives Bloomberg a 60% to 65% chance of winning the Democratic nomination.

Bloomberg is self-funding his presidential campaign and has spent more than $250 million on TV and radio ads and $45 million to $50 million on digital.

“He has the money, he has the personal dexterity, he knows how to handle the Trump onslaught of all the bullying nonsense,” Scaramucci said. “I like him the best. He’s the most experienced, he’s a clear-eyed, technical leader.”

“Mike Bloomberg would be the best of the available candidates to beat President Trump.”

Bloomberg unveils plans for Social Security and retirement savings

© 2020 CNBC LLC. All Rights Reserved. A Division of NBCUniversal

IDEAS

Bill Barr Must Resign

The attorney general is working to destroy the integrity and independence of the Justice Department, in order to make Donald Trump a president who can operate above the law.

DONALD AYER6:00 AM ET

ERIN SCHAFF / THE NEW YORK TIMES​ / REDUX

When donald trump chose Bill Barr to serve as attorney general in December 2018, even some moderates and liberals greeted the choice with optimism. One exuberant Democrat described him as “an excellent choice,” who could be counted on to “stand up for the department’s institutional prerogatives and … push back on any improper attempt to inject politics into its work.”

At the end of his first year of service, Barr’s conduct has shown that such expectations were misplaced. Beginning in March with his public whitewashing of Robert Mueller’s report, which included powerful evidence of repeated obstruction of justice by the president, Barr has appeared to function much more as the president’s personal advocate than as an attorney general serving the people and government of the United States. Among the most widely reported and disturbing events have been Barr’s statements that a judicially authorized FBI investigation amounted to “spying” on the Trump campaign, and his public rejection in December of the inspector general’s considered conclusion that the Russia probe was properly initiated and overseen in an unbiased manner. Also quite unsettling was Trump’s explicit mention of Barr and Rudy Giuliani in the same breath in his July 25 phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky, as individuals the Ukrainian president should speak with regarding the phony investigation that Ukraine was expected to publicly announce.

Still more troubling has been Barr’s intrusion, apparently for political reasons, into the area of Justice Department action that most demands scrupulous integrity and strict separation from politics and other bias—invocation of the criminal sanction. When Barr initiated a second, largely redundant investigation of the FBI Russia probe in May, denominated it criminal, and made clear that he is personally involved in carrying it out, many eyebrows were raised.

MORE BY DONALD AYER

Why Bill Barr Is So Dangerous

DONALD AYER

But worst of all have been the events of the past week. The evenhanded conduct of the prosecutions of Roger Stone and Michael Flynn by experienced Department of Justice attorneys have been disrupted at the 11th hour by the attorney general’s efforts to soften the consequences for the president’s associates. More generally, it appears that Barr has recently identified a group of lawyers whom he trusts and put them in place to oversee and second-guess the work of the department’s career attorneys on a broader range of cases. And there is no comfort from any of this in Barr’s recent protests about the president’s tweeting. He in no way suggested he was changing course, only that it is hard to appear independent when the president is publicly calling for him to follow the path he is on.

Bad as they are, these examples are more symptoms than causes of Barr’s unfitness for office. The fundamental problem is that he does not believe in the central tenet of our system of government—that no person is above the law. In chilling terms, Barr’s own words make clear his long-held belief in the need for a virtually autocratic executive who is not constrained by countervailing powers within our government under the constitutional system of checks and balances.

Indeed, given our national faith and trust in a rule of law no one can subvert, it is not too strong to say that Bill Barr is un-American. And now, from his perch as attorney general, he is in the midst of a root-and-branch attack on the core principles that have guided our justice system, and especially our Department of Justice, since the 1970s.

The system that Barr is working to tear down was built up in the aftermath of the Watergate scandals, during which the Justice Department’s leadership was compromised by its support of a president who sought to use the machinery of government to advance his personal interests and prospects for reelection. As Richard Nixon later told David Frost, he believed that “when the President does it, that means it is not illegal.” But the system held, and after two attorneys general and numerous other government officials were convicted for their conduct in these scandals, the Ford administration turned to the task of restoring public trust in government.

President Gerald Ford chose as his attorney general Edward Levi, a distinguished legal scholar and professor who was then president of the University of Chicago. “Levi took restoring faith in the legitimacy of government and adherence to the rule of law as his very highest priority,” his special assistant at the time, Jack Fuller, later recalled. Levi said at his swearing-in that the central goal of the Justice Department must be to sustain “a government of laws and not men,” which he knew would take “dedicated men and women to accomplish this through their zeal and determination, and also their concern for fairness and impartiality.”

Given the Department of Justice’s extraordinary powers to affect lives, and often to do so long before any case goes to court, Levi characterized its proper actions as having a “judicial nature” that demanded, in many instances, a substantial insulation from political influence. And he saw the pursuit of fair, accurate, and equal justice as a shared endeavor, with decisions best made through a sort of “government by discussion,” so that the soundness and integrity of any actions could be tested by the review and consideration of others.

In two short years, Levi enshrined these ideas at the Department of Justice, turning them into articles of faith for its employees. He created new mechanisms of accountability to ensure their endurance, such as the Office of Professional Responsibility, an ethics watchdog for the department. His reforms substantially restored public trust in our justice system. For the past 45 years, the vision he articulated has also inspired thousands of Justice Department lawyers. This was the department that I served, as an assistant U.S. attorney, United States attorney, principal deputy solicitor general, and deputy attorney general in the Carter, Reagan, and first Bush administrations.

Barr’s frontal attack on this system begins with an assault on Levi’s central premise, that ours must be a “government of laws and not men,” in which no person is above the law. Far from emphasizing thorough, transparent, and evenhanded processes—like the investigations presided over by former Special Counsel Mueller and Inspector General of the Department of Justice Michael Horowitz—Barr has done whatever he can to suppress findings adverse to the president, and to endorse conclusions more favorable to Donald Trump.

Even more emphatically, though, Barr has brought with him to the department an extraordinary belief in the need for an all-powerful president that is flatly irreconcilable with Levi’s vision, which restored the Department of Justice to honor and integrity in the mid-’70s. Perhaps most disturbingly, Barr contends that it is virtually impossible for a corrupt president to be held to account by the Department of Justice, or by any independent counsel that it or Congress might appoint.

His views on that point were set forth with breathtaking clarity in June 2018, in an unsolicited 19-page memorandum that Barr sent to then–Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, arguing that Mueller’s investigation of the president for obstruction of justice was fundamentally misconceived. The president “alone is the Executive Branch,” he wrote, and “the Constitution vests [in him personally] all Federal law enforcement power, and hence prosecutorial discretion.” (The emphasis is his.) Thus, as a matter of constitutional law, Barr concluded that Congress is without any power to bar the president from “[exercising] supervisory authority over cases in which his own conduct might be at issue.” It followed, according to Barr, that the whole idea of a prosecutor within the executive branch operating beyond the president’s direct oversight—even a special counsel like Mueller—was a constitutional nonstarter. So the president’s recent statement that he has a “legal right” to interfere in criminal investigations just repeats what Bill Barr has told him.

Barr would make real Nixon’s vision that if the president does it, it may not be challenged by the Department of Justice, or from any other agency of the executive branch. But Barr’s efforts to place the president above the law go far beyond foreclosing interference through checks that might arise within his own branch. His department has been very active, and he has personally been quite vocal, in working to cripple the traditional checks and balances on presidential prerogatives that arise from the distinct, co-equal roles of Congress and the courts.

Take, for example, Trump’s categorical stonewalling of Congress’s power to exercise its traditional oversight role by subpoenaing documents and calling witnesses from the executive branch. During his prior term of government service, in the 1980s and ’90s, Barr opposed what he regarded as congressional interference with executive prerogatives. He wrote several opinions on the subject when he served as head of the Office of Legal Counsel. So it should come as no surprise that, as attorney general, he has returned to this familiar theme.

Last May, Barr’s Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion advising that former White House Counsel Don McGahn was not subject to Congress’s subpoena power, asserting that senior officials have “absolute immunity from congressional compulsion to testify about matters that occur during the course of discharging official duties.” Trump’s government has held to that position, which has provided the analytical core for the sweeping assertion of a right to not even appear at the House’s impeachment hearings, thus exceeding the long-recognized right to raise executive privilege or other specific objections to particular questions when grounds for doing so arguably exist.

In June, OLC issued another opinion, this one advising that the Treasury Department should not provide the House Ways and Means Committee with Trump’s tax returns, despite a statute that requires Treasury to do so. For the critical reasoning, it quoted from one of Barr’s own OLC opinions, which said that Congress must articulate why it needs the particular materials before the executive branch will even consider what, if any, information it will provide.

And in September, OLC said that the whistle-blower report—the one that first brought to light the Ukraine telephone call that became the basis for an article of impeachment—was not a matter of “urgent concern” and thus need not, under the relevant statute, be transmitted to congressional intelligence committees. That opinion provoked a letter from 68 inspectors general throughout the federal government, protesting that such a conclusion was indefensible and would grossly undermine the effectiveness of whistle-blower protections as a check on executive power.

The Justice Department has also been at the forefront of the president’s defiance of Congress’s traditional power of the purse as a check on executive-branch adventurism. On February 15, 2019, the day after Barr was confirmed, the president issued an emergency declaration to divert funds from other appropriations for use in building a border wall. Congress had several times considered and refused to appropriate the requested funds for this purpose, and the president had himself conceded that there was no actual emergency. But Barr’s DOJ has vigorously litigated the cases challenging this action, and thus has worked to undermine Congress’s express constitutional power to control the appropriation of funds.

All of this conduct—including Barr’s personal interventions to influence or negate independent investigations or the pursuit of criminal cases, and his use of the department’s resources to frustrate the checks and balances provided by other branches—is incompatible with the rule of law as we know it, and especially as it has functioned since Levi’s Watergate reforms. Far from recognizing the sensitive “judicial nature” of the department’s work and the need to avoid even the appearance of improper influence and to show that no person is above the law, under Barr, the Department of Justice is actively engaged on many fronts in helping realize Trump’s stated goal of being able to do whatever he wants, free from interference from any branch of government.

Barr’s agenda was confirmed by his November speech to the Federalist Society on“the Constitution’s approach to executive power.” He argues that “over the past several decades, we have seen a steady encroachment on presidential authority by other branches of government,” and that those “encroachments” must end. He purports to justify his position by offering a selective version of American history, discussing the Founders’ intentions with regard to presidential power, characterizing the role the presidency has supposedly played over time, and arguing that, in recent decades, the Founders’ vision has been undermined by actions of Congress and the courts.

Perhaps even more disturbing than Barr’s manifesto for radical change—for the creation of a president with nearly autocratic powers—is the revisionist account of American history on which it is based, and his dogmatic insistence on it in the face of ample evidence to the contrary. Whereas Levi recognized a commitment to intellectual integrity and accountability as the keys to building public trust and defending the rule of law, Barr simply presents as gospel a conveniently distorted vision of the past.

At the beginning of his speech, Barr derides “the grammar-school civics-class version” of our history—the one that generations of students have internalized. It is that the Founders, sensitive from experience to the danger that one part of government might develop tyrannical powers, adopted a complex structure of checks and balances. In that government, power was shared among the three branches through sometimes-countervailing delegations of authority, which made each branch dependent on the others. The numerous checks that the Constitution created to limit the president’s authority—the impeachment power, the House appropriation power, Congress’s power to override vetoes, the need for a congressional declaration of war, and the Senate power to advise and consent, for example—show that presidential tyranny was prominent among their concerns.

According to Barr, the Founders actually were not much concerned about an out-of-control president, as this “civics-class version” suggests. He reasons that history shows a rise in the relative power of Parliament against the King during the mid-18th century, and that by the time of our own Revolution, the evil perceived by the patriots was more “an overweening Parliament” than “monarchical tyranny.” Further, chaotic governance during the Revolution and under the Articles of Confederation pointed out the need for a single executive officer, and after some debate, such a president was included in the Constitution. Of course, none of this negates the specific provisions that the Founders adopted to curb presidential overreach, or suggests that it was not a matter of great concern. Nor does it remotely suggest that the later development of institutions such as judicial review and congressional oversight was out of step with what the Founders had in mind.

Barr’s next piece of history—his account of how things have allegedly proceeded during the intervening 230 years—is the real stunner. He would have us believe that this vision of an all-powerful president that he wants to restore has in fact been a reality for most of our history. Indeed, he says, “more than any other branch, the [American presidency] has fulfilled the expectations of the Framers.” At least, that is, until recently.

But what about the widespread consensus of historians that, throughout the 1800s and until the 1930s, Congress was the dominant branch of government, and that over the course of the 20th century, the balance of power shifted dramatically toward the president? With the exception of the founding generation and a few others, including Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson, most of our presidents prior to Franklin D. Roosevelt were extremely weak. And without doubt, the greatest expansion of executive power came not early in our history, but during the 20th- and 21st-century era of the imperial president.

According to Barr, all of this is mistaken. Strong and omnicompetent presidents have led our government from the beginning, “protecting the liberties of the American people.” Lately, though:

the deck has become stacked against the executive. Since the mid-’60s, there has been a steady grinding down of the executive branch’s authority, that accelerated after Watergate. More and more, the president’s ability to act in areas in which he has discretion has become smothered by the encroachments of the other branches.

What does he say happened, and what is the nature of these encroachments? He first targets “two aspects of contemporary thought that tend to operate to disadvantage the executive.” The first is the idea that “the greatest danger of government becoming oppressive arises from the prospect of executive excess.” No doubt Levi’s Watergate reforms had something to do with this, and Barr seems quite unhappy with them and their consequences.

The second is the “notion that the Constitution does not sharply allocate powers among the three branches, but rather the branches, especially the political branches, ‘share’ powers.” Barr seems to be obsessed with the notion of shared powers, and is quite keen on eradicating the whole idea: “Whenever I see a court opinion that uses the word share, I want to run in the other direction.”

The last half of Barr’s speech purports to address the ways that, “in recent years, both the legislative and judicial branches have been responsible for encroaching on the presidency’s constitutional authority.”

First, he says, Trump’s congressional opponents inaugurated “the resistance” and used “every tool and maneuver available to sabotage the functioning of his administration.” Then he alleges that the Senate has engaged in “unprecedented abuse of the advise-and-consent process to draw out the approval process for nominees.” Never mind that Republicans were at all times in the majority and have had unprecedented success in confirming their judicial nominees.

Finally, he claims that Congress has engaged in “constant harassment” by trying to “drown the executive branch with ‘oversight demands’ for testimony and documents.” He does not mention the administration’s repeated assertion of a categorical, prophylactic executive privilege against even having to appear, respond, or assert any specific privilege based on the facts. Nor does he note that this outrageous denial of Congress’s established power has been largely successful, or that it has even been raised in the impeachment context, where Congress’s constitutional power to inquire is at its apex.

But perhaps the most outrageous and alarming ideas that Barr advances come in his attacks on the judiciary, which occupy fully a third of his speech. In his mind, it seems, the courts are the principal culprit in constraining the extraordinarily broad powers that the president is constitutionally entitled to exercise. His discussion ignores a pillar of our legal system since almost the very beginning—Chief Justice John Marshall’s magisterial pronouncement in the early days of our republic that “it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”

Barr complains that the judiciary “has appointed itself the ultimate arbiter of separation-of-powers disputes between Congress and the executive,” saying that the Framers did not envision that it would play such a role. Barr yearns for a day when the president can bully everyone else in government, and leave them no ability to seek relief in court.

Barr complains specifically that the role of courts to determine the law has only recently invaded areas of decision making that the Founders intended to leave to the president, and has thus impeded the president’s exercise of discretion in ways that he says would never have happened a few decades ago. President Harry Truman, who 70 years ago was barred by the Supreme Court from seizing steel plants by executive order in the name of national defense, might be surprised to hear that.

And Barr is quite clear about what he wants the courts to keep their noses out of. They have no proper role in “constitutional disputes between the other two branches,” because “the political branches can work out their constitutional differences without resort[ing] to the courts.” More generally, he claims that courts have no business second-guessing decisions of the executive in areas that “cannot be reduced to tidy evidentiary standards and specific quantums of proof,” or that involve an exercise of “prudential judgment.” Nor should they be permitted to inquire into the “motivation behind government action.” Three cheers for a toothless rule of law that lets the president do anything he desires for any reason.

After citing several specific instances in which judicial scrutiny of Trump’s actions allegedly went off the rails, Barr closes with a lengthy discussion of what he apparently views as the worst such usurpation to date—the Supreme Court’s 2008 Boumediene decision. In that case, a majority that included three Republican appointees ruled that the traditional and well-recognized habeas corpus jurisdiction of the federal courts applied not only on American soil, but also in the anomalous precincts of the Guantánamo Bay enclave, where the United States exercises de facto sovereignty. For that reason, the Court said, the political branches could not categorically suspend the constitutional writ of habeas corpus there. But for Barr, “the idea that the judiciary acts as a neutral check on the political branches to protect foreign enemies from our government is insane.”

Barr’s Federalist Society speech suggests that he is ready to say nearly anything in pursuit of his lifelong goal of a presidency with unchecked powers. As Napoleon is reputed to have said, the man who will say anything will do anything. That Barr has also repeatedly used his authority as attorney general to tailor the position of the United States, in court and in legal opinions, to empower such an unworthy incumbent as Donald Trump to do whatever he wants suggests that this is correct.

The benefit of the doubt that many were ready to extend to Barr a year ago—as among the best of a bad lot of nominees who had previously served in high office without disgrace—has now run out. He has told us in great detail who he is, what he believes, and where he would like to take us. For whatever twisted reasons, he believes that the president should be above the law, and he has as his foil in pursuit of that goal a president who, uniquely in our history, actually aspires to that status. And Barr has acted repeatedly on those beliefs in ways that are more damaging at every turn. Presently he is moving forward with active misuse of the criminal sanction, as one more tool of the president’s personal interests.

Bill Barr’s America is not a place that anyone, including Trump voters, should want to go. It is a banana republic where all are subject to the whims of a dictatorial president and his henchmen. To prevent that, we need a public uprising demanding that Bill Barr resign immediately, or failing that, be impeached.

Copyright © 2020 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved

{ But wouldn’t such move play into the contradictory mixed hand of the president?}

Daily Comment

The Trouble with Donald Trump’s Pardons

February 18, 2020

The former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, whose fourteen-year prison sentence the President commuted on Tuesday, was a contestant on “Celebrity Apprentice.”

Authoritarianism is usually associated with a punitive spirit—a leader who prosecutes and incarcerates his enemies. But there is another side to this leadership style. Authoritarians also dispense largesse, but they do it by their own whims, rather than pursuant to any system or legal rule. The point of authoritarianism is to concentrate power in the ruler, so the world knows that all actions, good and bad, harsh and generous, come from a single source. That’s the real lesson—a story of creeping authoritarianism—of today’s commutations and pardons by President Trump.

Trump commuted the sentence of Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois, who was eight years into a sentence of fourteen years, for various forms of corruption in office. The President pardoned several other white-collar criminals: Michael Milken, the junk-bond king, who pleaded guilty, in 1990, to securities violations; Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, who, in 2009, pleaded guilty to charges of tax fraud and lying to the government; and Edward J. DeBartolo, Jr., a former owner of the San Francisco 49ers, who, in 1998, pleaded guilty to concealing an extortion attempt.(Milken and Kerik served time in prison; DeBartolo was fined a million dollars and suspended for a year by the N.F.L.)

The common link among this group is that all have some personal connection to the President. Blagojevich was a contestant on “Celebrity Apprentice,” and he was prosecuted by Patrick Fitzgerald, a close friend of and lawyer for James Comey, the former F.B.I. director who is a Trump enemy. Explaining his action today, Trump said of the case against Blagojevich, “It was a prosecution by the same people—Comey, Fitzpatrick—the same group.” Milken’s annual financial conferences are a favorite meeting place for, among others, Trump’s moneyed friends. (Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner spoke at last year’s gathering.) Milken is also an active philanthropist, as Trump observed: “We have Mike Milken, who’s gone around and done an incredible job for the world, with all of his research on cancer, and he’s done this and he suffered greatly. He paid a big price, paid a very tough price.” Trump’s explanation for the Kerik pardon is probably the most revealing. The President said that Kerik is “a man who had many recommendations from a lot of good people. You know, oftentimes—pretty much all the time—I really rely on the recommendations of people that know them.” Kerik was appointed police commissioner by Rudolph Giuliani, who was then the mayor of New York and is now Trump’s personal lawyer. It’s safe to assume that Giuliani played a role in Trump’s decision to pardon him. And DeBartolo’s cause was championed by a large group of former professional football players, whose favor Trump has often sought.

In short, then, the pardons were entirely personal in origin, and so the granting of them was exclusively an exercise of Trump’s own power. That was their point. A benevolent leader dispensed favors. The world will not change much because of these actions; of the four, only Blagojevich was still incarcerated. Some of the others may receive a few minor benefits, such as a restored right to purchase guns legally. The only cost is the further degradation of the government, moving our system closer to a cult of personality. In this era of mass incarceration, many people deserve pardons and commutations, but this is not the way to go about it. All Trump has done is to prove that he can reward his friends and his friends’ friends. The chilling corollary is that he knows he can punish his enemies, too.

POLITICS

Roger Stone sentenced to over 3 years in prison as judge slams him for ‘covering up for’ Trump

President Donald Trump’s friend Roger Stone was sentenced to more than three years in prison for crimes related to lying to Congress and tampering with a witness.

Trump has criticized the case against Stone, who lied to a House committee about his contacts with Trump’s campaign related to WikiLeaks.

Stone’s sentence by Judge Amy Berman Jackson will be suspended until she rules on his motion seeking a new trial based on alleged juror misconduct.

Attorney General William Barr has been criticized for demanding a new sentencing recommendation for Stone that was sharply less than what trial prosecutors first requested.

Roger Stone, former adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, center, and his wife Nydia Stone arrive at federal court in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2020.

A federal judge sentenced President Donald Trump’s friend, the longtime Republican operative Roger Stone, to more than 3 years in prison on Thursday for lying to Congress and tampering with a witness in an effort to protect Trump.

“He was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the president, he was prosecuted for covering up for the president,” said Judge Amy Berman Jackson about Stone, who showed no visible emotion when he was sentenced in U.S District Court in Washington, D.C.

“The truth still exists, the truth still matters. Roger Stone’s insistence that it doesn’t … are a threat to our most fundamental institutions,” Jackson said in a blistering denunciation of Stone, who he lied about his efforts to obtain damaging emails related to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Democratic presidential campaign that were stolen by Russian agents.

The judge repeatedly mentioned the “dismay and disgust” that his crimes caused, as she ordered him to serve 40 months in prison, pay a $20,000 fine, spend two years of supervised release and perform 250 hours of community service.

But Stone, 67, will not have to serve that sentence just yet — and possibly not ever.

The judge suspended imposition of all of the punishments pending her ruling on a request by Stone for a new trial on the grounds of alleged misconduct by a juror for his trial last fall.

If Jackson approves that request — which was spurred by revelations that the jury forewoman had posted messages critical of Trump on Twitter — the sentence that the judge announced Thursday will be void.

Stone, whose lawyers requested a sentence of probation, also could be granted a pardon by Trump.

The president has criticized the case against his former advisor, and tweeted about it, yet again, during the sentencing hearing.

If Stone is pardoned, his conviction would be voided, and he would not face any criminal sentence.

Thursday’s hearing capped more than a week of controversy over Stone’s case, and accusations that Attorney General William Barr and Trump improperly interfered in the prosecution due to political considerations and because of Trump’s long relationship with Stone.

Barr forced the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, whose office handled the case, to recommend a more lenient prison term than the seven-to-nine years that trial prosecutors in the case originally proposed early last week

The four trial prosecutors quit the case in protest as the U.S. Attorney filed a new sentencing memo a day after their own recommendation was filed.

That new memo called for “far less” time in prison, but did not specify exactly how long he should be incarcerated.

The 40-month prison term sentence Jackson announced was markedly less than not only the original suggestion by prosecutors, but also less than the minimum term of nearly six years suggested by federal sentencing guidelines as calculated during Thursday’s hearing.

“I’m doing OK,” Stone told a reporter as he left the courtroom dressed in a black pinstripe suit, blue shirt and blue tie.

Protestors heckled Stone with chants of “lock him up!” as he entered a car outside the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse and was driven away.

Stone did not respond when CNBC repeatedly asked him if he believes Trump will pardon him.

Stone did not make a statement on his own behalf at the sentencing, a decision that could reflect his plans to appeal his conviction, and a wish to avoid harming his defense at a second trial.

Jackson at the hearing dismissed arguments by Trump and other defenders of Stone that the the prosecution against him was politically motivated.

The judge also called Trump’s tweets about Stone “inappropriate,” but also said she would not hold them against Stone.

She said that Stone, who reveled in cultivating a “dirty trickster” image, “characteristically injected himself” in the issue of a hack of Democratic emails by Russian agents by claiming he had access to Julian Assange, co-founder of the document disclosure group WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks ended up releasing those emails during the 2016 presidential election.

Stone then lied to Congress a year later about his efforts to get access to those emails, the judge noted.

Jackson said that Stone lied because he knew that public disclosures that he was in touch with WikiLeaks would “reflect badly” on Trump.

“The problem is nothing about this case was a joke. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t a stunt and it wasn’t a prank,” Jackson said.

Jackson early in the hearing ruled against most arguments by Stone’s attorneys related to the calculation of federal sentencing guidelines, which provide judges with possible framework on which to base their punishment of a defendant.

Jackson said Stone should be penalized in that calculation for threatening violence against a witness in the case and that witness’s dog, and for obstructing a House committee’s work in investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

John Crabbe, the new prosecutor in the case, apologized to Jackson for what he called “confusion” over the sentencing recommendation.

Crabbe also said that the first recommendation “was done in good faith,” and also said that “this prosecution is righteous.”

But Crabbe also told the judge that he was not free to discuss who wrote the second sentencing memo that had recommended a less steep term in prison for Stone. Crabbe had signed that memo.

The new prosecutor also did not object to Jackson including a set of “enhancements” to Stone’s sentencing guidelines which called for a prison term as high as 87 months.

Stone was convicted at trial in November of charges related to false statements he gave a House committee in 2017.

The statements were related to his contacts with Trump’s campaign during the 2016 presidential election, as Stone sought to get information about emails stolen by Russian agents from Clinton’s campaign manager and the Democratic National Committee.

Those emails, which were seen as embarrassing to the Democratic nominee Clinton, were made public by WikiLeaks.

Stone also was convicted of witness tampering for threatening an associate, the comedian Randy Credico, in an effort to get him to corroborate his lies to Congress. Stone had falsely claimed that Credico was his conduit to WikiLeaks.

Prosecutors said at Stone’s trial that he kept Trump’s camp aware of what he had learned about WikiLeaks’ plans for releasing the emails. But Stone had told the House committee he had no such conversations with the Trump campaign about WikiLeaks.

The case was lodged in early 2019 by then special counsel Robert Mueller’s office.

Mueller previously obtained convictions of Stone’s former business partner, Paul Manafort, who headed Trump’s 2016 campaign for several months.

Manafort, who is serving a 7-1/2-year prison sentence, was convicted of financial crimes related to his work for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine. That work occurred before his tenure on the Trump campaign.

Another former business partner of Manafort’s, ex-Trump campaign official Rick Gates, testified at Stone’s trial that Trump talked to Stone about WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign, and that Gates himself had spoken with Stone about information expected to be released by WikiLeaks.

A year earlier, in November 2018, Trump in written answers to Mueller, said, “I do not recall discussing WikiLeaks with” Stone, “nor do I recall Mr. Stone having discussed WikiLeaks with my campaign.”

Gates was sentenced by Jackson in December to 45 days in jail for conspiracy and for making a false statement. Those crimes related to his work in Ukraine with Manafort.

Stone’s former associate Credico, in a letter to Jackson last month, said that sending Stone to prison would be “cruelty.”

Credico urged the judge to give Stone a sentence of probation for the five counts of false statements, and one count each of obstruction of proceedings and witness tampering.

More than 2,000 former Justice Department employees have publicly called on Barr to resign for his reversal of the career prosecutors’ sentencing recommendation in the case.

“Each of us strongly condemns President Trump’s and Attorney General Barr’s interference in the fair administration of justice,” the letter said, specifically citing the Stone case.

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