Trump enters the stage

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

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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

!!! !!! !!!

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”.

Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load

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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Bernie Sanders at a rally in Nevada on Friday.
Show caption
US elections 2020
Donald Trump pounces on reports Russia is seeking to help Bernie Sanders
President claims Democrats are rigging process
Trump calls Russian meddling on his behalf ‘a rumor’
Nevada: Democrats prepare to vote in most diverse state yet
Martin Pengelly in New York
@MartinPengelly
Sat 22 Feb 2020 12.47 EST
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As Democrats in Nevada went to the polls on Saturday, Donald Trump gleefully stirred the pot over reports that US intelligence believes Russia is trying to aid Bernie Sanders, the frontrunner for the nomination to face the president in November.

Bernie Sanders has invested big in Nevada. Will it pay off?
In a tweet, Trump said: “Democrats in the Great State of Nevada (Which, because of the Economy, Jobs, the Military & Vets, I will win …) be careful of Russia, Russia, Russia.

“According to Corrupt politician Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, they are pushing for Crazy Bernie Sanders to win. Vote!”

US intelligence has determined that Russian interference in the 2016 US elections not only supported Trump but included efforts to boost Sanders in his bitter primary against the eventual Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.

On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that the House intelligence committee had been briefed that Russia was once again trying to interfere in favour of Trump.

Schiff is the Democratic chairman of that committee and as a leading figure in Trump’s impeachment over his approaches to Ukraine has become a regular target for presidential vitriol.

Reports about the briefing described a furious reaction from Trump which led to the departure of Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, and his replacement by a Trump loyalist, the ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell.

Then, on Friday, the Post reported that Sanders, Trump and “lawmakers on Capitol Hill” had been briefed about “Russian assistance to the Vermont senator” this year, but said it was not clear what the effort involved.

In a statement, Sanders said: “I don’t care, frankly, who [Russian president Vladimir] Putin wants to be president. My message to Putin is clear: Stay out of American elections, and as president I will make sure that you do.

“In 2016, Russia used internet propaganda to sow division in our country, and my understanding is that they are doing it again in 2020. Some of the ugly stuff on the internet attributed to our campaign may well not be coming from real supporters.”

In Nevada, “ugly stuff” attributed to Sanders supporters has included abuse aimed at female leaders of the Culinary Workers Union, an influential presence in the state which opposes the Vermont senator’s plan for Medicare for All healthcare reform.

Nonetheless, Sanders seems set to win. On Saturday morning the realclearpolitics.com polling average for Nevada put the progressive star 16.5 points up on two moderates, Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden.

Nationally, Sanders leads the same site’s average by 11.4 points, over Biden and the former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is not competing in Nevada.

Some suggest Trump wants to face Sanders at the polls, rather than Biden or Bloomberg.

Rick Wilson, a former Republican consultant turned author and ardent Trump critic, recently told the Guardian Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who sits in the Senate as an independent, would be “the easiest person in the world to turn into the comic opera villain Republicans love to hate, the Castro sympathiser, the socialist, the Marxist, the guy who wants to put the aristos in the tumbril as they cart them off to the guillotine”.

The special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election did not establish a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Moscow but did lay out extensive contacts and numerous instances in which the president seemed to seek to obstruct the course of justice.

Trump has claimed vindication but the investigation remains a running sore and at a campaign rally in Las Vegas on Friday, he duly took aim at his political opponents.

“I see these phoneys, the do-nothing Democrats,” Trump said. “They said today that Putin wants to be sure that Trump gets elected. Here we go again. Here we go again. Did you see it? … Now I just see it again. I was told that was happening, I was told a week ago. They said you know they’re trying to start a rumor. It’s disinformation.”

In tweets and retweets after the event, the president loosed off shots at another favourite target, the media.

Referring to MSNBC as “MSDNC (Comcast Slime)”, he said that network and CNN “and others of the Fake Media, have now added Crazy Bernie to the list of Russian Sympathizers, along with Tulsi Gabbard [and] Jill Stein (of the Green Party), both agents of Russia, they say.”

Trump reportedly calls John Bolton a ‘traitor’ and wants to block his book
Gabbard, a Hawaii congresswoman still in the running for the Democratic nomination but not registering significantly in the polls, has sued Hillary Clinton for allegedly calling her a “Russian asset”.

Stein was the Green nominee for president in 2016, taking nearly 1.5m votes nationally (while the Libertarian Gary Johnson took more than 4m) in a contest Clinton won by nearly 3m. Trump took the White House in the electoral college.

Clinton beat Trump by two points in Nevada, a key swing state again this year.

On Twitter, Trump claimed the reason for media reports that “President Putin wants Bernie (or me) to win … is that the Do Nothing Democrats, using disinformation Hoax number 7, don’t want Bernie Sanders to get the Democrat Nomination, and they figure this would be very bad for his chances.

“It’s all rigged, again, against Crazy Bernie Sanders!”

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Bernie SandersDonald TrumpRussiaUS politicsNevadanews
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Lawmakers Are Warned That Russia Is Meddling to Re-elect Trump

A classified briefing to House members is said to have angered the president, who complained that Democrats would “weaponize” the disclosure.

American intelligence agencies concluded that Russia, on the orders of President Vladimir V. Putin, interfered in the 2016 election

Feb. 20, 2020Updated 10:44 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President Trump re-elected, five people familiar with the matter said, a disclosure to Congress that angered Mr. Trump, who complained that Democrats would use it against him.

The day after the Feb. 13 briefing to lawmakers, the president berated Joseph Maguire, the outgoing acting director of national intelligence, for allowing it to take place, people familiar with the exchange said. Mr. Trump cited the presence in the briefing of Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, who led the impeachment proceedings against him, as a particular irritant.

During the briefing to the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Trump’s allies challenged the conclusions, arguing that he had been tough on Russia and strengthened European security. Some intelligence officials viewed the briefing as a tactical error, saying that had the official who delivered the conclusion spoken less pointedly or left it out, they would have avoided angering the Republicans.

Though intelligence officials have previously told lawmakers that Russia’s interference campaign was continuing, last week’s briefing did contain what appeared to be new information, including that Russia intended to interfere with the 2020 Democratic primaries as well as the general election.

The intelligence official who delivered the briefing, Shelby Pierson, is an aide to Mr. Maguire who has a reputation of delivering intelligence in somewhat blunt terms. The president announced on Wednesday that he was replacing Mr. Maguire with Richard Grenell, the ambassador to Germany and long an aggressively vocal Trump supporter.

Though some current and former officials speculated that the briefing might have played a role in the removal of Mr. Maguire, who had told people in recent days that he believed he would remain in the job, two administration officials said the timing was coincidental. Mr. Grenell had been in discussions with the administration about taking on new roles, they said, and Mr. Trump had never felt a kinship with Mr. Maguire.

Spokeswomen for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and its election security office declined to comment. A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A Democratic House Intelligence Committee official called the Feb. 13 briefing an important update about “the integrity of our upcoming elections” and said that members of both parties attended, including Representative Devin Nunes of California, the top Republican on the committee.

In a tweet on Thursday evening, Mr. Schiff said that it appeared that Mr. Trump was “again jeopardizing our efforts to stop foreign meddling” by objecting to Congress being informed of interference attempts.

Mr. Trump has long accused the intelligence community’s assessment of Russia’s 2016 interference as the work of a “deep state” conspiracy intent on undermining the validity of his election. Intelligence officials feel burned by their experience after the last election, where their work became subject of intense political debate and is now a focus of a Justice Department investigation.

Part of the president’s anger over the intelligence briefing stemmed from the administration’s reluctance to provide delicate information to Mr. Schiff. He has been a leading critic of Mr. Trump since 2016, doggedly investigating Russian election interference and later leading the impeachment inquiry into the president’s dealings with Ukraine.

After asking about the briefing that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and other agencies gave to the House, Mr. Trump complained that Mr. Schiff would “weaponize” the intelligence about Russia’s support for him, according to a person familiar with the briefing. And he was angry that no one had told him sooner about the briefing, the person said.

Mr. Trump has fixated on Mr. Schiff since the impeachment saga began, pummeling him publicly with insults and unfounded accusations of corruption. At one point in October, Mr. Trump refused to invite lawmakers from the congressional intelligence committees to a White House briefing on Syria because he did not want Mr. Schiff there, according to three people briefed on the matter.

The president did not erupt at Mr. Maguire, and instead just asked pointed questions, according to the person. But the message was unmistakable: He was displeased by what took place.

Ms. Pierson, officials said, was delivering the conclusion of multiple intelligence agencies, not her own opinion. The Washington Post first reported the Oval Office confrontation between Mr. Trump and Mr. Maguire, but not the substance of the disagreement.

The intelligence community issued an assessment in early 2017 that President Vladimir V. Putin personally ordered an influence campaign in the previous year’s election and developed “a clear preference for President-elect Trump.” But Republicans have long argued that Moscow’s campaign was intended to sow chaos, not aid Mr. Trump specifically.

And some Republicans have accused the intelligence agencies of opposing Mr. Trump, but intelligence officials reject those accusations. They fiercely guard their work as nonpartisan, saying it is the only way to ensure its validity.

At the House briefing, Representative Chris Stewart, Republican of Utah, who has been considered for the director’s post, was among the Republicans who challenged the conclusion about Russia’s support for Mr. Trump. Mr. Stewart insisted that the president had aggressively confronted Moscow, providing anti-tank weapons to Ukraine for its war against Russia-backed separatists and strengthening the NATO alliance with new resources, according to two people briefed on the meeting.

Mr. Stewart declined to discuss the briefing but said that Moscow had no reason to support Mr. Trump. He pointed to the president’s work to confront Iran, a Russian ally, and encourage European energy independence from Moscow. “I’d challenge anyone to give me a real-world argument where Putin would rather have President Trump and not Bernie Sanders,” Mr. Stewart said in an interview, referring to the nominal Democratic primary race front-runner.

Mr. Trump believes that Russian efforts to get him elected in 2016 have cast doubts about the legitimacy of his campaign victory.

Under Mr. Putin, Russian intelligence has long sought broadly to stir turmoil among adversaries around the world. The United States and key allies on Thursday accused Russian military intelligence, the group responsible for much of the 2016 election interference in the United States, of a cyberattack on neighboring Georgia that took out websites and television broadcasts.

The Russians have been preparing — and experimenting — for the 2020 election, undeterred by American efforts to thwart them but aware that they needed a new playbook of as-yet-undetectable methods, United States officials said.

They have made more creative use of Facebook and other social media. Rather than impersonating Americans as they did in 2016, Russian operatives are working to get Americans to repeat disinformation to get around social media companies’ rules that prohibit “inauthentic speech,” the officials said.

And the Russians are working from servers in the United States, rather than abroad, knowing that American intelligence agencies are prohibited from operating inside the country. (The F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security can, with aid from the intelligence agencies.)

Russian hackers have also infiltrated Iran’s cyberwarfare unit, perhaps with the intent of launching attacks that would look like they were coming from Tehran, the National Security Agency has warned.

Some officials believe that foreign powers, possibly including Russia, could use ransomware attacks, like those that have debilitated some local governments, to damage or interfere with voting systems or registration databases.

Still, much of the Russian aim is similar to its 2016 interference, officials said: search for issues that stir controversy in the United States and use various methods to stoke division.

One of Moscow’s main goals is undermining confidence in American election systems, intelligence officials have told lawmakers, seeking to sow doubts over close elections and recounts. Confronting those Russian efforts is difficult, officials have said, because they want to maintain American confidence in voting systems.

Both Republicans and Democrats asked the intelligence agencies to hand over the underlying material that prompted their conclusion that Russia again is favoring Mr. Trump’s election.

Although the intelligence conclusion that Russia is trying to interfere in the 2020 Democratic primaries is new, in the 2019 report of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, there is a reference to Russian desires to help Mr. Sanders in his presidential primary campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2016. The report quoted internal documents from the Internet Research Agency, a troll factory sponsored by Russian intelligence, in an order to its operatives: “Use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest except for Sanders and Trump — we support them.”

How soon the House committee might get that information is not clear. Since the impeachment inquiry, tensions have risen between the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the committee. As officials navigate the disputes, the intelligence agencies have slowed the amount of material they provide to the House, officials said. The agencies are required by law to regularly brief Congress on threats.

While Republicans have long been critical of the Obama administration for not doing enough to track and deter Russian interference in 2016, current and former intelligence officials said the party is at risk of making a similar mistake now. Mr. Trump has been reluctant to even hear about election interference, and Republicans dislike discussing it publicly.

The aftermath of last week’s briefing prompted some intelligence officials to voice concerns that the White House will dismantle a key election security effort by Dan Coats, the former director of national intelligence: the establishment of an election interference czar. Ms. Pierson has held the post since last summer.

And some current and former intelligence officials expressed fears that Mr. Grenell may have been put in place explicitly to slow the pace of information on election interference to Congress. The revelations about Mr. Trump’s confrontation with Mr. Maguire raised new concerns about Mr. Grenell’s appointment, said the Democratic House committee official, who added that the upcoming election could be more vulnerable to foreign interference.

Mr. Trump, former officials have said, is typically uninterested in election interference briefings, and Mr. Grenell might see it as unwise to emphasize such intelligence with the president.

“The biggest concern I would have is if the intelligence community was not forthcoming and not providing the analysis in the run-up to the next election,” said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former intelligence official now with the Center for a New American Security. “It is really concerning that this is happening in the run-up to an election.”

Mr. Grenell’s unbridled loyalty is clearly important to Mr. Trump but may not be ideally suited for an intelligence chief making difficult decisions about what to brief to the president and Congress, Ms. Kendall-Taylor said.

“Trump is trying to whitewash or rewrite the narrative about Russia’s involvement in the election,” she said. “Grenell’s appointment suggests he is really serious about that.”

The acting deputy to Mr. Maguire, Andrew P. Hallman, will step down on Friday, officials said, paving the way for Mr. Grenell to put in place his own management team. Mr. Hallman was the intelligence office’s principal executive, but since the resignation in August of the previous deputy, Sue Gordon, he has been performing the duties of that post.

Mr. Maguire is planning to leave government, according to an American official.

Adam Goldman reports on the F.B.I. from Washington and is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner.

Julian E. Barnes is a national security reporter based in Washington, covering the intelligence agencies. Before joining The Times in 2018, he wrote about security matters for The Wall Street Journal.

© 2020 The New York Times Company

The New York Times

Trump Demands 2 Liberal Justices Recuse Themselves From His Cases

The president ratcheted up a fight with a judicial system he sees as biased against him.

Feb. 25, 2020Updated 9:57 a.m. ET

NEW DELHI — President Trump lashed out at two liberal Supreme Court justices on Tuesday, escalating his battle with the judicial system to new heights despite entreaties by his attorney general to refrain from Twitter blasts that complicate the administration’s legal fights.

Weighing in on a domestic matter on a day of ceremony and meetings in India, Mr. Trump seized on an opinion by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and a years-old comment by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to demand that the two Democratic-appointed jurists recuse themselves from any cases involving him.

“‘Sotomayor accuses GOP appointed Justices of being biased in favor of Trump,’” he wrote on Twitter, citing Laura Ingraham of Fox News. “This is a terrible thing to say. Trying to ‘shame’ some into voting her way? She never criticized Justice Ginsberg when she called me a ‘faker’. Both should recuse themselves on all Trump, or Trump related, matters!”

“While ‘elections have consequences,’” he added, “I only ask for fairness, especially when it comes to decisions made by the United States Supreme Court!”

He later expanded on it during a news conference. “Her statement was so inappropriate,” Mr. Trump said of Justice Sotomayor. “When you’re a justice of the Supreme Court — it’s almost what she’s trying is take the people who do feel a different way and get them to vote the way that she would like them to vote. I just thought it was so inappropriate, such a terrible statement for a Supreme Court statement.”

Mr. Trump presumably was referring to a dissent issued last week by Justice Sotomayor against an order by the court allowing the Trump administration to proceed with a plan to deny green cards to immigrants who are deemed likely to become “public charges” reliant on government aid programs.

In her seven-page opinion, Justice Sotomayor wrote that the Trump administration had become too quick to run to the Supreme Court after interim losses in the lower courts.

“Claiming one emergency after another, the government has recently sought stays in an unprecedented number of cases, demanding immediate attention and consuming limited court resources in each,” she wrote. “And with each successive application, of course, its cries of urgency ring increasingly hollow.”

Justice Sotomayor did not overtly accuse Republican-appointed justices of being biased in favor of Mr. Trump, as the president asserted, but complained that the court “is partly to blame for the breakdown in the appellate process,” because it “has been all too quick to grant the government’s” reflexive requests.

She added: “Perhaps most troublingly, the court’s recent behavior on stay applications has benefited one litigant over all others,” a reference to the Trump administration.

The five justices who voted in the majority in the case were all appointed by Republicans, but Justice Sotomayor did not frame her disagreement in partisan terms, and her dissent was written in much the same way as others by justices who lose divided rulings.

Mr. Trump did not seem familiar with what Justice Sotomayor actually wrote but instead seemed to be reacting to a headline that characterized her statement in a far balder, more political way than she had. Asked by a reporter what exactly he found inappropriate, Mr. Trump demurred, saying “you know what the statement was.” When the reporter accurately summarized part of the justice’s dissent, the president said, “No, I don’t think that was it.”

In adding Justice Ginsburg to his attacks on Twitter and at the news conference, Mr. Trump resumed a four-year-old feud with the longest-serving liberal on the court. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Justice Ginsburg called Mr. Trump a “faker” and said she could not imagine him as president.

He responded at the time that she should resign. She did not, but expressed regret, saying her remarks were “ill advised” for a Supreme Court justice and promised that “in the future I will be more circumspect.”

The justices are highly unlikely to comply with Mr. Trump’s latest demand that they recuse themselves from the many cases involving him that come before their court. But the president’s attack raised the temperature of his continuing assault on the law enforcement and justice systems, which he has tried to bend to his will in increasingly bold ways.

In recent days, he has repeatedly attacked Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is overseeing the case of his friend Roger J. Stone Jr., who was sentenced to more than three years in prison for lying to Congress and intimidating a witness. He targeted her again on Tuesday, reposting a Twitter message from a Fox News host that said: “Roger Stone judge’s bias may have jeopardized entire trial.”

Attorney General William P. Barr went on television to ask Mr. Trump to stop weighing in on legal cases involving his friends, because it was making it “impossible” for him to do his work. A group of federal judges convened an emergency conference call because of the attacks on Judge Jackson.

Mr. Trump has often assailed lower courts over rulings against various policies of his, particularly the Ninth United States Circuit Court of Appeals based in California. But he has only occasionally taken aim at the Supreme Court itself, perhaps wary of offending its conservative majority and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

An institutionalist, Chief Justice Roberts has bristled at some of the president’s past attacks on judges. When Mr. Trump assailed “an Obama judge” for a ruling in 2018, the chief justice issued a statement defending the independence of the judiciary. “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” he wrote.

© 2020 The New York Times Company

{Trump sues New York Times and cancels subscription to it and the Washington Post.}>>>>>>>>

The New York Times

Trump Campaign Sues New York Times Over 2019 Opinion Article

The lawsuit concerns an essay published a year ago and headlined “The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo.”

It’s the first time President Trump’s political operation has sued an American outlet since he took office.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

By Michael M. Grynbaum and Marc Tracy

Feb. 26, 2020Updated 7:19 p.m. ET

President Trump’s re-election campaign sued The New York Times for libel on Wednesday, alleging that an Op-Ed article published by the newspaper falsely asserted a “quid pro quo” between Russian officials and Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Mr. Trump often threatens to sue media organizations but rarely follows through. The lawsuit, filed in New York State court in Manhattan, is the first time his political operation has taken legal action against an American news outlet since he took office.

The lawsuit concerns an essay published by the Opinion section of The Times in March 2019. The article, headlined “The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo,” was written by Max Frankel, who served as executive editor of The Times from 1986 to 1994. (The Opinion section of The Times operates separately from its newsroom.)

In the essay, Mr. Frankel wrote about communications between Mr. Trump’s inner circle and Russian emissaries in the lead-up to the 2016 election. He concluded that, rather than any “detailed electoral collusion,” the Trump campaign and Russian officials “had an overarching deal”: “the quid of help in the campaign against Hillary Clinton for the quo of a new pro-Russian foreign policy.”

The Trump lawsuit argues that this conclusion “is false” and that The Times published the essay “knowing it would misinform and mislead its own readers.” The suit also accuses The Times, without evidence, of harboring “extreme bias against and animosity toward” Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign.

The Times responded on Wednesday that it would fight the suit.

“The Trump campaign has turned to the courts to try to punish an opinion writer for having an opinion they find unacceptable,” Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for The Times, said in a statement.

“Fortunately, the law protects the right of Americans to express their judgments and conclusions, especially about events of public importance,” Ms. Murphy added. “We look forward to vindicating that right in this case.”

Mr. Trump, whose vilification of the news media has little precedent among past presidents, has ratcheted up his attacks on the press over the past year. He has accused The Times of “treason,” tweeted the term “fake news” hundreds of times and threatened to pull broadcast licenses.

Asked about the lawsuit at a news conference at the White House on Wednesday night, Mr. Trump doubled down on his criticism of The Times. “It’s beyond an opinion,” he said of Mr. Frankel’s Op-Ed article. “That’s not an opinion. That’s something much more than an opinion.”

“They did a bad thing,” the president added, “and there’ll be more coming.”

Earlier Wednesday, several media law experts reacted with skepticism about the Trump campaign’s chances of succeeding in the suit.

“A publisher cannot be held liable for commentary based on public facts,” said Brian Hauss, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Frederick Schauer, a law professor at the University of Virginia, said public figures who sue for libel must show that a publisher either “knew it was false before publishing, or had actual suspicion of falsity and went ahead anyway.” Proving that in court, he said, “is virtually impossible.”

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Trump campaign by Charles J. Harder, a lawyer with a reputation for waging aggressive legal battles against prominent news organizations.

Mr. Harder is best known for representing Terry G. Bollea, the former professional wrestler known as Hulk Hogan, in a lawsuit against Gawker Media that was secretly underwritten by the tech investor Peter Thiel. The suit, which concerned the publication of a sex video, resulted in a $140 million decision that led to Gawker Media’s bankruptcy and forced the site’s sale.

Mr. Harder also represented Melania Trump, Mr. Trump’s wife, when she sued The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, in 2016 over what she said were “false and defamatory statements,” including that a modeling agency she worked for in the 1990s was also an escort service. The Daily Mail ultimately apologized, retracted the article and paid damages in a settlement.

This is not Mr. Trump’s first time going to court against a journalist. In 2006, he sued Timothy L. O’Brien for libel after the publication of Mr. O’Brien’s biography, “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald.” The case was dismissed three years later. (Mr. O’Brien, who previously worked as a reporter and editor at The Times, is a senior adviser to Michael R. Bloomberg’s presidential campaign.)

The Times is also defending itself in a defamation suit brought by Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice-presidential nominee, over an editorial published in the Opinion pages that incorrectly linked her to a 2011 mass shooting that severely wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona. Ms. Palin’s case was dismissed by a Federal District Court, but an appellate court reinstated the suit last year.

Trump Threatens to Retaliate Against Reporters Who Don’t Show ‘Respect’

© 2020 The New York Times Company

{ The Trump election commenter may be more concerned about the political implications of the coming pandemic, then concern for a possible human toll, some allegations assert. The economy may be hard hit, and the economy sits well as a cornerstone of achievement}>>>>>>>

: POLITICO

WHITE HOUSE

Coronavirus gets a Trumpian response

He cracked wise, told a story with a stand-up comedian’s patter, waved around colorful graphs and listed facts he had just learned.

President Donald Trump holds a news conference with members of his coronavirus task force. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

02/26/2020 09:55 PM EST

President Donald Trump tried to ease Americans’ fears about the potential spread of coronavirus on Wednesday night by putting himself at the center of it all.

He cracked wise about his germaphobia, recounted a run-in with a sick friend using a stand-up comedian’s patter, waved around colorful graphs showing America’s superiority on virus containment and listed facts he had just learned about the flu.

It was a performance that had kept White House staffers on edge all day, ever since the president unexpectedly tweeted his plans for a news conference after deplaning at sunrise from Air Force One. Just hours before his appearance was expected to begin, communications staffers were uncertain about how — or where — the news conference would take place, and whether the president or just the coronavirus task force would take questions.

But in the end, the news conference was a strategic effort by the White House to dampen fears about the coronavirus — by making Trump the face of it.

Trump discussed the low number of cases of coronavirus in the U.S., blamed the recent volatility in the stock market on both coronavirus fears and Americans’ reaction to the Democratic candidates for president. And while he said the administration was preparing for worst-case scenarios, “I don’t think we will ever be anywhere near that.”

“The threat to the American public remains low,” Trump said from the podium, less than a day after a top health official said it was only a matter of time before the outbreak would hit the U.S. and just minutes before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced it had identified in California the first coronavirus case that had not been contracted from travel abroad.

The coronavirus has now spread from China to Japan, South Korea, Italy, Iran and elsewhere, causing global panic and sending the stock market tumbling. In Washington, aides are fearful that a slowing economy could hurt one of Trump’s key messages during his reelection bid.

So Trump decided to signal he was taking control.

His plans for the news conference in the infrequently used briefing room became apparent when Secret Service officials were spotted walking around the crowded press room area, indicating a presidential visit might be forthcoming. Moments later, an updated schedule from the White House announced that the president, vice president and members of the coronavirus task force would be holding the presser in the White House’s nearly mothballed James S. Brady Press BriefingRroom.

The news set off a flurry of activity as photographers and videographers scrambled to get their equipment and cameras in place.

It was a rare sight to have the president at the podium. He has appeared only once before — in 2019, the same day Nancy Pelosi was named speaker of the House, to steal the spotlight for a moment and congratulate her, and to advocate construction of the border wall. He also poked his head in the briefing room once to excitedly tease a “major announcement” from Korean officials in 2018 that ended up being his plans to meet with Kim Jong Un.

Before the news conference began, the president was receiving a briefing from members of the coronavirus task force who then crowded behind him on the small briefing room stage.

Then Trump began, relatively low-key to start, but picking up steam as he went along.

At one point, the president, whose staff always keeps hand sanitizer nearby, pantomimed washing his hands for the cameras, saying that people should treat the virus like they would a flu.

“I had a man come up to me a week ago. Hadn’t seen him in a long time. I said, ‘How are you doing?’ He said, ‘Fine, fine.’ He hugs me. I said, ‘Are you well?’ He said, ‘No,’” Trump said to laughter at his re-enactment.

“He said, ‘I have the fever and the worst flu.’ He’s hugging and kissing me. I said, ‘Excuse me,’ and started washing my hands,” Trump said. “You have to do this. I think you want to treat this like the flu, right? You know, it’s going to be OK.”

He even joked about his own reputation as a germaphobe, saying that, in the case of the coronavirus, his penchant for frequently washing his hands seemed like a good plan.

At another point, Trump held up color printouts from Johns Hopkins University, listing what the school had determined were the best-prepared countries to handle a disease outbreak. The United States, of course, was No. 1.

He also digressed into a rundown of how deadly the seasonal flu has been. Since 2010, the CDC estimates that from 12,000 to 61,000 people have died annually from the flu. Trump said the number ranged from 25,000 to 69,000 annually. Thus far, coronavirus has killed at least 3,000 people.

The major news out of the news conference was Trump’s appointment of Vice President Mike Pence to run the administration’s response to coronavirus. Trump insisted Pence was not taking a czarlike position, nor was he displacing Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar from leading the internal task force. Azar stood behind Trump during the news conference, smiling broadly after a day of testifying on Capitol Hill and fielding tough questions.

Azar’s job is not is not thought to be in jeopardy, three people close to the White House said, even though the decision to elevate Pence came as a surprise to many within the health department.

The White House may still opt to bring in someone from outside the administration to manage the response if the coronavirus outbreak worsens, said one person who recently supplied the administration with the names of a handful of candidates.

Pence’s appointment is seen as a compromise for now — giving officials time to assess their needs and see whether the crisis escalates, while allowing Azar to save face after less than a month as the effort’s leader.

© 2020 POLITICO LLC

<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<>>>:

The New York Times

Opinion

When a Pandemic Meets a Personality Cult

The Trump team confirms all of our worst fears.

By Paul Krugman

Opinion Columnist

Feb. 27, 2020

President Trump on Wednesday addressed the evils associated with the coronavirus. Among them: the reporters asking questions.

So, here’s the response of the Trump team and its allies to the coronavirus, at least so far: It’s actually good for America. Also, it’s a hoax perpetrated by the news media and the Democrats. Besides, it’s no big deal, and people should buy stocks. Anyway, we’ll get it all under control under the leadership of a man who doesn’t believe in science.

From the day Donald Trump was elected, some of us worried how his administration would deal with a crisis not of its own making. Remarkably, we’ve gone three years without finding out: Until now, every serious problem facing the Trump administration, from trade wars to confrontation with Iran, has been self-created. But the coronavirus is looking as if it might be the test we’ve been fearing.

And the results aren’t looking good.

The story of the Trump pandemic response actually began several years ago. Almost as soon as he took office, Trump began cutting funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, leading in turn to an 80 percent cut in the resources the agency devotes to global disease outbreaks. Trump also shut down the entire global-health-security unit of the National Security Council.

Experts warned that these moves were exposing America to severe risks. “We’ll leave the field open to microbes,” declared Tom Frieden, a much-admired former head of the C.D.C., more than two years ago. But the Trump administration has a preconceived notion about where national security threats come from — basically, scary brown people — and is hostile to science in general. So we entered the current crisis in an already weakened condition.

And the microbes came.

The first reaction of the Trumpers was to see the coronavirus as a Chinese problem — and to see whatever is bad for China as being good for us. Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, cheered it on as a development that would “accelerate the return of jobs to North America.”

The story changed once it became clear that the virus was spreading well beyond China. At that point it became a hoax perpetrated by the news media. Rush Limbaugh weighed in: “It looks like the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump. Now, I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus. … The coronavirus is the common cold, folks.”

Limbaugh was, you may not be surprised to hear, projecting. Back in 2014 right-wing politicians and media did indeed try to politically weaponize a disease outbreak, the Ebola virus, with Trump himself responsible for more than 100 tweets denouncing the Obama administration’s response (which was actually competent and effective).

And in case you’re wondering, no, the coronavirus isn’t like the common cold. In fact, early indications are that the virus may be as lethal as the 1918 Spanish Flu, which killed as many as 50 million people.

Financial markets evidently don’t agree that the virus is a hoax; by Thursday afternoon the Dow was off more than 3,000 points since last week. Falling markets appear to worry the administration more than the prospect of, you know, people dying. So Larry Kudlow, the administration’s top economist, made a point of declaring that the virus was “contained” — contradicting the C.D.C. — and suggested that Americans buy stocks. The market continued to drop.

G

At that point the administration appears to have finally realized that it might need to do something beyond insisting that things were great. But according to The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman, it initially proposed paying for a virus response by cutting aid to the poor — specifically, low-income heating subsidies. Cruelty in all things.

On Wednesday Trump held a news conference on the virus, much of it devoted to incoherent jabs at Democrats and the media. He did, however, announce the leader of the government response to the threat. Instead of putting a health care professional in charge, however, he handed the job to Vice President Mike Pence, who has an interesting relationship with both health policy and science.

Early in his political career, Pence staked out a distinctive position on public health, declaring that smoking doesn’t kill people. He has also repeatedly insisted that evolution is just a theory. As governor of Indiana, he blocked a needle exchange program that could have prevented a significant H.I.V. outbreak, calling for prayer instead.

And now, according to The Times, government scientists will need to get Pence’s approval before making public statements about the coronavirus.

So the Trumpian response to crisis is completely self-centered, entirely focused on making Trump look good rather than protecting America. If the facts don’t make Trump look good, he and his allies attack the messengers, blaming the news media and the Democrats — while trying to prevent scientists from keeping us informed. And in choosing people to deal with a real crisis, Trump prizes loyalty rather than competence.

Maybe Trump — and America — will be lucky, and this won’t be as bad as it might be. But anyone feeling confident right now isn’t paying attention.

How Bad Will the Coronavirus Outbreak Get?

Feb. 27, 2020

Only Doctors Can Save the Markets From the Coronavirus

Feb. 28, 2020

Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography. @PaulKrugman

© 2020 The New York Times Company

The New York Times

Opinion

Trump Makes Us Ill

Going viral is not a good thing this time.

Feb. 29, 2020, 2:30 p.m. ET

Donald Trump was right.

Germs are scary.

For three decades, I talked to Trump about his fear of germs. When I interviewed him at the Trump Tower restaurant during the 2016 race, the famous germophobe had a big hospital-strength bottle of hand sanitizer on the table, next to my salad, ready to squirt.

He told me about the nightmarish feeling he had when a man emerged from the bathroom in a restaurant with wet hands and shook his hand. He couldn’t eat afterward.

Today, in a stunning twist of fate, germs are infecting his presidency and threatening a bad prognosis for his re-election prospects.

Trump is the first president to use the stock market as a near-daily measure of his success — and his virility — and now the market is slumping. If you want to own it on the way up, you have to own it on the way down.

Investors, who worried when Trump began to rise in politics, soon realized that he had their backs. He was just a corporate vessel pretending to be a populist; the stock market was his sugar high.

Now Trump is learning the hard way what my fatalistic Irish mother taught me: The thing you love most is the first to go. As Mike Bloomberg points out, investors have factored in Trump’s incompetence, and that is contributing to the market cratering.

The president urged the Fed to do something soon to mitigate the stock market losses. Socialism for the rich!

The scaremonger in chief has been downplaying the possibility of a coronavirus pandemic and joining Fox News hosts in accusing the “anti-Trump” media and “Do Nothing Democrats” of scaremongering about the virus.

At the CPAC convention, Mick Mulvaney told a cheering crowd that impeachment was the “hoax of the day” and now the press thinks the coronavirus “is going to be what brings down the president.” The media, he said, should spend more time on positive stories, like the president’s “caring” relationship with his teenage son, Barron, even though White Houses usually frown on stories about young presidential offspring.

Mike Huckabee went on the attack, asserting that Trump “could personally suck the virus out of every one of the 60,000 people in the world, suck it out of their lungs, swim to the bottom of the ocean and spit it out, and he would be accused of pollution for messing up the ocean.”

On Fox, Don Jr. said the Democrats “seemingly hope” the virus kills millions to stop Trump’s winning streak. Rush Limbaugh chimed in that the media “would love for the coronavirus to be this deadly strain that wipes everybody out so they could blame Trump for it.”

There are 2,800 dead worldwide and disturbing stories showing how federal criteria delayed the diagnosis of a California woman and how federal health employees interacted with Americans who had possibly been exposed to the virus in China without proper training or gear.

Yet Trump seems more consumed with how the Democrats might blame him for a coronavirus recession than with the virus itself.

Trump had tweet-shrieked at President Barack Obama about how he should handle Ebola. (“Obama should apologize to the American people & resign!”)

Yet he was so relaxed about the coronavirus threat that he spent 45 minutes Thursday chatting in the Oval with the authors of a little play called “FBI Lovebirds: Undercovers,” inspired by the texts of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. The play’s leads, Dean Cain of “Superman” fame and the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” actress Kristy Swanson, were also in the meeting. Trump joked that he’d be willing to be Cain’s understudy, the actor said. The president got together the same day with a group that included his social media boosters Diamond and Silk.

At the White House press conference, Trump preened: “Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low.” He later said that one day, like a miracle, the virus “will disappear.”

His top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, pushed the crisis as an opportunity: “Stocks look pretty cheap to me.”

Trump won’t be able to deflect and project and create a daft alternative narrative. The virus won’t respond to conspiracy theories from Rush Limbaugh or nasty diatribes from Sean Hannity or nicknames from Donald Trump.

This will be a deus ex machina test of Trump’s authoritarian behavior. Epidemics are not well suited to authoritarian regimes and propaganda, as we saw this week when Beijing’s use of propaganda tactics to suppress information about the outbreak failed spectacularly and when Iran tamped down news about the virus for political reasons even as it ravaged top officials.

The reality of the coronavirus spreading will reflect poorly on Trump — his cavalier dismantling of vital government teams for health response and his disdain for experts and science.

Trump tried to make federal agencies complicit on his fabulist hogwash about the size of his inaugural crowd and the path of Hurricane Dorian. It is unlikely that he will be able to keep his insatiable and insecure ego in check long enough to give the nation the facts, reassurance and guidance it needs about the infection.

Trump is already doing his orange clown pufferfish routine, acting as though he knows more about viruses than anyone, just as he has bragged that he knows more about the military, taxes, trade, infrastructure, ISIS, renewables, visas, banking, debt and “the horror of nuclear.”

He appointed Mike Pence to be point man, even though, as the famously homophobic governor of Indiana, Pence helped make the H.I.V. epidemic there worse by substituting moral pronouncements for scientific knowledge. Coronavirus Czar Pence spent Friday at a $25,000-a-plate dinner in sunny Sarasota raising money to try to win back the House, The Tampa Bay Times reported.

Trump’s history in business — he makes people feel good for a while and then it ends badly — could presage a stock market crash before he exits.

And it’s conceivable that a crash — along with hospitals being overwhelmed by the uninsured — could lead to the election of a real populist promising Medicare for All.

And that would be a very Trumpian arc indeed.

When a Pandemic Meets a Personality Cult

Feb. 27, 2020

Opinion | Elisabeth Rosenthal

We Don’t Really Know How Many People Have Coronavirus

Feb. 28, 2020

Opinion | Ross Douthat

The Coronavirus Is More Than a Disease. It’s a Test

Maureen Dowd, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary and author of three New York Times best sellers, became an Op-Ed columnist in 1995. @MaureenDowd • Faceboo

-------- -------- -‘------ --’----- --'–

New Fox Poll

{Is this real or has a swampy motivation for pro Trim Fox News to publish this}?

Fox

New FOX poll shows any Democratic candidate would beat President Trump

Published 1 day ago

Every day there seems to be a new poll gauging where voters stand on the presidential candidates.

Friday, one of the latest showed how voters would cast their ballots if the election were held today.

The poll from FOX News and Polling USA shows in a head to head race for the White House, all Democratic candidates beating President Donald Trump.

When Trump goes up against Democratic front runner Bernie Sanders, Sanders has a seven-point edge at 49 percent compared to Trump’s 42.

Against former vice president Joe Biden, the poll shows Biden would have an eight-point edge over Trump, 49 percent to 41 percent.

Newcomer Mike Bloomberg who’s spending billions on tv ads, but hasn’t even been on a ballot yet, beats Trump 48 percent to 40 percent in the poll.

The numbers are a little tighter with Senator Elizabeth Warren. Warren would take 46 percent to Trump’s 43.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg would also a three-point edge at 45 percent to 42 percent over President Trump, and Senator Amy Klobuchar would run neck and neck with Trump with a one-point edge, 44 percent to 43 percent.

President Trump didn’t like the results of that poll and tweeted Friday morning "worst polls just like 2016 when they were so far off the mark. Why doesn’t Fox finally get a competent polling company

. ©2019 FOX Television Stations

?!?!?! ?!?! ?!!??!!??!!? ?!!??!!??!!? ?!!??!!??!!? ?!!??! ?!!??!!?

Coronavirus outbreak

Coronavirus: Pence defends Trump Jr claim Democrats want ‘millions’ to die

Vice-President is leading White House taskforce on outbreak

Republicans are only ‘pushing back’, Pence claims

Robert Reich: Trump’s cuts have made the danger far worse

Sun 1 Mar 2020 09.36 EST

When Donald Trump Jr said Democrats hope coronavirus “kills millions of people” in the US because they want to bring his father down, he was merely “pushing back” at politicisation of the viral outbreak by Trump opponents, Mike Pence claimed in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

Coronavirus: Trump’s mixed messages ‘undermines public trust’, experts say

“It’s time for the other side to turn down the volume,” the vice-president told NBC’s Meet the Press.

At a White House press conference on Saturday, Trump was forced to defend his use of the word “hoax” in reference to the outbreak. Harshly criticised by contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, the president said he had been referring to politicisation of coronavirus, not the outbreak itself.

In the interview broadcast on Sunday, NBC host Chuck Todd played Pence clips of Trump allies discussing the outbreak which on Saturday claimed its first US death, a man in Washington state.

Rush Limbaugh, the conservative shock jock to whom Trump gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom, said: “The coronavirus is being weaponized, as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump.”

You see voices on our side pushing back on outrageous and irresponsible rhetoric on the other side

Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel said: “Democrats are using this for their political gain to try and stoke fear in the American people, which is shameful, wrong, and I think un-American.”

And Donald Trump Jr, appearing on Fox News, said: “For them to try to take a pandemic and seemingly hope that it comes here and kills millions of people so that they could end Donald Trump’s streak of winning is a new level of sickness.”

On CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, host Jake Tapper twice asked Pence if he agreed with Trump Jr’s claim that Democrats want coronavirus to “kill millions of people”.

Pence avoided the question, instead saying people need to set politics aside in the response to the outbreak and insisting Trump, who at his Friday rally claimed “the Democrat policy of open borders is a direct threat to the health and wellbeing of all Americans”, was directing all sides to take politics out of the equation.

Pence is in charge of White House efforts in response to the outbreak. Saying he was leading “decisive action to protect the American people”, he told NBC: “And when you see voices on our side pushing back on outrageous and irresponsible rhetoric on the other side, I think that’s important, and I think it’s justified.”

Todd said: “It seems like people are taking nervousness and turning it into a political wedge issue.”

“Well,” Pence replied, “that’s why my friends that you just played clips of are pushing back as hard as they’re pushing. It is time for the other side to turn down the volume.”

Asked to cite instances of politicisation of the outbreak by Democrats or the media, Pence said: “There was a column in the New York Times by a prominent liberal journalist that said, ‘We should rename it the Trump virus.’”

“I mean, to have someone advocate that you rename the coronavirus the Trump virus is reckless and irresponsible.”

The column in question, by Gail Collins, ran on Wednesday under the headline “Let’s call it Trumpvirus” and with a standfirst which read: “If you’re feeling awful, you know who to blame.”

A critical take on Trump’s response to the virus, its first line read: “So, our Coronavirus Czar is going to be … Mike Pence. Feeling more secure?”

Pence has faced criticism for his record on public health while governor of Indiana, and for his view of science-based policy as a strict Christian.

On Saturday night, the Washington Post published a deeply reported account of what it called “the administration’s slapdash and often misleading attempts to contain not just the virus, but also potential political damage from the outbreak – which has tanked financial markets, slowed global commerce and killed some 3,000 people worldwide”.

On NBC, Pence was asked if the president was nervous that the outbreak was going to affect the US economy in an election year.

“The president’s concern is the health and safety of the American people,” Pence said. “I mean, the fundamentals of this economy are strong … and as the president said yesterday, we’re going to focus on the health of the American people and this economy and particularly the stock market that saw some downturns this week, it will come back.

“But our focus is going to remain on the health and well-being of the American people.”

Inequalities of US health system put coronavirus fight at risk, experts say

A man in his 50s in Washington state is the first person known to have died from coronavirus in the US, but officials said on Saturday they did not know how he contracted the virus.

Twenty-two Americans have coronavirus that is either travel-related or was spread from another person, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Of the Americans repatriated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship and Wuhan, China, 47 have tested positive for coronavirus.

According to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) situation report, there have been reports of 83,652 cases of coronavirus and nearly 2,800 deaths worldwide.

The majority of cases are in China but severe outbreaks have been reported in Iran, South Korea and Italy. On Saturday, Pence announced measures including new travel restrictions on Iran and screening of passengers coming to the US from other countries.

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

POLITICO

WHITE HOUSE

‘This is the equivalent of war’: Pence faces the toughest test of the Trump era
Trump assigned his right-hand man to a role that could shape the president’s fate in an election year. His style is much different than Trump’s.

By GABBY ORR

03/02/2020 08:07 PM EST

Behind Vice President Mike Pence’s steady demeanor and steely look since taking charge of the U.S. government response to coronavirus is a cruel truth: He will emerge either as the architect of a successful containment strategy — boosting his own resumé and President Donald Trump’s reelection odds — or deal a potentially fatal blow to his political aspirations.

In the days since Trump tapped his right-hand man to lead the administration’s coronavirus task force, people in Pence’s orbit have been warning him of the gravity of this moment. Some have offered encouragement and advice from afar. Others have used Twitter and TV appearances to tamp down concerns about public health risks and economic disruptions.

Yet few have tried to downplay the pressure Pence faces as the point person for a new viral epidemic — one that has thrust global markets into violent swings and threatens to knock the U.S. economy into recession — under a famously mercurial president.

“This is the equivalent of war. This is a big deal and people are going to die, and so you can’t afford to make mistakes,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Gingrich sent a note to Pence on Sunday praising the “discipline” he showed during a tough Sunday show interview about the virus, and he insists the vice president’s primary focus is on public safety. But Gingrich also conceded the tremendous political risks for Pence, whose own presidential ambitions are widely known.

“If he does this well, he comes out of this as a very big national figure. If he does this badly, he comes out as a dramatically diminished figure. He knows that. His team knows that,” Gingrich said.

Following an influx of cases on both coasts over the weekend, Pence took steps Monday to underscore the government’s response and continue coordinating with state and local officials. The vice president led a Situation Room teleconference with governors in the afternoon, convened a meeting of the administration’s coronavirus task force and cancelled plans to join Trump at a campaign rally in North Carolina.

“This is the equivalent of war. This is a big deal and people are going to die, and so you can’t afford to make mistakes."

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Instead, Pence stayed behind to hold a nationally televised press conference to try reassuring Americans. His appearance came just hours after it was revealed that four more Americans had died from coronavirus, raising the overall total of deaths in the country to six at the time.

“Despite today’s sad news, let’s be clear: The risk to the American people of the coronavirus remains low, according to all of the experts that we’re working with across the government,” Pence said. “This president has said we’re ready for anything. But this is an all-hands-on-deck effort.

And on Tuesday, Pence will make a rare bipartisan trip to Capitol Hill to brief both Republican and Democratic senators at their weekly lunches.

“Everybody needs to go into this knowing there are definitely things that will be beyond the government’s or Mike Pence’s control, but as long as they’re being transparent with the public, with Congress and with fellow governors, I think there’s much less political risk,” said a former White House official.

Transparency has already become an issue since Pence took the reins of the administration’s coronavirus reponse, according to critics who have accused the vice president of muzzling public health officials by requiring that they coordinate with his office prior to issuing their own statements. The New York Times reported Thursday that Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had told others “the White House had instructed him not to say anything else [about the coronavirus outbreak] without clearance.” (Fauci later said at a press conference that he’s “never been muzzled” and claimed the story contained “a real misrepresentation of what happened.”)

In some ways, Pence has borrowed a page from his gubernatorial playbook by attempting to control government messaging as it relates to coronavirus. As of now, Pence spokeswoman Katie Miller has been tasked with fielding internal queries related to coronavirus and approving public statements.

But back before Pence had the weight of the vice presidency behind him, as governor of Indiana he attempted to create a state-run news outlet that would have featured an editorial board comprised of his own communications staff. The proposed news site, which Pence unveiled at the height of Indiana’s HIV outbreak in 2015, was compared to the Soviet Union’s Pravda and never came to fruition.

Two people familiar with the administration’s plans said the vice president’s office is expected to expand its communications staff in the coming days with loaned-out staffers from several agencies who can then streamline coronavirus messaging with their regular departments. The move would build on Pence’s efforts to consolidate messaging after Trump spent much of last week directly contradicting top U.S. officials who warned of potentially severe disruptions as more Americans contract coronavirus.

The criticism Pence has already faced for his tightened grip on the administration’s messaging is a sign of the treacherous waters he’s likely to spend the next several months navigating, where every misstep is critiqued in real time and then filed away as potential ammunition if he chooses to seek higher office down the road.

In fact, Pence’s handling of the Indiana HIV outbreak — which critics have cited in recent days amid questions over his ability to handle the coronavirus crisis — illustrates how politicians can incur reputational damage if they mishandle a public health emergency. Though Trump cited the “Indiana model” as a positive reference point during a press conference last week, others have cast Pence’s approach as disastrous.

Back in 2015, then-Gov. Pence waited several months before declaring a public health emergency and authorizing a needle exchange program after local officials reported an explosive increase in HIV cases in Scott County, Ind. A 2018 study by researchers at Yale University concluded that the outbreak could have impacted fewer residents if Pence had acted more swiftly as governor. Pence said he eventually changed his mind about the needle exchange program — which he initially opposed due to his belief that it contributed to drug abuse — after praying about it and soliciting expert opinions.

It’s the same attitude Pence has adopted as he works to tackle coronavirus, according to people close to him, who said he’s eager to punch through bureaucracy. Pence has been in constant contact with governors whose states have seen one or more cases of coronavirus, describing the administration’s working relationships with the states as “seamless” during his press conference.

“Having been a governor and been through these public health crises, he’s learned a lot about it and a key lesson is the importance local and state officials play,” Gingrich said, adding that he’s confident Pence “prays about this every morning” as he tackles the worsening coronavirus outbreak.

One former White House official said Pence was likely chosen to lead the administration’s coronavirus task force not because of his own experience managing a public health crisis, but because he’s one of the only officials inside Trump’s Cabinet whom the president trusts to be “an honest broker among department heads.”

The official said Pence proved to Trump that he can settle disagreements and assuage skeptics after he helped shepherd the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement through Congress earlier this year. The same goes for Pence’s handling of the U.S. Space Force, said Gingrich, noting that the vice president took Trump’s vision for the sixth armed forces branch and quickly actualized it.

“You can feel the speed and the impetus that Pence has brought to the space program on behalf of the president and so I think Trump looks at him and says, ‘Here’s a guy who gets stuff done,'” Gingrich said.

Still, success in the Trump administration doesn’t always translate to job security. Last April, for example, the president went on a firing spree at the Department of Homeland Security following a string of negative news stories about his administration’s efforts to curb illegal immigration — even as officials inside the agency insisted they were doing as much as they could without breaking the law. Even Pence, whose loyalty has never wavered during the countless controversies of Trump’s own making, was left to fend off speculation last fall that the president was preparing to dump him from his 2020 ticket after Trump began asking friends what they thought of his genteel sidekick.

These realities will hang over Pence as he enters his greatest challenge yet: rescuing the Trump presidency — and the president’s shot at a second term — from a viral outbreak of growing proportions. If things go south, the vice president could become a fall guy, jeopardizing not only Trump’s shot at reelection but his own shot at being crowned his successor. But as the U.S. death toll rose on Monday, those close to Pence insisted politics were the last thing on the vice president’s mind.

“The most important thing to Pence is the health and safety of the American people,” said the former White House official. “He wants to do right by the president and he’s not thinking about 2024.”

© 2020 POLITICO LLC

----------…----…!!!---------&&&???..###@@@what???

TheHill

MEDIA

March 02, 2020 - 04:54 PM EST

CNN’s Begala: Trump will ‘dump Pence’ for Haley on day of Democratic nominee’s acceptance speech

Longtime CNN political analyst Paul Begala predicted on Monday that President Trump is “gonna dump [Vice President] Mike Pence in favor of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley” on July 16 when the Democratic nominee is slated to give his or her acceptance speech.

The former “Crossfire” co-host “guaranteed” Trump will throw Pence “under the bus” because of his handling of the coronavirus, which the president tapped Pence to lead a task force on last week.

“This is not a prediction. It’s a certainty. On Thursday, July 16 - that’s the date the Democrat gives his or her acceptance address - on that day, to interrupt that narrative, Donald Trump will call a press conference at Mar-a-Lago. He’s going to dump Mike Pence and put Nikki Haley on the ticket to try to get those suburban moms,” Begala predicted during a panel discussion at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) conference in Washington, D.C.

“You watch. Guaranteed,” Begala said. “Trump put Pence in charge of coronavirus to throw him under the bus.”

In December, Begala predicted that Trump would be impeached again.

“This is not the last impeachment we will cover of Donald J. Trump,” he said during a panel discussion on “Anderson Cooper 360.”

Haley, who was nominated by Trump to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and was confirmed with a 96-4 vote in January 2017, has staunchly denied speculation she could replace Pence on the GOP ticket.

“The vice president and the president are a great ticket together,” Haley told “Fox & Friends” in November. “They’re solid. Solid enough that they’re going to win together. There is no truth whatsoever that I would ever in any way look to get that position. I think Mike is great for that job and I think that he’s the right partner for the president.”

“Mike Pence is a great vice president,” Trump said in November, while noting Haley would “absolutely” be involved in his 2020 campaign.

“She is a friend of mine, she endorsed me with the most beautiful endorsement you’ve ever heard. She did a great job at the U.N.,” Trump added of Haley.

Political virility-viralpolitics??? Whhhhhaaaaaat?

TheHill

MEDIA

March 02, 2020 - 04:54 PM EST

CNN’s Begala: Trump will ‘dump Pence’ for Haley on day of Democratic nominee’s acceptance speech

Longtime CNN political analyst Paul Begala predicted on Monday that President Trump is “gonna dump [Vice President] Mike Pence in favor of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley” on July 16 when the Democratic nominee is slated to give his or her acceptance speech.

The former “Crossfire” co-host “guaranteed” Trump will throw Pence “under the bus” because of his handling of the coronavirus, which the president tapped Pence to lead a task force on last week.

“This is not a prediction. It’s a certainty. On Thursday, July 16 - that’s the date the Democrat gives his or her acceptance address - on that day, to interrupt that narrative, Donald Trump will call a press conference at Mar-a-Lago. He’s going to dump Mike Pence and put Nikki Haley on the ticket to try to get those suburban moms,” Begala predicted during a panel discussion at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) conference in Washington, D.C.

“You watch. Guaranteed,” Begala said. “Trump put Pence in charge of coronavirus to throw him under the bus.”

In December, Begala predicted that Trump would be impeached again.

“This is not the last impeachment we will cover of Donald J. Trump,” he said during a panel discussion on “Anderson Cooper 360.”

Haley, who was nominated by Trump to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and was confirmed with a 96-4 vote in January 2017, has staunchly denied speculation she could replace Pence on the GOP ticket.

“The vice president and the president are a great ticket together,” Haley told “Fox & Friends” in November. “They’re solid. Solid enough that they’re going to win together. There is no truth whatsoever that I would ever in any way look to get that position. I think Mike is great for that job and I think that he’s the right partner for the president.”

“Mike Pence is a great vice president,” Trump said in November, while noting Haley would “absolutely” be involved in his 2020 campaign.

“She is a friend of mine, she endorsed me with the most beautiful endorsement you’ve ever heard. She did a great job at the U.N.,” Trump added of Haley.

Zzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzz( sleeps ) zzz zzz ( wakes)

Political virulence?:

The Guardian - Back to home

Super Tuesday: voting under way as Sanders bids to extend lead amid Biden surge – live

Fourteen states vote in Democratic primaries

Joanna Walters in New York (now) and Martin Belam (earlier)

Here’s where things stand

My colleague on the west coast, Maanvi Singh, will take on the blog now as Super Tuesday voting - and related drama - continues. Later, Joan Greve in Washington, DC, will helm the blog as the polls begin to close and the results trickle in tonight.

Here’s what’s happened so far today:

Former FBI director James Comey just endorsed Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination.

Kamala Harris: will she or won’t she? Endorse Biden and, if so, when? Rumors and reports abound.

On the second most important voting day of the 2020 election (after election day itself in November), it’s a fierce battle between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, with major efforts at disruption of what could become a two-horse race by Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg.

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates in a rare emergency move, to try to mitigate the economic effects of coronavirus. But it wasn’t enough to satisfy Donald Trump.

US weighs paying for treatment of uninsured coronavirus sufferers - report

The Trump administration is considering using a national disaster program to pay hospitals and doctors for their care of uninsured people infected with the coronavirus.

As concerns rise over costs of treating some of the 27 million Americans without health coverage, the government is looking for news ways to step in, a person familiar with the conversations told the Wall Street Journal. This would certainly be unexpected.

The WSJ reports that:

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has been in discussions about using that program to pay providers who treat uninsured patients with coronavirus, the person said.

Dr. Robert Kadlec, who is the assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services, also said Tuesday at a congressional hearing that discussions are being held about using the National Disaster Medical System reimbursement program.

About 2% of people infected with coronavirus have died and about 5% have developed serious infections that may require oxygen therapy or ventilators, based on research on cases in China.

In the U.S., there are more than 100 coronavirus cases, Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at the congressional hearing Tuesday that “we are seeing community transmission in a few places.”

The administration is focusing on the costs of caring for uninsured people because individuals otherwise would have coverage through Medicaid, employers, or through private insurance purchased on the individual market, according to the person familiar with the conversations. No final decision has been made.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports on the unpreparedness of the US health system.

Coronavirus: health experts concerned US hospitals are not prepared

Comey endorses Biden

Just what Joe was looking for, obviously. Kamala? No Comey, James Comey. The former FBI director just endorsed Joe Biden.

Comey was fired by Trump in 2017 when, effectively, the FBI director refused to pledge loyalty to the president and extricate him from the Trump-Russia investigation that Comey was in charge of. The move triggered the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller to take over the inquiry.

Comey has been very outspoken against Trump ever since, but has flaws of his own, having misjudged in the later stages of the 2016 election the situation where the FBI kept secret the fact that they were investigating Trump in what was undoubtedly a huge international scandal - while disclosing a last-minute probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails on Anthony Weiner’s computer (the disgraced ex-congressman then married to Hillary Clinton’s right-hand aide Huma Abedin).

The emails turned out to be harmless, in the sense of whether they were a threat to national security, but the very disclosure of the probe at that sensitive time was a serious blow to Clinton.

Comey also admitted in December “real sloppiness” over the handling of surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser.

California governor votes on Super Tuesday

Gavin Newsom’s a fan of Kamala Harris and since the California senator dropped out of the presidential race in early December, it’s been and remains unclear who the governor is backing for the Democratic nomination.

Apparently we’ll have to wait a little longer to find out.

Looks like the guv is keeping his vote between him and the booth. https://t.co/Jzh0SYIGEZ

Regardless of what the next few hours bring in the “will she, won’t she” endorse Biden cliffhanger, surely no-one will think of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris today without their minds flicking immediately back to that pivotal moment in the second Democratic debate last June, in Miami, when Harris scored a bullseye against Biden and her campaign took off like a rocket (until she fell to Earth in December).

My politics colleague Lauren Gambino wrote at the time:

It was the most dramatic moment of the evening and came in response to a question about race and policing, when Harris interjected, saying that she had a right to respond as the only black candidate on stage. The California senator and former prosecutor then directed her comments to Biden, denouncing his record on race.

“I do not believe you are a racist,” Harris said, looking directly at the former vice-president. “But,” she continued, “it is personal. And it was actually hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.”

She accused Biden of supporting policies that would have prevented young minority students like herself from attending school in majority-white districts. She said when he opposed bussing, there was a little black girl in Oakland, California, who was being bussed to a better school.

“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bussed to school every day,” she said. “And that little girl was me.”

Growing visibly upset, Biden looked away. “That is a mischaracterization of my position across the board. I did not praise racists. That is not true,” he said.

Harris attacks Biden’s record on race in Democratic debate’s key moment

Harris to endorse Biden - reports

California Senator Kamala Harris, who dropped out of the presidential race in early December, may be ready to endorse Joe Biden…

That would be a huge fillip for Biden, not least in California, where he is extremely keen to spoil a Sanders primary landslide. But it will be a big bonus nationwide as Super Tuesday voters stream to the polls, a terrific last-minute boost for the former VP in his dramatic comeback.

Breaking: what we suspected last night appears to be so: #KamalaHarris will join #JoeBiden at this morning’s rally in Jack London Square and endorse him for the Democratic nomination for president. Still working to confirm this independently https://t.co/uWeJybTnty

All of the Democrats running for president have pitched substantial climate plans - responding to voters’ increasing concerns about rising temperatures and their widespread effects.

Two in three registered voters (66%) are worried about global warming, according to Yale’s climate change communication program. That includes 84% of liberal Democrats, 72% of moderate/conservative Democrats, and about half of liberal/moderate Republicans, but only a quarter of conservative Republicans.

In one Super Tuesday state, Texas, two-thirds of voters want to develop more renewable energy.

But presidential contenders, particularly the more moderate ones, are cautiously navigating climate politics.

Both Joe Biden and Mike Bloomberg have refused to commit to banning fracking, which will likely give them an edge in oil and gas states.

Oil and gas firms ‘have had far worse climate impact than thought’

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren would ban the method of extracting oil and gas, which would drastically reduce drilling in the US. Banning fracking, however, would require action from Congress, which seems politically untenable.

Supporters of Biden and Bloomberg say they are focused on the actions they can achieve with executive authority.

Republicans are making noises on climate action. Some say it’s just greenwashing

The candidates also split over nuclear power - which provides more than half of zero-carbon electricity in the US. Many experts argue that climate plans that don’t include nuclear aren’t serious.

Sanders would prohibit the construction of new nuclear plants and stop renewing licenses for existing ones.

Warren said she opposed new nuclear plants and would phase out existing ones, but she has since backtracked. California has already shut down its nuclear plants.

We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN

It was a scene that was hard to imagine just one week ago. Joe Biden, 77, and until Sunday his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination Pete Buttigieg, 38, appeared together before a tiny crowd in the Chicken Scratch restaurant in Dallas, Texas, where Buttigieg endorsed the former vice president, Reuters writes.

Fighting back tears, Biden compared the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, to his late son Beau, saying it was the highest compliment he could offer any person.

Having ditched his own bid for the nomination, Buttigieg, who had spent months calling for generational change, said Biden would “bring back dignity to the White House.”

Buttigieg’s endorsement was the most eye-catching among over 100 that flooded in for Biden from mostly moderate Democrats after his dominant South Carolina win on Saturday, narrowly preceded by Amy Klobuchar’s endorsement and followed by former candidate Beto O’Rourke’s last night.

Biden’s comeback in South Carolina, after poor showings in other early voting states, was exactly the kind of a victory that Democratic Party officials, alarmed that front-runner Bernie Sanders is far too liberal to beat Trump, had been craving, according to more than two dozen people who either gave their endorsements or were involved behind the scenes.

“I hadn’t planned on endorsing anybody, but then I started getting worried that Bernie Sanders would become the nominee,” said former Senator Barbara Boxer of California, a longtime Senate colleague of both Biden and Sanders.

On the eve of the South Carolina primary, she called longtime Biden aide Steve Ricchetti, telling him she would endorse Biden if he won the race.

People both inside and outside the Biden campaign said that while the effort to garner endorsements involved calls from Biden aides asking for help, most decided on their own.

“People woke up and got a sense of urgency,” said one person close to Biden.

Buttigieg’s endorsement, in particular, surprised Biden.

Biden did not ask Buttigieg for his endorsement nor did the former mayor say he was going to announce support, Biden said at the Texas chicken restaurant event.

The event, which lasted only a few minutes and involved a small crowd of press, campaign supporters and people who just happened to be at the restaurant, was hastily arranged to accommodate a quick, last-minute announcement, said one person familiar with the matter.

Pete Buttigieg endorses Joe Biden during an event at the Chicken Scratch restaurant in Dallas last night. Photograph: Juan Figueroa/AP

Virginia is the fourth-largest prize on Super Tuesday, awarding 99 pledged delegates, ranking behind California (415), Texas (228) and North Carolina (110), the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.

It’s a huge day in this increasingly-blue swing state and will be a useful early indicator of how things are going for the leading candidates Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren when polls close at 7pm ET. Meanwhile, WDBJ7, the CBS-affiliated television station licensed to Roanoke, Va, reports:

Virginia Tech Professor and WDBJ7 Political Analyst, Bob Denton, said Virginia’s primary will likely come down to a three-way race among Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Mike Bloomberg.

Elizabeth Warren remains in the race, but in the last 48 hours, Tom Steyer, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar have ended their campaigns.

Biden, Denton said, has picked up momentum following a decisive win in South Carolina.

“In a matter of one month he’s gone from a distant third to first in the most recent poll, by three or four points,” Denton said, “so it makes him extremely viable.”

Denton said Sanders has an opportunity to make a statement.

“And if he has a very strong night,” Denton said, “that will certainly send an interesting message indeed for the Democrats.”

And Bloomberg must prove himself in Virginia, after focusing his attention and millions in campaign spending on Super Tuesday, WDBJ7 reports from Blacksburg, Va, the home of Virginia Tech university.

Sanders hopes to ride ‘blue wave’ to victory in Virginia on Super Tuesday

Virginia congresswoman and moderate Democrat Abigail Spanberger, part of the Blue Wave in the 2018 midterms, who flipped her red district in her first ever run for office, mourns the departure of Klobuchar and urges her fellow Virginians to get out and vote in this key primary today.

Rocky in the Rockies?

Will Joe Biden pull back from way behind in Colorado primary voting today and, if making significant progress, how many delegates will he pull in?

Two Colorado polls last week gave Sanders leads of 12 and 14 percentage points over the rest of the field in the purple state, the Denver Post reports.

Those were pre-Biden South Carolina primary landslide, obviously, but the indications had been that Elizabeth Warren could come in second behind Sanders. So will the Biden phoenix-like rise of late make a difference tonight?

State watchers expect a strong voter turn-out in Colorado today and a lot of undecided voters making late decisions - perhaps wise in light of the developments of the last 48 hours.

It’s definitely Bernie’s to lose.

Some voters are dropping their ballots at the Denver Election Center in downtown Denver, Colorado, in a kind of speedy pedal-by today. Photograph: Bob Pearson/EPA

Bernie just voted

He’s in his home state of Vermont today and will be there tonight as the results come rolling in. It could be a long night, especially waiting for a result in California, where the polls don’t close until 8pm local time. Will Bernie Sanders follow his strong performances in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada voting with a good show east and west? Will it be enough to hold off Joe Biden?

If he beats Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts tonight it could be a harbinger for where Warren’s campaign is going to end up. But will it mean the start of a sweep for Sanders, or will Biden capitalize strongly on his South Carolina win - leaving California as a late-night cliffhanger?

The Boston Globe has a handy “everything you need to know on Super Tuesday in Massachusetts” piece, here. The Globe has endorsed Warren for the Democratic nomination.

Biden to finish Super Tuesday night in California

And my senior politics reporter colleague Lauren Gambino will be on the spot when Joe Biden rounds off a hectic day of campaigning in some key Super Tuesday states, with an event in Los Angeles.

Here she shares her thoughts on what to expect from Super Tuesday with the Guardian’s award-winning news podcast Today in Focus. At 29 minutes long it’s the perfect commuter-listen.

Super Tuesday and the arrival of the billionaire Mike Bloomberg – podcast

Fed cut not enough for Trump

Ah, so the president perhaps thinks the Federal Reserve’s emergency rate cut over coronavirus concerns is kinda cute, but Not Enough for Potus’s liking.

The Federal Reserve is cuting but must further ease and, most importantly, come into line with other countries/competitors. We are not playing on a level field. Not fair to USA. It is finally time for the Federal Reserve to LEAD. More easing and cutting!

Follow all the business details on our dedicated live blog out of London.

Federal Reserve makes emergency US rate cut to fight coronavirus risks - business live

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

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Dr. Fauci :

POLITICO

HEALTH CARE

‘You don’t want to go to war with a president’

How Dr. Anthony Fauci is navigating the coronavirus outbreak in the Trump era.

Anthony Fauci might be the one person everyone in Washington trusts right now.

But at 79, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is in the thick of one of the biggest battles of 35 years in the role: The race to contain coronavirus when the nation is deeply polarized and misinformation can spread with one tweet — sometimes, from the president himself.

“You should never destroy your own credibility. And you don’t want to go to war with a president,” Fauci, who has been the country’s top infectious diseases expert through a dozen outbreaks and six presidents, told POLITICO in an interview Friday. “But you got to walk the fine balance of making sure you continue to tell the truth.”

And the truth about coronavirus? “I don’t think that we are going to get out of this completely unscathed,” he said. “I think that this is going to be one of those things we look back on and say boy, that was bad.”

The plainspoken scientist with a heavy Brooklyn accent has navigated outbreaks from HIV to Ebola, Zika and the anthrax scare with an ability to talk frankly yet reassuringly about threats, to explain science, public health and risk to the public in a way few can match.

But in this outbreak, he’s not always the comforting public face amid crisis.

As the Trump administration scrambles to contain the fast-spreading infection and consolidate control under Vice President Mike Pence, Fauci’s visibility has been subject to the vagaries of a president who wants to declare the outbreak under control. Over the weekend, Pence and HHS Secretary Alex Azar made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows, not government doctors or scientists.

Fauci sat down with POLITICO in his office Friday, amid dozens of photos of himself with presidents, politicians and celebrities from Magic Johnson to Barbra Streisand. It was just hours after reports that the White House had ordered Fauci off the airwaves sparked a firestorm of protest from senators, former government officials and public health experts.

Fauci denied being muzzled. He did say that Pence’s office wanted him to run interviews past it for re-clearance once Pence was named the White House’s point person on the virus.

But public health experts and Democrats have slammed President Donald Trump’s repeated reassurances about the disease, which has raced across six continents, created economic disruption — and taken 3,000 lives and counting.

Republicans have countered that the left is overstating the risk, spreading panic and trying to take Trump down.

Fauci has openly tempered expectations for a quick coronavirus vaccine — and an end to the epidemic — on the press conference stage with Trump, even as the president promised everything was under control and a vaccine would be ready soon.

Now even some Republicans are concerned that the president is underselling what some health officials have said is an inevitable worsening U.S. outbreak. And Fauci is who they want to hear from.

HEALTH CARE

The coronavirus: Live updates on the response to the epidemic

BY POLITICO STAFF

"If I’m buying real estate in New York, I’ll listen to the president of the United States. If I’m asking about infectious diseases, I’m going to listen to Tony Fauci,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said recently.

Giving a president advice can be a heady experience. Fauci has done it dozens of times, for four Republicans and two Democrats. “There’s a temptation that you have to fight to tell the president what you think he wants to hear. I’ve seen really good people do that,” says Fauci, who took over the agency in 1984, just a few years after switching his professional focus to a fast-emerging and then-mysterious new illness, HIV/AIDS.

Grappling with the AIDS epidemic and the Reagan administration’s initial slow-go approach that divided Washington, Fauci became the public face of the response at a time when Ronald Reagan did not even broach the issue until his second term. Fauci often brings that up as a White House failure.

But these days are different. Trump fires off tweets about coronavirus, promising a vaccine will arrive “soon” (Fauci says in a best-case scenario it will be a year — and that might be optimistic), or says in press conferences that “we are totally prepared” (Fauci and other health officials warn the risk could change in a moment’s notice). The president also referred to a coronavirus “hoax” in a campaign rally — the night before the first death from the virus was reported in the U.S.

And then there is Congress. Fauci likes to say that he has testified before Congress more than anyone in the nation’s history. Over more than three decades he has been called to the Hill a dozen times a year to explain the threat of Ebola, Zika, anthrax or a pandemic flu.

He remembers the days of lawmakers hurling barbs across party lines about the AIDS response. But today, “the degree of divisiveness is one of almost an emotional dislike of the other person,” he said.

Republicans reportedly stormed out of a recent closed-door briefing on the infection after Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) ripped into the administration’s coronavirus response. Democrats have called for the White House to replace Pence as point person on the virus, arguing he has no public health experience.

The truth, Fauci says, is that Democrats and Republicans alike may not appreciate the range of what could happen now.

“It could be really, really bad. I don’t think it’s gonna be, because I think we’d be able to do the kind of mitigation. It could be mild. I don’t think it’s going to be that mild either. It’s really going to depend on how we mobilize.”

Critics say the administration has already stumbled with a slow rollout of diagnostic tests and narrow guidelines for who uses them, meaning that some patients waited days to find out if they are infected and the virus began spreading. Fauci said that restricted guidance — specifically the idea that someone would not get tested if they had not been in known contact with infected people — was unwise. He predicted more cases would emerge in the coming days — and they have.

POLITICO Pulse

There have already been scapegoats for the response. CDC Director Robert Redfield took the blame Saturday when Trump misidentified the gender of the first U.S. death. Sources also pointed to CDC on Sunday over concerns about the cleanliness of labs making diagnostic tests, even as some current and former administration officials blamed Azar for the bungled response. CDC’s respiratory disease lead Nancy Messonnier also took heat from administration officials a week earlier after her statement that a U.S. outbreak was inevitable helped send the stock market tumbling.

“It’s really, really tough because you have to be honest with the American public and you don’t want to scare the hell out of them,” Fauci said. “And then other times, in attempts to calm people down, [leaders] have had people be complacent about it. This is particularly problematic in a ‘gotcha” town like Washington.”

And yet, Fauci has not only survived the town for decades but managed to make his priorities those of the presidents, above all HIV. Along with Redfield and HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir, Fauci helped engineer getting the president include a pledge to ending HIV transmission in his State of the Union address last year.

But many challenges are still ahead, including sometimes contradicting the president he doesn’t want to “go to war” with. Fauci says it will be OK: he knows that “even if it’s uncomfortable” his years of truth-telling have earned him a backlog of respect.

The 79-year-old also has no plans of retiring anytime soon — not least because one of his top goals, developing an HIV vaccine, remains elusive.

“I feel like I’m 45. And I act like I’m 35,” Fauci said. “When I start to feel like I don’t have the energy to do the job, whatever my age, I’ll walk away and write my book.”

,

Fed slashes rates in emergency response to coronavirus

© 2020 POLITICO LLC

Ecenomic disaster coming?

Dow Jones Could Crash 40% Over Coronavirus Pandemic: Dr. Doom

Economist Nouriel Roubini reckons the stock market could tank 40% due to coronavirus concerns. He may be right.

Nouriel Roubini, who predicted the 2008 crash correctly, claims global equities could take a 40% hit because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Dow Jones jumped over 5% on Monday, but such volatility is indicative of a bear market rally.

Roubini’s prediction may prove correct as rate cuts will fail to work as a measure to stimulate spending. Investors losing faith in the Federal Reserve’s ability can lead to a brutal stock market crash.

Famed economist Nouriel Roubini is known for making gloomy predictions that often come true. He was warning the markets of an impending recession in 2006, and it came true shortly thereafter in the form of the subprime mortgage crisis.

Labeled Dr. Doom for his melancholy predictions, Roubini is now claiming global equities could plummet 40% due to coronavirus. If his prediction comes true, the Dow Jones could crash to sub-18,000 levels.

Coronavirus Fears Grips The World

Google search trends show coronavirus is the most significant cause of concern around the world. So far, coronavirus has managed to leave all other modern outbreaks behind.

COVID-19 continues to spread fear among the masses.|

The death toll from coronavirus is still less than that of SARS and Ebola, but the infectious nature of the disease has forced governments to take extreme measures to contain the outbreak.

Coronavirus is still spreading rapidly across the globe. The disease has already reached over 70 countries with no signs of stopping. So it’s likely to impact stock markets further.

Dow Jones Rally Is A Plea To The Fed

The Dow and the S&P 500 came roaring back on Monday after experiencing one of the fastest crashes in recorded history.

A swift crash preceded Monday’s rally in the stock market.| Source: Twitter

Monday’s rally was a relief for the bulls, but investors need to remember that rallies this intense are usually indicative of a bear market. Bull market rallies are calmer and consistent.

So it’s possible that Monday’s stock surge could turn out to be a head fake.

One of the most important factors behind the Dow Jones’ rally was the expectation of a rate cut from the Federal Reserve. However, it’s likely that central bank interventions will be useless in this scenario.

Since coronavirus is a biological problem and not a liquidity problem, injecting more money into the financial system is not going to help. Central banks worldwide are adamant on trying it nonetheless.

Over the years, investors have put a lot of faith in the Federal Reserve’s ability to pump the stock market. Coronavirus has rendered the Fed’s powers useless as global trade plummets and consumers think twice about travelling.

Markets will eventually realize that money printing is not going to solve the problem. The psychological change arising from such a situation could lead to a devastating crash that validates Dr. Doom’s forecast.

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Barbra Streisand calls Trump ‘one-man weapon of mass destruction’ in scathing column

Barbra Streisand isn’t holding back her thoughts on President Donald Trump.

In a column published Tuesday by Variety, the actress and singer, 77, addressed “Mr. Trump” before outlining the reasons she believes he should not be re-elected.

“America was great – before you were elected,” she began. “Since 2016, we’ve been dragged down into the mud of Trump’s swamp. He has demolished our standing in the world with his laughable boasts and breathtaking ignorance. He has put the security of this country, and our planet, in a precarious position by abandoning the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal. He’s a one-man weapon of mass destruction … so reckless that he almost started a war.”

She continued, referencing recent headlines, including the coronavirus, which has since taken thousands of lives.

“Now we’re facing another kind of war, against the coronavirus. Trump got rid of our pandemic specialist two years ago and has defunded the Centers for Disease Control because he continues to ignore science,” she said. “We can’t go on like this. It’s too dangerous.”

She goes on to describe “Trump’s world” as a “place of paranoia, hypocrisy and lies, so many lies…”

“Trump thinks the rules don’t apply to him,” she added. “Trump is a man who has never once taken responsibility for his own actions, preferring to blame others when he’s at fault.”

Then, in a final plea, Streisand urges voters to “bring back dignity and grace” in the upcoming election.

“We must care about the facts, the planet, each other and the least fortunate among us,” she writes. “We need a new America, without pollution, without obscenities, without insults, without revenge. We need to restore the nobility of truth… and only then will America be great again.”

This isn’t the first time Streisand has been vocal about her dislike toward Trump.

During an August performance at Madison Square Garden, she warned Republicans in the audience to cover their ears before launching into a remixed version of “Send in the Clowns” that took jabs at Trump.

“Maybe he’s poor, till he reveals his returns who can be sure, who is this clown,” she sang as the audience erupted in applause. “Something’s amiss, I don’t approve, now that’s he’s running the free world where can we move, maybe a town, who is this clown?”

After the song, a photo of the White House – with circus tent on top of it – appeared on the screen, followed by Trump in clown makeup. An altered version of his Time magazine 2016 Person of the Year cover showed him with a red nose under the words “clown of the year.”

Related: Barbra Streisand comes for President Trump in new song ‘Don’t Lie to Me’

More: Barbra Streisand mulls a move to Canada after midterm elections if Republicans roll

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BREAKING NEWS

Donald Trump Takes Coronavirus Swipe At “Dirty” Mike Bloomberg As Ex-NYC Mayor Finally Wins Some Delegates

March 3, 2020 5:22PM PST

This Super Tuesday may be dominated so far by the intense fight for Democratic delegates between Sen, Bernie Sanders and former Vice-President Joe Biden, but never forget the constant bubonic sideshow of Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg.

As the ex-New York City mayor captured his first delegates this election season with a win in American Samoa, the former Celebrity Apprentice and Tweeter-in-chief stepped away today for overseeing Mike Pence overseeing the federal government’s management of the ever-expanding coronavirus to take a swipe at the ninth richest man in the world.

Bloomberg took a more traditional stance online:

Super Tuesday Sees Joe Biden Feeling ‘Optimistic’ As Ex-VP Takes North Carolina Primary

Of course, the greater context is that Bloomberg has been trolling the master troller with a flood of ads and social media posts in the past week excoriating Trump’s handling, or lack there of, the virus that has taken nine American lives so far.

As the Democrats’ race seems to be sharpened down to Biden and Sanders this evening, there is increasing pressure on party fathers and mothers for Bloomberg to step back so the ex-VP can grab the nomination. At the same time, the uncontested Trump is certainly trying to look like he has a grasp on the coronavirus as many worry this is the calm before the storm, politically and health-wise.

On the other hand, as much as Trump and Bloomberg have worked to get under each other’s skin, POTUS’ tweet was basically ignored on cable newsers are results were coming in fast and furiously – and that must really drive the current occupant of the White House crazy. Or, to use some math, Trump has sent out 34 tweets about the coronavirus in the past few week and 44 about “mini Mike.” Hard to tell if today’s tweet counts both, or not.

BTW – The Daily Show had a very different take on how $61 billion dollar man Bloomberg scored that Pacific Island win:

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