Trump enters the stage

Donald Trump And Sean Hannity Attack Fox News Channel’s Bernie Sanders Town Hall
Lisa De Moraes
April 16, 2019 8:39AM PDT

John Gurzinski’Shutterstock
UPDATED with Bret Baier’s response: “Thanks for watching Mr. President,” FNC’s Bret Baier responded after Donald Trump tweet-trashed his town hall with Dem White House hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Related Story
Fox News Channel Adds Christina Coleman As Los Angeles Correspondent
“We’d love to have you on a town hall soon – or even an interview on @SpecialReport,” Baier teased POTUS, adding pointedly, “It’s been a while. We cover all sides.” Trump only appears on FNC programs hosted by acolytes, including Fox & Friends, Sean Hannity’s show, etc.

President Donald Trump and his lieutenant/Fox New “opinion” host Sean Hannity launched a full-scale attack on Monday’s Fox News Channel town hall with lead Dem White House hopeful Bernie Sanders Tuesday morning. Sanders is, in polling and fundraising, the clear Dem front-runner to date.

“So weird to watch Crazy Bernie on @FoxNews,” Trump tweeted, echoing the Democratic National Committee’s thinking when it ixnayed FNC’s bid to carry any of its 2020 presidential candidates debates.

“Not surprisingly, @BretBaier and the ‘audience’ was so smiley and nice,” Trump sneered, putting “audience” in quotes to signal it was staged and they were actors while also once again making clear his disdain for FNC’s dayside journalists.

“Very strange, and now we have @donnabrazile?” Trump complained, having apparently not read the memo of a month ago that Fox News had signed the Dem strategist/former DNC chair as a commentator – and telling-ly using “we” in his complaint.

Warming up Trump’s base for his morning tweet, Fox News primetime star Hannity attacked his employer’s town hall.

“We turn our attention to our Hannity Watch on the radical socialist Democratic Party. Heading into the 2020 election, we saw Crazy Bernie on the air tonight,” Hannity snarked. “Phew! That was hard to watch! Bernie Sanders for two hours – Wow!”

Summarizing the town hall, moderated by Baier and Martha MacCallum, Hannity snickered, “Gee, let’s hear every communist idea we possibly can!”

© 2019 PMC. All rights reserved.

Why Trump attacks: He knows he can’t win a referendum election in 2020
Analysis by Harry Enten, CNN
Updated 1:46 PM EDT, Tue April 16, 2019

(CNN) It’s easy to see President Donald Trump’s latest attacks on Rep. Ilhan Omar as an exercise in rousing up the Republican base. It is – but I would argue it’s more than just that from a political angle.

One of Trump’s latest tweets, in which he tries to tie Omar to the Democratic House leadership at large, suggests something larger is at play.

It’s the latest sign that Trump (and the Republican Party) recognizes he probably cannot win a 2020 election that is a referendum on his presidency. He needs 2020 to be a choice between a “radical” Democratic Party and himself.

Trump’s re-election problem: A consistently low approval rating
Trump hasn’t seen his approval rating go above his disapproval rating in over two years. Almost nothing seems to move it. Even strong economic approval ratings cannot lift the President to a positive net approval rating (approval - disapproval rating).

A negative net approval rating would normally spell doom for a president’s re-election campaign. Both presidents who ran for re-election sporting a negative net approval rating in the polling era (Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1992) lost. The two presidents (Harry Truman in 1952 and Lyndon Johnson in 1968) who decided not to run for another term in the polling era had negative net approval ratings on Election Day.

And for those who don’t see how Trump could suffer from a negative net approval rating, just remembered what happened to the Republicans in the midterms.

Trump’s solution for being unliked: The 2016 playbook
Trump and his team want to recreate the dynamic of 2016. Trump was even more unpopular then than he is now. In the exit polls, he had a -22 point net favorability rating. But Trump was able to win because Hillary Clinton’s net favorability was also in the red, and he won the lion share of those voters who had an unfavorable opinion of both.

Obviously, there’s no way of knowing who Trump’s opponent will be in 2020. Still, this is a presidential field sporting a number of very liberal candidates. Attacks like the ones against Omar are laying the groundwork for calling the eventual nominee extreme. We’ve already seen similar attacks against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez coincide with drops in her popularity in the last few months.

Can Trump pull the 2016 trick, while being an incumbent? See Nevada 2010.
There have been no presidential campaigns in which a president with a net negative approval or favorability has won. There is, however, a precedent on the Senate level. Trump wants to do what Democrat Harry Reid did in his 2010 Nevada Senate re-election campaign.

For those that don’t remember, Reid, then the Senate Majority Leader, looked destined to lose. The 2010 Nevada exit poll reveals that then-President Barack Obama had a negative net approval rating in the state, which was deep in the Great Recession at the time. Reid, too, had a negative net approval rating.

But Reid though had a secret up his sleeve: Republican opponent Sharron Angle. She was very conservative and a gaffe machine, which Reid’s campaign more than took advantage of. Although Reid sported a negative net favorability rating, Angle’s net favorability rating was somehow even lower.

The result was a Reid victory of over 5 points.

Presidential elections can be a choice, too
Usually, how you feel about the president shapes how you feel about his opponent. Presidents who most voters approve of generally end up being better liked than their opponents.

There is, however, precedent for an election where the president’s popularity didn’t tell the whole story: 1976. President Gerald Ford had, by Gallup and the American National Election Studies’ measures, a positive net approval rating. Yet he lost to the better liked Jimmy Carter, who benefitted from the fallout following Watergate.

Indeed,data collected by CBS News and Gallup since 1956 suggest that presidential elections can be thought of as choice elections.

Over this period (since 1956), there have been 10 presidential elections in which the incumbent ran. This is a rather small sample size, but the popular vote margin in these elections has been better predicted by the difference in the net favorability ratings between the two major candidates than the president’s net approval rating. Put another way, once you account for the difference in net favorability between the candidates, a president’s net approval rating doesn’t give us any additional information.

The bottom line: Expect more and more attacks from Trump
Trump still has time to turn his net approval rating positive, but it seems less likely by the day. Trump and his team recognize that.

That means his 2020 election chances probably hinge on the election being a choice between a disliked opponent and himself. With that in mind, he’ll go over the Democratic Party and his eventual opponent with all possible force.

© 2019 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Barr’s precedent raises questions about how will react Mueller report

Ate his memo conclusions cherry picked a priori?

Is there a slant here? Will we find out Thursday?

Did he get the law on obstructions wrong?

So the house may get the unteracted Mueller Report in 3 years or more, and the public may never find out.

So this inclines to a legal theory that under the collusive nature of collusion overbearing a charge of Obstruction, leads to an infinite regress.
How can a good clean bill of health in three says, without verification, only to subordinate an ubredacted version of the Report.

The ‘intrigue thickens’ between 1980’ s and now, with Barr holding the precedent.

Thus anything to look forward after “Nortre Dam”?

CNN news.

CONGRESS
House committees subpoena Trump’s bank records
Trump has been associated with Deutsche Bank since the late 1990s, a time when the big Wall Street banks wouldn’t lend to him following a series of business mishaps.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., at committee hearing last week.

April 16, 2019, 11:43 AM ET
By Dartunorro Clark
Two House committees have issued subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and other financial institutions for information on President Donald Trump’s finances.

The chairs of the House Intelligence and Financial Services committees said in statements to NBC News on Tuesday that they are working in tandem to probe the president’s financial ties.

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said they’re pursuing the information as part of their investigation into “allegations of potential foreign influence on the U.S. political process,” adding that the committees issued a “friendly subpoena” to Deutsche Bank, which has longstanding ties to the president.

“As part of our oversight authority and authorized investigation into allegations of potential foreign influence on the U.S. political process, the House Intelligence Committee today issued subpoenas to multiple financial institutions in coordination with the House Financial Services Committee, including a friendly subpoena to Deutsche Bank, which has been cooperative with the Committees,” he said. “We look forward to their continued cooperation and compliance.”

House Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said: “The potential use of the U.S. financial system for illicit purposes is a very serious concern. The Financial Services Committee is exploring these matters, including as they may involve the President and his associates, as thoroughly as possible pursuant to its oversight authority, and will follow the facts wherever they may lead us."

Trump has been associated with Deutsche Bank since the late 1990s, a time when the big Wall Street banks wouldn’t lend to him following a series of business mishaps.

Eric Trump, the president’s son and an executive vice president of the Trump Organization, slammed the subpoenas as an “abuse of power” in a statement to NBC News.

“This subpoena is an unprecedented abuse of power and simply the latest attempt by House Democrats to attack the President and our family for political gain," he said. "Instead of legislating, the committee is obsessed with harassing and undermining my father’s administration, doing everything they can to distract from his incredible accomplishments. This incompetence is the exact reason why the American people have such disdain for politicians and why my father was elected President. Today’s actions by the committee set a horrible precedent for all taxpayers.”

Deutsche Bank spokeswoman Kerrie McHugh told NBC News that the bank “is engaged in a productive dialogue" with the two committees.

“We remain committed to providing appropriate information to all authorized investigations in a manner consistent with our legal obligations,” McHugh said.

Schiff told The New Yorker in a profile published in December that he is interested in the German financial institution because of its longtime relationship with Trump and its past ties to Russian money laundering.

In 2017, Deutsche Bank was fined nearly $630 million by New York and British financial regulators for its role in a Russian money-laundering scheme.

Trump’s financial disclosures showed he held roughly $360 million in debt to the bank before his election as president, The Washington Post reported in 2016.

Schiff told NBC News’ “Meet The Press” in December that Trump’s records with Deutsche Bank could expose “a form of compromise” with Russia.

“Well, the concern about Deutsche Bank is that they have a history of laundering Russian money,” Schiff said. “And this, apparently, was the one bank that was willing to do business with the Trump Organization."

Schiff added, "If this is a form of compromise, it needs to be exposed.”

Trump said in 2017 that any efforts by special counsel Robert Mueller to look into his business dealings would be crossing “a red line.” He also reportedly exploded in anger after erroneous news reports that Mueller had subpoenaed records from Deutsche Bank, which led Trump to consider firing Mueller in early December 2017, The New York Times reported, citing White House officials, people close to the president and others familiar with the episode.

New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office also issued subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Investors Bank in March as part of an inquiry into a set of major Trump Organization projects, a source familiar with the investigation told NBC News.

Dartunorro Clark is a political reporter for NBC News.

© 2019 NBC UNIVERSAL

Its after 4 am wendsday morning just got back from Northern California from a Buddhist retreat. Very much in a state of altered consciousness, rising early and in a meditative state, in a twilit atmosphere but at dawn. Same effect, unfocused and visually dormant, more merging with other obscure objects, dispersing little if ant contours, patterns more inclusive into their hidden and early composure, revealing little of their original shape, almost misteriously solemn, even magically reclusive. The dawn of the early light.

Its pulling into the interior, magnetically almost, into the entrails of the premonition with bare minimum patterns drawing on minimum content of sensible content.

Where from the forces composing such sensibility, as to approbatd glimmers of understanding of adhesion of agreement in socially contractible understanding, which outlines a miasma of power with which such forces operate through the silent workings of the human will?

What causes the will to expose those fleeting signatures which attempt to over come the past in a manner of recollecting the earliest social contract, that of the primal constitution of the vox populum?

That such voices, which were not really conssisting of the anti-monarchical sentiments, which echoed through the great salons of the ancien regime, but progressed into battle cries so blinding, as to succeed in an unheard and continuous violence, foreshadowing an awesome violence that bled hundred million fine people with the very best intentions, a slaughter so terrible, that the yolk befitting animals silently marching to the slaughterhouses of the world from by comparison?

%Civilisations causal chain suspended in abject horror, as the redux of mentality suspended all that before, so gloriously emboldened as even a Romance in the Middle Ages, a brought on illness to dwarf the plague which was a natural anti simulation of circuses of horror.

Now that the political aristocracy has been succeeded , by the monetary valued one, with the same gkuttets of hope that only literature can re-present, based on remembrances of a new suppression of real forms of that which truly can sustain a human , only human value to base life on, is firmubg a sustainable pedestal, of a minimally invasive binary fusion.

How, or even why, few understand, demonstrating a basic need of mixing totally, reforming a preamble of possibilities, as a sort of primary reactivation of total immersion into a new reformation and reevaluation of slicing through even below the very arxjytupes of unheard procedures of pre planned and pre formed structures, when either it goes to reward, or, needs to be completely eliminated.

What if, for instance, if, by a forced gross but great charity of distributing say 100 billion dollars to 300 million people result in ?
How much gain of surplus value would the United States gain in sAvings and purchasing power? Conversely, by inadmissible scale could it then be said that such an act drifts its political winds toward socialism?

Let’s try the math; 100 billion divided by 300 million is 333 dollars per person. Lets inflate that number to 3333 needing One trillion dollars of distribution per capita. Would that suffice to raise per capita standard of living significantly? Obviously no, when considering well noted spending habits if the YS population on the whole. So lets go to 33333 dollars distribution, practically the whole years worth of the total budget . Even that, even if, not considering the wild inflationary ride if extreme devaluation, would not only disable all government functions, but would plunge society into unimaginable conflict.

That is why, transference of social power by drastically changing the direction of money flow would become unreadable.

So the effect is the very need of reconstituting the aristocracy, if not in form, not yet , but in substance, either only bathe wearing of the newly revised customs worn, by determined, and very resembling characters.

These characters are not new , they recur, constantly, obediently following formulas , as engrained into the realms under conscious awareness, as any ideology can attest to.

The 1 trillion figure is too low, much too low, when considering the total sum of corporate bail outs, executive bonuses, buy outs if toxic assets, and productivity inducements, pork barrel payouts, to various deep pockets are included.

What goes? At a time when the only remedy to the world economy to fight against the well bred Marxian notion of diminishing profit margins vs. diminishing returns . Is the total profit maximalizatiob of total world capitalization.

Where even that now tedious concept is being played as political football, the theater of the near absurd becomes as clear as the most biblical virgin fountain if early hope.

Nothing now is lost, except when all is. The deal us : All or Nothing, All IN.

Mueller report: Trump lawyers rally ahead of Thursday release – live
President’s staff lines up ahead of release of a redacted version of Mueller’s findings in the Trump-Russia investigation, expected tomorrow

And other related :

Erin Durkin in New York

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the US will not make a trade deal with the UK if Brexit leads to new hostilities in Northern Ireland.

“Let me be clear: if the Brexit deal undermines the Good Friday Accords, there will be no chance of a U.S.-U.K. trade agreement,” Pelosi said in a Wednesday address to the Irish parliament, the Hill reported.

The US currently has trade arrangements with the European Union, so a new agreement with the UK would be needed after Britain exits the bloc.

Jared Kushner urged a group of ambassadors on Wednesday to keep an “open mind” about the White Houses’s forthcoming Middle East peace plan, Reuters reports.

The presidential adviser and son in law’s remarks came after the new Palestinian prime minister declared the peace plan Kushner is working on “born dead.”

Kushner said the peace plan is to be unveiled after Israel forms a governing coalition in the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election, a source told Reuters. He said it would require concessions from both sides.

Another entry from the Time 100: Senator Elizabeth Warren writes on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“A year ago, she was taking orders across a bar. Today, millions are taking cues from her,” Warren wrote. “She reminds all of us that even while greed and corruption slow our progress, even while armies of lobbyists swarm Washington, in our democracy, true power still rests with the people. And she’s just getting started.”

Most Americans believe that Donald Trump obstructed justice and think Congress should continue to investigate his ties with Russia, according to a new poll.

In the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, six in ten Americans said they believe Trump obstructed justice. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, expected to be released with redactions on Thursday, did not reach a conclusion on that question.

A 53% majority say Congress should continue to investigate Trump’s ties with Russia.

The poll shows 35% of Americans think that Trump did something illegal related to Russia and an additional 34% think he did something unethical.

Confidence has grown in the investigation itself. Three quarters of Republicans now say they are at least moderately confident the probe was fair and impartial - up from just 46% in March - and 70% of Democrats say they’re moderately, very, or extremely confident. A 61% majority say the Justice Department, which has so far shared just a 4 page summary of the report, has released too few details to the public.

Tom Ridge, the former Republican governor of Pennsylvania, criticized Donald Trump’s budget in an op-ed today for the New York Times.

Ridge, now the chairman of the National Organization on Disability, wrote that after Trump reversed his proposal to eliminate funding for the Special Olympics, the budget is “still full of cuts that aim directly at many other programs that support people with disabilities.”

Among the cuts: “Independent living centers, assistive-technology programs, supports for individuals living with brain injuries and family caregiver support services are among those programs and services on the chopping block. So too is the Office of Disability Employment Policy. This office, within the Labor Department, is the only nonregulatory federal agency that promotes policies and coordinates with employers and all levels of government to increase workplace success for people with disabilities. It also holds federal contractors to account for meeting certain hiring goals.”

© 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

The Republican National Committee and President Donald Trump’s campaign team are aiming to shape perceptions of special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings in his favor

WHITE HOUSE

The White House’s Mueller reaction plan has a wild card: Trump
The president’s aides have prepared an extensive spin operation ahead of Thursday’s release.

By NANCY COOK

Trump typically spends the first half of his workday in the White House residence in “executive time” — making phone calls, reading news reports, keeping an eye on the TV and talking to top officials.

That’s exactly when the Department of Justice is expected to release special counsel Robert Mueller’s long-awaited report, and when the freewheeling tweeter-in-chief is likely to have the least amount of supervision.

The goal for Thursday is to use the bully pulpit of the White House to give the appearance of a president consumed by the demands of his office. Former President Bill Clinton often leaned on the same playbook at key moments during the Starr investigation — a historical example Trump’s lawyers have studied closely.

Meanwhile, a well-greased spin machine will start whirring to life at the two main arms of the president’s reelection effort — the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign, aiming to shape perceptions of Mueller’s findings in his favor. The attorney general is also planning to host a televised 9:30 a.m. news conference about the report, the Justice Department announced — and the president is contemplating holding one of his own.

Aside from the uncertainty of what will be disclosed in the report itself, there’s a second major wild card: Trump.

What could trigger the president is any hint in the Mueller report that one of his current and former aides, many of whom cooperated with the investigation

“They went in and told the truth and are now wondering how much will be in the report. How much will it be redacted, and how will that play?” said one former administration official, noting that Attorney General William Barr’s letter summarizing Mueller’s findings could prove more favorable to the White House than the report itself.

Mueller’s team talked to a raft of Trump aides including former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former senior strategist Steve Bannon, former top attorney Don McGahn, former attorney general Jeff Sessions and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, among others. McGahn alone sat reportedly sat with the special investigators’ team for 30 hours of interviews.

“It is an important thing to the president that these people are not seen" in the report as attacking him personally, said the close White House adviser.

McGahn and his attorney did not respond to requests for commen
No one in the White House has seen the full document yet, nor do they know how it handles the question of whether Trump obstructed justice in firing former FBI Director James Comey — or the nuances surrounding that and many other moments.

Barr’s letter noted only that Mueller had declined to recommend charges of obstruction, quoting the special counsel’s report as saying: “[W]hile this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

But reports soon dribbled out relaying the views of frustrated members of Mueller’s team, rare leaks revealing that some in the special counsel’s office saw Barr’s synopsis of their “principal conclusions” as misleading.

Inside the White House, aides are trying to project calm. Most of this week has felt like a waiting game, especially with Congress on recess and with many administration officials planning a short workweek given this weekend’s Easter and Passover holidays.

There is also a feeling that Barr’s spare summary set the public narrative early on that Trump did not collude with Russia during the 2016 election — and White House officials and the president’s allies hope that perception sticks despite whatever damaging details may be lurking in the full report.

On Thursday, White House officials including lead attorney Emmet Flood are expected to have a limited window of time to read and digest the key parts of report. One of the president’s outside attorneys, Jay Sekulow, told POLITICO that his plan is to have a team of five to six staffers to review the document as the president’s personal counsel, breaking up the report into sections and monitoring the public response to it. Flood and the White House’s top attorney Pat Cipollone are expected to then brief the president on the report’s findings.

Sekulow and the president’s other attorney, Rudy Giuliani, are expected to go on television extensively this weekend to defend the president, Sekulow told POLITICO. Sekulow said the goal was to follow a similar model to how they handled the Sunday Barr letter, where they were able to get out a statement and tee up media interviews within an hour.

Trump’s attorneys will also be wielding a “counter-report” pushing back on Mueller’s findings, which Giuliani said earlier this week had been whittled down to “34 or 35 pages.”

The Republican National Committee will play a leading role in pushing back on any potentially damaging tidbits, or Democrats’ statements. The RNC will rely on a war room to monitor the media coverage and political statements including a rapid response team, social media pushback and op-eds and TV appearances from top RNC communications officials.

The Trump campaign is also ready to defend the president and then redirect the public’s attention.

“We know that President Trump will — once again — be vindicated: no collusion and no obstruction. The tables should turn now, as it is time to investigate the liars who instigated the sham investigation in the first place,” said Tim Murtaugh, communications director for the campaign.

But as always, Trump will act as his own communications director and public relations crisis manager. Already he’s distilled the message down to a simple Twitter statement, before he’s seen the report: “No Collusion - No Obstruction!”

Eliana Johnson and Darren Samuelsohn contributed report

And afterwards?:

President Trump still facing swirl of investigations even after Robert Mueller’s probe has ended
BART JANSEN | USA TODAY | 1 hour ago

Democrats launched a sweeping new probe of President Donald Trump on Monday, an aggressive investigation that threatens to shadow the president through the 2020 election season with inquiries into his White House, campaign and family businesses. (March 4)
AP
WASHINGTON – The investigations surrounding President Donald Trump’s campaign and his presidency have not ended even though Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller has wrapped up his probe.

Prosecutors in a half-dozen federal, state and city jurisdictions are pursuing overlapping inquiries focused on how Trump operated his namesake business empire, how a porn star was paid off in the final weeks of his campaign and how his inaugural committee raised money. New York state alone has three agencies conducting investigations.

At least six congressional committees are studying Trump’s personal finances, his inauguration committee, his business practices before he took office and his conduct since assuming the presidency, seeking evidence of what senior Democrats have called corruption or abuse of his office.

The extent of those inquiries – and the jeopardy they create for Trump and those in his political orbit – is impossible to know because some of the probes overlap and some investigators haven’t revealed the scope of their work. For example, federal prosecutors in New York’s Southern and Eastern districts are each investigating Trump’s $107 million inaugural committee.

So far, none of those investigations has directly accused the president of wrongdoing, though some have come close. Federal prosecutors in New York last year told a judge that Trump had directed his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to orchestrate illegal payoffs in the final months of his campaign to silence two women who claimed to have had sex with him.

Trump repeatedly called Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election a partisan “witch hunt” and called state-level investigators “presidential harassers.”

But many of the investigations that are ongoing – including the probes of hush payments and of the inaugural committee – are closely tied to the special counsel’s work, which produced a cascade of separate investigations.

Federal inquiries of Trump’s campaign
Federal prosecutors in New York are pursuing at least two inquiries. One office is scrutinizing Trump’s inaugural committee, including whether donors received benefits in exchange for funding the $107 million celebration, according to a subpoena sent to the committee. The authorities also are scrutinizing whether vendors were paid with unreported donations or whether foreign nationals made contributions that are prohibited.

Samuel Patten, 47, was sentenced Friday to three years’ probation and fined $5,000 after pleading guilty in August to lobbying for a Ukrainian political party without reporting it to the Justice Department. Patten also helped conceal a Ukrainian national who bought $50,000 worth of tickets to Trump’s inauguration, prosecutors said. Patten “provided substantial assistance” to Mueller, who referred his case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, according to prosecutors.

Another federal inquiry in New York focuses on the hush money Cohen said Trump told him to pay to two women who claimed to have had extramarital affairs with Trump. Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign-finance violations for the six-figure payments before the 2016 election to porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Prosecutors said Trump and his business reimbursed Cohen for some of the payments, falsely concealing them as a retainer for his legal services.

Cohen provided the House Oversight and Reform Committee with a copy of a $35,000 check that Trump signed personally to reimburse him in a series of installments during the first year of his presidency. Other checks were signed by Donald Trump Jr. and Allen Weisselberg, chief finance officer for the Trump Organization. When a lawmaker asked whether the checks documented a “criminal conspiracy of financial fraud,” Cohen testified: “Yes.”

Prosecutors in New York opened their investigation of Cohen in early 2018 after receiving a referral from Mueller.

Trump has denied wrongdoing and called Cohen a convicted liar; the attorney heads to prison for three years on May 6. Trump questioned whether the payments even qualified for criminal charges but said he never told Cohen to break the law.

Cohen also suggested that the Justice Department might be pursuing other investigations. During his testimony to the House, he said prosecutors in New York were investigating his most recent communication with Trump. And he said he was in “constant contact” with prosecutors about other investigations but didn’t elaborate on their subjects.

Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s lawyers, has said the legal team is “fully” aware of what prosecutors in both Washington and New York are pursuing. “Cohen did everything he could to create innuendo,” Giuliani said. “I think we have no liability.”

New York probes Trump finances
Cohen’s House testimony in February spurred investigations by state authorities in New York. Letitia James, the state’s attorney general, is investigating whether Trump exaggerated his wealth when seeking real-estate loans, including while he was pursuing a failed bid for the NFL’s Buffalo Bills. State investigators have issued subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Investors Bank for documents about real-estate deals and the Bills bid.

The New York State Department of Financial Services subpoenaed documents in March from the Trump Organization’s insurer, Aon PLC, after Cohen testified that the company inflated the value of its assets.

“It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed amongst the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real-estate taxes,” Cohen told the House Oversight and Reform Committee in February. “That was one function. Another was when we were dealing later on with insurance companies, we would provide them with these copies so that they would understand that the premium which is based sometimes upon the individual’s capabilities to pay would be reduced.”

The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance has been probing Trump’s private charity, the Trump Foundation, since last year. The foundation agreed to dissolve amid accusations that it had violated rules that constrain how charities use their money.

The department is also investigating claims of tax fraud made in an October story in the New York Times.

Congress scrutinizes Trump, business
Trump also faces a series of congressional investigations, nearly all of them being conducted by House Democrats who have been eager to pry into his business dealings and his conduct since becoming president. And they have begun demanding records that could shed light on Trump’s finances.

But House Republicans have dismissed the investigations into Trump’s personal finances and business as fishing expeditions aimed at his impeachment. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the Oversight Committee, said investigating Trump’s private finances is an “astonishing abuse” of the panel’s authority. Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said valid congressional oversight can’t be used to inquire into private affairs unrelated to legislation.

The inquiries include:

The House Ways and Means Committee has asked the Internal Revenue Service for Trump’s personal income-tax forms from 2013 through 2018, which he has resisted providing.

The House Financial Services and Intelligence committees have subpoenaed Trump financial records from Deutsche Bank and other financial institutions to learn more about his finances. Cohen provided the House Oversight and Reform Committee with Trump’s personal financial statements from 2011, 2012 and 2013, which Cohen said were given to Deutsche Bank for the potential loan to buy the Buffalo Bills.

The House Judiciary Committee is conducting a wide-ranging probe of whether Trump obstructed justice during Mueller’s investigation, or abused the powers of his office, said chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. The committee has requested documents from 81 people and organizations connected to the administration or Trump’s business and approved for subpoenas for some of Trump’s onetime top aides, including strategist Steve Bannon, former communications director Hope Hicks, former chief of staff Reince Priebus and former White House counsel Donald McGahn.

The Oversight and Reform Committee subpoenaed documents from Mazars USA accounting firm for Trump’s financial records, to corroborate Cohen’s testimony about plans for the Buffalo Bills. The committee is also investigating the federal lease for Trump International Hotel, which occupies a government-owned building a few blocks from the White House. Some Democratic lawmakers have criticized the arrangement because Trump is essentially both tenant and landlord, by overseeing the General Services Administration.

The House and Senate intelligence committees are each continuing their investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The goal is to legislate responses to reduce or prevent foreign manipulation of the 2020 election.

Contributing: The Associated Press

More about investigations of President Donald Trump:

Did Trump keep his 19 promises to insulate himself from his business? Only he knows.

Mueller report: Why so many of President Donald Trump’s aides lied to protect him in Russia investigations

Michael Cohen’s testimony prompts a new question: In web of Trump investigations, is anyone safe?

‘I am not protecting Mr. Trump anymore.’ Michael Cohen ties the president to ongoing criminal probes

© Copyright Gannett 2019


POLITICO

‘Keep your mouth shut’: Dems erupt over Barr’s Mueller report rollout
Lawmakers are accusing the attorney general of trying to spin Mueller’s findings.

By ANDREW DESIDERIO and KYLE CHENEY

04/17/2019 06:39 PM EDT

Updated 04/17/2019 08:55 PM EDT

William Barr
Democrats are in an uproar after the White House and Department of Justice officials appear to be coordinating ahead of the release of the special counsel’s report. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Facebook Twitter Email Print
House Democrats exploded in anger Wednesday over Attorney General William Barr’s plans to roll out special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, accusing the Justice Department of trying to spin the report’s contents and protect President Donald Trump.

Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will hold a news conference at 9:30 a.m. Thursday morning to review the report, which will include redactions. Reports that DOJ officials have already discussed Mueller’s findings with the White House only further inflamed tensions.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Barr had “thrown out his credibility & the DOJ’s independence with his single-minded effort to protect @realDonaldTrump above all else.“

“The American people deserve the truth, not a sanitized version of the Mueller Report approved by the Trump Admin,“ Pelosi wrote on Twitter while on an official trip in Ireland.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee hastily convened a news conference for Wednesday night in Chairman Jerry Nadler‘s district in New York City to issue similar broadsides against Barr.

“I’m deeply troubled by reports that the WH is being briefed on the Mueller report AHEAD of its release,” Nadler tweeted before the press conference. The New York Democrat added that DOJ informed him that Congress would not receive the report until around 11 a.m. or 12 p.m. Thursday. “This is wrong,” Nadler added.

At the news conference, Nadler said that Barr “appears to be waging a media campaign on behalf of President Trump, the very subject of the investigation at the heart of the Mueller report.“

Nadler also reiterated that he was likely to ask Mueller to testify, and added that it might also be “useful“ to ask members of Mueller’s team to testify. The leaders of the House Intelligence Committee made a bipartisan request last month for Mueller and his team to brief them on their findings as well.

Republicans said little about the drama unfolding late Wednesday, but Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), the top GOP lawmaker on the Judiciary Committee, chided Nadler for his attack on Barr.

“The only person trying to spin the report is @RepJerryNadler,“ Collins tweeted. “The AG has done nothing unilaterally. After partnering with DAG Rosenstein to share principal conclusions, Barr is releasing the report voluntarily, working with Mueller’s team step by step.“

A Senate aide confirmed that lawmakers didn’t expect to receive Mueller’s report until 11 a.m. on Thursday — after Barr and Rosenstein‘s news conference — and that a discussion about providing a less-redacted version to Congress wouldn’t begin until Friday. DOJ officials indicated that Congress would receive the redacted report on CDs, and it was unclear when reporters would receive it or when it would be posted online for the general public.

Mueller‘s probe focused on Russia‘s attempt to interfere in the 2016 election and whether any associates of Trump aided the scheme. He also investigated whether Trump himself tried to obstruct the investigation, an area that the Judiciary Committee has begun looking into as well.

Neither Mueller nor anyone else from the special counsel’s prosecution team will be in attendance at the Barr news conference, Mueller spokesman Peter Carr told POLITICO. Carr declined to say whether Mueller had been invited to attend.

Carr, however, said he will be at the news conference in his capacity as a member of the DOJ public affairs office, which he recently returned to as the Mueller probe concluded to handle criminal cases.

Democrats also were incensed that Trump, in a radio interview, revealed Barr’s press event minutes before the Justice Department officially announced it — another suggestion that the White House and Justice Department were coordinating ahead of the report’s public release.

A DOJ spokeswoman later said the news conference was not Trump’s idea. Trump said in the same interview that he might hold his own press event afterward.

“I can’t imagine DOJ didn’t brief the White House" about the news conference, said a source familiar with the president’s legal strategy.

“Pretty convenient of the attorney general to take questions on the report before anyone has a chance to read the report,” Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.), a Judiciary Committee member, wrote on Twitter.

The uproar came as The New York Times reported that DOJ officials have had “numerous conversations” with White House lawyers about Mueller’s conclusions, though the report was vague about how much the Justice Department had told the White House beyond the top-line conclusions Barr released more than three weeks ago.

Barr has already been under fire from Democrats for his handling of the Mueller investigation. In his four-page summary of the report’s primary conclusions, the attorney general said Mueller uncovered evidence that Trump obstructed justice, but Barr decided against charging Trump with a crime.

In two Capitol Hill hearings last week, Barr did not answer questions about the Justice Department’s coordination or contact with the White House.

“So-called Attorney General is presiding over a dog and pony show,” tweeted House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries. “Here is a thought. Release the Mueller report tomorrow morning and keep your mouth shut. You have ZERO credibility.”

WHITE HOUSE

The White House’s Mueller reaction plan has a wild card: Trump
By NANCY COOK
Democrats’ complaints arrived just as the Justice Department confirmed plans to allow “a limited number of members of Congress and their staff” to view a version of the Mueller report “without certain redactions.”

But rather than give these lawmakers a copy, DOJ officials said in a court filing they would “secure this version of the report in an appropriate setting” only available to these few lawmakers and aides.

Barr has indicated he intends to redact four categories of information from the report: grand jury evidence, classified information, evidence related to ongoing investigations and information that could be embarrassing to “peripheral third parties.” Lawmakers have argued they should see the entire report and that Republicans received access to nearly all of those categories of information in their own efforts to probe the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation.

Justice Department officials also indicated that if Congress seeks its own version of the less-redacted report, they’ll lean on federal District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson — who is presiding over the pending trial of longtime Trump associate Roger Stone — to determine what to do next.

In a court filing in Stone’s case, prosecutors said they would seek her guidance should Congress ask for the report, and they sense a “reasonable likelihood” that its contents will become public.

Nadler is expected to issue a subpoena as soon as Friday or Monday for the full report and all of its underlying evidence and grand jury information.

Darren Samuelsohn, Josh Gerstein and Natasha Bertrand contributed to this report.

POLITICO LLC

Mueller report release: five things to look out for
Barr has said the report has two parts: one on Russian tampering efforts and one on alleged obstruction of justice by Trump

On Thursday, the US justice department is expected to release a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s long-awaited report on Russian election tampering and the Donald Trump campaign to the public. The attorney general, William Barr, has announced a press conference at the justice department at 9.30am to discuss it.

Mueller report: redacted Trump-Russia findings to be released today – live
Barr has previously described the Mueller report as having two parts: one part devoted to describing the Russian tampering efforts, believed to include a rundown of Russian contacts with Trump campaign officials; and one part devoted to evidence of alleged obstruction of justice by the president.

Here are five things to look out for with the release of the report, which reportedly runs to nearly 400 pages and is officially titled Report on the Investigation Into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election:

Obstruction of justice
The Mueller report “catalogu[es] the President’s actions” that could amount to an obstruction of justice by Trump, according to an earlier letter issued by Barr summarizing his view of the report’s findings. How much of this catalogue will the public get to see on Thursday?

Mueller left the decision of whether to charge Trump to Barr, who decided not to. But it appears that Mueller gathered substantial evidence of potential obstruction of justice by the president. In his letter, Barr quoted this line from the report: “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

What did Mueller, a lifelong prosecutor, see or discover that led him to believe that the president might have committed a crime?

Contacts with Russia
According to Barr, the Mueller report does exonerate the Trump campaign from allegations that it conspired with Russia. In his letter, Barr quoted the report: “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

But there are signs that the report contains new information about contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian operatives. One source close to Mueller’s team told NBC News that the report “paint[s] a picture of a campaign whose members were manipulated by a sophisticated Russian intelligence operation”.

Trump’s political base appears to be unbothered by his campaign’s contacts with Russia, and by his subsequent chronic lying about those contacts. But could the report put those contacts in a new light?

Redactions
Mueller delivered his report one month ago, on 22 March. Since then, Barr and colleagues in the justice department have been preparing it for release to Congress and the public.

A big question is how much of the report will be redacted. Barr is seen as a Trump loyalist with a low opinion of Mueller’s investigation. Barr will probably be challenged to explain why certain material was deemed unfit for public view. Democrats in the House have already said they will subpoena the full report.

Barr has described to Congress four categories of material he intended to redact and said the redactions would be color-coded by category: first, grand jury information, including witness interviews; second, classified information; third, information related to continuing investigations; fourth, so-called derogatory information – information about people who were interviewed or scrutinized in investigations but not charged.

That last category could prominently include Trump.

Summaries
In the report, Mueller’s team included multiple summary paragraphs intended for quick public release after the report was submitted to Barr, according to multiple media accounts. Some members of Mueller’s team were reported to have been displeased that Barr did not release the summaries.

The report was prepared “so that the front matter from each section could have been released immediately – or very quickly”, one official not on Mueller’s team told the Washington Post. “It was done in a way that minimum redactions, if any, would have been necessary, and the work would have spoken for itself.”

Will we see the summaries? Will they be significantly redacted?

Scenes
Based on media reports and previous indictments, the public knows some of what was going on behind the scenes as the Trump campaign lurched toward victory in 2016, Russian operatives dangling off it, leech-like, on all sides.

But the Mueller report, which would draw on material not available to journalists, such as surveilled communications and seized evidence, could reveal what was really happening in some of the set pieces from the Trump campaign and early presidency.

We might find out more about what happened at a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, and whether Trump was ignorant of the meeting, as he claims. New evidence could come to light about the firing of former FBI director James Comey. We could learn more about Trump campaign contacts with WikiLeaks.

The report could contain damaging new information about the conduct of Trump family members, including Donald Trump Jr and Jared Kushner, who have been accused of using the campaign to try to enrich their companies and keeping up inappropriate, if not illegal, contacts with foreign operatives.

The Mueller report might weigh in on whether Trump told Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, as Cohen has alleged, or whether Trump tried at least twice to fire Mueller, only to be stopped by the former White House counsel Don McGahn, as has been reported.

But key sections of the Mueller report might remain redacted
© 2019 Guardian News

Initial person am opinion while watching Barr"s opinion before release:

Is this a method he is using: precepting his opinion , prior to substantiate his method of describing the ways the Report should be understood?

In other words, does the national legal interpretation lean toward a whitewash, or away from?

The procedure to appear by Barr BEFORE release of the report, is being heavily criticized, as well his presumptive statements before the committee he appeared before.

In fact it has been pointed out, that Mueller left open adjucation of the issue of probable proof rather then certainty in affirming the standard of criminality.

That is a known legal rule . Overlooked by many, to askew the intent of demonstrating Mueller’s transferring adjucation. to the Department of Justice, rather then to Congress.

The question revolves around the issue whether the Report implies exonoration versus vindication. where exonorarionn corresponds with obstruction and vindication with the under lying proof of collusion.

Whitewash does operates splitting intent on terms of probable cause with conflating it with intent, arguing from the prior to the later. So at this stage , the reaffirmation of filling in reasons (casual) into hypothetical (opinions), mixing the two by the reaffirmation, keying in the Kantian categorical imperative, that one does relate to the other.

Whether the direct and indirect evidence can be shown to be inferred or deducted, sets the basis of the regional for asserting redaction.

Since the Democrats are at a weakness to counter this with a similar.Congressional show of this rationale to the 'Majoritive of American’s & becomes on hold, at least until Mueller’s appearance before Congress in May.

The effects of the cyber value ias a central issue has been walled over, that is the overlooked crux of the whole case.

That borders, literally, the necessary whitewash, which was figuratively shifted the idea into social dissociation.

The way this was handled, the obstruction may have been clouded over, washed clean, by the collusive nature of the idea of the new world order, which has been an idea swirling around since the novel -1984.

Therefore, the logical contradiction between (Kant) prior intellectual motive (1984 ) and politically clarified intention-{Hegel-Heidegger), has been successfully overcome (Transvalued, Nietzsche) so as.to legitimize successfully the politocal ramifications of cyber-intelligence.

Its obvious now, that Trump is a very good actor, and he can rightfully claim now, that his degrading from winning an award has been based by politocal pressure from above, rather then by objective criteria of worth .

How the leap from good actor to effective politician plays out, now has become a viable issue laden legal PR show, which has been effectively been achieved.

Consclusion: Trump has been rescued by subliminal cyber manipulation, of whose legitimacy has become a secondary , not.primary preoccupation , to shadow the Report, by eliminating the need to foreshadow it.(inquiries into intent-more in line with the still current suspicion of intent as obstruction)







The Mueller report is shocking
By: CNN
Updated 6:42 PM EDT, Thu April 18, 2019

(CNN) After a news conference by Attorney General William Barr, Congress and the public can access a redacted version of the Mueller report. Commentators will weigh in here throughout the day with smart takes on the Mueller report. The views expressed in this commentary are theirs. View more opinion articles on CNN.

Elie Honig: A staggering exercise in selective omission
Elie Honig
With the redacted version of the Mueller report and the press conference he gave to help spin it, William Barr has cemented his status as a crafty partisan whose primary tricks are to cloak his political moves to shape public opinion and to protect President Trump under a thin sheen of law and process.

Imagine if, in Attorney General William Barr’s March 24 four-page “principal conclusions” letter, he had informed Congress and the public that special counsel Robert Mueller had found in his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election that it “established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”

That is, in fact, a direct quote from Mueller. Yet Barr chopped off this crucial language and instead gave us only the back half of the very same sentence: “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” Barr’s calculated, selective quotation of one sentence of Mueller’s gave the American people a slanted and inaccurate view of Mueller’s actual findings.

View this interactive content on CNN.com
And imagine if, rather than unilaterally intercepting and dismissing the question of obstruction – without Mueller ever asking him to do so – Barr had let us know that Mueller actually referred the matter to Congress, finding that “[w]ith respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has the authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.” Again, had Barr given us even a reasonably faithful and impartial summary of Mueller’s work, the world would look much different for Trump than it does now.

Barr already proved himself decades ago as a master of manipulation through selective omission in 1989 when he omitted part of a Justice Department memo relevant to the abduction of then-Panamanian leader Gen. Manuel Noriega. He wrote before becoming Trump’s attorney general that there was more basis to investigate Hillary Clinton than “so-called ‘collusion’” and he sent an unsolicited 20-page memo to DOJ arguing that Mueller’s “obstruction theory is fatally misconceived.” Despite having pre-judged Mueller’s investigation in these stark terms, Barr declined to recuse himself. And then Barr issued a wildly misleading four-page summary – which he later claimed was not in fact a “summary” – which set the public discourse for nearly a month before today’s release of Mueller’s actual report.

Barr auditioned for his job by broadcasting his hostility to Mueller’s investigation and his loyalty to Trump. Now that he is the nation’s top law enforcement officer, Barr has shown himself to be as advertised. In his handling of Mueller’s report, Barr has done a disservice to the Department of Justice and the American people – but he has done a potentially administration-saving favor for Trump.

Elie Honig is a former federal and state prosecutor and CNN legal analyst.

Samantha Vinograd: Russia is reading — and learning from — the Mueller report, too
Sam Vinograd
Today – and every day before and after it, actually – would have been a great day for an election security meeting at the White House. The Mueller report is a critical body of information that lays out how Russia attacked us. A responsible leader would use it to advocate against Russian attacks on our democracy and to warn against behavior that helps Russia’s goals, even if that behavior isn’t criminal. Instead, a report on Russia’s attack on our democracy in 2016, will, ironically, be used by some — including the President – to continue that very attack. It is a gift to the Russians.

The report will be used to create confusion, sow divisions, to amplify partisanship and to undermine the credibility of our democratic processes.

This is a proud moment for Putin. As the special counsel lays out, Russia’s attack on our democracy began at least as far back as mid-2014. It was systematic and strategic, and President Trump was a tool for the Russians at a specific time.

We know from various officials that Russia’s attack is ongoing, which raises the question of whether President Trump would criticize other 2020 candidates for acting the way he did during the 2016 election – including ignoring warnings about Russian interference (even if Trump’s activity was not criminal, his behavior is well below the bar of what we would expect of any presidential candidate). No one – including the President – can claim ignorance about what Russia is doing.

Russia weaponizes information against us already; controversial issues are Russian information warriors’ bread and butter. And we should expect them to use this report to further their objectives. And every time the President spreads misinformation about the report, uses it to divide and cast doubt on the investigation itself – he’s knowingly aiding and abetting that attack. It is a clear sign that he’s putting his own insecurities above the security of the American people.

The Mueller report could be and should be a guide for all candidates on what to watch out for in terms of foreign contact during 2020 campaigns, and how not to act during a campaign. Instead, because the President denigrates this now public body of evidence, he is failing to behave as a leader – one who should be working with campaigns to counter Russian or other foreign influence.

Now that the Mueller report is public, we have every reason to wonder whether Trump will repeat his actions during this next election cycle. And he certainly doesn’t appear to be taking measures to advise against dangerous behavior, like communicating with hostile foreign powers, failing to accurately report foreign meetings like the Trump Tower meeting, failing to disclose foreign offers to provide “dirt” on an opponent (even if it doesn’t pan out) and any foreign activities when it is perceived that it could help a campaign’s efforts.

Samantha Vinograd is a CNN national security analyst. She served on President Obama’s National Security Council from 2009-2013 and at the Treasury Department under President George W. Bush. Follow her @sam_vinograd.

Ilya Shapiro: Don McGahn is the MVP of the Trump administration
Ilya Shapiro
One of the biggest heroes of the Mueller report is Don McGahn, who served as White House counsel from President Donald Trump’s inauguration through October 2018. McGahn sat for 30 hours of interviews with special counsel Robert Mueller. And, in the report, Mueller described him as a “credible witness with no motive to lie.”

The report reveals that soon after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed the special counsel, Trump tried to get McGahn to remove Mueller. McGahn repeatedly declined – and, in May 2017, he warned this action would appear as an attempt to “meddle in the investigation.”

When Trump called McGahn in June to prod him again to remove Mueller, the White House counsel was at his wits’ end. “McGahn did not carry out the direction,” details the report, “deciding that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night Massacre.”

Later, when Trump asked McGahn why he had told Mueller about the order to have him fired, McGahn explained that “he had to” because their conversations weren’t protected by attorney-client privilege. This latter point is important because McGahn stood up for the idea that the White House counsel’s loyalty is to the Office of the President, not to the President himself.

Trump seemed satisfied by that explanation, but then asked, “What about those notes? Why do you take notes? Lawyers don’t take notes. I never had a lawyer who took notes.” McGahn replied that he is a “real lawyer” and that notes create a clear record.

In that judgment, McGahn was right – and more helpful to the President than Michael Cohen, his personal attorney and fixer, or any other of the non-notetaking lawyers who made a Trump-related appearance in the Mueller investigation.

In short, McGahn’s professionalism and commitment to legal ethics under challenging circumstances shine through in the Mueller report. When you add all that to his stunning success as architect of a winning strategy on judicial nominations — including two Supreme Court justices and a record number of circuit judges – McGahn comes out looking as the early nominee for MVP of the Trump administration.

Ilya Shapiro is director of the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. Follow him on Twitter @ishapiro.

Jill Filipovic: Barr mansplains away Trump’s emotions
Jill Filipovic
In a news conference so obsequious it would impress Kim Jong Un, Attorney General William Barr took great pains to flout the ethical requirements of his profession and instead behave as President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, spokesman and brand manager. There is, Barr said, “substantial evidence to show that the President was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency.” When a reporter asked about the appearance that Barr was protecting the President, “including acknowledging [Trump’s] feelings and emotions,” Barr responded, “Actually, the statements about his sincere beliefs are recognized in the report.”

Men in an emotional tailspin have “sincere beliefs.” Women who simply speak from expertise and from the heart are shrill (or, in Trump’s take on Hillary Clinton, “She can be kind of sha-riiiiill”).

Wild-eyed photos of politically powerful women inevitably illustrate articles about them on right-wing websites (and sometimes even in the mainstream press). Trump is perhaps the most emotionally unbalanced national politician in living memory, tweeting semi-literate all-caps outbursts and frothing up his followers with incoherent tirades. There is great irony in the fact that this extraordinarily emotional president is cast as acting badly because of his “beliefs,” not his uncontrollable moods.

Anger isn’t just an emotion when women express it, and feelings don’t morph into beliefs just because it’s men who are expressing them. Nor, of course, is frustration a defense to the alleged commission of a crime.

Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in Washington and the author of the book, “The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness.”

Julian Zelizer: Now it’s up to Congress to act
Julian Zelizer
The Mueller report is shocking. Despite the attorney general’s efforts to provide exculpatory fodder for the President’s Twitter feed, Congress should be greatly concerned about the contents.

The first section does not find that there is a criminal case to be made against the President. It shows a large number of very deliberative points of contact with officials connected to the Russian government who were interfering in the election. Trump “asked individuals affiliated with his campaign to find the deleted Clinton emails,” the report says, and that Michael Flynn “recalled that Trump made this request repeatedly, and Flynn subsequently contacted multiple people in an effort to obtain the emails.”

Of course, we must also remember that Michael Cohen said in his testimony to Congress in February, Trump’s style is also to make clear what needs to be done rather than saying it directly: Campaign officials were seeking information that would help them.

The narrative in section one is a deeply troubling look at the nature of Trump’s campaign, generating questions about how this all might have shaped his policy decisions, and what the expectations are for conducting the 2020 election campaign. Incidentally, it shows there was more than enough reason for intelligence agencies to look into what was happening.

The second section is damning. It does not exonerate him from obstruction of justice – the charge at the heart of Presidents Nixon and Clinton’s impeachment process. The Mueller team found multiple instances where Trump tried to stifle a legitimate investigation into his own conduct.

Very often the only thing that saved him were advisors who wouldn’t do what he wanted done. Combined with the public record – the President’s own words – there is also ample evidence about what was motivating him. Just because he failed to stop an investigation doesn’t mean he didn’t try to do so. In fact, it is clear he did.

Indeed, if this is a “good” report for the President, it is hard to imagine what a bad one would look like.

It turns out that much of the news we have been reading was accurate, not fake – about the Trump Tower project, about the contacts between campaign officials and individuals connected with Russia, and about the President’s efforts to fire Mueller. It seems that numerous investigations spun out of Mueller’s inquiry are very much in play.

It also turns out that the Department of Justice can’t be depended upon to handle this independently, as Attorney General William Bar demonstrated this morning with his decidedly biased interpretation of the report.

The obligation to make sense of this information falls on Congress. House Democrats will be under immense pressure now to make sense of what it all adds up to and to determine whether the President abused his power. There will be great political pressure on House Democrats to avoid doing so – after all, it is time to focus on the election – but it would be a mistake to allow the activities outlined in this report to be normalized and to see accountability fall by the wayside.

Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University

Paul Callan: There’s no case for impeachment in Mueller report, but strong evidence Russians helped elect Trump
For the last two years the operation of the American government has been largely paralyzed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Donald Trump. Regardless of the spin put on the detailed findings of Mueller’s probe by the political ideologues who dominate the public discussion of the Trump administration in Congress and in the media, there is insufficient evidence in the Mueller report to support the impeachment of the President based on Mueller’s findings.

Paul Callan
Whether you love Trump or hate Trump, he has the right to finish his term. In the next election, though, the American people can render their true verdict as to his fitness to remain in office. When they render that verdict, they are likely to be reminded that the underlying facts of the Mueller Investigation released today suggest that even though there was no active criminal “collusion,” Russia may well have elected Trump.

The most worrisome aspect of Trump’s election has always been the specter of Russian collusion influencing the outcome of the extremely close 2016 presidential race. Mueller’s report states that there is insufficient evidence to establish presidential “collusion” (or what lawyers would call a criminal conspiracy) with the Russians.

While Mueller’s conclusions will be quoted in support of Mr. Trump’s “no collusion” mantras, the report reveals disturbing facts suggesting that the extremely close and controversial presidential election might have been thrown to Mr. Trump by Russian interference. Even if Trump and his campaign workers did not criminally conspire with the Russians, it remains quite possible that he is the President of the United States as a direct result of the active interference of Russian operatives in the election.

Here are 7 key lines from the Mueller report
The report identifies the Internet Research Agency (“IRA”) based in St. Petersburg, Russia and funded by Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin and companies he controlled, as the moving force behind Russian interference in the US presidential election. Mueller describes this effort as a “… targeted operation that by early 2016 favored Trump and disparaged candidate Clinton. The IRA’s operation also included the purchase of political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities, as well as the staging of political rallies inside the United States. To organize those rallies, IRA employees posed as U.S. grassroots entities and persons and made contact with Trump supporters and Trump Campaign officials in the United States.”

The report further describes “cyber intrusions (hacking) and releases of hacked materials damaging the to the Clinton Campaign. The Russian intelligence service known as the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Army (GRU) carried out these operations.”

The movement of several thousand votes in a handful of large states would have shifted the election to Hillary Clinton. Trump’s election occurred in large part because he carried Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. His margin of victory in those states was 77,000 votes out of a total of 136 million votes cast in the election. A shift of a mere 37,501 votes would have elected Hillary Clinton president.

Mueller report unable to conclude ‘no criminal conduct occurred’ on obstruction
Simple common sense suggests that Russian operatives as outlined in the report could well have engaged in sufficient covert and overt operations to have easily moved such a miniscule percentage of the voting population to Trump. Though Mr. Mueller steers clear of analyzing the likely movement of actual votes in the election and the probable impact of Russian tampering though social media, rallies and fake news, historians of the future are unlikely to be so deferential.

Mueller’s report establishes that the fact of Russian interference on Trump’s behalf is crystal clear.

Though Mueller finds no evidence of criminal collusion by Mr Trump or his campaign, there is objectively little reason for White House celebrations. Democrats can now persuasively argue that the Russians elected Trump.

Though not a “Manchurian Candidate,” Donald Trump might more accurately be described as the “St. Petersburg Candidate.” While pundits will endlessly argue about whether the Mueller evidence supports obstruction of the justice charges against the President, the nation’s greater concern should be focused on Mueller’s focus on Russia’s obstruction of American democracy and how to block such interference in future elections.

Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, a former New York homicide prosecutor

Shan Wu: Why there is nothing black and white about the decision not to prosecute Trump

As we read through the 400-page redacted version of the Mueller report, we should keep in mind the theme of prosecutorial discretion. Put another way: the decision to criminally prosecute is not as black and white as we might like to think. Particularly in a case as sensitive as the Mueller probe and where a decision to indict a sitting President would raise complex issues of Constitutional law, the discretion of the prosecutors becomes critical.

Attorney General Barr–sounding like many advocates for Trump, including Trump’s private lawyers—repeatedly makes Mueller’s decision not to charge the President with obstruction sound like a scientific conclusion based on legal formulas. This is simply not true. The facts revealed in Mueller’s report easily could have been charged as crimes.

Initial takes from the report suggest numerous deeply troubling actions by President Trump that a different prosecutor and a different Justice Department might have found warranted criminal charges. Here, however, Mueller appears to have been very cognizant of Justice Department policy that a sitting President should not be indicted, and specifically references the Constitutional issues and disturbance of the President’s ability to govern that a criminal case would cause.

He also recognizes the role of Congress. This is a valid and reasonable decision to have made. But it is not a decision compelled by facts or law. It is an exercise of discretion.

Shan Wu is a former federal prosecur

Independent counsel Kenneth Starr and Attorney General William Barr may both be Republican loyalists, but they approached releasing their investigative reports with completely different objectives. Starr released an unvarnished screed directed at President Bill Clinton – designed to drive him from office. Barr held a press briefing shortly before the report was actually released to make sure President Donald Trump can stay in office.

First, the law. Starr had largely unfettered power – with no White House or Department of Justice oversight. His report was released without any advance briefings for Clinton’s lawyers, and it left no sordid detail out. It was a document that almost begged House Republicans to impeach the President. In fact, Starr specifically and in writing denied Clinton’s lawyers’ access to the report in advance.

In the aftermath of Starr’s overreach, Congress changed the independent counsel law – requiring future special counsels to report directly to the attorney general, and thus paving the way for today’s farce.

In fact, the only thing missing from Barr’s performance was the Make America Great Again hat. He acted more as the President’s defense attorney than as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. To begin with, Barr said he let the President’s personal lawyers see the redacted report on multiple occasions, allowing Barr and the White House to coordinate on their basic legal talking points. And at his press briefing, he went one step further – defending Trump’s actions and saying he was motivated “by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks.”

But Barr didn’t stop there. While withholding the report from Congress, the media and the American public, he subjected us to a four-page summary of his own conclusions, including his personal sympathy for what the President has had to endure.

While Starr’s release delivered a political punch to Clinton, he stuck to the reporting of the facts, as he gathered them. Barr took a different approach – he cherry picked information from the report to report conclusions that the report itself does not appear to entirely support, such as the complex issue of obstruction (for which Mueller did not draw a conclusion).

Although Starr’s rollout was painful to go through, in and of itself, it was fair. Barr’s performance, by contrast, is an international embarrassment that will permanently stain our democracy.

So, where does that leave us? While Starr’s release hurt the President, it also answered all the outstanding questions about his investigation. Barr, on the other hand, may have helped Trump in the short term – but may have buried him down the road. After the Starr report was released, reporters had no further investigative questions, leaving only political ones. Barr, however, has created as many questions as the report answers.

Here’s one thing to watch: On the day Starr released his report, Clinton’s approval rating was at 63%. Shortly after, when the House voted on his impeachment, Clinton’s rating soared to 73%. It’s hard to see Trump’s ratings jumping significantly after Thursday’s release, given that questions will linger about how political Barr has become.

Just as the special counsel regulations yielded unintended consequences on Thursday, I think the political power play by Barr may just yield some unintended consequences of its own.

Joe Lockhart, White House press secretary from 1998-2000

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report is nearly 400 pages long. As a real-world reference point, the Modern Classics version of “To Kill a Mockingbird” runs 384 pages. Even if Attorney General William Barr makes so many color-coded redactions to Mueller’s report that it looks like a pack of Skittles exploded, do not expect a standard law enforcement investigative recap. We are about to get hit with a novel-length tome.

Strategies abound for how best to read the report. Here’s my suggested first move: use the “find” function. Hit control-F and plug in these five keywords to get a quick sense of how Mueller addresses the most pressing – and mysterious – issues raised during his investigation.

Pay attention to this footnote in Barr’s letter

Less detailed attention is being paid to Barr’s description of the results of the special counsel’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russian interference in the 2016 election. This includes attempts by the Russian Internet Research Agency “to conduct disinformation and social media operations in the United States designed to sow social discord,” as well as “the Russian government’s efforts to conduct computer hacking operations designed to gather and disseminate information” to influence the election. Yet, hiding in plain sight is a footnote in which Barr explains that he and Mueller are using a definition of coordination that requires proof of an agreement, which is contrary to the law and Federal Election Commission regulations and, more importantly, has been rejected by the Supreme Court. It is also a definition with which Americans should not feel comfortable.

Larry Noble is the former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission (1987-2000).

© 2019 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.

RUSSIA INVESTIGATION
Mueller didn’t charge Trump — but his report is a brutal indictment
Analysis: The special counsel’s findings reveal three years of actions by the president that critics say rattle the very foundations of the American system of governance.

President Donald Trump departs after taking part in an “Opportunity Zone” conference with state, local, tribal, and community leaders at the White House on April 17, 2019.Carlos Barria / Reuters
SHARE THIS —
April 19, 2019, 4:00 AM ET
By Jonathan Allen
President Donald Trump has evaded criminal charges — but special counsel Robert Mueller’s report is a brutal indictment of his campaign and his presidency.

The first volume of the two-part, 448-page report details how Trump and his allies solicited, encouraged, accepted and benefited from the assistance provided by America’s most storied foreign adversary as part of a multi-front assault on American democracy.

The other lays out comprehensive evidence that the president may have obstructed justice through what Mueller described as a “pattern of conduct” that included firing FBI Director Jim Comey, trying to remove Mueller, publicly praising and condemning witnesses, and seeking to limit the scope of the probe.

Taken in sum, Mueller’s findings reveal three years of actions by Trump and his subordinates that critics say rattle the very foundations of the American system of governance, from the sacrosanct nature of democratic elections to the idea that no man, not even the president, is above the law.

Download the NBC News app for full coverage of the Mueller report

The story, in even its most sympathetic telling, is one of a president who used nearly every power vested in his office and his persona — including hiring and firing, the bully pulpit, party loyalty, private intimidation, and disinformation — to cover up ties between his campaign and Russia so that he could spare himself the public humiliation of having won an election that wasn’t entirely on the level.

Of the marquee reports written for Congress over the decades about presidential scandals, the Mueller report will stand out for the brazenness of the chief executive — and for the degree to which insubordination among his underlings reined him in, if only at the margins.

“If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state,” Mueller wrote. “Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.”

Only an hour or so before the report was rolled out, Attorney General William Barr, who was picked for his job after writing that a president cannot obstruct justice, said that the report found “no collusion” between Trump and Russia — an expression that Mueller painstakingly explained in the report is of no legal consequence. It is, however, a favorite term of art of one Donald J. Trump.

Some of Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill were satisfied, without reading the report, that Trump came out a clear winner — exonerated because he was not prosecuted.

“We know the conclusions of the #MuellerReport: No collusion, no further indictments,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, tweeted. “It’s over. We also know the spin, and we know that many people will still claim the President is guilty. I’ll be reading the report in its entirety. No spin, just facts.”

But Democrats saw in Mueller’s report a delineation between the powers afforded the executive and legislative branches when it comes to judging the actions of a president.

Trump’s own employees, including Barr and Mueller, did not move forward with a prosecution — indeed, Mueller wrote that he determined Justice Department guidance precluded him from doing so. But he also noted that Congress, which does not report to the president, has its own set of powers.

“The acts of obstruction of justice, whether they are criminal or not, are deeply alarming in the president of the United States,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Thursday. “And it’s clear that special counsel Mueller wanted the Congress to consider the repercussions and the consequences.”

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Mueller had laid out a “roadmap” for Congress.

It’s hard to fathom how a lengthy report in the public domain is better for Trump than the top-line declaration of a clean bill of health he got from Attorney General William Barr a few weeks ago. And there will be plenty more public discussion of the details of Mueller’s findings. Already, the special counsel has been invited to Capitol Hill to testify about his conclusions.

Democrats will no doubt use their power in the House to extract as much political pain from Trump as possible and do so while making the case that they are simply standing up for small-“d” democratic values.

And while the political bar for removing Trump is likely insurmountable — it would take 20 Republicans and all 47 Senate Democrats to oust him — the behavior chronicled by Mueller towers over that of the standard set by the House for impeachment of President Bill Clinton on obstruction articles, according to experts.

Kim Wehle, a law professor at the University of Baltimore who investigated Clinton as part of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s team, said beyond that the Trump case is “infinitely more serious” than the one she worked on.

“Here we’ve got a hostile foreign power and the evidence is overwhelming that their objective was to attack our free and fair process,” she said.

Frank O. Bowman III, a professor at the University of Missouri School of Law and author of the forthcoming book “High Crimes and Misdemeanors: A History of Impeachment for the Age of Trump” said the Mueller report suggests the president committed impeachable offenses.

“The issue for impeachment is not whether a criminal statute was violated but whether a president engaged in a pattern of activity inconsistent with his obligation to take care that the law be faithfully executed and instead sought to use his authority to undercut the institutions and norms of the justice system to benefit himself,” he said. “The second half of the Mueller report strongly supports such a conclusion as to Trump.”

Bowman said Trump’s conduct tracked with that of President Richard Nixon, but that the refusal of Trump’s subordinates to follow his orders — very likely with the Nixon example in mind — may end up saving the president politically.

“The fact that they refused doesn’t change the constitutional impeachment calculus at all,” he said. “Still, the fact that he was so often restrained will make it easy for Republicans in Congress to wave off his otherwise impeachable behavior.”

If that’s the case, the question of whether Mueller’s findings render Trump unfit for office will rest with the jury he’s always wanted: the voters. But the special counsel’s report is an indelible testament to the president’s weakness in seeking Russian aid and in deceiving the nation about it.

Jonathan Allen

© 2019 NBC UNIVERSAL

Elizabeth Warren calls for Trump’s impeachment following Mueller report – live
In a statement, the senator and 2020 presidential candidate said initiating impeachment proceedings is the ‘constitutional duty’ of politicians

Sign up for the US briefing and get a new perspective
Support the Guardian’s independent journalism and make a contribution
Elizabeth Warren: ‘The House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the president of the United States.’

Sam Levin (now) and Jamiles Lartey (earlier)

Fri 19 Apr 2019 18.46 EDT First published on Fri 19 Apr 2019 09.29 EDT
Key events
6.40pm

The White House is continuing its attacks on the press following intense criticisms of spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, who admitted to lying to reporters in the special counsel report released this week.

Hogan Gidley, a White House spokesperson, sent this statement to the New York Times:

Trump is also continuing to tweet direct attacks on the New York Times and Washington Post.

More on Sanders’ comments here:

Sarah Sanders reiterates Comey claims despite admitting to lying

In non-Mueller news, the AP has published a report saying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) is now restricting lawyers’ access to migrants in a key Texas detention center:

From the AP:

The legal services group RAICES goes to Karnes daily to consult with detained immigrants about their asylum cases. The group says subtle policy changes at the facility have reduced legal access for detained women seeking asylum.

Since Monday, authorities at Karnes have prevented attorneys and volunteers from meeting with many large groups of migrants at once, which prevents them from quickly consulting with more people, according to Andrea Meza, RAICES’ director of family detention services.

Karnes staff also stopped sending RAICES the names of detainees who put their names on sign-up sheets outside the visitation room, Meza said…

If the changes remain in place, fewer people will be able to consult with a lawyer before asylum interviews, Meza said, and it will be harder for the group to follow up with potential asylum seekers.

Nancy Pelosi is not shifting her position on the question of impeaching Trump:

With Elizabeth Warren calling for impeachment proceedings, here’s a quick roundup of some of the 2020 candidates’ recent remarks on the question of impeachment, via NBC News:

Pete Buttigieg, South Bend mayor, told NBC that he believes there’s “evidence that this president deserves to be impeached”, but since he is not in Congress, he would leave it to the House representatives to make that decision.

Senator Kamala Harris did not rule it out in an MSNBC interview on Thursday, saying:

I think that there is definitely a conversation to be had on that subject, but first I want to hear from Bob Mueller and really understand what exactly is the evidence that supports the summary that we have been given today.”

Beto O’Rourke has said he believes voters are more interested in policy: “I don’t know that impeachment and those proceedings in the House and potential trial in the Senate is going to answer those questions for people.”

Senator Amy Klobuchar recently said: “Our job is to be jury, so I’ve been really careful talking about if an impeachment is brought before us.”

Julian Castro said he would support impeachment proceedings:

Bernie Sanders reportedly ignored reporters’ questions about impeachment earlier.

Representative Eric Swalwell told MSNBC that impeachment is “a conversation we have to have as far as holding this president accountable”.

Justice department says subpoena of Mueller report “unnecessary”
Hello - Sam Levin here, taking over our live coverage for the rest of the day.

The justice department has responded to House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler’s subpoena for the full Mueller report, calling it “unnecessary” and “premature”:

After a day of golf, Trump has finally returned to Twitter to finish his thoughts - nine hours later. We know you’ve been on pins and needles so here you go.

In case you missed the beginning:

With that I leave you in the very capable hands of my colleague Sam Levin

Elijah Cummings gives Jake Tapper a very politician-y answer to the impeachment question.

We should expect that every Democrat of any influence or statue will be forced to weigh in on the question over the next few days, if they haven’t already.

For those keeping score at home, some already on the record, in no particular order. (Those in bold are running for president):

Yes: Representative Maxine Waters, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Representative Rashida Tlaib, Former HUD Secretary Julian Castro.

No (for now): House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Senator Cory Booker, Senator Angus King (Independent who caucuses with Democrats)

An analysis from Politico predicts that Trump figures to rage against “scapegoats” in coming days, something we may have seen a taste of in a yet-unfished thread of angry tweets.

Close White House advisers said they expect Trump’s hottest rage in the coming days will be directed at former White House counsel Don McGahn, a source of some of the report’s most embarrassing findings about the president. Trump angrily tweeted on Thursday that the report contained “total bullshit” from people trying to make themselves look good and harm the president.”

-Politico

In his tweets, Trump also made an angry reference to the inclusion of notes taken by staffers in the Mueller report. The Politico story adds a bit of background:

In one instance cited in the redacted report, which was released Thursday, the president apparently criticized McGahn for telling Mueller’s investigators that Trump sought to have Mueller removed.

“Why do you take notes? Lawyers don’t take notes. I never had a lawyer who took notes,” Trump is quoted as saying, to which McGahn responded that a “real lawyer” does.

Trump countered that he’d had “a lot of great lawyers” like Roy Cohn, who he argued “did not take notes.”

A person close to the president said Trump was particularly annoyed by notes taken by Jeff Sessions’ then-chief of staff, Jody Hunt. Hunt captured Trump’s reaction to learning about the special counsel investigation in vivid detail.

“Oh my God,” the president told Sessions, according to Hunt’s notes. “This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.”

Since the report was released Thursday morning, several of Trump’s current aides have pushed back about how their comments were portrayed, appearing to engage in public damage control – even though their interviews with special investigators were under oath.

CNN’s Manu Raju is reporting that “Democratic leaders are rejecting a proposal from the Justice Department to allow the House and Senate leaders and the heads of the House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees to read a less-redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.”

It’s been reported that Barr planned to allow “select lawmakers” to review a less-redacted version of Mueller’s repoort in a “secure area” next week.

Elizabeth Warren: Impeach Trump
The Mueller report lays out facts showing that a hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 election to help Donald Trump and Donald Trump welcomed that help. Once elected, Donald Trump obstructed the investigation into that attack.

Mueller put the next step in the hands of Congress: “Congress has authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.” The correct process for exercising that authority is impeachment.

To ignore a President’s repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal behavior would inflict great and lasting damage on this country, and it would suggest that both the current and future Presidents would be free to abuse their power in similar ways.

The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty. That means the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States.”

-Senator and 2020 presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren.

The Trump 2020 campaign says it has raised more than $1m since the Mueller report was released, according to The Hill.

“Sorry Trump haters. The biggest waste of money witch hunt in history is finally over,” read a text sent to campaign supporters. “The attacks and lies will keep coming heading into 2020. That’s why we need to fight back bigger and stronger than ever before.”

The campaign reached the goal it set in a message to supporters Thursday afternoon.

The campaign is also running Facebook advertisements attempting to fundraise off the report, with more than 50 active since Thursday according to the Facebook ad library.

Romney on WH conduct detailed in Mueller report: sickened and appalled
Utah Senator Mitt Romney offered a scathing reaction to the Muller report, describing himself as “sickened at the extent and pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection by individuals in the highest office of the land, including the President.”

He continued:

Reading the report is a sobering revelation of how far we have strayed from the aspirations and principles of the founders.”

The 2012 Republican nominee for president has been among Trump’s most vociferous critics from within his own party, and by far the most prominent Republican to win an election as a Trump critic.

Trump approval hits 2019 low on heels of Mueller report
The number of Americans who approve of President Donald Trump dropped by 3 percentage points to the lowest level of the year following the release of a special counsel report detailing Russian interference in the last U.S. presidential election, according to a Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll.

The poll, conducted Thursday afternoon to Friday morning is the first post-Mueller release of the president’s approval.

According to the poll, 37 percent of adults in the United States approved of Trump’s performance in office, down from 40 percent in a similar poll conducted on April 15 and matching the lowest level of the year. That is also down from 43 percent in a poll conducted shortly after U.S. Attorney General William Barr circulated a summary of the report in March.

Federal authorities announced that a Florida man called three Democrats at their Washington, D.C. offices April 16 and left voicemail messages threatening murder.

The lawmakers targeted included California Congressman Eric Swalwell, Detroit Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.

“You’re gonna die. Don’t wanna do that shit, boy. You’ll be [on] your deathbed, motherfucker, along with the rest of you Democrats. So if you want death, keep that shit up, motherfucker,” the man, 49-year-old John Kless allegedly said in his message to Swalwell. He has been charged with making threatening communications

As details emerge …
… from the Mueller report, The Guardian will continue to investigate, report and expose the truth to make sure we understand the complete story. At this critical moment in American history, we’ll use the strength of independent journalism to challenge false narratives, sort facts from lies and create transparency to hold the powerful accountable.

Latest from the White House: “Today the President played golf with Rush Limbaugh and a couple friends.”

…In case you were wondering.

US President Donald Trump walks as he plays a round of golf on the Ailsa course at Trump Turnberry,

US politics
Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on WhatsApp Share on Messenger
View on theguardian.com
more on this story
Mueller report: House issues subpoena for full unredacted version
Mueller report: House issues subpoena for full unredacted version
The key unanswered questions from the Mueller report
The key unanswered questions from the Mueller report
What the Mueller report tells us about Trump, Russia and obstruction
What the Mueller report tells us about Trump, Russia and obstruction
‘No new information’: Russia shrugs off Mueller report
‘No new information’: Russia shrugs off Mueller report
The Mueller report shows that bad guys who play dirty, like Trump, always win
Jonathan Freedland
The Mueller report shows that bad guys who play dirty, like Trump, always win
Mueller report unable to clear Trump of obstruction of justice
Mueller report unable to clear Trump of obstruction of justice

© 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.



TheHill

OPINION | JUDICIARY
April 19, 2019 - 11:15 AM EDT
The Constitution will have the final word on President Trump

BY ELIZABETH WYDRA, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR

Even after the damning information revealed in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted report yesterday, President Trump behaves as if he’s in the clear, free from accountability. Memo to the President: the U.S. Constitution has something to say about that.

Anyone who thinks the process currently seems tilted in Trump’s favor would have good reason. Last month, of course, Attorney General William Barr released an incredibly selective"summary" of Mueller’s findings, allowing President Trump and the mouthpieces who serve him to trumpet the lie that Mueller exonerated him. Then yesterday, Barr put on a farcical press conference before he released the redacted Mueller Report, attempting to foam the runway for the news about to crash on Donald Trump’s presidency. Naturally, that charade in front of reporters helped Trump claim victory all over again.

Make no mistake: Any confidence that Barr could be forthright on the tough rule of law questions swirling around his boss is now gone. The U.S. Attorney General is supposed to be the people’s lawyer, impartially upholding the rule of law on behalf of all Americans. Sadly, as we saw yesterday, Barr is acting more like President Trump’s personal attorney and public relations adviser.

Barr and Trump may believe, with these political parlor tricks, that they will avoid the reckoning otherwise compelled by Mueller’s report. The flip side of that coin is that for the rest of us, sometimes we find it difficult to believe that the whole truth will come out, and that power will meet accountability. The seeds of that accountability, however, are planted in the Constitution. Article I and Article III provide our institutions significant power to check and balance any lawlessness of the chief executive of Article II.

Article I provides for creation of that chamber of Congress closest to the people, the House of Representatives. From there, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), is empowered to take significant steps toward holding President Trump accountable to the rule of law and fulfill the critical oversight role of Congress. To get all the information Congress needs, Nadler has rightly issued a subpoena to the Department of Justice for the full and unredacted Mueller report, as well as underlying materials reviewed by the Mueller grand jury.

If DOJ refuses to comply, Nadler can turn to Article III, the federal courts, and sue the Trump Administration to enforce that subpoena. In addition, Nadler could also ask the judge supervising the grand jury to release certain grand jury materials.

Additionally, we must not ignore the grand jury itself. Twenty-three regular citizens, performing a solemn duty older than the nation itself, is supervised by the judge who empaneled them two years ago. Together, they have significant power conferred upon them by America’s founders, through the text and history of the U.S. Constitution, to provide their own path to reckoning. Significantly, if these jurors felt that what they see in the public square doesn’t represent their views of the case, they could request the judge to guide an appropriate release of a report of their own, either to Congress or even the public. Recall that during the Watergate investigation, Judge John Sirica fielded just such a request from the grand jury he supervised, and released to Congress materials regarding President Nixon.

Of course, the product of further congressional investigation and even grand jury involvement could be enough information - as if there isn’t enough already - to confront President Trump with the same prospect that confronted Nixon, found in Article II itself: Threat of impeachment and removal from office. The ultimate constitutional sanction, this is reserved for government officials found to have committed “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” - a possibility that looms nearer today than it did before the Mueller Report was finally released.

President Trump, abetted in no small measure by an Attorney General acting increasingly as his personal lawyer, can shout his false vindication from the roof of the White House if he wants to. The Constitution, given force by We the People, will have the final word.

Elizabeth Wydra, a former clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, is president of Constitutional Accountability Center, a public interest law firm and think tank dedicated to promoting the progressive promise of the Constitution’s text and history. Follow her on Twitter @ElizabethWydra.

More in Judiciary
Democrats should be careful wielding more investigations
Mueller report proves key Trump advisers saved him from himself
Why William Barr should resign
The American people must see the Mueller report with few redactions
Making tax returns of Donald Trump public will set dangerous precedent

The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

And now this a prelude to the new politics of a second term:

The Mueller investigation ended when Barr took office—because there was no point in continuing

By

Mark Sumner / Daily Kos (04/20/2019)

April 20, 2019

92

Share

Attorney General William Barr says he is working to prepare Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation report to be released to the public, with redactions.

The fact that the Mueller investigation ended so quickly after William Barr stepped into the role of attorney general made many suspect that it was more than coincidence—and according to the Washington Post, those suspicions were well founded. Mueller ended his report when Barr sat down, because there was a conflict between the two of them that meant any effort to go forward was pointless.

Mueller viewed the Department of Justice regulations regarding indicting a sitting executive seriously. He believed it meant he could not issue a formal indictment of Trump, “even if the charges remained sealed.” But more than that, Mueller believed he was not allowed to even accuse Trump of a crime, “even in secret internal documents.” As far as Mueller was concerned, there was no way for Trump to land an indictment, not even if he did shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight.

It was such a strict view of the regulation that it appeared to drive other members of his team, and other staffers at the Department of Justice to distraction. The whole existence of the special counsel position seemed to be predicated on the idea that it was removed from the normal constraints of the Justice Department rules and was empowered to make exactly that kind of accusation.

But that wasn’t how Mueller saw it. Instead, Mueller was so determined to not make a decision, that he wrote all his findings as simply that—findings. For Mueller, it wasn’t just his role that was constrained by precedent to avoid making these decisions, it was everyone at the Justice Department. That’s why Mueller wrote his report with frequent references to the power of Congress: he created it with the assumption that the evidence would go to Congress, where the Article I of the Constitution would enable decisions that couldn’t be made by anyone within the executive branch.

William Barr did not agree. In fact, Barr didn’t agree to the point that he found Mueller’s positions astounding. As in astoundingly naive. Barr had already made it clear that he was perfectly comfortable making decisions about Trump’s guilt—and he didn’t even need the facts to make them.

With Mueller determined to not make a decision, and Barr having already made his decision, there was no reason for the investigation to continue.

Despite Barr’s repeated insistence that the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel ruling on indicting an executive didn’t affect the outcome of the report, the report makes it clear that this ruling — and other concerns about constitutional roles — are all that stood between Trump and an orange jumpsuit. Mueller had all the evidence necessary to not just indict, but convict Trump of repeatedly lying to investigators, interfering with witnesses, suborning perjury, and instructing others to carry out obstruction.

On the conspiracy front, Mueller makes it clear that, far from being absolved, he was unable to collect necessary information in large part because Trump and members of his campaign lied, withheld evidence, refused to testify, or actively destroyed evidence. Far from cooperating, Trump and members of his team used their positions and their authority to make it impossible for all the evidence to be collected and examined.

The conflict between Mueller’s view that he could not so much as make an accusation of a crime, and Barr’s position that he could cheerfully forgive Trump for anything, even if it required outright lying about the findings of the investigation, made any further investigation pointless.

What Barr waved off as disagreements on “legal theory” during his pre-redacted report spin session, was simply that Mueller felt that no one at the DOJ was empowered to decide Trump’s guilt. Barr not only felt that he did have that authority, he had announced his decision even before sitting down for his Senate confirmation.

Indications are that had Mueller been appointed as an independent prosecutor under those expired regulations, he would have felt otherwise. But because the special counsel is a DOJ position reporting to the attorney general, he found it to be constrained by a tight interpretation of DOJ rules.

Mueller believed he had to follow the rules, even if that meant not making accusations about someone clearly engaged in criminal acts. Barr believed there were no rules.

That basic conflict meant that the moment Senate Republicans approved Barr’s nomination, the investigation was over — and its outcome pre-decided.

Florida Voter: Trump Is A “Despicable Human Being” But I’ll Vote For Him Because He’s Good For The Country

Dangerous precedent of trumps tax returns are ordered?

What a fucking joke.

Oh, poor Donald, being vetted for having the highest security clearance on earth …

No Donald, the dangerous precedent already occurred, a non vetted president.

Money will buy you almost anything, top brand beats any vet, which he isn’t.

Congress should initiate impeachment proceedings against Trump
By Jeffrey Sachs
Updated 3:42 PM EDT, Sat April 20, 2019

Editor’s Note: (Jeffrey Sachs is a professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author; view more opinion articles on CNN.)

(CNN) Congress should launch impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump for welcoming Russian interference in the 2016 election and trying to obstruct the Mueller investigation. Trump’s high crimes and misdemeanors stare us in the face, and each day he remains in power is a day closer to the collapse of the rule of law.

Jeffrey Sachs

Trump welcomed Russian interference in the 2016 election while signaling his readiness to shift US foreign policy in favor of Russia by ending sanctions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed his security apparatus to hack DNC emails and launched a disinformation campaign to troll the elections through Facebook and other means, according to Mueller’s report. While Mueller did not find conclusive evidence that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government on the hacking and disinformation campaign, they knew that Russia offered assistance and “expected [the Trump campaign] would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”

The hacking and social media campaigns “coincided with a series of contacts between Trump campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government,” according to the Mueller report, which includes a lengthy list of these contacts. Campaign chairman Paul Manafort, for example, shared internal polling data with a Ukrainian business associate with links to Russian intelligence, and discussed his strategy to win votes in the Midwest.

The Mueller report is shocking
And when the US intelligence community assessed Russia meddled in the US elections, Trump took Putin’s side and refused to fully acknowledge Russia’s involvement.

What were Trump’s overarching motives? The first, of course, was to win the election. According to Mueller, Russians offered to help the campaign. Ahead of the famous Trump Tower meeting in the summer of 2016, for example, an email to Donald Trump Jr. offering dirt on Hillary Clinton explicitly stated that the information was being presented as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

The second motivation was at least as pertinent. Trump’s greed appears to match or exceed his lust for power. During the 2016 campaign, Trump was trying to secure a lucrative Moscow Trump Tower real estate deal. For that to succeed, Trump needed Putin’s blessing. Trump’s allies reportedly even floated the idea of giving Putin a $50 million luxury apartment in the Moscow Trump Tower, which may have violated the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

After the election, Trump repeatedly tried to shut down, curtail or limit Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s illegal actions. The second half of the Mueller Report spells out many instances in which the President tried to undermine the investigation, which only failed because Trump’s staff failed to carry out his orders.

Mueller’s report looks bad for Obama
The Mueller investigation ultimately uncovered three devastating facts. The first, of course, was the extent of Russia’s election interference and the Trump campaign’s welcoming of that interference – a double whammy that delegitimizes Trump’s election victory. The second was Trump’s brazen Russian business proposal during the campaign. The third included various financial dealings, including the hush money payment made to Stormy Daniels.

Trump poses a serious threat to this country. He tries to govern by one-man decree, declares phony emergencies to crack down on immigration, resists Congressional oversight and courts tyrants abroad.

Cautious Democratic leaders are reluctant to launch impeachment proceedings knowing that a conviction in a Republican Senate is currently against the odds, but they should recognize three overarching issues. First, as a matter of duty, they cannot shrug off rampant lawlessness without empowering thuggery in the future. Second, they can launch impeachment investigations now without deciding yet on whether to move to a vote, during which they and the public will gain information. Third, Trump’s conviction by the Senate, or his resignation, remain plausible outcomes. During Watergate, public opinion was divided, even on the issue of Nixon’s resignation, but the truth prevailed.

Trump recklessly welcomed Russian interference in the 2016 election for political gain while he was pursuing personal business interests in Russia, and those actions, together with his brazen attempts to obstruct Mueller’s investigation, surely constitute high crimes and misdemeanors justifying the launch of impeachment hearings. According to Mueller’s findings, Trump has egregiously undermined the rule of law and bid US officials to do the same. Congress now must defend the Constitution and initiate impeachment proceedings against Trump.

View on CNN
© 2019 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

-------- ----- ~~~~

Los Angeles Times

Donald Trump is no Richard Nixon. He’s worse
By ANDREW COAN
APR 20, 2019 | 4:00 AM

Donald Trump is no Richard Nixon. He’s worse
President Trump at the White House on April 18, the day the redacted Mueller report was released. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images)
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report makes one thing clear: Donald Trump is no Richard Nixon. He is worse. And yet Trump seems almost sure to be spared Nixon’s fate. This will do severe — possibly irreparable — damage to the vital norms that sustain American democracy. There is still time for Congress and the American people to avert the worst of this damage, but the odds are long and time is short.

Despite his famous protestation to the contrary, President Nixon was a crook. He directed the CIA to shut down the FBI’s investigation of the Watergate burglary, in which several of his campaign operatives broke into Democratic National Committee headquarters. He also directed subordinates to pay hush money to subjects of that investigation. He then fired the first special prosecutor appointed to investigate these matters, hoping to protect himself and his senior advisors from possible criminal liability and untold political damage.

For these attempts to obstruct justice, Nixon paid the ultimate political price. When he terminated special prosecutor Archibald Cox, a ferocious public backlash forced him to appoint a widely respected replacement. That was Leon Jaworski, whose dramatic victory at the U.S. Supreme Court forced the release of secret White House tapes that destroyed the last vestiges of Nixon’s congressional support. He resigned the presidency days later. Had he failed to do so, impeachment by the House of Representatives and removal by the Senate were all but certain.

If Trump escapes unscathed, future presidents will take notice.

Nothing in Nixon’s presidency became him like the leaving it. For two generations, his downfall served as a cautionary tale for subsequent presidents who might be tempted to interfere with a federal investigation for personal or political reasons. Firing a special prosecutor, in particular, was almost universally understood to be political suicide. As Watergate showed, the American people simply would not stand for a president who sought to place himself above the law. This broadly shared understanding served as a crucial safeguard against the abuse of presidential power.

Then came Trump. After smashing through dozens of other deeply rooted norms of American politics to win the presidency, he treated the post-Watergate consensus with similar contempt. Just weeks after he took the oath of office, as the Mueller report details, Trump asked FBI Director James B. Comey to drop the investigation of national security advisor Michael Flynn. Before making this request, the president cleared the room, strongly suggesting that he knew his actions were improper. Requesting that the FBI drop an investigation of his friends is exactly what Nixon was caught doing on the famous “smoking gun” tape that sealed his fate.

Yet for Trump, this was just the beginning. A few weeks later, in early March 2017, the report shows that Trump lobbied vigorously to prevent Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions from recusing himself from the Russia investigation. When Sessions nevertheless followed the advice of ethics officials and recused himself, Trump exploded in anger and personally pressed Sessions to reverse his decision. Trump wanted an attorney general who would protect him to be in charge of the investigation.

In May 2017, the Mueller report shows that Trump removed Comey as head of the FBI and concocted a deliberately false explanation related to Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Along with Trump’s attendant criticism of the Russia investigation and personally vindictive treatment of Comey, this action “had the potential to affect a successor director’s conduct of the investigation.” The report catalogs significant evidence that the president was worried the investigation would turn up politically and legally damaging information, and that it threatened the legitimacy of his election.

The report’s most damning evidence of obstruction of justice concerns the special counsel’s investigation itself. Once Trump learned in June 2017 that he was himself under investigation by Mueller’s team, his efforts to thwart the investigation reached new heights of audacity. That month, in a series of frantic phone calls, he ordered White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller. The report describes “substantial evidence” that this was an attempt to obstruct the special counsel’s investigation; Trump was acting to protect himself from potential criminal liability and political damage.

When McGahn refused to carry out the order to fire Mueller, Trump resumed his campaign to get Sessions to take over the investigation and curtail it — or resign, so that Trump could appoint someone who would protect him. Much of this information was already in the public domain, but it is no less shocking for that. The evidence available to Mueller’s investigators, including contemporaneous documents and testimony under oath, provides a far surer foundation than anonymously sourced news stories.

The report also contains a wealth of new information. When Trump’s order to fire the special counsel was publicly reported in January 2018, Trump demanded that McGahn fabricate “a record denying that the President had tried to fire the special counsel.” This is witness tampering, plain and simple, of a much more direct and personal kind than any that Nixon engaged in. It also amounts to falsifying evidence, which counts as obstruction of justice even on the narrowest possible reading of the federal statute advanced by Trump’s lawyers.

Along similar lines, the report describes substantial evidence that Trump privately urged Flynn, Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen to “stay strong” and promised — through his lawyers — that they would “be taken care of” unless they “went rogue.” Together with the president’s public tweets praising Manafort and Stone for their bravery and baselessly accusing members of Cohen’s family of crimes, this conduct also amounts to witness tampering, plain and simple.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute »
Lest it be forgotten, all of this took place in the context of one of the most serious law enforcement and counterintelligence investigations in the history of the United States. As the Mueller report explains, “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion” on behalf of Donald Trump. The FBI and Mueller set out to discover whether Trump’s campaign was complicit, and Trump took extraordinary measures to thwart their efforts. Nixon’s obstruction of the Watergate investigation looks almost innocent by comparison.

And yet Trump seems very likely to escape direct accountability. House Democrats may well opt against pursuing impeachment, for entirely understandable reasons: It might be too wrenching for the country, in the absence of a clear popular consensus supporting Trump’s removal. It might not be good politics for 2020, with voters more concerned about bread-and-butter issues. Even if the House votes to impeach, a two-thirds Senate vote to remove Trump from office seems almost inconceivable.

But if Trump escapes unscathed, future presidents will take notice. The cautionary tale of Watergate will be superseded by the Trump triumph and its very different lesson: In the hyperpolarized political environment of the early 21st century, the president is a law unto himself.

Andrew Coan is a professor of law at the University of Arizona and the author of “Prosecuting the President: How Special Prosecutors Hold Presidents Accountable and Protect the Rule of Law.”

Donald Trump is no Richard Nixon. He’s worse
OBITUARIES
The mysterious life of James McCord, Watergate burglar whose death went unnoticed for 2 years

Copyright © 2019, Los Angeles Times


Donald Trump in front of a portrait of George Washington

The Observer view on the Mueller report: Trump is a disgrace not welcome in Britain
The president has been shown to be the biggest threat to US governance since Watergate. Britain must not honour this dishonourable man with a state visit
Observer editorial
Sun 21 Apr 2019 01.00 EDT
The prospect of Donald Trump making a state visit to Britain in June is stomach-churning. The corruption investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, whose damning report was published last week, provided ample evidence of what we already know: Trump is unfit to hold the office of president of the United States. By his words and actions over two wretched, destructive years in power, he has proved beyond doubt he is no friend of Britain.

The proposal that the British state should extend to this unworthy man its highest honours, including an address to parliament, and a banquet and carriage ride down the Mall with the Queen, is misjudged. It will do nothing to revive the “special relationship”, already torn apart by Trump’s reactionary policies on climate change, migration, race, multilateralism, Yemen, nuclear arms, civil liberties and other issues. What it will do is give an undeserved boost to a wounded charlatan.

This scandal looks certain to escalate, not fade. Barr’s many redactions will not be allowed to stand
If Americans are content to allow a habitual liar who has presided over systemic illegality, numerous ill-concealed attempts to obstruct justice and a foul-mouthed culture of venality and vendettas to continue to lead their country, that is a matter for them. But the British people cannot be expected to collude or condone such misbehaviour. And what’s to be gained? A fantasy post-Brexit trade deal? Trump’s word, evidently, cannot be trusted.

Trump and his supporters are hoping the Mueller fallout will quickly dissipate. Sycophantic attorney-general William Barr’s belated release of the report the day before Easter, like his earlier, misleading contents “summary”, was a dishonourable attempt at damage limitation. Yet this scandal looks certain to escalate, not fade. Barr’s many redactions, particularly concerning the Trump campaign’s involvement with Russian election meddling and the WikiLeaks connection, will not be allowed to stand. Mueller refers to 14 ongoing, related criminal investigations. Separate federal probes continue in New York.

The onus now falls on Congress to take the vast amount of information gathered by Mueller and move the process to a conclusion. Leading Democrats have signalled their intention to do so. Additional testimony will be sought from both Mueller and Barr. Some, like the presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren, are pushing for impeachment. Others, like the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, want to further weaken Trump by besieging him with endless, enervating inquiries.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren was the first presidential candidate to call for the US House of Representatives to begin impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump.
Such overtly political calculations are unhelpful. So, too, is criticism of Mueller himself. He performed an intensely difficult task with dignity and discretion. There is no evidence that Trump’s attempts to bully him, and threats to sack him, influenced his findings. According to his report, he ultimately felt unable to bring criminal charges because that would breach justice department rules disallowing prosecution of a sitting president. Amid so much impropriety, this was the properly legal course.

But Mueller has nevertheless lit the fuse to a very large bomb located under Trump’s Oval Office desk. It seems clear that, but for that rule on prosecutions and the refusal of top aides to carry out his illegal orders, Trump would already be in the dock. By identifying 11 instances of possible obstruction of justice, Mueller has effectively laid out a road map, and grounds for future indictments, that Congress – Democrats and Republicans – has a duty to pursue.

What has been alleged, and to some degree proved, is not, as Trump’s defenders claim, the product of partisan attempts to destroy him. It concerns grave wrongdoing at the heart of the presidency. It amounts to the biggest crisis in US governance since Watergate. At stake is Americans’ trust in their democracy and the effectiveness of their vaunted constitutional doctrines. Also in the balance is America’s standing in the world. Until the door shuts on Trumpgate – and the sooner the better – Trump will remain an international liability. He is not welcome here
© 2019 Guardian News

Mueller report: Donald Trump failed us as commander in chief
A president who takes seriously his oath would be in shock to realize the astonishing level of penetration of his inner circle by agents of Russia.

The president of the United States, like all elected officials and public servants, swears to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies. But there is one responsibility the president must bear alone, and that is the obligation to act as the commander in chief, the guardian of our national security and the defender of our nation from malevolent foreign powers. The Mueller report makes clear that Donald Trump has failed miserably in this sacred obligation, and instead has traded his constitutional duty for his own safety.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s conclusions laid to rest some — but not all — of the legal issues surrounding the Russian attempts to subvert our democratic processes. As the report notes, Mueller’s team could not find a specific agreement between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to cooperate in an operation against American institutions.

For this, we should be grateful, but that’s about as far as the good news goes.

As a team of writers at Lawfare put it, Trump’s people “were aware the Russians sought to help them win. They welcomed that assistance. Instead of warning the American public, they devised a public relations and campaign strategy that sought to capitalize on Russia’s illicit assistance. In other words, the Russians and the Trump campaign shared a common goal, and each side worked to achieve that goal with basic knowledge of the other side’s intention. They just didn’t agree to work toward that goal together.”

Mueller report: A corrupt, unpatriotic president, a stark impeachment choice for Dems

Mueller report offers road map on obstruction. Despite Barr, Congress may use it.

Mueller investigation shows that if Donald Trump didn’t break the law, he surely bent it

As a candidate and as a citizen, Trump had a responsibility to put a stop to this unethical and dangerous behavior in his organization. He had an obligation to report it to the FBI, and to work with the government to thwart the Russian efforts. Instead, he knowingly allowed his campaign and some of the people closest to him to continue their contacts with the Russians, and then he spent months lying, encouraging others to cover for him, and gaslighting an entire nation with talks of witch hunts and hoaxes.

This is execrable behavior from a citizen. But a citizen has the right to be execrable and to do bad things, as lawyers would say, that are “lawful but awful.” As president, however, it is now clear from the Mueller report that Trump knows, and has known for years, what Mueller knew. He knows that the Russian assault on the U.S. political system was real, sustained and serious. He knows now that he is surrounded by people who tried to benefit from that attack on his behalf. He knows that it is likely to happen again.

President Donald Trump and Robert Mueller

A president determined to fulfill his duty to protect the nation would admit these realities. He would come before the American people and their representatives with an admission, at the least, of poor judgement, and a plan to fight the continuing Russian attacks on our country. But Trump is still engaged in glorious gaslighting, with his partisans declaring victory while trying to focus the public’s attention on the few issues where the news media — who amazingly got the story mostly right — ended up chasing bad leads about immensely complicated matters into dead ends.

A president determined to defend the nation would take the Mueller report as a mark of shame, and then support a full and bipartisan investigation of the security of our election process. A president who takes seriously his oath as commander in chief would, in a better administration, be in shock to realize the astonishing level of penetration of his inner circle by agents of the Russian Federation. He would clean house and demand to know how his own campaign and how people who might still have access to the West Wing became threats to national security.

A commander in chief who cared about the country would put the Russians on notice, and would do everything in his power to protect the institutions of American democracy.

None of that will happen because Trump is less concerned about his role as commander in chief than he is about his own safety and reputation. Leave the lawyers to argue over whether laws were broken about things like obstruction; let Congress debate what price, if any, to exact in the political process. Let us forget about Attorney General William Barr’s shameful display on Thursday morning, and accept that he is yet another Trump appointee who is willing to commit political suttee and throw his reputation on the burning bier that is the Trump administration.

But we cannot look away from what is now, in the light of day, the undeniable reality that President Trump has no intention of defending this country from the Russians. At every turn, Trump has sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin against his own intelligence and law enforcement professionals. He has accepted Putin’s lies and denials, despite the fact — as we know now — that Russian interference was a fact and that Trump not only knew of it, but presided over a bunch of half-witted, morally compromised and unpatriotic minions who were trying to figure out how to make hay out of the Russian offers of help rather than doing their duty and calling the FBI.

Russia attacked our democracy. Trump and his cronies knew it and were glad for it. As president, Trump has steadfastly refused to accept his responsibility to do anything about this assault on our institutions. This is a dereliction of duty, and it continues even now.

Donald Trump is the president and the commander in chief until Congress or voters say he is not. But nothing will ever change the fact that Robert Mueller has dragged into the light one of the greatest and darkest stains on a presidency in U.S. history.

© Copyright Gannett 2019

Subscribe
OPINION
Mueller report: Donald Trump failed us as commander in chief
A president who takes seriously his oath would be in shock to realize the astonishing level of penetration of his inner circle by agents of Russia.

TOM NICHOLS | OPINION COLUMNIST | 17 hours ago

The president of the United States, like all elected officials and public servants, swears to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies. But there is one responsibility the president must bear alone, and that is the obligation to act as the commander in chief, the guardian of our national security and the defender of our nation from malevolent foreign powers. The Mueller report makes clear that Donald Trump has failed miserably in this sacred obligation, and instead has traded his constitutional duty for his own safety.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s conclusions laid to rest some — but not all — of the legal issues surrounding the Russian attempts to subvert our democratic processes. As the report notes, Mueller’s team could not find a specific agreement between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to cooperate in an operation against American institutions.

For this, we should be grateful, but that’s about as far as the good news goes.

As a team of writers at Lawfare put it, Trump’s people “were aware the Russians sought to help them win. They welcomed that assistance. Instead of warning the American public, they devised a public relations and campaign strategy that sought to capitalize on Russia’s illicit assistance. In other words, the Russians and the Trump campaign shared a common goal, and each side worked to achieve that goal with basic knowledge of the other side’s intention. They just didn’t agree to work toward that goal together.”

Read more commentary:

Mueller report: A corrupt, unpatriotic president, a stark impeachment choice for Dems

Mueller report offers road map on obstruction. Despite Barr, Congress may use it.

Mueller investigation shows that if Donald Trump didn’t break the law, he surely bent it

As a candidate and as a citizen, Trump had a responsibility to put a stop to this unethical and dangerous behavior in his organization. He had an obligation to report it to the FBI, and to work with the government to thwart the Russian efforts. Instead, he knowingly allowed his campaign and some of the people closest to him to continue their contacts with the Russians, and then he spent months lying, encouraging others to cover for him, and gaslighting an entire nation with talks of witch hunts and hoaxes.

This is execrable behavior from a citizen. But a citizen has the right to be execrable and to do bad things, as lawyers would say, that are “lawful but awful.” As president, however, it is now clear from the Mueller report that Trump knows, and has known for years, what Mueller knew. He knows that the Russian assault on the U.S. political system was real, sustained and serious. He knows now that he is surrounded by people who tried to benefit from that attack on his behalf. He knows that it is likely to happen again.

President Donald Trump and Robert Mueller
SAUL LOEB, AFP/GETTY IMAGES
A president determined to fulfill his duty to protect the nation would admit these realities. He would come before the American people and their representatives with an admission, at the least, of poor judgement, and a plan to fight the continuing Russian attacks on our country. But Trump is still engaged in glorious gaslighting, with his partisans declaring victory while trying to focus the public’s attention on the few issues where the news media — who amazingly got the story mostly right — ended up chasing bad leads about immensely complicated matters into dead ends.

A president determined to defend the nation would take the Mueller report as a mark of shame, and then support a full and bipartisan investigation of the security of our election process. A president who takes seriously his oath as commander in chief would, in a better administration, be in shock to realize the astonishing level of penetration of his inner circle by agents of the Russian Federation. He would clean house and demand to know how his own campaign and how people who might still have access to the West Wing became threats to national security.

A commander in chief who cared about the country would put the Russians on notice, and would do everything in his power to protect the institutions of American democracy.

None of that will happen because Trump is less concerned about his role as commander in chief than he is about his own safety and reputation. Leave the lawyers to argue over whether laws were broken about things like obstruction; let Congress debate what price, if any, to exact in the political process. Let us forget about Attorney General William Barr’s shameful display on Thursday morning, and accept that he is yet another Trump appointee who is willing to commit political suttee and throw his reputation on the burning bier that is the Trump administration.

But we cannot look away from what is now, in the light of day, the undeniable reality that President Trump has no intention of defending this country from the Russians. At every turn, Trump has sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin against his own intelligence and law enforcement professionals. He has accepted Putin’s lies and denials, despite the fact — as we know now — that Russian interference was a fact and that Trump not only knew of it, but presided over a bunch of half-witted, morally compromised and unpatriotic minions who were trying to figure out how to make hay out of the Russian offers of help rather than doing their duty and calling the FBI.

Russia attacked our democracy. Trump and his cronies knew it and were glad for it. As president, Trump has steadfastly refused to accept his responsibility to do anything about this assault on our institutions. This is a dereliction of duty, and it continues even now.

Donald Trump is the president and the commander in chief until Congress or voters say he is not. But nothing will ever change the fact that Robert Mueller has dragged into the light one of the greatest and darkest stains on a presidency in U.S. history.

Tom Nichols is a national security professor at the Naval War College, a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors and author of “The Death of Expertise.”

Sorry, for duplication.

© Copyright Gannett 2019

Trump claims ‘nobody disobeys my orders,’ defying Mueller’s account
By Kevin Liptak, CNN

Updated at 2:25 PM ET, Mon April 22, 2019

Play Video

01:52
See Lindsey Graham’s thoughts on obstruction in 1999

02:56
Trump slams parts of Mueller report as ‘total BS’

02:34
What Trump voters have to say after Mueller report dropped

04:30
GOP rep. resorts to attacking CNN over Mueller’s findings

02:48
Giuliani snaps at Cuomo: Stop using the word lie

01:34
WH spokesman on if Trump has lied: Not to me

03:24
Chris Cuomo asks Giuliani: Will you apologize for Trump?

03:50
Sanders to Mueller: False comments were a slip of tongue

01:11
Trump: Nobody disobeys my orders

01:54
Panelist reacts to 1994 video of Barr: Wow

02:17
CNN anchors slam Sarah Sanders’ ongoing lie

01:20
Marine veteran Seth Moulton joins list of 2020 candidates

02:18
Tim Ryan: Pretty clear Trump obstructed

01:59
Kim Kardashian on her relationship with the White House

02:05
GOP lawmaker tweets video climbing fake ‘border wall’

01:52
See Lindsey Graham’s thoughts on obstruction in 1999

02:56
Trump slams parts of Mueller report as ‘total BS’

02:34
What Trump voters have to say after Mueller report dropped

04:30
GOP rep. resorts to attacking CNN over Mueller’s findings

02:48
Giuliani snaps at Cuomo: Stop using the word lie

01:34
WH spokesman on if Trump has lied: Not to me

03:24
Chris Cuomo asks Giuliani: Will you apologize for Trump?

03:50
Sanders to Mueller: False comments were a slip of tongue

01:11
Trump: Nobody disobeys my orders

01:54
Panelist reacts to 1994 video of Barr: Wow

02:17
CNN anchors slam Sarah Sanders’ ongoing lie

01:20
Marine veteran Seth Moulton joins list of 2020 candidates

02:18
Tim Ryan: Pretty clear Trump obstructed

02:05
GOP lawmaker tweets video climbing fake ‘border wall’

Washington (CNN) — President Donald Trump contended Monday that none of his underlings routinely defy his commands, despite numerous examples contained in Robert Mueller’s report showing aides ignoring or refusing his dictates.
“Nobody disobeys my orders,” Trump said during a walkabout on the South Lawn for the annual Easter egg roll.
He was questioned by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins about whether he was worried some of his staff were shrugging off his requests, as depicted by Mueller, whose full redacted report was made public last week.
The document contained anecdote after anecdote of aides refusing to carry out some of Trump’s demands to short-circuit the special counsel’s investigation. The trend was so marked the report’s authors made note of it in their assessment.
Related Article: Undermining, but protective: How Trump’s staff’s insolence may have saved him
“The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests,”

ABCNews
Trump ‘not even a little bit’ concerned about impeachment, as Pelosi recognizes Democrats’ divide
By Jordyn Phelps,Benjamin Siegel
Apr 22, 2019, 4:32 PM ET

WATCH: President Donald Trump blasted the special counsel’s report as a “hit job” as some of his 2020 Democratic challengers called for impeachment proceedings to begin.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday appeared to discourage Democrats who are calling for President Donald Trump’s impeachment, following the release of the Mueller report.

Also on Monday, Trump said he’s “not even a little” concerned about the prospect of impeachment, though he sent a series of tweets in recent days blasting the idea.

Questioned by a reporter at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll about impeachment, Trump dismissed the prospect of impeachment raised by some Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

President Donald Trump attends the 2019 White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House, April 22, 2019.
Pelosi, however, cautioned her caucus about moving against the president.

“While our views range from proceeding to investigate the findings of the Mueller report or proceeding directly to impeachment, we all firmly agree that we should proceed down a path of finding the truth,” Pelosi wrote in an open letter to colleagues ahead of an evening conference call with the House Democratic caucus. “It is also important to know that the facts regarding holding the President accountable can be gained outside of impeachment hearings.”

“Whether currently indictable or not, it is clear that the President has, at a minimum, engaged in highly unethical and unscrupulous behavior which does not bring honor to the office he holds,” she added.

Trump’s certainty in responding to the question at the White House on Monday stood in contrast to a tweet he sent in the hour prior to attending the Easter festivities at the White House.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stands during a meeting with European Parliament President Antonio Tajani on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 27, 2019.
The president’s comments come after he spent a long holiday weekend at his Florida estate, where he golfed, spent time with family and – at times – fumed on Twitter about the Mueller probe and the fallout since the report’s release.

As the president returned to Washington on Sunday afternoon, the president made no secret that he was thinking about the potential for impeachment proceedings.

© 2019 ABC News Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.

His finances may be incriminating :

Rolling Stone
Why Is Trump So Worried About His Finances Going Public?
The president and his business are suing Rep. Elijah Cummings to block a subpoena of his financial records

RYAN BORT
APRIL 22, 2019 2:50PM EDT

US President Donald J. Trump meets with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (Unseen) inside the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 04 April 2019.President Donald Trump meets with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, Washington, USA - 04 Apr 2019
Tom Brenner/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
President Trump really doesn’t want the public to know any details about how he conducts his business. During the 2016 campaign, he defied tradition by refusing to release his tax returns, claiming he couldn’t release them because he was under audit (which isn’t true). This was fine by Republicans, but now that Democrats are in control of Congress Trump has been forced to take extreme measures to stymie lawmakers’ efforts to glean insight into the potential criminality, conflicts of interest and any other unsavory aspects of his financial records.

On Monday, the president went so far as to sue House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD), as well as his own accounting firm, in an attempt to block a subpoena of Trump’s accounting firm. The suit reads like an edited, longform tweet from the president.

Related

John Oliver’s Take on Mueller Report: ‘Incompetence and Obedience’ Saved Trump
Kellyanne Conway Says Trump Is Innocent Because He Says So
“The Democrat Party, with its newfound control of the U.S. House of Representatives, has declared all-out political war against President Donald J. Trump,” it begins. “Subpoenas are their weapon of choice. Democrats are using their new control of congressional committees to investigate every aspect of President Trump’s personal finances, businesses, and even his family. Instead of working with the president to pass bipartisan legislation that would actually benefit Americans, House Democrats are singularly obsessed with finding something they can use to damage the President politically.”

The lawsuit also demands Rep. Cummings reimburse the legal fees Trump incurred in filing the suit.

Cummings initially wrote Mazers USA, the accounting firm in question, seeking Trump’s financial records on March 20th, weeks after the president’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, testified publicly before the Oversight Committee that Trump had lied about his finances in an effort to mislead lenders. The company responded, Cummings said, by requesting a “friendly” subpoena to formalize the process, after which it planned to comply with Congress. Last week, Trump’s attorneys tried to pressure Mazers USA into not honoring a subpoena from Cummings, writing that it “would not be valid or enforceable.”

“This complaint reads more like political talking points than a reasoned legal brief, and it contains a litany of inaccurate information,” Cummings said in a statement responding to the suit filed on Monday. “The White House is engaged in unprecedented stonewalling on all fronts, and they have refused to produce a single document or witness to the Oversight Committee during this entire year.”

Suing a Democratic committee chairman is only the latest action the president has taken to prevent his finances from going public. After House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA) sent a letter to the IRS formally requesting six years of Trump’s tax returns, the president said he was “not inclined” to comply the request, and, according to the Washington Post, is willing to take the fight to keep his returns secret to the Supreme Court.

Defying the request, which the Ways and Means Committee is entitled to make, would amount to a violation of federal law. Nevertheless, as they did with Mazers USA, Trump’s lawyers wrote a letter to the Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS, pressuring them to tell IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig not to comply with Neal’s request for Trump’s tax returns. While testifying before Congress earlier this month, Rettig, visibly shaking, said he was “working on a letter” to respond to Neal.

Neal initially asked the IRS to comply by April 10th. That deadline was missed, with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin arguing he was busy consulting with the Justice Department about oversight issues, according to Politico. Neal set a second deadline of April 23rd. Whatever response Mnuchin and Rettig do ultimately devise, it’s not expected to include Trump’s tax returns, which he is obsessed with keeping private, for some strange reason.

© 2019 PMC. All rights reserved.

House subpoenas Don McGahn, ex-White House counsel, in wake of Mueller report – as it happened
McGahn called before judiciary committee to testify on potential obstruction of justice linked to Trump-Russia investigation

Don McGahn has been asked to turn over documents by 7 May and testify in public on 21 May.

Julia Carrie Wong in San Francisco (now) and Erin Durkin in New York (earlier)

Mon 22 Apr 2019 20.00 EDT First published on Mon 22 Apr 2019 08.54 EDT
Shares
381
Key events
3h ago House Judiciary committee subpoenas former White House counsel
11h ago Trump sues House Oversight chair
12h ago Elizabeth Warren proposes free college and student debt cancellation

Summary
That’s all from me on this Monday. Here’s a rundown of the top stories in politics:

The House judiciary committee subpoenaed former White House counsel Don Mc’Gain

A few more details on the Democratic caucus conference call, via Lauren Gambino.

According to a source on the call, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made the following comments during the nearly 90 minute discussion:

We have to save our democracy. This isn’t about Democrats or Republicans. It’s about saving our democracy. If it is what we need to do to honor our responsibility to the Constitution – if that’s the place the facts take us, that’s the place we have to go … And I wish you would just read my letter because it, I think succinctly, presents some of the reasons I think – whether it’s articles of impeachment or investigations, it’s the same obtaining of facts. We don’t have to go to articles of impeachment to obtain the facts, the presentation of facts.

President Trump has signed a presidential memorandum directing the Secretary of State and Secretary of Homeland Security to combat visa overstays.

The administration is considering suspending or limiting entry for individuals coming from countries with high rates of people overstaying visas, according to a press release from the White House.

The most recent report by the Center for Migration Studies, covering 2016-2017, found that overstaying a visa accounted for about 62% of newly undocumented people, compared to just 38% who “entered without inspection” – ie crossed the border without authorization.

We’re doing something different … and we’d like to explain why. Our journalism now reaches record numbers around the world and more than a million people have supported our reporting. Unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – our journalism remains accessible to all, so more people have access to accurate information with integrity at its heart. This is The Guardian’s model for open, independent journalism.

Our model enables people to support us in a way that works for them. Readers’ support safeguards our essential editorial independence.

Make a contribution - The Guardian

Here’s my colleague Lauren Gambino reporting on an internal conference call among House Democrats:

Lauren Gambino
(@laurenegambino)
Pelosi told her caucus that there are no immediate plans to pursue impeachment and reiterated what she outlined in her letter: that Democrats would continue investigating Trump following what they view as a roadmap provided for them in Mueller’s report, per 2 sources on the call

Polls are beginning to come out, providing some insight into how the release of the redacted Mueller report is being viewed by the general public.

Trump’s approval rating dropped to 39% – the lowest of his presidency – in a new Politico/Morning Consult poll. The last time Trump’s rating was that low in the same poll was in the aftermath of the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.

Another poll, by HuffPost/YouGov, which was conducted immediately after the release of the redacted report, found that 43% of Americans believe that Trump attempted to obstruct the special counsel’s investigation, compared to 34% who believe he did not.

USA Today’s Brad Heath pulled out an interesting tidbit from the details of that poll: nearly half of Republicans agree with the statement, “Nobody on President Trump’s campaign committed any crimes”, despite the fact that many people on Trump’s campaign have pleaded guilty to committing crimes. These include: former campaign manager Paul Manafort, former personal attorney Michael Cohen, and campaign advisers Rick Gates, Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulous.

Brad Heath
(@bradheath)
Nearly half of Republicans think “Nobody on President Trump’s campaign committed any crimes,” notwithstanding the fact that several of the aides who worked on his campaign have pleaded guilty to committing federal crimes.

Tom McCarthy Tom McCarthy
Here’s my colleague Tom McCarthy on what the McGahn subpoena could portend:

The subpoena of Don McGahn by the House Judiciary Committee could have the effect of bringing the Mueller report to life, in the sense that multiple key scenes from the report star McGahn. The former White House counsel could give a firsthand account of how Donald Trump allegedly broke the law in an effort to keep the Mueller investigation at bay.

If McGahn testifies in an open hearing about what Trump told him to do – namely, pressure deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein to fire Robert Mueller, then publicly deny any such order had ever been given – that could make Trump look bad in a new way.

The request for documents in the subpoena is broad, and McGahn could be asked to testify about numerous other matters. That’s if it goes as well as it could for Democrats and others concerned about the special counsel’s findings.

On the other hand, McGahn could resist the subpoena. But he did sit for at least three voluntary interviews with Mueller’s team totaling 30 hours. His pattern of conduct to this point has been compliance.

There’s a scene in the Mueller report from a Saturday in June 2017. Trump is at Camp David and McGahn is at home in Virginia. The lawyer gets two calls from the president, which he later described to Mueller, whose report reads:

‘You gotta do this’,” McGahn recalls the president saying. “‘You gotta call Rod.’”

But McGahn did not call Rod.

McGahn considered the president’s request to be an inflection point and he wanted to hit the brakes.

Democratic members of the judiciary committee might want to hear more about that phone call and other interactions McGahn had with the president.

This is Julia Carrie Wong in San Francisco picking up the live blog reins, by the way.

And here are some more details on the subpoena just issued to former White House counsel Don McGahn:

The subpoena names 36 categories of documents and communications that must be turned over, with topics including “The resignation or termination of Michael Flynn” (item No 4) and “Your resignation or termination, whether contemplated or actual” (item No 14).

Other items in the subpoena appear aimed at understanding what efforts to fight back against the Mueller investigation that may have been contemplated inside the White House, such as:

  1. Reversing or attempting to reverse Jeff Session’s recusal from any matters …

  2. Prosecuting or investigating James Comey or Hillary Clinton.

  3. Presidential pardons, whether possible or actual, for Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Michael Cohen, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, or individuals involved in matters before the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

The full subpoena can be viewed here.

House Judiciary committee subpoenas former White House counsel
Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary committee, has issued a subpoena to former White House counsel Don McGahn for testimony and documents related to its investigation into potential obstruction of justice by Donald Trump.

“The Special Counsel’s report, even in redacted form, outlines substantial evidence that President Trump engaged in obstruction and other abuses,” Nadler said in a statement. “It now falls to Congress to determine for itself the full scope of the misconduct and to decide what steps to take in the exercise of our duties of oversight, legislation and constitutional accountability.”

The committee is requesting McGahn turn over documents by 7 May and testify in public on 21 May.

“His testimony will help shed further light on the President’s attacks on the rule of law, and his attempts to cover up those actions by lying to the American people and requesting others do the same,” the statement continues. “The Special Counsel and his team made clear that based on their investigation, they were unable to ‘reach [the] judgment . . . .that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice.’ As a co-equal branch of government, Congress has a constitutional obligation to hold the President accountable, and the planned hearings will be an important part of that process.”

The subpoenas can be seen here.

4h ago 16:59

Summary
Democrats grappled with their next steps after the release of the Mueller report, acknowledging divisions over whether to pursue the impeachment of Donald Trump. In a letter to colleagues, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi advised caution on impeachment, but vowed that Democrats would continue to hold hearings and “uncover the truth.” Democrats have a conference call scheduled for 5pm.
Donald Trump sued to block a subpoena for his financial records, issued by the House Oversight Committee to his accounting firm. Committee chairman Elijah Cummings called the suit baseless.
Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton launched his presidential bid.
Donald Trump reversed course and said he would not appoint Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve board, saying Cain had asked to bow out.
Updated at 5.07pm EDT

Herman Cain explains his reasons for withdrawing from consideration for the Federal Reserve. For one thing, he said it would have been a big pay cut.

“I also started wondering if I’d be giving up too much influence to get a little bit of policy impact,” Cain wrote. “With my current media activities, I can reach close to 4 million people a month with the ideas I believe in. If I gave that up for one seat on the Fed board, would that be a good trade-off?”

The US is threatening to veto a United Nations resolution on combatting the use of rape as a weapon of war, the Guardian’s Julian Borger reports.

The US is objecting to language that says survivors of sexual violence should have access to comprehensive health services, including sexual and reproductive health. It’s part of a hard line taken by the Trump administration in recent months, refusing to agree to any UN documents that refer to sexual or reproductive health, on grounds that such language implies support for abortions.
5h ago 15:59

Democratic presidential candidate Wayne Messam said Monday he supports impeaching Donald Trump, becoming the third Democratic primary contender to do so.

“I believe the President should be placed under impeachment proceedings and let the weight of the full report carry out the justice the American people deserve,” Messam, the mayor of Miramar, Fl., told the Hill.

Senator Elizabeth Warren and former housing secretary Julian Castro have called for Trump’s impeachment.

Don McGahn, ex-White House counsel, subpoenaed over Mueller report

Robert Reich
2dTrump’s moral squalor, not impeachment, will remove him from power

Giuliani rails against Mueller report as Democrats mull Trump impeachment
Teflon Don: how Trump the mafia boss fought the law … and won

© 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.


MUELLER TIME 12:27 P.M.
Mueller Exposed Trump’s Biggest Betrayal
By Barbara McQuade

Trump’s actions will only embolden Russia. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
The most important line in the Mueller report appears in the introduction to Volume I: “The Russian government interfered with the 2016 election in sweeping and systematic fashion.” Our president’s response has fallen woefully short. And now we know why.

As with all things, Donald Trump made the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller all about him. But it is about so much more: our national security and the future of our democracy. Trump’s failure to protect our country from future attacks is his biggest betrayal.

Mueller has published a detailed accounting of Russia’s attack on our presidential election. His report describes how Russia conducted a social-media disinformation campaign and weaponized email messages to sabotage the election. Mueller’s description of the Russia attack makes it clear that information warfare is the new battleground.

And yet Trump continues to minimize the threat to our national security. Concerned more about the legitimacy of his presidency than the integrity of future elections, Trump still downplays the Russian attack.

The Mueller report offers insights into Trump’s thinking: “Several advisors recalled that the President-Elect viewed stories about his Russian connections, the Russia investigations, and the intelligence community assessment of Russian interference as a threat to the legitimacy of his electoral victory.” Former communications director Hope Hicks said that Trump “viewed the intelligence community assessment as his ‘Achilles heel’ because, even if Russia had no impact on the election, people would think Russia helped him win, taking away from what he had accomplished.” Her predecessor, Sean Spicer, “recalled that the President thought the Russia story was developed to undermine the legitimacy of his election.” Former deputy campaign chairman Richard Gates “said the President viewed the Russia investigation as an attack on the legitimacy of his win.” White House chief of staff Reince Priebus “recalled that when the intelligence assessment came out, the President-Elect was concerned people would question the legitimacy of his win.”

In other words, Trump was more concerned about appearing to have won a decisive victory in the election than about acknowledging and addressing an attack on our country by a foreign adversary.

Trump’s receptiveness to Russia’s overtures may even have encouraged the attacks. Despite Attorney General William Barr’s characterization that Mueller found no collusion, Mueller’s report tells a different story. Mueller says that the evidence was not sufficient to charge any member of the Trump campaign with conspiring with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election. But “the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign.”

Trump’s denials of Russian interference date back to the campaign. In July 2016, the Democratic National Committee announced that it had been hacked by Russian government actors. Rather than denouncing the attack, Trump playfully encouraged Russia interference, at one point publicly asking, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” According to Mueller’s report, within five hours, Russian hackers tried to hack Hillary Clinton’s personal email. While the episode was not part of a formal agreement to interfere with the election, it was the kind of mutually beneficial conduct that encouraged Russia to continue its aggression.

During his first debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump deflected blame from Russia, when he famously said, “I don’t think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC … I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay?”

Even after winning the election and becoming president, Trump continued to shift blame from Russia. In June 2017, Trump tweeted that Russian hacking was a “big Dem HOAX,” asking “ … Why did the DNC REFUSE to turn over its Server to the FBI, and still hasn’t? It’s all a big Dem scam and excuse for losing the election!”

Then last July, Trump stood next to Russian president Vladimir Putin in Helsinki and outraged many American government officials when he indicated that he believed Putin when he said that it was not Russia who had interfered with the election, despite such a finding by the U.S. intelligence community.

Now we know why Trump continues to minimize Russia’s role. Trump’s narcissism about the legitimacy of his election has prevented him from publicly acknowledging Russia’s attack and providing the leadership necessary to protect us from more. A president whose focus was on leading our nation would eagerly provide deterrence to Russia in the form of sanctions and retaliation for election hacking. (While the U.S. has imposed new sanctions, at times Trump has resisted congressional efforts to punish Russia.) In addition, a responsible president would make cybersecurity a top priority of the Department of Homeland Security. Instead, Trump sows discord in our country by making immigration enforcement his prime focus.

Trump’s reaction to Russia interference will only embolden our adversary for future attacks. His self-absorption prevents him from fulfilling his duty that the laws be faithfully executed. Now that the Mueller investigation is over, and Trump’s motives have been exposed, staffers and Congress must play a stronger role in pushing Trump to the side and hardening our election system against attacks.

© 2019, NEW YORK MEDIA LLC. VIEW


Biden enters ra e for 2020 election


Feverish pitcher to Trump tweets

Subscribe
Trump’s 50 Tweets in 24 Hours Are a Frightening Window Into the Presidential Mind
Fox News is playing on loop in the background, reassuring him that all his critics are lying enemies of the state. What could go wrong?

“The Wall is being rapidly built!” our fearless leader declared. “The Economy is GREAT! Our Country is Respected again!”

It was a stirring message, something to boost the citizens of the United States as they roused themselves for work this Tuesday morning. It would have been a bit more convincing, however, if it did not contain some vintage truthlessness from Donald Trump, American president. In recent months, The Wall has become a quantum object: it is both Being Built and in desperate need of funding to be built—so much so that the president declared a phony national emergency to seize the money from Congress in a direct assault on the Constitution’s separation of powers. In reality, parts of existing barrier have essentially undergone maintenance, and our nation’s Respect-o-Meter is certainly not moving in a positive direction.
It would also be a bit more reassuring if it were not merely the latest of more than 50 (fifty) tweets the world’s most powerful man has fired off in the last 24 hours. Yes, the last day or so has been a thoroughly frightening window into the Presidential Mind, a kaleidoscopic marescape where Fox News is playing on permanent loop in the background to reinforce the very important thing to remember, which is that The President Has Been Very Badly Mistreated!

It all kicked off as it would proceed throughout: with the President of the United States tweeting a clip directly from his favorite teevee channel.

It’s unclear who this guy is, or why he had to make his grift a transatlantic one. Doesn’t he have Brexit nonsense to peddle? Anyway, the idea Donald Trump would be America’s Uniter-in-Chief if it wasn’t for those meddling kids is a nice cortisone shot of unreconstructed delusion. Also, the Mueller Report confirms the vast majority of Russia reporting from The Fake News Lamestream Media—which also means that Trump and his team lied to the public, over and over again, about the Trump Tower Meeting and the Trump Tower Moscow deal and a whole lot else. You should read it for yourself!

This was the tenor of much of the last day’s presidential activity. The president could be found tweeting Fox clips directly or retweeting Fox News personalities (or Republican congressmen) who praised his Strong Leadership in the face of The Witch Hunt by 18 Angry Democrats, who concluded their Witch Hunt by producing a report that TOTALLY EXONERATED! him. Confused? That’s the goal. BELOW
Related Stories
Complete Exoneration! Total Bullshit!
The Mueller Report Is a Challenge to Congress
The Flaw in Nancy Pelosi’s Plan Is Republicans
The Mueller Report was compiled by Robert Mueller, a registered Republican, and his team. The report presented a huge volume of evidence that Mueller and his team felt did not rise to a level where they could indict the president or his associates for conspiracy with the Russian government—a highly specific charge. In one case, Donald Trump Jr. avoided prosecution because, essentially, they did not think he knew what he was doing with the Trump Tower Meeting.

But none of this means there was NO EVIDENCE!, or that any of this behavior was acceptable for the President of the United States. He repeatedly subjugated the national interest to his personal business, and the second part of the report seems to be a referral to Congress to consider impeaching the president on the basis he repeatedly sought to abuse his power to obstruct justice in the investigation.

None of that stopped the steady stream of commentary from the Presidential Twitter Feed, however.

This is, needless to say, not how anything works. The “high crimes” in the Constitution do not just refer to criminal offenses, but could also include the president violating his oath of office. In fact, impeachment is a political process, by which the Congress decides whether the president has done things that indicate he is not fit to hold the office. The bar is, or should be, above “outright conspiracy with a hostile foreign power.”

The president and his campaign knew Russia was interfering in an American presidential election, on their behalf, and they gleefully allowed that to continue without reporting it to the FBI. Junior and others on the campaign even sought out the Russians’ help more directly. And then the president repeatedly tried to cover it all up by abusing the powers of his office to interfere in the subsequent investigation—an investigation that was also digging into the nature of the Russian attack on our democracy.

Elsewhere, it was even more desperate:

After he took a hiatus to mock CNN’s ratings—because what else does a president have to do?—Our Leader weighed in on an issue for our times: would Herman Cain join the board of the Federal Reserve?

The prospect of this appointment was so absurd that Mitt Romney managed to rattle off a passable joke about it. There is no disputing now that this is the dumbest time in history: we have instant access to more knowledge than our ancestors could even have conceived of, and yet we choose to elevate the most ignorant people with the most pathetic excuse for critical thinking skills to run the show. Nobody knows nothing about anything, and nobody cares.

After another hiatus where he discussed his conversations with other world leaders, it was back to serving as a Fox News producer. Trump tweeted out three clips in a row, including a segment from Lou Dobbs, the Fashy Benjamin Button, who bounced off a report from Breitbart (!) and hosted the bizarro former acting head of ICE to discuss. Jesus. But then it was back to Legal Analysis:

It’s not clear what in the hell this guy is saying here. One of his campaign managers, Paul Manafort, was a cooperating witness—albeit a deceitful one—in the Mueller probe. The deputy campaign manager, Rick Gates, was a very cooperative witness. Steve Bannon, the former campaign chair, spoke to Mueller at least three times. Michael Cohen, Trump’s fixer and an adviser on the campaign, cooperated with the feds. Jared Kushner spoke to Mueller’s team. Hope Hicks spoke to Mueller. White House Counsel Don McGahn spoke to Mueller. One of the few people who did not speak to Mueller was Donald Trump, likely because his lawyers knew that if he sat down and had to speak the truth under oath it could be the end of him.

After directly plugging an upcoming show from Lou Dobbs—the president also apparently works in Fox News PR now—it was time for a retweet bonanza. He shared a 10 minute (!) clip from talk-radio shock jock Mark Levin, who helpfully put the cover of his new pro-Trump book on an easel in the background. Buy buy buy! Then the president retweeted Maria Bartiromo (a once-normal Fox Business host who is now one of the president’s most reliable boosters), Ronna McDaniel (the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee whom he reportedly convinced to drop her maiden name, Romney, out of spite), and Tom Fitton (head of far-right activist group Judicial Watch and, apparently, a kind of decaying Baldwin Brother).

Surely the bunny agrees there was NO COLLUSION!
MANDEL NGANGetty Images
The Fitton tweets in particular referred to the Mueller investigation as a “coup,” which isn’t dangerous at all, but which makes a lot of sense considering the coup ended with the coup-orchestrators not charging the guy they supposedly were trying to remove from office. In a Trump Content Singularity, many of these friendly retweets featured more clips pulled directly from Fox News, all of which agreed that the Mueller Report was a COMPLETE EXONERATION! by the angry Democrat hacks who staged the investigation. Again, don’t think too hard about all this.

After a spell retweeting his top congressional toads—Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, Louie Gohmert, etc.—there was some Easter Egg Roll content and some retweets pushing the “Opportunity Zones” program, which offers investors tax breaks on capital gains if they invest in businesses located in certain areas. Some new rules issued by the Treasury Department last week seemed to confront some of the concerns critics raised, including that a disproportionate share of these benefits would go to real-estate developers rather than start-up businesses that could generate lasting, solid-wage jobs. That’s a good thing, considering there were widespread reports that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner could be set to benefit in their private business from the policy they helped craft in public office. Of course, this kind of conflict-of-interest is why we have ethics policies, all of which have gone out the window during The Great American Heist.

After more Fox News clips—including one with a presidential caption of “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT”—it was time for some unfriendly-media-bashing. The president went after New York Times opinion writer Paul Krugman by name, calling the Nobel Laureate economist “obsessed with hatred, just as others are obsessed with how stupid he is.” This nonsense from Trump’s towering intellect places Krugman in very real danger. Then Trump repeated his zombie lie about The New York Times, once again suggesting the paper “apologized” to him for its 2016 coverage (it did not) and suggesting it should do so again for its Russia reporting (it won’t, as the vast majority of that reporting was backed up by The Mueller Report. Again, this indicates that Trump lied constantly in response to these news reports.) And then there was this flurry of Presidential Activity:

Good God, man. As Daniel Dale pointed out, the president managed to call Joe Scarborough a “Psycho” who’s “Angry, Dumb and Sick”; dismiss Democrats as “totally insane”; attack The New York Times as “Fake News” and the “Enemy of the People”; call Krugman “stupid”; and moan that Twitter is “very discriminatory.” This was all by 7:30 a.m. on a Tuesday.

You would think the world’s most powerful man might have better things to do. He does not, at least by his accounting. His inner world is now consumed by these wars against anyone who could hold him accountable for what he’s done, the Fox News loop churning in the background, pumping the electric resentment and primal fear through his veins. We didn’t need the Mueller Report to see he was unfit to wield the power he has, but the conduct it lays out only bolsters the case. It is not an EXONERATION, it’s a plea for Congress to do its job in defense of the republic.

Trump Will Stop at Nothing to Keep His Cash Secret
Democrats Must Save the Republic, Not the GOP

©2019 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Donald Trump
President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats have been feuding, putting in question Congress’ ability to carry out its constitutional oversight. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

CONGRESS

Trump showdown with House Democrats ignites into all-out war
The White House and congressional investigators are hammering each other with legal action and charges of bad faith.

By ANITA KUMAR and ANDREW DESIDERIO 04/23/2019 07:07 PM EDT Updated 04/23/2019 09:11 PM EDT
The showdown between the Trump White House and House Democrats reached a new level of hostility this week, as several investigative disputes veered toward federal court amid scathing rhetoric on both sides.

Three dramatic clashes between White House lawyers and congressional Democrats over the past 36 hours have created an atmosphere of total war between the president and Capitol Hill, suggesting that even modest compromise may be impossible and that protracted court fights likely are inevitable.

House Democrats threatened Tuesday to hold in contempt a Trump official who oversaw security clearances after the White House instructed him not to cooperate with Congress. Later in the day, the Trump administration refused to turn over six years’ worth of President Donald Trump’s personal and business tax returns by a 5 p.m. deadline, instead requesting more time to consult with the Justice Department. And later Tuesday, Trump said he was opposed to his current and former aides — most notably, former White House Counsel Don McGahn — testifying on Capitol Hill, escalating the showdown even further.

Those moves came a day after Trump took the dramatic step of suing the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee to block a subpoena for his financial records.

White House lawyers said they are guarding the executive branch’s prerogatives against what they call politically motivated congressional inquests. But Democrats see an unprecedented — and indefensible — degree of White House defiance.

“It’s a pretty extraordinary and outlandish situation right now,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the House Oversight panel, said in an interview. “It’s like a curtain has fallen down over the White House.”
ADVERTISING

Since House Democrats took power in January, White House officials have resorted to a range of aggressive tactics — refusing to turn over documents, declining to send witnesses to testify and even going to federal court to protect Trump’s financial records from congressional scrutiny.

“It’s putting forth a constitutional crisis about whether the Congress can effectively perform its oversight duties,” said Morton Rosenberg, who served as legal adviser to the House general counsel.

Trump’s White House and personal lawyers have repeatedly counterpunched Democrats, using harsh and hostile terms and painting a portrait of a frantic White House under siege from an opposition party out to destroy the president.

“The Democrat Party, with its newfound control of the U.S. House of Representatives, has declared all-out political war against President Donald J. Trump,” Trump’s personal attorneys wrote in a court filing challenging a subpoena for his financial records from an accounting firm. “Democrat Party” is a term often used by conservatives that Democrats consider intentionally disrespectful.

Story Continued Below

“Instead of working with the president to pass bipartisan legislation that would actually benefit Americans, House Democrats are singularly obsessed with finding something they can use to damage the president politically,” added the attorneys, William Consovoy and Stefan Passantino.

Story Continued Below

Trump allies have echoed that partisan framing in their arguments that Democrats are making illegitimate requests.

“No one should be surprised that this White House is following a time-honored tradition of ignoring partisan subpoenas,” said a former Trump adviser who remains close to the White House.

In recent days, the White House has begun instructing current and former White House officials, including former White House personnel security director Carl Kline, to not cooperate with Congress. The White House will also try to block McGahn — who is emerging as a star witness for House Democrats — from testifying by asserting executive privilege, according to two people familiar with the plans.

Trump, for his part, told The Washington Post that the White House Counsel’s office had not made a “final, final decision.” But he indicated he had no intention of complying with House Democrats.

“There is no reason to go any further, and especially in Congress where it’s very partisan — obviously very partisan,” Trump said.

“I don’t want people testifying to a party, because that is what they’re doing if they do this,” he added.

House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) subpoenaed McGahn to appear before the panel May 21 as part of its obstruction of justice investigation into Trump. But lawmakers have raised questions about whether Trump is able to claim executive privilege on anything revealed in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report because the report is now a public document. It includes detailed testimony from McGahn, they said, which is effectively an affirmative decision by Trump to waive the privilege.

"As such, the moment for the White House to assert some privilege to prevent this testimony from being heard has long since passed,” Nadler said in a statement Tuesday. “I suspect that President Trump and his attorneys know this to be true as a matter of law — and that this evening’s reports, if accurate, represent one more act of obstruction by an administration desperate to prevent the public from talking about the president’s behavior.”

IRS blows deadline to hand over Trump tax returns
By AARON LORENZO
Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said he would schedule a vote to hold Kline in contempt for refusing to comply with the committee’s subpoena for a deposition before the panel, which was scheduled for Tuesday.

Trump’s lawyers aren’t the only ones making their case in acerbic terms. Cummings released a scathing statement Tuesday ripping the Trump administration for routinely shivving congressional oversight requests.

“It appears that the president believes that the Constitution does not apply to his White House, that he may order officials at will to violate their legal obligations, and that he may obstruct attempts by Congress to conduct oversight,” Cummings said. “It also appears that the White House believes that it may dictate to Congress — an independent and co-equal branch of government — the scope of its investigations and even the rules by which it conducts them.”

Kline is accused of overriding career national security officials to approve security clearances for officials whose applications were initially denied. The allegations against him were revealed to the committee by Tricia Newbold, a whistleblower who told the Oversight Committee that Kline and others put national security at risk by granting security clearances to more than two dozen officials.

“It’s true with all of the committees — the White House is fighting each and every one,” said Ed Passman, Newbold’s lawyer. “This is just another example. It’s really disappointing because my client has come forward at great personal risk.”

In addition to Nadler and House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Cummings has emerged as a leading persona non grata in Trumpworld. And now, he’s become the latest in a long line of defendants in a Trump lawsuit.

“Elijah Cummings is a gentlemen who treats everybody with decency and respect,” Raskin said. “And it seems pretty shocking to me that the president has injected this kind of negative personal tone into the whole thing.”

A contempt vote against Kline, who now works at the Defense Department, would be the first since Trump took office. That could lead Congress to ask a judge to force the administration to cooperate. It could also lead the U.S. attorney in Washington to press charges, though that’s unlikely to happen.

“This is as close to anarchy as I have seen,” said Charles Tiefer, former solicitor and deputy general counsel of the House who is now a professor at the University of Baltimore. “The administrations seems to think it has floated off into space and no longer subject to oversight.”

White House deputy counsel Michael Purpura sent a letter Monday asking Kline not to answer questions because it “unconstitutionally encroaches on fundamental executive branch interests.”

Kline’s attorney, Robert Driscoll, wrote a subsequent letter to the committee saying that Kline would not answer questions. “With two masters from two equal branches of government, we will follow the instructions of the one that employs him,” Driscoll wrote in the letter to the committee.

Donald Trump
WHITE HOUSE

Mueller report exposes diminishing power of Trump denials
By ANDREW RESTUCCIA

Democrats had hoped they would quickly receive documents and information about the Trump administration, but it has become clear that a long and frustrating fight with the president’s lawyers lies ahead. The fight could end up in court and could take several months, possibly stretching well into 2020 as the president runs for reelection.

Since 2007, Congress has held two officials in contempt — White House counsel Harriet Miers during George W. Bush’s tenure and Attorney General Eric Holder during Barack Obama’s presidency — but still failed to receive all the information it has requested.

A lawyer who worked in Obama’s White House said a White House requesting an official not cooperate is not unusual but it is unusual to do so without invoking executive privilege, which allows a president to shield certain communications from legislative and judicial branches. “It’s a very difficult situation unless they invoke executive privilege,” the lawyer said.

Nearly every House committee has launched investigations into the Trump administration, on everything from the easing of sanctions on businesses tied to a Russian oligarch to the federal government’s lease with the Trump International Hotel in Washington.

“When faced with choice of cooperation or confrontation, Chairman Cummings picked confrontation,” a spokesman for the Republican side of the Oversight panel said Tuesday, slamming Cummings for his “insatiable quest to sully the White House.”

In total, the administration has at least 30 times refused or delayed turning over documents to 12 House committees, according to House Democrats. A half dozen officials have refused to appear before five committees while two officials have refused to come in for interviews with two other committees, they say.

On Monday, Trump sued Cummings in an effort to block the Oversight Committee’s subpoena to accounting firm Mazars USA. The committee is seeking eight years of Trump’s financial records from the company.

The White House and Driscoll did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump unleashes on the media in morning tweetstorm
What you missed in the Mueller report
Trump Isn’t Just Reversing Obama’s Foreign Policies. He’s Making it Impossible for His Successor to Go Back to Them.
The rude awakening creeping up on Kamala Harris
Mueller report exposes diminishing power of Trump denials
Barr gets waiver on case linked to inquiry into Trump’s re-election effort
Dems move to hold former White House official in contempt
Trump showdown with House Democrats ignites into all-out war
Clinton says Trump escaped indictment only because of DOJ policy
Larry Hogan derides Trump as ‘dear leader’

Privacy Policy
© 2019 POLITICO LLC

Treasury misses deadline to turn over Trump tax returns, says decision coming May 6
By Lauren Fox, CNN
Updated 7:41 PM EDT, Tue April 23, 2019

article video
(CNN) The US Treasury blew past a Tuesday evening deadline to turn over President Donald Trump’s tax returns to House Democrats, with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin saying his department will “take final action on the Committee’s request by May 6.”

“Although federal law establishes no deadline for a response to your request, we expect to provide the Committee with a final decision by May 6, after receiving the Justice Department’s legal conclusions,” Mnuchin wrote in a letter to House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal.

Neal had given the IRS until 5 p.m. ET Tuesday to respond to the request, appealing directly to the tax agency after Mnuchin – who oversees the IRS – stepped in to decline a similar request earlier this month citing ongoing consultation with the Justice Department.

Following delivery of Treasury’s letter, Neal put out a statement saying “Mnuchin notified me that once again, the IRS will miss the deadline … I plan to consult with counsel about my next steps.”

The Massachusetts Democrat has indicated that defying his request – as the IRS was expected to do – would be interpreted as noncompliance and lead to an escalation in the standoff between the administration and House Democrats over the President’s financial records.

Democrats cry foul over Mnuchin role in Trump tax return drama
Democrats argue that it is up to Rettig, a Trump appointee, and not Mnuchin to release the returns.

“It is not the proper function of the IRS, Treasury or Justice to question or second guess the motivations of the committee or its reasonable determinations regarding its need for the requested tax returns and return information,” Neal wrote to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig. “Please know that if you fail to comply, your failure will be interpreted as a denial of my request.”

But Rettig said in a recent hearing that Mnuchin is his boss, and Mnuchin has made clear that he has no plans to hand over documents any time soon.

In a letter to Neal sent Tuesday night, Rettig said “we have not made a final determination on how to respond” to his request.

“(We) are awaiting further guidance and direction on legal issues external to the internal review laws before doing so,” Rettig wrote.

Mnuchin told reporters earlier this month that it would be “premature” to conclude how long the agency’s review with the Justice Department could take given the complexity of the legal issues. He also called Tuesday’s deadline “arbitrary.”

“I’m not going to make a commitment prematurely as to whether we will be able to conclude our legal review within that deadline or not,” said Mnuchin when asked by CNN. “Obviously, given the importance of this issue we have people working on this diligently. But again I would emphasize this is a decision that has enormous precedence in potentially weaponizing the IRS.”

The President’s personal lawyer, William Consovoy, has sent two letters to the Treasury Department urging them not to relent, arguing that Neal reached beyond his congressional authority under the law.

Consovoy also filed suit Monday on behalf of Trump and his family business, the Trump Organization, to block a separate request from the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Maryland Democrat Elijah Cummings, for a decades’ worth of financial records from Trump’s accounting firm Mazars.

Trump has broken decades of presidential precedent with his refusal to release his tax returns, first as a candidate and since taking office. He has also maintained his stake in his family real estate business, now overseen day-to-day by his adult sons Don Jr. and Eric Trump, opening himself to challenges that he is violating the constitutional ban on presidents taking gifts or money from foreign governments or US state entities.

Democrats cite an obscure statute
Since taking control of the House in January, Neal has spearheaded Democratic efforts to obtain Trump’s tax returns using an obscure statute created in the wake of the Teapot Dome bribery scandal under President Warren G. Harding.

Democrats are steadfast in their belief that Neal has the power under IRS code 6103 to request any individual’s tax information, including Trump’s. The law states that three people – the House Ways and Means Chairman, the Senate Finance Committee Chairman and the chief of staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation – have the power to request the tax information in order to conduct their own legislative business and that the Treasury Secretary “shall furnish” the information.

The statute has been used by Congress before and was used in a high-profile case when Congress investigated whether the IRS was discriminating against conservative groups applying for non-profit status. Request for information using 6103 are also made on a regular basis for research purposes by JCT.

Neal argues that he needs Trump’s taxes in order to conduct oversight of the IRS’s presidential audit program, both to understand how the IRS is using the program and see if the program needs to be codified into law.

Trump’s lawyer has argued that Neal is only using the presidential audit program as a pretense to embarrass the President and release Trump’s private information to the public.

“Congress has no constitutional authority to act like a junior-varsity IRS, rerunning individual examinations or flyspecking the agency’s calculations,” Consovoy wrote to Treasury last week.

A lengthy legal battle is expected
The administration’s denial of the request is expected to spark a lengthy legal battle over the 6103 statute, which has never been scrutinized in the courts before. The fight will also be a rare example of Congress suing the executive branch for information, and could go on for months or even years.

The most recent example was in the “Fast and Furious” scandal, named for an Obama-era gun-walking program overseen by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that left a Border Patrol agent named Brian Terry dead.

In 2012, the House voted to hold then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress and the House Oversight Committee sued the Obama administration for information related to the program, but it wasn’t until 2014 that the court ruled the administration had to hand over additional documents. Even so, the squabbling over documents continues today.

This story has been updated to include additional developments Tuesday.

© 2019 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

POLITICO

Robert Mueller
Since a redacted versoin of special counsel Robert Mueller‘s report was released, President Donald Trump has tweeted about it more than 50 times. |

LEGAL

‘This is risky’: Trump’s thirst for Mueller revenge could land him in trouble
Team Trump’s bellicose tweets and public statements in the last few days could expose the president to fresh charges of witness intimidation and obstruction of justice.

Special counsel Robert Mueller may be done, but President Donald Trump and his team are still adding to an already hefty record of evidence that could fuel impeachment proceedings or future criminal indictments.

Team Trump’s bellicose tweets and public statements in the last few days are potentially exposing Trump to fresh charges of witness intimidation, obstruction of justice and impeding a congressional investigation — not to mention giving lawmakers more fodder for their presidential probes — according to Democrats and legal experts.

Already, a fusillade of verbal assaults aimed at former White House counsel Don McGahn, a star witness in the Mueller report, have sparked questions about obstruction and witness intimidation as Democrats fight the Trump White House to get McGahn’s documents and testimony.

“This is risky,” said William Jeffress, a prominent Washington defense attorney who represented President Richard Nixon after he left the White House. “I find it surprising because he’s taking these shots at witnesses who gave information to Mueller, and I think he’s got to be careful because there’s an explicit federal statute punishing retaliation against witnesses.”

It’s a lesson some thought Trump would have learned during the Mueller investigation.

Examples litter the special counsel’s 448-page report describing how the president ignored the advice of his lawyers and senior staff by tweeting about the Russia probe and discussing sensitive material with other White House aides and even the FBI director. Mueller made clear that those statements and tweets can be used as evidence to support a criminal charge.

But Trump and his lawyers haven’t hit the mute button.

The president has tweeted about the Russia probe more than 50 times since last Thursday’s release of a redacted version of the Mueller report. And attacks in recent days have turned forcefully against McGahn, who is mentioned more than 500 times in the Mueller report and who delivered damaging testimony about Trump’s attempts to shut down the Russia investigation. The White House signaled Thursday they’d invoke executive privilege to block the Democrats’ subpoena for McGahn, and Chairman Jerry Nadler swung back that the move “represent[s] one more act of obstruction by an Administration desperate to prevent the public from talking about the President’s behavior.”

The months ahead are also littered with a bevy of opportunities that could entice Trump to offer more barbed opinions — and more material for his investigators. His longtime associate Roger Stone goes on trial this November, tempting Trump to weigh in like he did during Paul Manafort’s trial, when the president posted tweets that were later cited in the Mueller report as evidence of obstruction.

And allies of Manafort and Michael Flynn, Trump’s brief national security adviser who faces prison time for lying to the FBI, are likely to amp up the calls for Trump to issue pardons or commute the sentences for the president’s former aides, each of which Democrats would interpret as additional obstruction evidence.

“A bank robbery is just as much a robbery if everyone sees it, as if nobody sees it,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, told POLITICO.

“The president and his team may think that the Mueller report represents the sum total of what’s in play with Congress,” Raskin added. “But from our perspective, the Mueller report just sets the table for an analysis of what’s been taking place.”

On Capitol Hill, Democrats have more leeway than in the courtroom to introduce evidence if they pursue impeachment. For now, the party’s leaders are urging a go-slow approach, fretful that an unsuccessful attempt to remove the president would only help him win re-election in 2020.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders
WHITE HOUSE

Mueller report exposes diminishing power of Trump denials
By ANDREW RESTUCCIA
But the president’s taunts and missives directed at their investigations — and the potential witnesses they may call — could end up serving a double purpose: goading Democrats into taking the plunge on impeachment and also delivering them evidence to support the case.

“It is unrealistic to expect that the president is going to suddenly change his behavior or suddenly manifest respect for the rule of law,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), another Judiciary Committee member. “The president ought to be accountable for any additional conduct that may constitute an attempt to impede or interfere.”

“We ought to consider not only the full contents of the Mueller report but any subsequent conduct,” Cicilline added.

Trump’s allies say the president feels emboldened by the Mueller probe’s conclusions and doesn’t fear potential legal implications going forward.

“I don’t think he’s afraid of anything,” said Michael Caputo, a longtime Trump associate and former 2016 campaign aide who thinks Trump is indeed engaged in a “briar patch strategy trying to tempt the Democrats into a suicidal venture of impeachment.”

“After enduring the beating he’s endured for two years and watching it crumble into rubble, he sees this as a risky opportunity to do exactly what he’s doing,” Caputo said.

Joe diGenova, an informal Trump legal adviser, also shrugged off the potential legal exposure that comes with the president swinging away at the events depicted in the Mueller report and any of the witnesses whom Democrats are interested in calling.

“The president is doing exactly the right thing,” he told POLITICO, before amplifying Trump’s recent calls for a sweeping investigation into the origins of the Mueller probe. “This narrative is going to be overtaken by the largest scandal in the history of this country, and it ain’t about Trump.”

Legal experts disagree, and many see the president’s continuous chatter as ripe material for federal prosecutors if they decided to take the monumental step of pursuing Trump after he’s out of office.

While Mueller nodded to longstanding Justice Department legal opinions that a sitting president can’t be indicted as he explained his decision not to conclude whether Trump obstructed justice, he also included a footnote near the end of his report highlighting the risks that Trump nonetheless faces in both Congress and the courts.

Don McGahn
Former White House Counsel Don McGahn was a star witness in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

“A possible remedy through impeachment for abuses of power would not substitute for potential criminal liability after a President leaves office,” Mueller wrote. “Impeachment would remove a President from office, but would not address the underlying culpability of the conduct or serve the usual purposes of the criminal law.”

Essentially, legal experts say, Mueller is signaling that Trump could face criminal charges even if he was impeached.

Any prosecutors who indict Trump after he’s out of office would be working with a five-year statute of limitations on obstruction of justice cases. That means the president could only be exposed for any behavior during his first term if he doesn’t win re-election next November. But anything Trump does from here on out would keep restarting that five-year clock, meaning a second term wouldn’t make him bullet proof.

“I don’t think Trump ought to be relying on the statutes of limitations at the moment,” Jeffress said.

To bring an obstruction case against Trump after leaving office, the Justice Department would need to prove both his intent and knowledge of an existing criminal probe.

Trump is certainly aware of the various tendrils of Mueller’s criminal investigations, which have spawned numerous probes in federal offices in Washington, D.C., New York and Virginia. And as for intent, Mueller’s report lays out granular detail about much of the president’s mindset over the past two years.

“Yeah, you’d be monitoring what he’s saying and doing and what his interactions are with potential witnesses,” said a former prosecutor from the Southern District of New York, the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan that continues to examine Trump’s campaign, business and inauguration.

Mueller’s team has also already made the legal argument for using Trump’s tweets as potential evidence for obstruction of justice and witness tampering. He specifically pointed to Trump’s effort to intimidate his former attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, in a way that would prevent him from testifying on Capitol Hill earlier this year.

“No principle of law excludes public acts from the scope of obstruction statutes,” Mueller wrote.

Mueller’s prosecutors also laid out a template for the pursuit of witness tampering charges. For example, one of the charges against Stone alleges that the longtime GOP operative pressured a witness, radio host Randy Credico, to mislead lawmakers.

Cory Gardner with Senate Republicans
2020 ELECTIONS

Mueller fails to detonate for endangered Republicans
By BURGESS EVERETT and MELANIE ZANONA
A House Intelligence Committee Democratic source argued that the panel is “uniquely positioned” to investigate obstruction of its own probes should the commentary continue.

“It’s clear that the White House plans to obstruct all legitimate congressional oversight, just like Trump obstructed in Mueller’s probe at every turn and witnesses previously obstructed our committee,” the source said.

Despite the risks, Trump has continued to use his preferred social media platform to blow off steam and blast his political opponents and journalists. He has tweeted dozens of times to his nearly 60 million followers his thoughts — or retweeted others’ — since the redacted Mueller report’s public release last week. The posts range from benign criticisms of the news media to encouragements to investigate members of the Obama administration.

But it’s Trump’s veiled references to McGahn — he complained on Twitter about “people that take so-called ‘notes,’” which McGahn memorably told Mueller he had done extensively — that have caught lawyers’ attention.

Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, also leveled his own direct charges at McGahn this week, telling the New York Times that he questioned the former White House counsel’s motives and memory.

“This is a cross examination a law student could perform — by the time he’s finished, you would come to the conclusion he’s hopelessly confused,” Giuliani said. “We have no choice to attack because the Democrats say there is impeachable material here.”

In a text message to POLITICO on Tuesday, Giuliani called it “ridiculous” to consider the president’s comments about the Mueller report as new evidence that could harm Trump.

“President’s tweets merely repeat and emphasize points made in report,” he wrote.

McGahn “has two or three versions of the conversation regarding Mueller,” Giuliani added. But Trump and his former personal counsel, John Dowd, “have a different but singular recollection” that runs counter to what McGahn told Mueller, he said.

Caputo, the former Trump campaign aide, brushed off the notion that Trump could face legal liability in his post-White House years.

“To the people who want to take on the president after he’s served out his term, my advice to them is pack a lunch because they’re in for the fight of their lives,” he said. “This kind of analysis is designed to intimidate lesser men and the president is unintimidatable.”

But the president’s critics welcome the Trump team’s double-down approach.

“I’m pleading with Rudy Giuliani. Please stay on television,” said Lanny Davis, the former Bill Clinton White House scandal manager who now represents Trump’s ex-lawyer, Michael Cohen.

Added Julian Epstein, a chief counsel for House Judiciary Committee Democrats during the Clinton impeachment fight, “They’re acting like a scene out of ‘America’s Dumbest Criminals.’ They just keep fueling a fire that has been the bane of their two years in the White House.”

© 2019 POLITICO LLC