Blood Tweets

Trumpcare Update:  Senate Majority Leader McConnell hasn’t thrown in the towel yet, but neither has he solved his Trumpcare dilemma. At this point he is considering retaining Obamacare’s 3.8% investment tax, which was revoked in both the House and first Senate versions, upping opioid funding by $45 billion, and allowing the funding of tax deductible health savings accounts but he still doesn’t have a consensus and there will be no further action this week since the Senators have all gone home for the July fourth holiday.  He’s passed a few revisions over to the budget scoring gurus for their review and plans to revisit negotiations when everyone returns on July 10.  The budget guys haven’t had a chance to review the impact of McConnell’s most recent amendments but they did add to Trumpcare’s bad optics by releasing a fairly damning additional analysis of the Senate’s first draft, concluding that by 2036 Medicaid funding would decrease by 35%.             

Tweet Attack:  Impulse control is really hard when your healthcare plan isn’t working out, your tax cuts are in jeopardy and you’re being investigated for collusion and obstruction.  Yesterday morning Trump reminded his dedicated core why they love him while outraging almost everyone else by tweet attacking MSNBC Morning Joe’s co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.  Mika and Joe, on again, mostly off again friends of Trump are now among his biggest critics and routinely go after his policies and odd behavior on their morning MSNBC show.  Apparently their incessant chatter and sometimes laughable critiques have thrown the thin skinned Trump over the edge.  Thursday morning, he launched into a grotesque and sexist twitter attack against “low IQ Mika and Psycho Joe” calling them out for insisting on joining him at Mar a Lago in December when Mika “was bleeding badly from a face lift,” because his fragile ego couldn’t take any more of their morning banter. This morning Joe and Mika said that Trump invited them to Mar A Lago and Mika denied a face lift but proudly fessed up to a chin “tweaking.”  Note to Trump, it’s not a good idea to viciously attack a woman’s appearance and under no circumstances is it presidential and what’s with the blood obsession, first Megan Kelly, now Mika.  Also, publicly attacking a prominent woman’s intellect and appearance while you are trying to cajole Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Shelley Moore Capito to vote for your health plan is counterproductive.  A series of Republican Senators expressed their outrage. Senator Sasse tweeted “Please just stop. This isn’t normal and it’s beneath the dignity of your office.” Lisa Murkowski tweeted “Stop it! The Presidential platform should be used for more than bringing people down.” Lindsay Graham tweeted “your tweet was beneath the office and represents what is wrong with American politics.”   Paul Ryan said “What we’re trying to do around here is improve the tone, the civility of the debate.  And this obviously doesn’t help.” Through her spokesperson, Melania Trump, who once said that cyber-bullying would be her First Lady cause, justified the tweet by saying that “when her husband gets attacked he will pushback ten times harder” and Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that Trump is entitled to strike back at anyone he wants, except perhaps his good buddy Putin, and that no one cares because he won the election handily and the voters knew what he was like when they voted for him.  Sadly, Sanders is right.  The easily agitated Trump will be meeting with world leaders, including a few prominent women and his BFF Putin, at next week’s G-20 Meetings.  What could go wrong?

Clinton Emails, Russian Hackers, and Flynn:  Last night the Wall Street Journal reported that Peter Smith, a long term Republican political operative, tried to obtain the 33,000 emails “missing” from Hillary Clinton’s server by hiring a team of technology experts, lawyers and  Russian speaking consultants to search for the Russian hackers who he believed had the emails.  Smith said that he was working with former Trump adviser Mike Flynn.  The description of Smith’s operation is consistent with intelligence reports and tapes of conversations between Russian hackers who were overheard discussing how to obtain the emails from the Clinton server in order to have them transferred to Flynn through an intermediary.  The 81 year old Smith died on May 14, ten days after he was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, so he won’t be testifying before any Intelligence Committees but if his story is true the first direct connection between the Trump campaign and the Russians has been uncovered.  When contacted by the Wall Street Journal the White House and Flynn’s lawyers had no comment.  Smith’s story is being investigated by Special Counsel Mueller.  Maybe this is one of the things that pushed Trump over the twitter cliff.     

Trouble at State:  Before he was tapped to be Trump’s Secretary of State, Tillerson was ending his successful reign as the CEO of Exxon and moving towards a rich man’s retirement of  golf, travel and lucrative board seats.  When Trump called he was initially reluctant to join the administration.  His wife persuaded him to sign on and, after Trump promised him he could make his own hiring decisions, he did.  Trump forgot to mention that Tillerson would be Secretary of State in name only and that the real power would remain in the White House with son-in-law Jared Kushner.  To date, despite Trump’s promise, Tillerson has not been able to make his own hiring decisions and he’s growing tired of having to clean-up Trump’s diplomatic screw-ups in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.  He holds Kushner and Bannon responsible for White House leaks attacking his credibility.  On Tuesday, Tillerson, who has a reputation for being an even tempered manager, blew up at the White House hiring manager. The other Secretary of State, son-in-law Kushner, told Tillerson’s assistant that his behavior was unacceptable.  Retirement is looking better and better, Tillerson could be the first Cabinet member to jump ship.    

Busy Day: While Trump’s tweet attack was reverberating, a number of other significant events took place.  Trump’s bromance with China’s President Xi took a hit after the administration announced sanctions against a Chinese bank and several Chinese businessmen to punish them for illegal financial activities with North Korea.  The House passed two pieces of legislation targeting illegal immigrants and sanctuary cities and the travel ban went into effect with an incomplete and already amended list of what relationships qualify as “close family” ties.  Hawaii is already challenging the definition of “close family” ties in court.    

Low Energy Week:  Infrastructure, technology and workforce weeks are over so with Energy Secretary Rick Perry by his side Trump launched energy week.  He stuck to his usual themes:  trashed the Obama administration’s energy policies, called for more clean and beautiful coal and mining jobs, slammed CNN, attacked the Paris Climate Accords, called for the cancellation of Obama era job killing regulations and the exploitation of oil and gas on previously protected federal lands. He also discussed plans for a gas pipeline to Mexico, one that would run under his planned beautiful wall. Though no significant policies were introduced, Trump did take full credit for all the country’s energy resources which he just learned are abundant.  Who knew?        

Medicare, Medicaid, Whatever

Zombie Trumpcare:  Senate Majority Leader McConnell hasn’t given up yet. He plans to send a revised Trumpcare plan to the budget scorers by Friday in the hope that he can get a slightly better score, bringing it back for another attempt at a vote after the July fourth break. McConnell is slicing and dicing his $188 billion slush fund, figuring out how to get the most bang out of his buck.  A slower reduction in Medicaid spending, more money for opioid addiction, and a little more deregulation, he is knocking himself out searching for a solution that will induce the requisite number of Senators to join his healthcare cabal.  He spent part of yesterday sequestered with two of the moderate dissenters, West Virginia Moore Capito and Nevada Heller, no doubt promising them the moon, stars, some more Medicaid and a few more detox sessions, just enough to avoid alienating any conservatives.  So far all forty-eight Democrats are being kept in the dark.  Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for an all hands bi-partisan health care summit.  McConnell is holding the possibility of cooperation with the Democrats as a threat over the heads of the Republicans telling them if he has to resort to working with Chuck, then repeal will go out the window and all they’ll get is a fixed Obamacare and Trump just said “that guy Schumer isn’t serious.”  Nevertheless, a number of Republican Senators including Collins, Murkowski, McCain and Graham have gone on record saying that they want to bring the Democrats to the table.  At least for now, that’s not happening.

Medicare, Medicaid, Whatever:  Trump still doesn’t know what’s in Trumpcare, in fact, it’s not clear that he knows the difference between Medicare and Medicaid: old people, poor people, whatever.  A number of Senators walked out of his White House meeting on Monday convinced that he hasn’t focused on any details and is just now learning that the only way to free up a trillion dollars in taxes for a tax cut is to take health care away from a significant portion of his base.  Nevertheless, Trump is committed, yesterday he promised “healthcare that will be a fantastic tribute to our country. It will be a great health care, less expensive, but great.” Asked about the Medicaid cuts, he illogically said Trumpcare “will be great for everybody.” He also teased that everyone will be really surprised, very soon.  That last part is a bit unnerving because Republican leadership has spent some time meeting with the budget department’s scoring team trying to come up with a way to game the scoring methodology.  The optics of few million less people getting kicked off the insurance rolls may be all it takes to get a few more reluctant Senators on board the Trumpcare train. Whatever happens, Fox News commentator Lisa Kennedy Montgomery told her viewers not to worry if they lose their health care coverage since “we’re all going to die” anyway.

The Russians Are Still Coming:  Yesterday the Senate Intelligence Committee heard testimony from Nick Burns, a former Ambassador to NATO, and two European experts.  They confirmed that the Russians have been interfering in European elections even trying to engineer a coup in Montenegro to disrupt their 2016 election.  All the experts agreed that Putin was behind the interference and that his continuing efforts are growing more effective. Ambassador Burns said that it was Trump’s duty to be skeptical of the Russians and that it would be a dereliction of his responsibility to ignore the threat.  However, Trump still never discusses the Russian meddling subject with his staff or cabinet members.  During her meeting with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley said that though she believes that the Russians interfered in the 2016 elections, she hasn’t discussed it with Trump because “it’s not something that’s on her radar.”  Haley joins Jeff Sessions, Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and intelligence chiefs Coats and Rogers as Trump team members who have somehow or other never discussed Russian election meddling with Trump. Trump who still wavers between calling the Russian story a hoax and blaming it on Obama, has been exerting his influence on the House of Representatives to stall voting on Senate passed legislation imposing stricter sanctions on the Russians as punishment for the election meddling.  Trump’s hoax accusations notwithstanding, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees are keeping busy.  On Tuesday the House committee met with Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager John Podesta about the hacking of the DNC emails and next month they will meet with Trump’s sometime friend Roger Stone, the guy who bragged about communicating with Guccifer 2.0, the infamous Russian hacker persona, and who has admitted to cozying up to WikiLeaks.  The Senate committee expects to receive copies of former FBI Director Comey’s famous Trump meeting memos shortly.    

Internet Insecurity:  Earlier this week FBI Agents visited the homes of more than ten US employees of Kaspersky Lab, the Moscow based internet security and antivirus firm.  Kaspersky is a private company with offices around the world whose founder, Eugene Kaspersky, attended a KGB-run university.  Kaspersky insists that it has no ties to any country, but given current events, the FBI is concerned that it may have been compromised by the Russian government and the Department of Homeland Security has issued guidelines for US government entities to avoid using their services.  While the FBI was interviewing the Kaspersky techs a massive ransomware attack caused by the Petya virus disproportionately affected computers in Ukraine raising suspicions of additional Moscow directed cyber warfare.   

Another Stupid Trump Tweet: Yesterday morning, reacting to an article in the Washington Post about ersatz Trump Time Magazine covers  hanging in a number of his properties, Trump tweet swiped “The #AmazonWashingtonPost, sometimes referred to as the guardian of Amazon not paying internet taxes (which they should) is FAKE NEWS!”  Everything is wrong with this tweet.  First, shouldn’t Trump have better things to do like learning the difference between Medicare and Medicaid and brushing up on science and international affairs?  Second, the Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, but is not owned by Amazon.  Third, there is no such thing as an Internet tax, though Amazon does pay sales taxes. Fourth, like it or not a news item can slam Trump without being fake because the US press is still free, at least for now.   

The Travel Ban: Trump’s modified six country travel ban goes into effect this evening.  US citizens, green card holders, current visa holders, and foreign nationals with “bona fide” family, educational or business ties to the US will all be exempt from the ban but some travel disruption is still expected.  Refugees without the wherewithal to gin up any family connections will be excluded but nefarious players from countries with terrorist track records can come and go as they please.  Trump who gets to check this one off his “to do” list is happy.      

Trumpcare on Life Support 

Trumpcare on Life Support:  If he could have pulled it off, Senate Majority Leader McConnell would have kept his version of Trumpcare a secret up until the end, forced the Republicans to vote and moved on to tax reform.  Sadly for McConnell the Senate still has some rules that he couldn’t get around so he had to go public with his Trumpcare “draft.”   Bad reviews, constituent outrage and a lousy scoring report followed the big reveal. Yesterday for a variety of reasons ten or more Republican senators jumped ship forcing McConnell to put Trumpcare on life support.  He hasn’t given up but for now has postponed any votes until after the July fourth holiday. We’ve been here before, the House version turned zombie for a while before coming back to life so the Obamacare repeal saga is far from over.  After the vote was postponed Trump who still doesn’t understand the effect that Trumpcare will have on his base, invited all the Republican Senators to the White House for a face to face meeting peppered with threats, seating himself between two dissenters, Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski.  How ironic that the women who had been excluded from all the Trumpcare drafting sessions were positioned front and center. Though they didn’t look particularly cowed, Collins and Murkowski did appear to be keeping their eyes peeled on Trump’s little hands just in case they needed to fend off any Access Hollywood moves. Before shooing the press out of the meeting room, Trump dumped on the uninvited uncooperative Democrats and again attacked “failing” Obamacare. After the meeting he tweeted “With ZERO Democrats to help, and a failed, expensive and dangerous ObamaCare as the Dems legacy, the Republican Senators are working hard!” If McConnell and Trump really cared about healthcare they would stop the tweeting, call Senate Minority Leader Schumer and start negotiating fixes to Obamacare but that’s not in the cards.  Instead McConnell will spend the holiday break trying to buy votes with his $188 billion slush fund while Trump, Pence and the rest of the Senate leadership team continue trash talking the Obamacare exchanges.  The battle goes on. 

The Dissenters:  The dissenters are a mixed lot and not all of their “no” votes will go the distance under pressure.  The two most likely to stay in the “no” column are Kentucky Senator Paul who is a principled gadfly who wants a full Obamacare repeal and Maine Senator Collins who said that “no tinkering will satisfy my fundamental and deep concerns about the impact of the bill.”  Wisconsin Senator Johnson said he would vote “no” this week, but given more time and some changes he could come aboard.  Utah Senator Lee and Texas Senator Cruz are “no” votes, but are probably just looking for a few concessions and lots of press time.  Nevada Senator Heller was the first to articulate that he would vote “no” and given his upcoming election in a state that Hillary won he will most likely stay in the “no” column.  America First, the Trump related PAC that had started running negative ads against Heller is backing off after McConnell told the Trump team that their foolhardy effort to jeopardize a Republican seat was “stupid” and counterproductive so Heller may be in the clear.  Kansas Senator Jerry Moran was a surprise addition to the “no” wagon announcing his dissent after McConnell pulled the vote.  West Virginia Senator Moore Capito joined the “no” team ostensibly because of her concerns about the Medicaid cuts and bill’s failure to address the opioid crisis but mostly because she has been bombarded by constituent calls.  Ohio Senator Portman also said he was a “no” because of his state’s reliance on Medicaid and its need for more opioid funding.  Alaska Senator Murkowski said that she needed more time and Louisiana Cassidy, who had worked with Collins on their own version of a health care plan,  said the CBO score made him “more concerned.” Less Medicaid cuts and more opioid funding and most of the more moderate senators could move into the “yes” column.  A few free market concessions and the conservative “no” voters could also become “yeses.”  McConnell isn’t done yet.           

The CNN Screw-Up:  Last week CNN was forced to retract and apologize for a story linking Anthony Scaramucci, a hedge fund manager and close Trump ally, to a Russian investment fund supposedly being investigated by the Senate. The story was false and three prominent CNN journalists resigned over their screw-up.  Trump just appointed Scaramucci to serve as Chief Strategic Officer for the US Export Import Bank, an entity that Scaramucci previously called “excess baggage.”  Trump and the right wing press are now relentlessly attacking CNN as a purveyor of false news. CNN was wrong and it’s apology was warranted but the absurdity of the alternative fact pushers, led by a Liar-in-Chief who never apologizes or acknowledges his lies, attacking CNN can’t be missed.  Tuesday during the daily press conference Sarah Huckabee Sanders stuck to the anti-CNN theme, going off against all of the  press for their “constant barrage of fake news that is directed at the president” until one correspondent finally spoke up.  Brian Karem of the Sentinel newspapers countered “We’re here to ask you questions, you’re here to provide the answers.  What you just did is inflammatory to people all over the country.”  Sanders was stunned by the comments but without losing a beat went on to push a video made by James O’Keefe, a discredited right wing undercover journalist.  The war between the Trumpsters and the press is getting worse with no end in sight.           

Manafort Money: It took him a while but former campaign manager Paul Manafort has finally filed forms retroactively registering as an agent of a foreign government.  His firm received $17.1 million over two years lobbying for pro-Russian Ukrainian clients.  Manafort acknowledged that some of his lobbying work was aimed at influencing US policy makers and journalists, not to mention adding pro-Russian positions to the Republican platform.    

It's Crunch Time

Trumpcare Crunch Time:  Early yesterday, Majority Leader McConnell amended his version of Trumpcare to include a lock-out period intended to penalize people who have gaps in insurance coverage. The purpose of the change, which differs from the House version, was to increase the number of people covered.   Following the tweak, the Congressional Budget Office released the scoring report for Senate Trumpcare and, despite McConnell’s last minute fix, it isn’t pretty.  The report projects that 22 million people will lose their health insurance over the projection period with 15 million of those people losing their insurance by 2018, in time for the mid-term elections.  Premiums will go up substantially before eventually declining as people buy higher deductible policies that cover few health care services and conditions.  The American Medical Association came out against the bill, saying that it violates their “first do no harm” principle.  They were joined by a number of hospital associations and the Catholic Bishops.  Anthem, the insurance company, voiced support probably because providing stripped down policies will be very profitable. Senate Trumpcare results in $321 billion in savings, about $188 billion more than the House’s version, giving McConnell some wiggle room to offer additional funds to meet the concerns and fund the pet projects of individual on-the-fence Senators: money for opioid addiction treatment and a little more for Medicaid for Senators like Ohio’s Portman and West Virginia’s Moore Capito and funds for health savings accounts for Texas’ Cruz and Utah’s Lee.  The additional funding wouldn’t do much more than make those Senators look better to constituents but that may be enough.  The Senators would be able to brag about their keen negotiating skills as they climb on board the Trumpcare train. As part of the charm offensive, the “adorable” VP Pence will be taking a crowd of fence-sitting Senators out today and the ever sincere Trump is calling around.  So far McConnell is fighting an uphill battle, he may have already lost three votes, more than he can afford.  Last night for totally different reasons Kentucky Senator Paul and Maine Senator Collins both indicated that they are so against the bill that they will vote against bringing it to the floor today, and both say they will vote no if it makes it to a final vote. Assuming Nevada Senator Carson is still a no vote, McConnell is already one vote short of passage. That said, he still has that $188 billion to play with so it’s not over yet.     

SCOTUS Speaks:  Yesterday, before heading out of town for the summer, the Supreme Court handed down a number of decisions and accepted a number of cases for review during its next session.  In a somewhat surprising decision, the Court provided Trump with a partial victory on his travel ban.  The Justices plan to review the entire ban during their next session but for now they partially lifted the lower court stay, allowing the Trump administration to proceed with plans to impose a ninety day ban on travel from the six disputed Muslim countries.  However, the Court said that the ban can’t be applied to anyone with a connection to the US so students, people with jobs, and family members will be allowed to enter.  Since few, if any people, from these countries travel to the US as tourists, the ban will primarily effect refugees without family members in the US and, since refugees already go through a rigorous two year vetting process, they are already substantially delayed.  Nevertheless, Trump jumped up and down with joy and bragged about finally getting his way.  By the time the ban goes to the full Court for review, it may be moot, sparing the Justices from having to make a ruling.  In the meantime, only Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch indicated their full support.  The Court also refused to hear a case that questioned California’s right to limit open carry of weapons and told Arkansas that married same sex couples have the right to put both their names on their children’s birth certificates.  The court did chip away at church state separation by ruling in favor of a church that was seeking funding from a local program set up to pay for school playground improvements and indicated for the first time that it would accept the case of the wedding cake baker who refused on religious grounds to make a cake for a gay couple’s wedding.  Gorsuch has been exceeding everyone’s expectations, in all cases he has been on the side of the conservatives, to the right of Justice Thomas.  So far, to the relief of many, Justice Kennedy has not retired.

Kushner’s Criminal Lawyer:  Son-in-Law Jared has added a big time criminal defense lawyer to his team.  His new lawyer, Abbe Lowell, represented disgraced former presidential candidate John Edwards and jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff and is currently representing New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez against corruption charges.  Kushner may need a skilled criminal lawyer because his disclosure form omissions keep adding up.  In addition to “forgetting” to mention his meeting with VEB bank, the sanctioned Russian bank that’s more a front for the Kremlin than a real bank, he also “forgot” to mention a $285 million loan that his real estate firm received from Deutsche Bank one month before the election.  Deutsche Bank, also one of the few banks that was willing to lend the Trump organization money, settled Russian money laundering charges in January.  While Kushner is lawyering up, Trump continued tweet shading Obama for his failure to act decisively against Putin once Russian meddling was discovered last summer.  He called Obama a colluding, obstructionist making full use of the words he only recently learned.  The verbal attack on Obama is the closest Trump has come to acknowledging that Russia interfered in the election.  As to Putin, Trump wants to have a one-on-one sit down with him at the upcoming G-20 summit.  His advisors are discouraging the meeting because they are afraid of what Trump might say or give away to his sometime bff, the wily Putin.  

Syria:  Last night, the administration issued a stern warning to Syria, threatening harsh retaliation if another chemical weapon attack takes place.  To the extent that Trump is to be believed, the warning is in response to intelligence that Syria has plans to proceed another attack.  If Syria goes forward despite the warning, expect a major escalation in the area and a possible proxy fight with Russia. Trump goes to war?    

Beer Pong and Trumpcare

Trumpcare and Kegs: As peculiar as it sounds, House Majority Leader Paul Ryan’s dreams of slashing Medicaid go back to his days at Washington DC college keg parties so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the House version of Trumpcare slashed the Obamacare Medicaid extension.  There is no indication that Senate Majority Leader McConnell ever mastered beer pong but he is a legislative whiz and his version of Trumpcare goes even further.  He didn’t stop at the Medicaid extension, he went after the whole Medicaid safety net, his plan will turn the program into a block grant and subject it to further reductions over time, despite Kellyanne Conway’s weekend alternative truth that Trumpcare has no Medicaid cuts.  Later today the Office of Management and Budget is expected to release its Scoring Report, the report won’t be good, the Republicans will attack its accuracy and  McConnell will press forward, trying to put Trumpcare to a vote by the end of the week.  He will do this without the support of the conservative Koch brothers.  They hate Obamacare but are confounded by the Trumpcare legislation, they just want the whole program dismantled.   

Dissenters to Watch:  Trump spent the weekend golfing, attending Treasury Secretary Mnuchin’s third wedding and alternatively threatening and cajoling his good friends in the Senate to vote for Trumpcare.  Mean or not, he wants Trumpcare passed because he needs a success.  Vice President Pence also called around his support for Trumpcare  in between officiating at the Mnuchin wedding.  Despite the pressure, a few Republican governors from states that benefit from the Medicaid expansion, including Ohio Governor Kasich and Nevada Governor Sandoval, are on record opposing the Trumpcare plan.  Nevada Senator Heller has already put his head on the chopping block by voicing opposition and though Kasich says that he won’t tell Ohio Senator Portman how to vote, Portman knows what the very outspoken Kasich wants him to do. West Virginia Senator Moore Capito’s state has also benefited from the Medicaid expansion and, like Ohio has a huge opioid addiction problem, so she is another one to watch. Senators Murkowski and Collins are both on record saying that defunding of Planned Parenthood is a problem  but if the Senate Parliamentarian rules that Planned Parenthood cannot be defunded and the provision is dropped they could move into the yes column.  Pennsylvania Senator Sasse and Louisiana Senator Cassidy are also in the maybe column now because of their states’ dependence on Medicaid and opioid problems.  McConnell likely spent the weekend wrangling the two wings of his party with incentives he purposely left out of his “working draft.” To placate the right, even Senator Johnson whose NY Times op-ed critiques the Trumpcare plan for keeping too many taxes and being too much like Obamacare, he could cutback the remaining Obamacare subsidies.  To placate his moderates he could throw a little more money at opioid addiction programs and make promises to advance legislation for individual Senator’s pet projects. There are already provisions in the plan that specifically benefit Alaska to help Murkowski.  None of the changes will do much to advance constituent services or satisfy philosophical problems but it will give each of the dissenters enough ammunition to claim a victory and Trumpcare will advance.  Senate Minority leader Schumer says despite the challenge, McConnell has a 50% chance of success.  Democrats will propose amendments and try to slow the process but there is not much that they can do so the outcome of Trumpcare is in the hand of the Republicans.    

  

Supreme Court:  Today is the last day of the Supreme Court’s session.  SCOTUS is expected to respond to the administration’s request to halt the stay on the infamous travel ban.  The court could halt the stay on the travel ban, leave the stay in place pending review in the fall or deny the administration’s appeal.  Leaving the stay in place and keeping the ban on ice for now is the most likely outcome.  While most focus has been on the travel ban, rumors have been swirling that 81-year old Judge Anthony Kennedy may announce his retirement plans. A number of conservative pundits have been suggesting that an additional retirement was imminent and the rumor was further fueled when Kennedy moved a reunion of former clerks, planned for next year, to this weekend.  Kennedy is often the court’s swing vote on major issues.  His retirement would allow Trump to put another uber-conservative on the court leaving an imprint that will far outlast Trump’s presidency.  This in a nutshell is the reason that the righteous conservatives put up with Trump’s crap.   

The Russian Front:  Trump starts every day with an early morning call with his legal advisers.  They update him on all things related to the Russian investigation.  He vents, while they hope to diffuse him enough to prevent him from saying or tweeting stupid things during the day.  Trump’s current position is that the Russian incursion into the election process is one hundred percent Obama’s fault and possibly some, though far less than all probably is.  Ever since he was “tricked” into admitting to NBC’s Lester Hold that he fired former FBI Director Comey for refusing to drop the Russia investigation Trump has limited his interviews to Fox News correspondents as long as they aren’t named Chris Wallace.  This weekend in response to a Fox newsnik question about an article in the failing NY Times, he again said that he didn’t know anything about the Russian cyber-attack until he heard about it from the Washington Post because he didn’t realize he was supposed to pay attention during those super boring security briefings.

Roadkill and Spies 

Trumpcare’s First Victim:  The Trumpcare battle is on.  Despite his pledge to never touch any of the social safety net programs and his promise to provide a really, really good health plan with lots of heart, Trump has thrown his full support behind the Obamacare repeal/replace bill.  He doesn’t know what’s in it, but then again he’s not into details and as long as it eases the path to further tax cuts for the very wealthy he really doesn’t care. Trump is open to negotiation and is sure that he will be able to get his “good friends” Senators Cruz, Lee, Johnson and Paul, the conservative hold outs, back on board and, with the possible exception of Senator Paul, he is probably right. While Trump was tweeting,  Nevada Senator Dean Heller, with his state’s Governor by his side, became the first of the more centrist Senators to announce that he cannot vote for Trumpcare in its current form because of the impact Medicaid cuts would have on “hundreds of thousands of Nevadans.”  Immediately following his announcement a Republican super PAC run by Katie Walsh, Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, announced that it will fund a “seven figure” negative ad campaign targeting Heller.  However he votes, Heller is roadkill, he is likely to be Trumpcare’s first victim.  Senators Portman and Collins have also publicly indicated that they have serious reservations about the bill. Together with Senator Murkowski, who has expressed her “grave concerns,” they are the most likely naysayers and, given their more secure seats, will not be deterred by the threat of super PAC slams. However, Trumpcare is not dead yet, it’s too early to count Majority Leader McConnell out. If anyone can save this dog from joining hapless Heller on the road, it’s him. Tune in next week.

The Spy Game: On Friday, in a stunning front page story that reads like a John Le Carre spy thriller, the Washington Post detailed Putin’s efforts to influence the 2016 election, revealing what and when the Obama administration knew about the cyberattack.  In August the CIA provided Obama with an eyes only report based on intelligence provided by an asset deep within the Kremlin. The report revealed that Putin was directing an effort to damage Hillary and help Trump. No drama Obama took the report seriously but acted methodically and delayed going public with the information because by the time he was confident that the intelligence was accurate Trump was out espousing his theory that the elections were rigged. Obama was concerned that if he spoke out he would be accused of election interference and, since he assumed Hillary would win, he didn’t think he should risk jeopardizing confidence in the election process. Obama’s team did reach out to state officials in an effort to protect voting systems. Ultimately the Congressional “Gang of Eight” were told about the Russians’ activities, but Republican leadership, particularly Senate Majority Leader McConnell was skeptical and dismissed the allegations as a drummed up fantasy.  Still concerned about being accused of getting in the middle of the election process, Obama and the FBI remained quiet but the other US intelligence agencies finally went public about the Russian meddling in early October.  Minutes after they released their statement, in a series of coincidences that look odder and odder, the Access Hollywood tape was released and, later the same day, WikiLeaks released the Podesta emails.  Attention moved to Trump’s crass behavior and Podesta’s internal communications; few Americans focused on the alarming Russian interference.  After the election, Obama imposed sanctions on the Russians, took over two Russian compounds and expelled thirty-five Russian diplomats.  He also initiated the installation of stealth cyber “weapons” into Russia’s technology infrastructure but handed plans for additional actions to the incoming Trump administration.  While Obama was taking these last steps, Trump’s national security adviser Mike Flynn was already talking with Russian Ambassador Kislyak about sanctions relief which may explain why Putin confounded Obama by not responding to the expulsion of the Russian diplomats by expelling any US diplomats from Russia. Last night in an interview with Fox News, Trump, who is on record trying to return the two compounds to the Russians, disingenuously claimed that he just learned about this timeline of events for the first time.  He then went on to tweet smack Obama for not doing a better job.  Trump has done nothing about the Russian meddling since taking office despite indications that the Russians will interfere again.  However, the US cyber weapon strategy initiated under Obama is proceeding, assuming the newly “aware” Trump hasn’t done something to unravel it.        

Those Comey Tapes:  Trump is still talking about his phantom tapes.  In a Fox and Friends interview a loquacious Trump went off on a tirade, bragging about his smart tape strategy.  He said that he brought up the possibility of having tapes just to influence Comey’s testimony, forcing him tell the truth.  In other words he was trying to intimidate a witness, engaging in another possible obstruction of justice.  He is also back to attacking Special Counsel Mueller saying that though Mueller is a very honorable man he is also a “very, very good friend of Comey’s.”  He further knocked Mueller for staffing his investigative team with lawyers who contributed to Democrats including Hillary. Trump, who is still trying to figure out how he can get away with firing Mueller, has conveniently forgotten that before running for president he donated more money to Democrats and Hillary than Mueller’s entire team combined. Last month the House Intelligence Committee had demanded that Trump provide his phantom tapes or a formal statement that there were no tapes by Friday and refused to consider Trump’s Thursday tweet admission that he had no tapes as an adequate response. Late Friday White House lawyers pasted Trump’s tweet onto White House stationary and provided it to the House Committee as the official statement that there are no tapes.    

Jared’s Security Clearance:  Yesterday, In a rare bipartisan effort, Senators Grassley and Feinstein, the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senators Graham and Whitehouse, the leaders of the Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism sent a letter to the White House formally requesting additional information about Jared Kushner’s security clearance. The lawyer that advised Kushner when he completed his security forms is Jamie Gorelick, like many on Mueller’s team she is a card carrying Democrat as well as a former Clinton appointee.

Prodding Pelosi: House Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also had an interesting week.  Seeking to assign blame for Ossoff’s special election loss, a number of Democrats publicly questioned whether she should continue in her leadership role.  Representative Tim Ryan, who ran against her for the leadership spot, called her more toxic than Trump.  Trump tweeted in, encouraging the Democrats to keep her because, if she is toxic, he wants her around.  Pelosi shook off the criticism, saying that attacks go with the job, just ask House Majority Leader Ryan.  She then added that she is a master negotiator and is worth the trouble. She isn’t going anywhere, at least for now.     

Congratulations, It's a Tax Cut

It’s a tax cut:  Senate Trumpcare finally emerged yesterday and it’s hard to believe that thirteen men spent weeks in a secret Senate chamber birthing this baby because it walks, talks and looks a lot like the House’s tax cut.  Either those guys haven’t yet mastered cut and paste skills or they were doing something else in that room. Like the House plan, the Senate plan funds tax cuts for about two million people by taking insurance away from twenty million or so.  Immediately upon its release, Senate Trumpcare was already being referred to as a just a discussion draft and by the end of the day, the four most conservative and obstreperous Senators: Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Ron Johnson and Mike Lee, announced that Senate Trumpcare wasn’t mean enough for them. The more moderate Senators didn’t look happy either.  Majority Leader McConnell is back where he started, trying to come up with the changes needed to get him to fifty votes.  Since Cruz was one of the thirteen men who worked on the Senate draft, his wish list can’t be a surprise to McConnell.  Paul who had been excluded from the secret drafting sessions spent the afternoon going through his list of “must haves” with every reporter he could find.  It’s quite possible that if the conservative guys get just some of what Cruz and Paul want they will sign on.  It’s too early to say if any of the more moderate Senators can be persuaded to join in, particularly if Trumpcare is moved to the right to give Cruz and Paul their must haves.  Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins are still “thinking about it” but may be too put off by the defunding of Planned Parenthood to ever sign on.  Nevada Senator Heller and Arizona Senator Flake are up for reelection in 2018 and are likely trying to figure out which is worse, pissing off McConnell and Trump or risking their seats. Heller who is the more vulnerable of the two has already expressed his reservations. Ohio Senator Portman and West Virginia Senator Capito need Trumpcare to include more money for opiate addiction treatment.  Trump, who probably hasn’t read the bill, said that Trumpcare needs a little negotiation but “that it’s going to be very good” before adding that “Obamacare is dead.”  McConnell expects to receive his needed scoring report next week and still plans to force Trumpcare through by July 4th. The arm twisting has just begun.    

Trumpcare and Women’s Health:  Paul Ryan, thirteen senators in a room and Mitch McConnell.  Sounds like the punchline to a joke, except that this joke is not funny.  As currently written, Trumpcare defunds Planned Parenthood and removes tax subsidies for anyone buying an insurance plan that covers abortion.  The Senate version gives states the ability to opt out of Obamacare’s essential services, allowing insurance companies to omit contraceptive coverage from plans sold in “opt out” states.  Planned Parenthood has around 650 clinics around the country serving 2.4 million people and in many places it is the only provider of women’s health care services. Since 60% of Planned Parenthood’s patients receive Medicaid reimbursements for non-abortion services, Trumpcare would seriously impair Planned Parenthood’s financial viability. The Senate Parliamentarian has still not ruled on whether or not these provisions can be included in a reconciliation bill but if she allows their inclusion, women will be left in the lurch.  And that’s no joke.  

Those Tapes:  Surprise, surprise, there are no tapes.  Outed by Newt Gingrich’s early morning comments that he claimed to have tapes just to rattle former FBI Director Comey, Trump finally admitted that he didn’t tape his Comey meetings.  Of course he did his big reveal via twitter, the same way he started the whole tape drama. He left open the possibility that someone had tapes by tweeting that “with all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaks of information, I have no idea…whether there are ‘tapes’ or recordings of my conversations… but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings.”  Though he will never admit it, Trump must regret that he ever made the tape claim.  His threat to release the phantom tapes led to Comey releasing his “contemporaneous” notes and that led to the appointment of Special Counsel Mueller, the man who is now investigating all things Russia and following the Trump money trail.  Trump’s tape deception also highlights his problem with the truth, giving more credence to Comey’s testimony. 

The Trumpcare Drum Roll

Drum Roll Please:  Trump celebrated the House passage of Trumpcare with a frat party on the White House lawn.  A few days later he called it a “cold hearted son-of-a-bitch” but promised that the Senate would make it better.  Well, though the final version of Trumpcare is still a secret, enough has leaked out to conclude that, drum roll please, it’s even worse.  Since Trumpcare is really just a tax cut in a frilly hospital gown, the plan still results in a $800 billion cut to Medicaid, transferring the savings to the top 1 or 2% of taxpayers in the form of a tax cut.  Senate Trumpcare cuts the Obamacare Medicaid extension more slowly than the House version but makes up the difference by imposing steeper cuts. Additionally, like the House plan, the Senate plan dramatically changes Medicaid from a federal-state partnership into a block grant program, imposing harsher limitations on per person expenditures so that over time states will be left having to choose between coming up with funds for their growing share or cutting services. Among other things, Medicaid currently pays for 49% of births, 64% of nursing home residents, 30% of adults with disabilities and 60% of children with disabilities so these cuts are bigly bad.  Remember when Trump promised great health care for all and that he wouldn’t touch the safety net.  Forget about it. Like the House version, Senate Trumpcare also defunds Planned Parenthood.  More details should become available later today after Senate Majority Leader McConnell releases the plan to the Republican members of the Senate in a closed session.  Democrats and the public will have to rely on leaks and information provided by Republican lobbyists, who received a copy earlier in the week.   

More Hearings:  Yesterday the House Intelligence Committee heard testimony from Jeh Johnson, Obama’s head of Homeland Security.  Johnson said that there is no question that the Russians, led by Putin, were responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee server and the probing of many state voter databases. Last summer as he became aware of the extent of the hacking he tried to get the DNC to let his cyber security specialists help with their systems but, in a decision they likely regret, they refused his assistance.  When asked why he didn’t alert the public to the Russian hacking, he reminded the Committee that he had, by issuing a statement in October together with then National Intelligence Director James Clapper.  However, because their statement was released the same day that the Trump Access Hollywood tapes went viral the public was too distracted to care. Homeland Security did alert all the states that they were at risk, telling them what IP addresses were being used by the Russian hackers and some of the impacted states did work with Homeland Security to secure their systems.  While Johnson was testifying in front of the House Committee, Dr. Sam Liles, acting director of the Cyber Division of Homeland Security, was in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee.  He said that the Russians attacked twenty-one states during the 2016 presidential election.  All the intelligence professionals agree that US vulnerabilities continue and that at some point the persistent Russian hackers could change the outcome of a US election.  There is a growing gap between the urgency of the problem and the disregard at the top of the government because Trump still refuses to acknowledge that any hacking took place and he hasn’t put anyone in charge of developing a strategy to protect the election infrastructure.  

Peacemaker For A Day :  Jared Kushner flew to Israel for the day for meetings with Palestinian President Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in an effort to kick start the peace process.  While he was gone, Representative Elijah Cummings, the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, together with all the other Democrats on the committee, sent a letter to Chief of Staff Reince Priebus questioning how Kushner, who failed to mention his Russia meetings on forms still has his security clearance.  To date, there has been no response from Priebus.

Trump in Iowa:  Trump was in campaign form yesterday in Iowa.  He bragged about putting coal miners to work, made fun of “bird killing” windmills and said that he would build his big beautiful wall using solar panels, bringing down the cost to Mexico. He took full credit for the “brilliance” of the solar panel idea which was actually proposed to him by a vendor weeks ago.  He called for the enactment of a law that would prohibit immigrants from being eligible for welfare until they’ve been in the US for five years, a law that has been in effect since 1996.  As to Trumpcare, he said that he “can’t guarantee anything,” but he “hopes we’re gonna surprise you with a really good plan,” one with “heart.” Finally, he brushed aside criticism that his cabinet is dominated by millionaires and billionaires by telling the crowd that he “loves all people, rich or poor, but in those particular positions I just don’t want a poor person.”  The crowd of “poor” people, who may soon lose their health coverage, ate it up. Sad.  

God Save the Queen: Queen Elizabeth addressed the opening of the new session of Parliament yesterday. As is customary she listed upcoming state visits by foreign leaders but omitted any mention of Trump’s trip which is supposed to take place later in the year. Insulting the Mayor of London following a terrorist attack may have consequences.  

Elections, Trumpcare, and Meddling

Very Special Elections:  Though he performed well, the Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff couldn’t overcome a strong Republican turnout and a torrential downpour in the more Democratic sections of the Georgia six district.  Ossoff lost to Republican Karen Handel, who received 51.9% of the vote to his 48.1%. Though Handel won a ticket to Washington, her 3.8% margin of victory pales in comparison to former Congressman Mike Price’s 23% margin of victory in the 2016 congressional elections.  The Republican candidate also won the South Carolina special election, his victory was never in doubt but his 3.2% margin of victory was much smaller than expected and substantially less than former Congressman Mulvaney‘s 20% margin of victory in the 2016 election.  Despite all the hoopla and the Democrat’s hope that Ossoff would manage a win, neither of these districts were previously expected to be at risk.  Expect Republicans, especially Trump who spent yesterday morning tweeting support for Handel and attacking Ossoff, to be outwardly enthusiastic about the victories, but inwardly Republican leadership won’t be happy and a lot of Republican congressman from more likely swing districts are very concerned.  If the trend continues, any Republican who hasn’t previously won his or her seat by 20% or more will be facing serious headwinds in the 2018 mid-term elections.  Democrats are down but not yet out.

The Trumpcare Puzzle:  Senate Majority Leader McConnell is nothing if not tenacious.  He is pushing his version of Trumpcare forward towards a vote next week even though he still doesn’t have the fifty votes needed for passage. Though he is still making changes in an effort to pick up more votes from his right and moderate wings, he has already submitted a draft to the scorers at the Congressional Budget Office though no one else has seen it. Democrats are fuming and even a number of Republicans are complaining.  Senator McCain suggested that only the Russians know what’s in the current draft, Senator Lee sent his constituents a video complaining about the opaque process and at Tuesday’s press conference Spicer couldn’t even say if Trump, who called the House version of Trumpcare mean, has seen a copy.  McConnell plans to reveal his Trumpcare to the Senate or at least to Senate Republicans on Thursday.  Complicating his efforts to get to 50 votes, Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate Parliamentarian still has to rule on portions of the bill.  Senate rules are somewhat arcane.  To avoid requiring an unattainable 60 vote supermajority, the Republicans plan to pass Trumpcare through the reconciliation process which is a budgetary tool that allows passage by a simple majority. The Parliamentarian will force McConnell to change certain Trumpcare provisions if she concludes that they effect policy more than cost and depending on her conclusions some Obamacare provisions may have to be put back into the Trumpcare legislation adding another wrinkle to McConnell’s efforts to get right wing support. The defunding of Planned Parenthood  and state waivers for essential services are among the provisions that MacDonough is evaluating.   

Russian Meddling:  Without stating that Trump had any involvement or that Russian hacking influenced the outcome of the election,  Connecticut Senator Blumenthal called the Russian interference an act of war and said that a bipartisan effort is essential to prevent future interference.  Nevertheless, Trump is back to refusing to even acknowledge that the Russians interfered in the election probably because he believes that any suggestion that there was Russian interference undermines the legitimacy of his electoral college victory and presidency.  At what may be one of his last press conferences, Spicer said that he doesn’t know whether Trump believes that there was any Russian meddling in the election because he’s never discussed it with him, another indication that Trump can’t bring himself to deal with the hacking attacks. Notwithstanding Trump’s refusal to discuss facts or face reality, Special Counsel Mueller is moving forward.  He met with the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday to “deconflict” their investigations.  Mueller has also held meetings with the heads of the intelligence agencies, following up on their less than forthcoming testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee.  Last night the NY Times reported that CIA Director Mike Pompeo allowed former security adviser Mike Flynn to sit in on security briefings even though the CIA knew and Trump had been told by then Deputy Attorney General Yates that Flynn was a serious security risk; another thing for Mueller to look into.  As to Flynn, Rhode Island Senator Whitehouse told MSNBC that the former security adviser is probably already cooperating with the FBI and Mueller since “they have him dead to rights.” Attorney General Sessions may agree with Whitehouse. Sessions, who was purposely vague and obstructive during his recent Senate testimony, has now retained his own counsel in anticipation that he will be called in to talk with Mueller soon.

   

North Korea: Everyone agrees that college student Otto Warmbier’s treatment at the hands of the North Koreans and his resulting death is horrific.  Yesterday, Trump called it a total disgrace and blamed the “prior” administration for its failure to get Warmbier released sooner because if he had been president when Warmbier was taken hostage, he would still be alive.  Somehow or other, Trump managed to avoid mentioning the three other Americans still held hostage by the North Koreans or that Obama did manage to free ten other hostages during his tenure.  Trump did tweet thank the Chinese for all their help, saying that he greatly appreciates “the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea,” even  “if it has not worked out.  At least China tried.” Obama tried too, by now Trump should know dealing with North Korea is complicated.

Georgia Six Day

Georgia Six: It’s election day in Georgia and the race between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel is expected to be a squeaker.  The Republicans have thrown everything they have at Ossoff, branding the mild mannered moderate as a left wing radical with San Francisco values, whatever those are.  They’ve exploited the Alexandria Virginia shooting so much so that they’ve been chastised by Representative Scalise from his hospital bed, though given his politics he’s probably secretly pleased with the invocation of his shooting as long as it results in a Republican win. Also, a right wing tweeter has been attacking Ossoff relentlessly for everything and anything.  Besides being a Democrat in a Republican district, Ossoff’s chief liability is that though he  grew up in the Georgia Six district he lives outside of it, closer to where his fiancée attends medical school, he plans to move once she graduates.  Ossoff can’t vote in the election so if he loses by one vote he will have only himself to blame.  Getting much less attention, a special election is also taking place today in South Carolina.  Democrat Archie Parnell, a former Goldman Sachs executive is running against Republican Ralph Norman for Budget Director Mick Mulvaney’s former seat.  This district is so overwhelmingly Republican that a Democratic victory would be a huge upset and is not expected but assuming he wins, Norman’s margin of victory will be closely scrutinized.     

No Care Trumpcare:  Senate Majority Leader McConnell is still putting the finishing touches on his Trumpcare plan and holding the terms of the bill close to his chest.  No one knows what’s in it but McConnell is still planning to bring it to a vote next week providing no more than ten hours for floor debate.  Democrats who are justifiably outraged are in the process of staging a Senate floor slow down.  They are attempting to clog the floor with personal and constituent health care testimonials in order to throw a wrench into the process and to impede any other Senate business.  Nevertheless McConnell persists and his devious plan just might work. Yesterday, the Democrats named a candidate to run against Republican Senator Dean Heller of Nevada in his upcoming election.  Heller is considered one of the most vulnerable Republicans seeking reelection and the Democrats want him to feel the consequences of voting for a health care plan that defunds his state, a participant in the Obamacare Medicaid expansion.  Others are watching Georgia Six carefully, viewing it as a referendum on Trump and Trumpcare.

Press Gaggle:  Spicer and his press team have been minimizing their on air time. Yesterday, Spicer held a gaggle instead of a full press conference; correspondents were allowed to tape the presentation but only for their notes, the audio was not available for public consumption.  During the gaggle, Spicer said that everyone in the government serves at the pleasure of the president, a veiled threat intended to remind Special Counsel Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein that, despite the consequences, they can be fired at any time.  Spicer again indicated that Trump may disclose whether the tapes that he claims to have of his conversations with former FBI Director Comey actually exist, “maybe” by the end of the week which conveniently coincides with the date that the House Intelligence Committee set as their deadline for receiving the illusory tapes.  It’s possible that Friday will also be the last day that we see or hear from Spicer who has been interviewing candidates to serve as his replacement.  He will either be nominated to serve as the Ambassador to Ireland or move up to Communications Director, assuming he doesn’t disappear altogether.  Spicer, like Mueller and Rosenstein, serves at the discretion of Trump.

He Found His Voice:  Kushner has a voice, it’s monotonic but he can talk.  He presented an overview of plans to update and rationalize the government’s somewhat antiquated technology platforms to a group of technology leaders yesterday because, with Infrastructure Week and Workforce Week completed, the White House has now moved on to Technology Week. Having successfully revamped the technology infrastructure, Kushner is off to Israel to work on his Middle East peace plan.  No indication if he has hired his new legal representation yet, but expectations are that whoever he picks, it will be someone with lots of trial experience which is a good thing because Special Counsel Mueller has just bolstered his team by adding Andrew Weissman, a take no prisoners lawyer who headed the Enron investigation.   

The Russia Investigation Goes On:  While much recent attention has been on Trump and the possibility that he obstructed justice when he fired Comey, the Russian meddling investigation continues on unimpeded.  The US Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has issued a subpoena to former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his wife for additional records and correspondence.   Notably, the US Attorney for the Eastern District is Dana Boente, third in line in the Justice Department hierarchy and the guy that Trump would have to go to if both Rosenstein and Brand ever refuse any command to fire Special Counsel Mueller.  Former security adviser Flynn’s problems continue to increase too.  Democratic Congressmen Cummings and Engel, ranking members of the House Oversight and Foreign Affairs Committees, are questioning Flynn’s failure to report details of a 2015 trip to Saudi Arabia and Israel, where he represented a client who wanted to build nuclear reactors in the region, on his disclosure forms. Falsifying disclosure documents is a felony and Flynn’s omissions are adding up.  

International Complications:  Sadly, former North Korea detainee Otto Warmbier died yesterday.  Warmbier’s death, while not unexpected, is likely to add to US tensions with North Korea. Trump says that we will “handle it” but beyond adding sanctions, which haven’t worked to date, there is little that he can do to punish North Korea for their gross mistreatment of Warmbier. Tensions are also increasing in the air space over Syria.  The Russians have taken down the “deconfliction line” intended to prevent inadvertent clashes between US and Russian planes in response to the recent shooting down of a Syrian bomber jet by the US.  Less dire, but diplomatically absurd, Trump still hasn’t said anything about the killing and injuring of Muslims outside of a Mosque in London.  Killing of Muslims by non-Muslims doesn’t fall into his preferred narrative.       

Tweet Contradiction

Tweet Contradiction:  Friday Trump announced that he is being investigated for firing former FBI Director Comey.  On Sunday Jay Sekulow, his legal spokesman and flack for the day, did the Sunday morning talk show tour to announce that despite his tweets, Trump is not under investigation.  Sekulow, who apparently doesn’t know that Trump has been a “unnamed” source for years, slammed the Washington Post for its article because of its use of five no name sources.  By the time he got to Fox News, he must have been a little slap happy because he bungled his prepared remarks while talking to Chris Wallace when he said “so now he’s being investigated for taking the action that the attorney general and deputy attorney general recommended him to take by the agency who recommended the termination.”  Bottom line, it’s way too early to know if Special Counsel Mueller has a convincing case, but it is highly likely that Trump’s tweet is correct, he is being investigated for criminal obstruction of justice.  Former Congressman Newt Gingrich, one of Trump’s other aggressive supporters, spent the last few days arguing that even if Trump fired Comey to get out from under the Russia investigation it wouldn’t matter because he’s the president and if he wants to fire his FBI Director to obstruct justice he can.   This from the man who relentlessly went after former President Clinton for obstruction of justice for lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinksy.  So much for consistency.      

Still Tweeting:  Any thought that John Dowd, Trump’s newest legal hire, could stop the president’s tweets went out the window on Sunday.  Trump tweet slammed the Russia investigation again calling it a witch hunt and blamed it for distracting attention from his policy agenda.  He cited a Rasmussen Report that put his approval rating at 50%, “higher” than similarly timed Obama ratings even though the Rasmussen ratings always trend higher than other polls which continue to show Trump’s ratings in the 35 to 40% range and that the equivalent Rasmussen Report had Obama at 56%.  He didn’t tweet about last night’s violent incident in London where a van barreled into a group of Muslim worshipers killing at least one and injuring ten because the assailant wasn’t a Muslim but the victims were.  They were attacked while leaving their Mosque where they were celebrating the holy month of Ramadan.     

Off to the Holyland:  Son-in-law and sometime chief diplomat Kushner is on his way to the Middle East this week to meet with Palestinians and Israelis to promote his quixotic effort to broker a peace deal and to divert attention from his role in the Russia probe.  In the meantime, according to the NY Times, he is shopping around for a lawyer with litigation experience to either replace or supplement his current lawyer Jamie Gorelick, who is a partner in the Wilmer Hale law firm that Mueller just left to assume his role as special counsel.  

Georgia on My Mind:  Tomorrow is June 20, election day in Georgia for Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price’s vacated congressional seat. Moderate Democrat candidate Jon Ossoff faces off against Republican Karen Handel.  To the extent they mean anything polls indicate that the race in the heavily Republican, relatively well educated district is close with Ossoff having a narrow two point advantage.   Any thoughts that last week’s Alexandria shooting would lead to more civility were disproved over the weekend when a right wing Republican PAC released an advertisement claiming that the “unhinged” left endorses violence and was responsible for the baseball field shooting.  The ad opens with sounds of shooting and a picture of Representative Scalise being wheeled away on a stretcher.  Ossoff condemned the ad and called for his opponent, Handel, to call for it to come down.  She called it “disturbing and disgusting” but didn’t call for it to be removed.  Nothing has changed.  All eyes are on Georgia.

Syria Heating Up:  Yesterday, for the first time the US shot down a Syrian war plane over Raqqa Syria. The US then notified the Russians over the so-called “deconfliction line.” In response, the Russians didn’t attack any US planes but two hours later they did drop bombs on US coalition supported rebels in the area.  This marks a significant escalation.  Unlike Obama, Trump who is not into details, has given his generals wide discretion to act without his approval so he might not have been in the loop for this one. In any case he didn’t mention Syria in any of his Sunday tweets.

Watergate Week

Tweet Admission:  Early Friday, to the dismay of his staff and legal advisers, Trump admitted that he was being “investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI.”  Except of course, the man his tweet referred to, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, really didn’t tell him to fire former FBI Directory Comey because, as he admitted on TV and to the Russians, he made that decision all by himself in an attempt to get rid of his Russia problem.  And, Rosenstein who has become one of Trump’s favorite whipping boys, isn’t the one investigating him, it’s his other whipping boy, Special Counsel Mueller. Trump is doing his best to bully Rosenstein, in the hope that a beleaguered Rosenstein will resign sparing Trump from the consequences of firing him.   In all likelihood Rosenstein will not quit though he may have to recuse himself at some point if Mueller calls him to testify on the events surrounding the Comey firing.  Should Rosenstein step aside or succumb to one of Trump’s voodoo pins, Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand will step into his shoes, assuming oversight for Mueller’s investigation.  Unlike Rosenstein who coasted through his confirmation hearing with 94 yes votes, Brand received only 52 votes with no Democratic support because of concerns that she had a “pro-corporate” agenda.  Additionally, she has no prosecutorial experience and is not a criminal lawyer.  Hopefully, if she’s put on the spot and asked to fire Mueller her pro-corporate agenda won’t translate into a “kowtow” to Trump agenda.  Should Brand decide to resist Trump pressure, next in line for the hot “Bork” seat would be Dana Boente, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.  Boente is the guy who agreed to defend Trump’s travel ban after former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired for questioning its constitutionality. As to Trump’s Friday morning tweet admission, though Sean Spicer has previously said that Trump means what he tweets, an unnamed White House spokesperson said that he really didn’t mean that one.   

More Legal Eagles:  Trump has finally found another lawyer willing to represent him.  He retained John Dowd, who actually has some relevant Washington and white collar criminal defense experience.  The seventy-six year old Dowd successfully represented Senator McCain in the “Keating Five” scandal which involved accusations that McCain had improper meetings with federal bank regulators on behalf of a campaign contributor but was notably less successful representing Raj Rajaratnam who was convicted on multiple counts of insider trading.  Trump’s first hire, divorce and real estate lawyer Marc Kasowitz, is still on board but is a little busy, beating back a number of ethics complaints alleging that he violated conflict of interest rules when he inappropriately advised White House staff that they didn’t need to hire their own lawyers and that he is not authorized to practice law in Washington.   Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who has been subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee, is smart enough to know that he needs his own lawyer and has hired one to represent his interests.  Cohen is the guy who may or may not have delivered a secret Ukrainian peace plan to the Trump team during the campaign.  Trump’s former campaign communications adviser, Michael Caputo, has also hired a lawyer to guide him through the House Intelligence Committee investigation. The poor souls in the White House who didn’t graduate from the Goldman Sachs training program are lining up at legal aid.   

Your JetBlue Reservation is Cancelled:  Going forward if you want to check out the Art Deco buildings and old cars in Havana, you will have to cancel your Airbnb room and sign on to a museum or religious group tour because Trump has rescinded portions of the Obama executive action that eased travel and liberalized business investments in Cuba.  Trump who has no problem sword dancing with the Saudis, hanging out with Turkey President Erdogan, bonding with Philippine President Duterte, or cozying up to Putin has suddenly developed a conscience when it comes to human rights abuses in Cuba.  More likely he is just pandering to Florida’s Senator Rubio since he never knows when he’ll need “little Marco” to stand up for him at a Senate hearing. The majority of the Senate is opposed to Trump’s Cuba policy.  Senators Flake and Leahy, with the aid of fifty-five co-sponsors have been trying to get their bi-partisan Freedom for Americans to Travel to Cuba Act on to the Senate floor for a vote but can’t get it past Majority Leader McConnell.  At least for now Trump is leaving one of Obama’s executive actions alone. “Dreamers” covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA) will not be deported although the Department of Homeland Security cautions that the program is still under review.          

The Trumpcare Saga Goes On:  Senate Trumpcare’s terms remain a closely guarded secret but McConnell continues to push forward with his plan to force his Obamacare repeal/replace legislation through ASAP.  Senator Lisa Murkowski, whose support for Planned Parenthood has vacillated in the past, is now on record saying that she can’t vote for a health care plan that defunds Planned Parenthood and eliminates the Medicaid extension.  She joins Senator Susan Collins as one of the two Republicans least likely to vote for Trumpcare.  That leaves McConnell, who can only afford to lose two Republican votes, trying to come up with a plan that placates Ohio Senator Portman, West Virginia Senator Capito, and Nevada Senator Heller who all want to delay the phaseout of the Medicaid extension while at the same time convincing Texas Senator Cruz, Kentucky Senator Rand and Utah Senator Lee that the Obamacare taxes needed to pay for a delayed Medicaid phaseout will be eliminated. This may sound impossible but, sadly, McConnell is a master legislator so it’s too early to count him out.    

HUD’s New Wedding Planner:  HUD head Ben Carson doesn’t know much about housing but he appreciates a good wedding celebration so with Trump’s support he plans to appoint Lynne Patton, son Eric’s wedding planner to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development division that oversees New York and New Jersey, HUD’s largest regional office.  Patton also headed Eric’s charity which is now under investigation by the NY Attorney General for funneling money back to the Trump organization.  Patton has no housing experience and contrary to her Linkedin resume, she isn’t a lawyer.  As of now, possibly due to her falsified resume, HUD says that the NY and NJ position is still open. If things don’t work out at HUD, Patton could consider offering legal services to one or more of the less financially secure White House staffers. If her price is right, they may not care that she isn’t really a lawyer.

MSNBC commemorated this weekend’s forty-fifth anniversary of Watergate with a special on the making of All The Presidents Men narrated by Robert Redford.  Wonder if Trump, who is making  his first visit to Camp David, had time to tune in.

1-800-Lawyers

So Much for Graceful Trump:  Wednesday in response to the baseball shooting, Trump had a rare moment of grace.  Yesterday morning, while many members of Congress called for a return to civility, Trump returned to Trump normal.  During the day he issued a series of tweet smacks, again calling the Russia investigation a “witch hunt,” Special Counsel Mueller the leader of “some very bad and conflicted people,” and Hillary Clinton, who should never have been allowed to escape prosecution and should have been investigated for her Russian connections, “crooked H.”  Needless to say Trump needs to work on his coping skills.  Reports that he is now a subject of the Russia investigation are freaking him out and things will only get worse from here.  

Pence Has Lawyered Up: Recognizing that he could get entangled in Mueller’s web, Vice President Pence has now retained his own lawyer to help him navigate the Russia probe.  Pence headed the Trump transition team which makes his assertion that he didn’t know that former national security adviser Mike Flynn was damaged goods questionable.  He was also one of the people that Trump consulted before firing former FBI Director Comey, the event that triggered the hiring of Mueller and the possibility of obstruction charges.  Unlike Trump, Pence’s new attorney, Richard Cullen of McGuire Woods, has relevant Washington experience, he is a former US Attorney who represented politicians during the Iran-Contra and Watergate investigations.  As long as Flynn avoids divorce court and real estate investing, he will be getting better legal advice than Trump.  If they haven’t already, the rest of the White House staff should ignore Marc Kasowitz’s advice that they don’t need their own representation and start lawyering up. 

Follow the Money:  Yesterday afternoon the Washington Post reported that Mueller is investigating Jared Kushner’s finances and business dealings. Mueller’s team is digging into the purpose of Kushner’s questionable meeting with Sergey Gorkov, the Putin crony who is the head of a Russia state-owned and sanctioned bank.  Though this isn’t a surprise it is a bigly problem for the son-in-law, because once they start the FBI will go down any and all wormholes and it’s hard to believe that they won’t find a few.

Rosenstein Nighttime Missive:  Last night Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein released a peculiar statement warning that “Americans should be skeptical before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous officials”….”particularly when they do not identify the country.”   It’s not clear why Rosenstein released the highly unusual meandering statement, if he was referring to a specific recent story or if he knows something big is about to be released.  Bill Kristol, the conservative commentator tweeted that “there must be a heck of a Trump story coming.”  Even before the Rosenstein statement, a number of legal experts, including NBC’s Ari Melber, suggested that Rosenstein may have to recuse himself from the Russia investigation due to his involvement in the Comey firing.  That would leave a mid-level Judiciary Department attorney supervising Mueller and subject to Trump pressure.       

Trumpcare Percolates:  Shootings, baseball games, and Trump twitter rants haven’t stopped Majority Leader McConnell and his intrepid secret health care committee from pressing ahead with their version of no-care Trumpcare.  McConnell is still trying to get the newest version of Trumpcare over to the Office of Management and Budget scorers.  Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Price disingenuously said that he doesn’t know what’s in the newest version and doesn’t even know which senators are working on the legislation.  If true,  he’s not alone.  Most of the rest of the Senate, including all the Democratic Senators, have little idea what’s in the legislation though a few new features have leaked out. The revised plan may allow insurers to impose life time and annual reimbursement limits, provisions that were prohibited by Obamacare.  There is also a possibility that the Senate will maintain the Medicaid expansion program, the part of Obamacare that provides insurance for most of its beneficiaries, for a few more years than the House plan, to appeal to senators from states that are major beneficiaries of the expansion.  Recognizing that the Obamacare exchanges are suffering in face of legislative uncertainty, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander called on Trump to continue making Obamacare subsidy payments, at least for now.  Beyond labelling the House version of Trumpcare “too harsh,” there’s been no response from the Tweeter-in-Chief.       

The Shrinking State:   Earlier in the week Secretary of State Tillerson tried to convince the Appropriations Committee that the State Department would be fine with a 30% funding cut that particularly targets foreign aid.  They were not buying it.  Senator Graham said that “this budget request is radical and reckless when it comes to soft power.”  Senator Leahy said the budget symbolizes a US retreat from world leadership and China and Russia will rush to fill.”   Tillerson also reported that Palestinian leader Abbas has promised to eliminate reward payments to families of suicide bombers.  This is news to Abbas, who has no plans to stop the payments.

Daily Funny:  Remember when Trump said that America was the subject of ridicule by the international community.  Well he is now.  At the Australia Mid-Winter Ball, an event similar to the White House Correspondent’s dinner, Australia Prime Minister Turnball poked fun at Trump’s behavior, syntax and the Russian investigation.  Imitating Trump, he joked that elections are “so easy to win, I have this Russian guy, Believe me, it’s true.”    The local US embassy said that they understand that the event is a lighthearted evening and that “we take this with the good humor that was intended.”   It’s not clear that the notoriously thin skinned Trump is laughing.  

Baseball, Pie and Guns

Baseball and Guns:  Yesterday morning James Hodgkinson, a crazed homeless shooter who hated Trump and had volunteered for the Bernie Sanders campaign, assaulted members of the Republican Congressional baseball team using a legal semi-automatic rifle.  The Republicans were at an early morning practice for a charity game against the Democrats which is still scheduled to take place tonight.  Five people were wounded, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise who underwent two surgeries and remains in critical condition.  As a member of the Republican leadership Scalise travels with a Capitol Police protection team.  His team’s three officers proved their bravery in the face of extreme danger by engaging in a wild shoot out with the assailant before taking him down.  Two of the police officers were wounded and one is still in the hospital. Not the best birthday present for Trump who turned seventy-one yesterday.  So far he has acted with uncharacteristic grace, making only a somber statement calling for unity and following-up with a night time visit to Congressman Scalise and the hospitalized officer. His statement did not mention anything about the insanity of the widespread availability of automatic weapons. For the moment Congress is putting up a united front which might last through tonight’s game.  Donald Trump Jr., Newt Gingrich, and Right Wing Representative Steve King didn’t get the message that kindness is the order of the day, they have already blamed Kathy Griffin, New York elites and “the left” for the shooting.  They were silent last month when a knife wielding man stabbed and killed two men who were trying to defend two Muslim women on a Portland transit train.             

Mueller vs Trump: Trump’s birthday went from bad to worse. Late yesterday, the Washington Post revealed that Trump is now being investigated by Special Counsel Mueller for obstruction of justice.  Mueller is focusing on the events that led to the firing of former FBI Director Comey to determine if Trump fired Comey for refusing to halt his investigation of former national security adviser Mike Flynn.  Mueller intends to interview Director of National Security Coats, NSA Head Rogers and former NSA Deputy Director Ledgett.  It’s been reported that while questioning the intelligence community’s judgement that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election Trump tried to get Rogers and Coats to influence Comey to drop the Flynn investigation and that Rogers had Ledgett, who was then his deputy, write one of those contemporaneous notes memorializing his Trump conversation.  If Trump tried to influence Rogers and Coats, than the case is no longer a “he said, he said” case, but a “he said, three said” case, a much bigger problem for Trump.  This investigation may have been initiated by Rod Rosenstein shortly after Comey was fired, even before Mueller was appointed.  Trump could try to assert executive privilege to prevent Rogers and Coats from speaking with Mueller but the courts didn’t buy that strategy when Nixon tried it and probably won’t buy it for Trump. Trump’s counsel reacted last night by lashing out at the FBI, Trump’s current whipping boy, for its “outrageous, inexcusable and illegal” leaks as if leaks were Trump’s only problem but did not deny that Trump was being investigated. The Washington Post article cited five sources and it’s likely that the FBI wasn’t one of them and the NY Times and Wall Street Journal are running similar stories. Trump never should have told Russian Ambassador Kislyak and Foreign Minister Lavrov that he fired that nut job Comey and he probably also regrets telling NBC’s Lester Holt that this Russia thing is a made-up story.  Trump may find his first instinct to fire Mueller hard to resist.  Storm clouds are forming.

Trump Pie:  The Senate Judiciary Committee also wants a piece of the Trump obstruction pie.  The committee which is chaired by Iowa Senator Grassley and co-chaired by California Senator Diane Feinstein is launching a wide-ranging probe into the circumstances behind Comey’s firing.  In addition to focusing on the Russia investigation they will be looking into what went on with Comey during the Obama administration.  The Judiciary Committee has oversight responsibility for the Justice Department and Grassley and Feinstein were feeling left out when Attorney General Sessions snubbed them to testify in front of the Intelligence Committee.  

More Russian Sanctions:  In an uncharacteristically bipartisan 97 to 2 vote the Senate overwhelming passed a package of new Russia sanctions intended to limit Trump’s ability to ease or end penalties against Moscow.  If the Senate gets its way, Trump will not be returning those two luxury compounds back to Putin any time soon.  For now this move is just symbolic since the legislation faces an uncertain vote in the House of Representatives because despite Russia election interference and accusations of Trump team collusion, the White House is putting pressure on House leadership to reject or water down the proposed sanctions in an effort to retain the ability to improve relations with Trump’s sometime BFF Putin.   

Travel Bank Tinkering:  The 90 day ban on issuance of visas to citizens of the six majority-Muslim countries targeted by Trump’s travel ban ran out on Wednesday and the 120 day-halt on the admission of refugees was set to run out next month.  The expiration of these provisions would make the travel ban moot.  Instead of letting the ban die, Trump, who continues to claim that the ban is essential, quietly issued a memorandum that modified the time limits so that they don’t kick in until 72 hours after any injunctions are lifted to the extent they are ever lifted. The Supreme Court is expected to act next week on Trump’s request to lift injunctions while it hears arguments on the legality of the travel ban policy.

Qatar Plane Deal:  Last week Trump accused Qatar of being a “high level” sponsor of terrorism throwing his support behind Saudi Arabia, Egypt and three other Arab nations efforts to isolate Qatar and making Secretary of State Tillerson’s efforts to defuse the tense regional stand-off more difficult. That was last week. Yesterday, the US signed off on a $12 billion deal allowing Boeing to sell F-15 fighter jets to Qatar while two US Navy vessels arrived in Doha to take part in a joint military exercise with the Qatari navy.