Scary Mooch

Six Months In:  A revamped legal team and a new communications director were supposed to lead to changes at the White House but if this weekend is any indication, nothing has changed.  Trump started tweeting at 3:30 AM on Saturday with “While all agree the US president has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us.  FAKE NEWS.” He’s right, he can pardon his family and friends, though a number of legal experts including Harvard’s Laurence Tribe say he cannot self-pardon,  though this is untested mostly because no one has tried, so far.  He also dwelled on his frenemy Jeff Sessions, “A new INTELLIGENCE LEAK from the Amazon Washington Post, this time against A.G. Jeff Sessions.  These illegal leaks, like Comey’s must stop.” With this tweet he may have confirmed that Friday’s leak alleging that Sessions had discussed the elections and Trump policy with former Russian Ambassador Kislyak is true.  For his part, Sessions is accelerating his efforts to limit civil rights, eliminate sanctuary cities, return to mandatory Federal sentencing, and reinstate civil forfeiture decrees. If his days are numbered, he is going to leave in a blaze of glory.    

Scary Mooch:  Trump’s new Communications Director, Anthony Scaramucci aka the Mooch, tellingly began his new gig by solidifying his relationship with Breitbart News before hitting the Sunday morning talk shows.  Trump is awesome, he’s a great athlete and a brilliant intellect with terrific Karma.  The problem isn’t Trump and his stalled agenda, it’s the mainstream press, their failure to report on Trump’s accomplishments not to mention all of those criminal leakers, including the ones lurking on the White House communications staff who he plans to fire as soon as today.  As to the Mooch, he’s very, very rich and he wants you to know that.  Rich or not he hasn’t figured out his new responsibilities.  Trump surrogates were all over the talk shows on Sunday but the Mooch must have been too busy counting his money to sync their messages.  In between expressing his undying admiration for Trump and providing make-up advice to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, he contradicted Sanders and Trump’s legal adviser. A more stylishly made-up Sanders said that Trump would sign the Russian sanctions legislation that is likely to hit his desk next week.  The Mooch, out of the loop, said that Trump was still considering his options.  Asked whether Trump was seriously considering pardons, the Mooch said that Trump and he had discussed pardon possibilities in one of their Oval Office lovefests.  Trump’s legal advisor, Jay Sekulow acknowledged presidential pardon power but pushed back on the threat saying they weren’t on the table because “there is nothing to be pardoned from.”

The Sanctions Legislation:  Legislation imposing stricter sanctions on Russia, as well as additional sanctions on Iran and North Korea, finally has House support.  White House efforts to water down the sanctions provisions, vesting more power with the president, have largely failed.  Except for some tweaking benefitting Secretary of State Tillerson’s old oil industry buddies, the sanctions bill hasn’t changed much from the version overwhelmingly approved by the Senate.  It still limits Trump’s abilities to make his BFF Putin happy.  Trump is in a bind, the combination of widespread Congressional support and acknowledgement that the Russians interfered in the election process, a concern that neither he nor the Mooch believe is valid, make it difficult for him to successfully veto the bill, so as Sanders said, he is expected to sign the legislation when it hits his desk.  Those Russian compounds will not be returned to Putin in the immediate future.  Putin will probably kick a few US spies out of Russia soon, the retaliation that was expected last fall but was held up because Putin thought that his friend Trump would return the compounds immediately following the inauguration in exchange for electoral support.  As to Tillerson, despite his success here, CNN reports that he’s probably not planning to stick around very much longer.  They say he’d been quietly telling friends that he would be home by Christmas but now may be contemplating an earlier exit.  Serving as Secretary of State in an administration that doesn’t value a Secretary of State isn’t all that rewarding.  

Health Care or Bust:  The health care bill is still on target for a Tuesday vote but as Senator Susan Collins says lawmakers “don’t know whether we’re going to be voting on the, House bill, the first version of the Senate bill, the second version of the Senate bill, a new version of the Senate bill or a 2015 bill that would have repealed the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) now and that somehow we’ll figure out a replacement over the next two years.”  Regardless of what is put on the table, she will be voting no.  A large number of Senators will vote no for a repeal, replace later strategy and a smaller number would probably vote no for a version of Trumpcare.  Before any health care legislation can even get to the floor for a “vote-a-rama” amendment process, the Senate will first have to vote to proceed and as of now it’s not clear that there are fifty yes votes plus the ever reliable Pence to even get a bill to the floor.  If a bill makes it to the floor the pressure will mount to pass something and some of the wavering “no” voting Senators could get swept into the magic fifty plus Pence needed for passage so a best case scenario would be for the bill to die before it gets that far.  Only Senator McCain and possibly Majority Leader McConnell know if he is well enough to board a Trump jet to Washington to cast a less than heroic vote for a no-care health care bill and without him, McConnell’s task is even harder.  

Dream a Little Dream:  Last week Republican Senator Graham and Democratic Senator Durbin introduced Dream Act legislation that would put people who arrived in the US before they were eighteen on a path to citizenship.  Trump has been all over the place on this one.  During the campaign, he called for “DACA” kids to be deported then he temporarily stuck with Obama’s DACA decree, issuing more work permits for the “illegal” DACA kids.  Led by Texas a number of state attorneys general are suing to force Trump to end the DACA program, and more are calling for keeping the program in place.  With time running out a permanent fix would be the best outcome for ensuring that the DACA kids would get to stay and move on with their lives.  Trump has said that he wants to deal with these Dreamers with a “heart” but getting this legislation through Congress and then getting it to Trump to test whether he really does have that heart remains a long shot.    

Kushner Today:  Jared Kushner will be meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee staff and leaders today behind closed doors.  He will not be under oath.  In anticipation, he just released a lengthy statement about his interactions. And by the way a few speed readers say that it says that his Russia meetings weren’t significant, or so he says.  Manafort and Don Jr will be in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee later in the week, again not under oath and in private.  In preparation, Donny has hired another lawyer, Karina Lynch, to supplement Alan Futerfas, the lawyer he hired two weeks ago.