Amnesty Don?

Mueller v Trump: Trump is off to Switzerland for a few days to hobnob with the globalist establishment at the Davos World Economic Forum.  Before leaving he held a popup off camera press briefing where he surprised the assembled reporters and his own legal team by saying that he is “looking forward” to speaking with Special Counsel Mueller.  He added “I would love to do it, and I would like to do it as soon as possible.”  He then went on to sort of admit to obstruction of justice by saying that since, as everybody knows, there’s been no collusion he’s been “fighting back” against the investigation because that’s what you do, you fight back and if that’s obstruction so be it. He threw in a dig at Hillary Clinton, saying that he, unlike her, would testify under oath, an ill-informed comment that could come back to haunt him. FBI interviews are typically not conducted under oath though grand jury testimony is.  It’s unlikely that Trump would be expected to take an oath, unless of course he refuses to appear for his interview, leaving Mueller with no other option than subpoenaing him to testify in front of a grand jury.  In any case, as Michael Flynn now knows, lying to the FBI during an interview, oath or not, has bigly consequences. Trump’s lawyers who have been trying to negotiate the terms of any Mueller interview, were taken aback by Trump’s off the cuff remarks.  Ty Cobb played clean up saying Trump was speaking hurriedly and intended only to say that he was willing to meet, “he’ll be guided by the advice of his personal counsel.”  In any case Trump’s promises aren’t worth much, he’s still got plenty of time to change his mind a few times.  In the meantime, Trump’s lawyers might want to fit him with a doggy shock collar, a strong zap may be the only “guidance” that will get him to heed their commands, especially once Mueller starts pushing his buttons.  

Dreamers and the Wall:  As he was running off for his flight, Trump also made a few promises to the Dreamers.  He said that he’s open to a pathway to citizenship for the DACA participants, “we’re going to morph into it, its going to happen over a period of 10 to 12 years…. I think it’s a nice thing to have the incentive after a period of years of being able to become a citizen.”  That promise is contingent on $25 billion of wall funding and an additional $5 billion for other wall embellishments, as well as the end of the visa lottery system and a “negotiated” change to chain migration, hopefully a starting point and not a take it or leave it proposition.  Chief of Staff Kelly, who had planned to go to Davos with the Trump traveling squad, is instead staying home to work Dreamer and immigration issues, a good thing if you believe that Kelly will really negotiate, a bad thing if he turns out to be intractable. The Trump team intends to release their DACA and wall plan on Monday.  Lindsey Graham is thrilled with the progress, Schumer and the Democrats are less enthusiastic, still concerned that their “must haves” won’t be on the table and that Trump will waffle particularly after he sees that Breitbart, the self-appointed representative of the far right was so appalled with his suggestion that those nasty Dreamer illegals could become citizens that they have now nicknamed him “Amnesty Don.”        

The Benghazi Strategy: Though outwardly indicating that he is confident that all’s fine on his Russian front, Trump must be really concerned about what Mueller has on him, his family and his team.  His chief congressional toady, erstwhile head of the House Intelligence Committee Devon Nunes, together with his henchman Trey Gowdy, of Benghazi fame, continue to push for the release of their memo, the one that discredits the Mueller investigation by documenting trumped up FBI and DOJ abuses of the FISA warrant process in an attempt to prove that the whole investigation is based on lies and illegally obtained innuendo.  Their mission is being aided by Fox News, especially Sean Hannity, and a team of Russian bots who’ve made the #releasethememo amplifier go viral. Despite Trump’s support, his Department of Justice is less happy.  Yesterday evening Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd, a Republican appointee, issued a DOJ statement warning  that it "would be extraordinarily reckless" for the House intelligence Committee to release the classified memo publicly "without giving the Department and the FBI the opportunity to review the memorandum," and to "advise" on possible harm to national security and ongoing investigations from its public release.  To the extent that the Nunes-Gowdy memo is released, the Adam Schiff led Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee are prepared to respond with a memo of their own, one that would debunk each of the points included in the Republican screed.  Trump is also calling for an investigation into the missing FBI lovebird text messages so that he can learn more about the fantasy secret society, the one that doesn’t exist but that his supporters claim is led by Mueller, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein,  former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, Former FBI Director Comey and Trump’s current favorite fall guy, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. As to that secret society, a slightly embarrassed Wisconsin Senator Johnson now admits that he really hasn’t seen any proof of its existence.

Russia, Russia, Russia: Yesterday a few more details emerged about Michael Flynn’s first interview with the FBI, the one where he got caught lying about his “sanctions relief” conversations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak.  The Flynn meeting was held in the White House but no one on the White House staff knew it was taking place because Flynn was so confident that the meeting was just a routine conversation among colleagues that he didn’t notify anyone else, didn’t bring along anyone from legal and then didn’t update anyone afterwards.  White House Counsel Don McGahn didn’t learn about the meeting until then Acting Attorney General Sally Yates ran to the White House to alert him that Flynn was blackmail bait. The Yates visit triggered a series of what must have been panicky internal conversations that quickly led to her dismissal and Comey’s eventual firing.  Mueller has informed Trump’s lawyers that this time period and the series of events that led up to all of the firings is one of the things that he wants to question Trump about.  Given that Yates was dismissed after speaking with McGahn and that Trump called Comey to invite him in for the dinner date where he asked for his undying loyalty moments after Yates’ final conversation with McGahn, it’s looking more and more likely that Mueller can prove that Trump knew about Flynn’s lies before he invited Comey to dinner.  That request for loyalty may be the first data point in the obstruction timeline.  Mueller has been filling in all the gaps  and has also been interviewing everyone who could possibly know anything about the campaign, the transition or the messy early days of the Trump presidency.  Yesterday, we learned that the list of officials and ex officials he’s spoken with includes Comey, CIA Head Mike Pompeo, NSA head Mike Rogers and a particularly cooperative Yates.  As Trump will surely learn, Mueller already knows a lot about who said what to whom.  Despite Trump’s promise to testify its fair to assume that his lawyers are still weighing the possibility of just having him plead the Fifth because Trump is Trump and he just may be able to get away with it.   

Election Update:  West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, confirmed that he is going to run for reelection in November, that’s notable because he came close to throwing in the towel over the government shutdown and only decided to stay after his moderate led bipartisan group negotiated an end to the shutdown stalemate.  It also took some cajoling by Minority Leader Schumer and a number of the other red state Democratic Senators including Indiana’s Donnelly and North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp to convince him to stay in the race.  Manchin has warned Schumer “if people like me can’t win from red states you’ll be in the minority the rest of your lives.”  Manchin’s frustration highlights Schumer’s challenge.  Despite hopes for a Democratic wave in 2018, there are far more vulnerable Democratic Senators up for reelection than Republican ones.  Going forward, balancing the demands of his progressive presidential wannabees against the needs of the vulnerable moderates will only get tougher. The White House staff is fearful of allowing Schumer in for anymore one on ones with Trump because they fear his wily ways and his ability to get Trump to agree to anything, let’s hope that the Schumer sauce works as well and has more staying power with his own disparate factions.