Matza and Bunnies

A short blog for a holiday shortened week:  The Russians have retaliated for our retaliation for their ex-spy poisoning by kicking out a bunch of Americans and closing our St Petersburg consulate.  Trump has started talking tough to Putin and actually told him that if he ups his nuclear arsenal, we will up ours more, promising that we will beat him at his game.  Trump’s also called upon French, German and British leaders to stand together in response to Putin’s nuclear threats, as if they needed to be convinced.  Still, for some reason Trump doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s talking tough to Putin because he still wants to be his bestie so he’s advised his aides to keep quiet about his otherwise rational response.  Stormy Daniels’ lawyer’s bid to get Trump to testify about their tete-a-tete has been derailed for now by a judge who said that the request is premature.  However, Michael Cohen, Trump’s pitbull/lawyer’s lawyer pretty much threw the validity of the “hush” agreement away by saying that Trump had nothing to do with it, didn’t authorize it in the first place and never made the $130,000 payment.  Cohen may be in bigly trouble now for his unethical behavior and funding of the Stormy payoff, particularly since the payoff is looking more and more like an illegal campaign contribution, but he probably doesn’t care because he “loves” Trump and would do anything for him, something the two of them probably discussed over their surprise candle lit Mar a Lago dinner last Friday.  Trump went on a trip to Ohio, paid for by Federal moneys because it was supposed to be another one of his infrastructure pushes.  However, instead of talking infrastructure he mostly engaged in electioneering and Democrat bashing, once again forgetting to focus on infrastructure, except of course for his discussion of his wall which he claims is under construction and being paid for by the Mexicans even though it’s not and he’s trying to pay for it with money set aside for military expenditures. After Parkland student David Hogg, overshared by tweet sighing that he, like many other high school seniors, had not gotten into a number of his preferred college choices, the despicable Fox host Laura Ingraham dissed him over twitter, mocking him for his college rejections.  The media savvy Hogg, who has been admitted to a few fine colleges, hit back, calling for  corporate sponsors to boycott Ingraham’s show.  A number of companies, including Rachael Ray’s Nutrish dog food company, Trip Advisor, Wayfair, Expedia and Hulu, responded by pulling their ads.  Ingraham’s feeling the pain and has kind of apologized, in the “spirit of Holy Week.” At least for now it appears that her attempt at saying she’s sorry is falling on deaf ears.  Makes you wonder why all those companies were advertising on her show in the first place.  As to corporate America, the stock markets mostly finished the quarter down, a shock to Trump who has tied himself to a raging bull and still hasn’t realized that tweeting tariffs and attacking major companies like Amazon contributes to market volatility bigly.  Regarding Amazon, Trump may be attacking the company because of his genuine concern that it’s achieving monopoly-like status, or he may be attacking in solidarity with his real estate cronies who are despairing over their vacant malls, or he may be attacking because Amazon’s Jeff Bezos also owns his media nemesis, the Washington Post.  My money is on the latter.  Rumors abound that House Speaker Paul Ryan has decided not to run for reelection in November.  To the extent that Ryan opts out, expectations are that he will be replaced by Representative Steve Scalise, who though he’s had a hard time recovering from the gunshot wounds that he received last year during the shoot out on the Washington baseball field, is still an ardent supporter of gun rights. Ryan says that rumors about him leaving Congress are false, but confirms that he hasn’t made a final decision about seeking reelection because that’s a decision that he says he never makes until Spring break, only after consultation with his wife and family and, anyway, everyone in Washington denies rumors until they’re ready to come clean.   

Happy Passover!  Happy Easter!

Matza and chocolate eggs for all.

Good Luck finding the Afikoman!

Lunch at Trump's?

Russia, Russia, Russia:  Actually today this section could just as well be called pardon, pardon, pardon.  The NY Times reports that last year, as Special Counsel Mueller was closing in on former national security advisor Michael Flynn and former campaign manager Paul Manafort, John Dowd, then Trump’s lawyer for all things Russia, offered up Trump pardons in exchange for Manafort and Flynn’s silence about all those Russia involved things that they had been involved in during and after the 2016 election.  At the time that Dowd made this offer he didn’t know that Flynn had already accepted a plea deal.  The Times article which was based on a number of highly discrete sources, probably a mix of current and former Trumpkins, does not specify whether or not Trump knew about Dowd’s offer but it’s hard to believe that Dowd would have gone ahead and offered up any pardons without Trump’s permission.  Not so coincidentally, the timing of Dowd’s offer coincides with Trump’s twitter musings about his pardon power.  Everyone involved in the possible pardon, either denies or declines to comment on this story, but the Times stands by it and judging by his lack of cooperation, Manafort may be relying on it. Late Monday, Mueller’s team drew its first straight line and direct connection between a Trumpkin and the Russians when he disclosed in the sentencing recommendations for the complicit Skadden lawyer Van der Zwaan that there had been frequent communication between Manafort associate Rick Gates and an unnamed former Russian intelligence agent referred to as Person A, during the election.  We now know that the unnamed Russian is a “former” GRU agent named Konstantin Kilimnik, however since there is no such thing as a former Russian spy, it’s fair to just refer to Kilimnik as a Russian agent.  Kilimnik worked for years with Manafort and Rick Gates in their Ukraine office, he’s the guy that Manafort contacted as soon as he managed to secure his “I’ll work for free” role in the Trump campaign, querying whether his involvement with Trump, and the benefits it would bring, would satisfy his debts to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.  By including information about the Kilimnik connection in the sentencing papers, Mueller sent a signal to anyone still claiming that there had been no Russian collusion, that yes in fact there has been.  At this point it is fair to assume that Mueller has many more details and that Trump is growing increasingly nervous.  This may also explain why a number of Senators have reupped their calls for immediate legislative action to protect Mueller and his investigation.           

Shulkin Out, Jackson In:  Yesterday Trump finally fired VA Secretary David Shulkin.  Shulkin’s dismissal was hardly a surprise, he’d been a dead man walking for weeks.  Still the announcement, done of course by tweet, managed to raise quite a few eyebrows as Shulkin’s replacement is Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson.  Jackson is the White House doctor who performed Trump’s annual check-up, pronouncing him mentally fit, healthy, ridiculously energetic and conveniently raising his height so that his weight fell one pound under the obese category. His fawning review of Trump’s health status aside, Jackson is reportedly an excellent physician with an admirable military resume, however he has virtually no administrative experience.  His appointment to run the second biggest institution in the country is truly bizarre, apparently Trump’s first choice, a Fox TV army veteran wasn’t available or interested.  Jackson was chosen mostly because Trump likes him as a person.  As to Shulkin, ostensibly he was fired because of an ethical violation, he had taken his wife along on a trip to Europe and had accepted free tickets to Wimbledon but by Trump administration standards his ethical lapses were run of the mill, hardly shocking when you consider Pruitt, Carson and Zinke’s propensity for expensive furniture, first class and private travel, fancy doors and super secure and ridiculously expensive custom made communication “cones of silence.”  Shulkin, the rare holdover from the Obama administration, was actually pretty good at his job but had run into political headwinds for conflicting with Trump political appointees over the pace of privatization at the VA, the other secretaries all perform their jobs up to Trumpian standards, sufficiently cutting back or destroying their department’s government missions.  As to the VA, the Trumpkins are pushing for rapid changes, Shulkin was taking a more conservative approach due to his concern that the private sector was not ready to handle the volume of patients that would flow from the VA system if any privatization plan was to be rushed through. In an op-ed in today’s NY Times he said that that while working with community providers to adequately ensure that veterans’ needs are met is a good practice”…. “privatization leading to the dismantling of the department’s extensive health care system is a terrible idea.”  He then finished by saying that “it should not be this hard to serve your country.”  Oh but it is, especially these days.                    

Another Shooting:  Last week Stephon Clark, a young black man, was lethally shot for being in his grandparents backyard armed with that lethal of all weapons, a cell phone.  Police had responded in force with helicopters to a report that someone was breaking car windows in the neighborhood.  To be clear, there were no reports of gun shots or injuries. Clark was shot at least twenty times, immediately after he was mowed down the police muted their video cameras, possibly to hide their own despair at what had just happened.  Clearly this was a tragedy for all involved, the type of event that inspired the Black Lives Matter Movement and Colin Kaepernick and his controversial “take a knee protest.” Demonstrations have broken out throughout the city and to their credit, local officials have requested that the State of California investigate the shooting. During yesterday’s news conference Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked about the administration’s response, she answered that it was just one of those “local matters,” when further pressed the clueless Sanders drifted off into a rambling soliloquy about school security.  Trump who tweets about almost everything, especially murders of white people by undocumented immigrants, has remained silent.  So much for bringing the country together.

Stay and Eat at Trumps:  A Maryland court has agreed to let a lawsuit alleging that Trump is in violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution proceed.  In the case, the Attorneys General from Maryland and Washington, DC argue that the Trump International Hotel’s operations put other nearby hotel and entertainment properties at a competitive disadvantage by unfairly attracting visitors from foreign and domestic governments seeking to curry favor with Trump by enriching his personal pocket book.  This is the first time that one of these emoluments cases against Trump has been allowed to move forward.   

Are You a Citizen?

The Korean Peninsula:  Time waits for no Trump, the new national security team still isn’t fully in place but at least for now a meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jung Un remains on the calendar possibly to take place as early as May.  In preparation for nuclear negotiations, or because he’s hasn’t traveled since taking over his country and had an itch to check out China in the Spring, the Little Rocket Man dusted off the family’s  bullet proof train and went for an impromptu two day field trip to Beijing where he met with China’s President for Life Xi . The Chinese News agency reported that Kim told Xi that he was “committed to denuclearization but with conditions,” but provided no explanation as to what those conditions would be.  The White House received notice of the meeting after it had taken place.  To the extent that Kim Jung Un is serious about denuclearizing, he might want to start by halting the firing up of his newest nuclear reactor.  Today’s NY Times reports that it is close to coming on line and though the North Korean’s might want us all to believe that its sole purpose is to provide electricity to nearby towns, the reactor will allow the North Koreans to ramp up plutonium production giving them the ability to dramatically increase their nuclear arsenal.  No doubt the status of this plant will be one of the things that Trump and his team will want to discuss. John Bolton, Trump’s newly appointed national security advisor whose role becomes official in April, has previously suggested that a plant like this one would make a good target for one of those war triggering “limited” preemptive strikes.  Though both Trump and Bolton have it out for the Iran nuclear agreement, despite its limitations, that agreement’s key  achievement is that it resulted in Iran substantially curtailing its nuclear enrichment activities.  Iran could get back into that business quickly if Trump pulls the US from the agreement next month, an odd message to send North Korea in the run up to any negotiations.  In other Korea related news, the US and South Korea have entered into a new trade agreement.  In exchange for the easing of the recently imposed US tariffs on steel, South Korea has agreed to lift their quota for US carmakers from 25,000 per manufacturer to 50,000.  Though that increase sounds notable, last year no individual US carmaker exported more than 11,000 vehicles to South Korea.  Notably, the principles of the agreement were negotiated more quickly than usual, largely because of the impending discussions with North Korea and South Korea’s fear of sending the unpredictable Trump into a trade induced tantrum at a time when US cooperation and military support is needed more than ever.   

Querying Citizenship:  In reaction to Trump’s plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census twelve states have already  announced intentions to sue to block its inclusion.  They argue that the change would cause fewer Americans to be counted and that it would violate the Constitution.  New York’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is leading a multistate lawsuit that will be joined by Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Washington.  Quick to react California filed a separate lawsuit Monday night.  When asked about the citizenship question’s inclusion in the census, Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded that “the question had been included in every census since 1965, with the exception of 2010, when it was removed,” another one of those Trumpian prevarications.  Though a similar question has been included in voluntary polls of a fraction of the population, it was removed from the official census after 1950.  Trump isn’t only pushing the census envelope, he is also looking at creative ways to fund his Mexico Wall.  Stymied by the absence of wall funding in the recently passed Omnibus spending bill, he is now considering redirecting money from the military budget towards the wall.  Having achieved a substantial increase in the military budget, he is hoping to take $25 billion out of the expanded military coffers because they didn’t need that money anyway. Sunday he tweeted "Building a great Border Wall, with drugs (poison) and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense, Build WALL through M!"  M being the military budget. Trump may have gotten the idea from Ann Coulter, who proposed it where else but on Fox TV.  The fund diversion plan is probably unconstitutional.  Nevertheless, when asked about it at the daily news conference Huckabee Sanders said Trump would work with the White House counsel to make sure any action taken was within his executive authority adding the "continuation of building the wall is ongoing and we're going to continue moving forward in that process."      

Russia, Russia, Russia:  Concerns about Special Counsel Mueller’s continued employment are growing.  Yesterday Republican Senator Thom Tillis joined Democratic Senator Chris Coons by calling for quick passage of their legislation designed to shield Mueller from being fired by Trump.  The legislation has been percolating for a while but Tillis had wavered on whether or not he wanted to move it forward.  Now he’s gung ho, a change of heart that implies that something nefarious is going on behind the scenes causing him to feel an urgency to act.  Before it can move forward the Tillis-Coons bill would have to be merged with a competing bipartisan bill proposed by Republican Lindsey Graham and Democrat Cory Booker.  So far Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has not thrown his support behind either version.  At the same time, led by Connecticut’s Senator Blumenthal, nine of the ten Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee sent a letter to each of the five officials who would be next in line to wield the Trump axe if Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were to be fired, asking them to provide “a written and public commitment that you will not interfere in the Special Counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, possible collusion with such meddling by the Trump campaign, efforts to obstruct justice and any related inquiry.”  Rosenstein already testified that he would not fire Mueller absent any legitimate cause.  At least so far the signature of Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar, the tenth Democrat on the committee, was not on the letter but her office noted that she supports the goals of the Mueller protection effort so the reason behind the absence of her signature is unclear.  In other Russia investigation related news, yesterday in a report filed related to the upcoming sentencing of Alex van der Zwaan, the former Skadden Arps lawyer who pleaded guilty for lying about his interactions with Paul Manafort’s partner Rick Gates and an unnamed Russia, more details regarding the unnamed Russian were revealed.  The sentencing report says that Mueller’s  team has connected Gates to a person with ties to a Russian intelligence services and that Gates and that unnamed person were in touch in September and October 2016 and that their contact was “pertinent to the investigation.”  As to Van der Zwaan, Mueller’s team didn’t recommend a specific sentence but they did argue for some jail time because Van der Zwaan lied and hid evidence and they want to make it clear that such activities are bigly bad.  Lastly, Trump still hasn’t found a big name white collar lawyer willing to join his team but he is expected to announce that Andrew Ekonomou, a little known former prosecutor currently working with Jay Sekulow, will be assuming a more prominent role on the Trump defense team. The 69 year old Ekonomou has a doctorate in Medieval History and spends most of his time prosecuting murders.  Defending his role Ekonomou said that “I’ve been tested plenty of times…just because you’re not a Beltway lawyer doesn’t mean you don’t know what you’re doing.”  Trump better hope that he’s right.

The Second Amendment:  Lastly, yesterday in an op-ed published in the New York Times, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens argued that the Second Amendment should just be repealed.  Making a change to the Constitution, particularly one that would be very divisive, is virtually impossible nevertheless his argument against rampant gun ownership is persuasive.  Essentially he said that justifying individual gun ownership because the Constitution included a provision for the arming of militias is ridiculous and an interpretation of its intent that is entirely fanciful (my word, not his).  Conservative columnist Bret Stephens is probably feeling pretty good about an essay he wrote a few months ago that also called for repealing the Second Amendment, his piece inspired a significant amount of criticism from both sides of the aisle.  Needless to say, the NRA and gun owners, are not happy with Stevens or Stephens and others committed to limiting irrational gun ownership fear that even the suggestion of a repeal will make their mission even more difficult.  March for Our Lives!           

Dasvidaniya

Russian Expulsion:  Yesterday, under pressure from Britain, the Trump administration joined twenty two other countries by retaliating against Putin for the poisoning of the former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter.  All told, the smack down involved the expulsion of 130 Russian "officials," with 60 of those expelled being kicked out of the US. Though he ultimately did the right thing, Trump was a reluctant participant, drawn into the group effort by the State Department and the US intelligence agencies only after it was made clear that US participation in the show of solidarity with our most important ally was essential and that the failure to participate would have been glaring and damaging to US relations abroad.  Notably, Trump who tweets about virtually everything, had nothing to say about the expulsions and the related closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle, leaving it to his communications department to explain the decision.  Standing in for Sarah Huckabee Sanders who was having one of her camera shy days, Raj Shah, called the Skripal poisoning attack “brazen and reckless” adding “we want to have a cooperative relationship” with the Russians but “their actions sometimes don’t allow that to happen.”   

The Legal Morass:  Even though Trump asserted yesterday that lawyers are lining up to represent him in the Mueller Russia probe, two more prominent attorneys, Tom Buchanan and Dan Webb of Winston & Strawn, turned down that opportunity of a life time.  Their firm confirmed that they had been approached by diplomatically reporting that “they were unable to take on the representation due to business conflicts. However they consider the opportunity to represent the President to be the highest honor and they sincerely regret that they cannot do so. They wish the president the best and believe he has excellent representation in Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow.” Kind words for Cobb and Sekulow, but realistically no one in the legal community believes that those two are really up for the job.  Around the same time that Winston & Strawn released their statement, prominent lawyer and former Bush era Solicitor General, Ted Olson, who has twice rebuffed invitations to join the Trump legal team said that the turmoil and chaos in the Trump White House is “beyond normal” and that the high number of personnel changes are “not good for anything,” adding “We always believe that there should be an orderly process, and of course, government is not clean or orderly ever. But this seems to be beyond normal.” As to Sekulow, it’s been reported that half a dozen attorneys affiliated with his legal group, the American Center for Law and Justice, have been helping him with Trump's case.  It’s not clear who is paying them for their efforts, just another one of those things that may not be totally above board.  Also on the legal front, the Stormy Daniels case continues to percolate.  Yesterday, her lawyer Michael Avenotti, escalated her fight adding a complaint against Michael Cohen to her lawsuit.  She is suing him for defamation for calling her a liar and exposing her to “hatred, contempt, ridicule and shame, and discouraging others from associating or dealing with her.”  Avenotti and Daniels aren’t Cohen’s only problems, it’s also reported that Cohen’s heavy handed, thuggish and possibly illegal actions have earned him more attention from Special Counsel Mueller who’d would like to get more details about Trump’s Russian business endeavors and views any proof that Cohen engaged in less than legal activities as a way to get more leverage against the Trump loyalist.  As to the whole Daniels affair, on the advice of his remaining lawyers Trump has added Daniels as well as his other accuser, former Playboy model Karen McDougal to his “no tweet attack” list, a list that previously only included Putin.  Yesterday, he refrained from mentioning the name of either woman, instead going with a less direct swipe at false news, tweeting, ” So much Fake News. Never been more voluminous or more inaccurate. But through it all, our country is doing great!” As to that great part, maybe not so much for Jared Kushner.  White House lawyers are now examining whether two loans totaling $500 million, one from Citibank and one from Apollo Global Management, to Jared Kushner’s family business may have violated any criminal laws or federal ethics regulations.

Census Games: Last night Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, one of the administration’s most ardent pro tariff guys, announced another change that could have a long lasting impact on who runs the country.  He announced that the 2020 US census will include a question asking participants about their citizenship status.  The citizenship question hasn’t appeared in the US Census questionnaire since 1950, its reappearance is controversial because it’s likely to skew results, undercounting immigrant communities, already distrustful of an increasingly xenophobic administration.  Ross’s assertion is that adding a question about citizenship status will help enforce the Voting Rights Act by preventing voting violations, a premise tied to Trump’s false allegation that millions of illegal residents voted for Hillary Clinton in the last election.  The census has little to do with who shows up to vote but does have a huge and long lasting impact on the determination of the number of Congressional seats allocated to each state and also directly impacts the allocation of federal resources for virtually everything.  Bottom line, the change will likely disadvantage blue states over red states.  California has already announced plans to sue, again. The census change will also add costs to the whole census process, pre testing has already been undertaken on the old version of the census, it’s also likely that adding the immigration question will complicate census takers jobs, requiring multiple visits to fulfil their responsibilities.  As to Ross’s tariffs, the increasingly volatile stock markets rebounded almost 669 points yesterday mostly due to news about trade discussions with the Chinese.   

Cambridge Analytica: Cambridge Analytica didn’t just interfere in the US elections, they were also involved in the Brexit vote, working on the side of one or more of the groups that advocated for Britain to exit the European community.  Now a whistle blower is alleging that one of those groups, Vote Leave, channeled money to a firm linked to Cambridge Analytica in a breach of local electoral law.  The allegations reach up to two of Prime Minister May’s leading secretaries, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, who were both leading members of Vote Leave.  The whistle blower also alleges that Cambridge Analytica violated US election laws by sending foreign employees to work on the US 2014 midterm election campaigns despite being warned by their law firm that such actions would be a violation of US law.  Cambridge Analytica disregarded the advice, which came from Greenberg Traurig, Rudy Giuliani’s law firm, because, at least according to the whistleblower, directors Steve Bannon, Rebekah Mercer and CEO Alexander Nix just didn’t care.      

The Stunning Sound of Silence

Legal Morass:  Saturday night Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer/hatchet man, joined him for a little dinner, testimony coordination and Mar a Lago lobster.  At least for now, despite the way he appeared to have mucked up the attempt to “hush” the Stormy Daniels affair, Cohen is still on the Trump legal team.  That’s more than can be said for Joseph diGenova and his wife/legal partner Victoria Toensing, the two lawyers/Fox commentators that Trump retained last week to join his Russia legal defense team.  Toensing is already representing two other Trumpkins, former legal spokesperson Mark Corallo, the guy who resigned after growing concerned that Hope Hicks was obstructing justice by helping craft the press release about the Don Jr Russian Lawyer meeting, and former Agriculture Department guy Sam Clovis who may have approved George Papadopoulos’ Russian outreach, something that someone on the Trump team would have known if anyone had bothered to do any vetting. It wasn’t just the conflicts that disqualified diGenova and Toensing, after sitting down with them, Trump, who had just hired them, infuriating his lead lawyer John Dowd so much that he resigned, decided that he didn’t have any of that special chemistry with them nor did he like their less than snazzy attire.  They are now out, leaving Trump somewhat in the lurch, relying mostly on Jay Sekulow, a conservative commentator whose legal expertise is in religious freedom cases rather than white collar crime. Not to worry though, Trump is sure that help is on its way because  “many lawyers and top law firms want to represent me in the Russia case...don’t believe the Fake News narrative that it is hard to find a lawyer who wants to take this on. Fame & fortune will NEVER be turned down by a lawyer…”  At least for now, those lawyers are all either conflicted out, camera shy or too smart to join the Trump train, a train that White House counsel Don McGahn wants to leave too.  According to news reports, he is looking for an exit, but has promised to stay on board until a replacement can be found even though it’s not clear than there are any lawyers left who would consider the job. As to legal genius Michael Cohen, his handling of adult film actress Stormy a/k/a Stephanie leaves a lot to be desired and might result in him getting disbarred or worse.  Stormy finally told her story last night on 60 Minutes.  The details regarding her relationship with Trump weren’t all that surprising or interesting, but the efforts to keep her quiet were, and to the extent that she is to be believed, they involved threats of bodily harm to her and her child.  It’s also quite possible that the  $130,000 hush payment that Cohen claims to have paid with the proceeds of a personal home equity because of his love for Trump may well have violated campaign finance laws.     

Omnibus Sillies:  Friday, before signing the $1.3 trillion Omnibus spending bill Trump freaked out Republican leadership by threatening to veto it instead.   After hearing from a number of Fox commentators and right wing pundit Rush Limbaugh that the bill looked like something that Obama would have passed, an agitated Trump had to be talked down off the cliff before he’d agree to sign off.  He finally agreed to play ball but not before holding an impromptu press conference in which he whined incessantly about how the bill funded almost everything the Democrats wanted but provided little if anything for his pet projects.  He wasn’t far off the mark.  The bill left arts funding intact, doesn’t kill funding for Planned Parenthood, provides money for the start of the NYC – NJ tunnel and funds the CDC and alternative energy programs.  He tried to blame the omission of a DACA solution on the Democrats by insisting that he and the Republicans really, really wanted to include a solution but were stymied by Democratic intransigence even though it was his executive action that put DACA on the chopping block in the first place and his plan didn’t include a path to citizenship and provided only a three year program extension. Clearly the DACA assertion was made solely to provide a soundbite for friendly news outlets, and no doubt is even now being disseminated across the country on every Sinclair and Fox station.  One time VP candidate,  Virginia Senator Kaine, called him either delusional, a liar, or both.  Lastly, Trump called for the return of the line item veto, a feature that would permit him to go after specific provisions that he opposes, leaving the rest of any spending bill intact. He’s not the first president to call for the line item veto, but since it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1998, Trump’s call for its reinstatement was odd at best.  Also odd was Treasury Secretary Mnuchin similar call during an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace. When Wallace reminded him of the Supreme Court’s ruling, Mnuchin just shook his head and said there are ways to get around the courts.  Let’s hope not.   

The Marchers:  The Parkland students proved once again that they are a force to be reckoned with.  The marches they planned went off without a hitch, drawing large crowds both across the country and overseas.  Notably the Washington DC crowd was larger than Trump’s inauguration crowd, which is quite astonishing given that Trump’s inauguration attracted  the largest crowd in the history of mankind, or so he says. It’s hard to select the most memorable moment because almost all the moments and speeches were remarkable. Emma Gonzales’ minutes of uncomfortable silence stood out but so did the eloquent speech given by Naomi Wadler, the eleven year African American student activist, and the chant led by Yolanda Renee King, the young granddaughter of Martin Luther King, Jr.  Also standing out was Trump and Pence’s  absence.  While the rest of us were marching Trump was on one of his golf courses and Pence was somewhere bemoaning that his rabbit book was being outsold by John Oliver’s gay parody.  Then there’s Rick Santorum, the once and future Conservative presidential wannabee and frequent CNN commentator.  He criticized the Parkland students, saying that instead of pressing for “phony” gun laws, they should take CPR classes to better prepare themselves for the next inevitable school shooting. Before flying off to Mar a Lago, Trump did get one gun related thing off of his to do list, he announced that he’d directed the Department of Justice to finally issue those rules banning bump stocks and then went on to blame Obama for bump stocks not be banned sooner.   Under Obama the  Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) had determined that bump stocks were firearm parts that could not be banned under current laws.  It’s unclear how Trump can ban them absent any new legislative action.  This is another thing that could end up in the courts.

Other Follies:  With all of the hirings, firings, marches and Trump tweets, it would have been easy to miss that Trump slipped in a revised version of his transgender military ban late Friday.  This version, which he asserts is supported by military leadership though it’s not clear that it is, grandfathers existing transgender soldiers but makes it difficult for new transgender individuals to serve.  This is just another one of those policies that will hang out in the courts for a while.  As to military readiness, given the selection of the rather belligerent John Bolton to serve as national security advisor, Trump may want to reconsider doing anything that reduces the number of eligible recruits.  To the extent that Bolton manages to get a security clearance, something that isn’t a done deal given the NRA sponsored speech he gave in Russia and his Political Action Committee’s involvement with the now disgraced Cambridge Analytica, war with Iran and/or North Korea could be on the horizon.  Trump could need all the troops he can get his hands on. He may also need some help in the midterms.  Another Republican Congressman, Pennsylvania’s Ryan Costello, has decided not to run for reelection.  He’s concluded that his chances of winning in his newly redrawn Pennsylvania district are slim and that Trump’s incessant tweeting and “women” problems are just making those odds worse.  Trump may also want to find a few new fund raisers.  Problems continue to mount for one of them, Elliott Broidy, who was forced to cancel out of the Los Angeles fundraiser that he co-hosted after news about his involvement with George Nader’s efforts on behalf of the United Arab Emirates went public last week.  The NY Times reports that he’s been engaging in lots of influence peddling, promising access to the Trump administration to sketchy characters from Romania, the Republic of the Congo and Angola in exchange for lucrative defense contracts for his company.  So much for draining the swamp.     

War Footing

McMaster Out, Bolton In:  Well it’s official, the country is now being run by an unstable reality TV star and a team of likeminded Fox TV commentators.  Yesterday afternoon Trump announced, by tweet of course, that he was sacking his National Security Advisor General HR McMaster, replacing him with occasional Fox pundit John Bolton, who previously served as an undersecretary to George W. Bush and was for a short time his UN ambassador. Bolton, one of the most radically hawkish voices in American foreign policy, is a particularly controversial choice, in most cases war is his preferred solution to difficult international problems. In a February 28 op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal he laid out the “legal case” for preemptively striking North Korea and like Trump he also objects to the Iran nuclear agreement, taking the position that it would be reasonable for the US to pursue a strategy of regime change there, in other words he advocates war against Iran as well. He once called for the invasion of Cuba over a facility that he thought was a chemical warfare plant, it turned out the building in question manufactured run of the mill drugs. He was accused of manipulating US intelligence on weapons of mass destruction prior to the Iraq war and also has been accused of abusive treatment of his subordinates. He’s known to be opinionated and intolerant of opposing views, a particular problem for anyone serving as national security advisor, a role that requires its holder to be the unbiased assimilator of other experts’ views, presenting a balanced assessment of security issues to the president. Although he did serve as UN Ambassador, he assumed the position through a recess appointment because the Bush era Senate refused to confirm his appointment, then because he couldn’t get confirmed he had to step down when the recess period expired. Fortunately for Bolton, national security advisors do not require Senate confirmation.  Trump had considered appointing Bolton as his first Secretary of State, but chose Rex Tillerson instead, not because he had any qualms about Bolton’s suitability but because he doesn’t like moustaches, and Bolton has a particularly scruffy one.  Apparently Trump has gotten over the moustache thing, perhaps because during one of his many Fox appearances Bolton remarked that the whole Russian election interference thing may have just been an Obama administration false flag operation.  Although the move to replace McMaster with Bolton had been expected even Bolton was surprised by the suddenness of Trump’s decision and the announcement of his appointment. Others at the White House were surprised as well and are less than happy about the selection.  Chief of Staff Kelly had been working on plans to announce the dismissal of HUD Secretary Ben Carson and VA Secretary David Shulkin, those plans have been shelved for now to cut back on the appearance of even more White House disarray.  To the extent they do get replaced soon, Kelly may not be around to make the calls, apparently Trump is also considering eliminating him and getting rid of the chief of staff position altogether, because Trump who believes that he is his best communications director, now believes that he no longer needs a chief of staff.

Dowd Out, Fox Lawyers In:  Before he ousted McMaster, Trump parted ways with John Dowd, his chief lawyer for the Russia investigation.  Dowd resigned or was forced out, or both, over disagreements with Trump on how to handle the Special Counsel Mueller investigation.  The NY Times Editorial Board has weighed in, suggesting Dowd resigned because he realized that he had a fool for a client.  Dowd had advised Trump to cooperate with Mueller, to avoid confronting him publicly and to do everything possible to avoid or limit his sit time down with Mueller’s team. Yesterday, after a weekend of ignoring Dowd’s advice by tweet attacking Mueller, Trump responded to a press question by saying that he looks forward to spending quality time with Mueller.  In an effort intended to keep Trump calm, Dowd had kept promising that the investigation was wrapping up soon, a promise that assuaged Trump for a while but lost effectiveness as the once gullible Trump realized that it wasn’t based on reality. Growing increasingly frustrated with the far reaching investigation, Trump has decided that Dowd’s cooperative approach to dealing with Mueller isn’t working and is now changing gears.  His new strategy relies less on mounting a strong legal defense and more on marshalling a combative team of legal pundits to man a war of disinformation intended to marginalize Mueller, possibly in anticipation of firing him and ending the investigation.  To that end, in addition to his recent hiring of Fox legal expert and conspiracy theorist Joseph diGenova, last night Trump added Victoria Toensing, di Genova’s equally conspiracy loving wife, to his team.  For now at least Trump’s legal team is being headed by Jay Sekulow, who is known less for his legal acumen and more for his frequent appearances on Fox and the Christian Broadcasting network. It’s also been reported that Marc Kasowitz, who never really left the Trump orbit, may be assuming more Russia related responsibilities despite the fact that his dicey past makes it impossible for him to get a security clearance. Ty Cobb is still on board but he’s been heard talking about jumping ship so it’s not clear that he will remain much longer. Trump has sought out one or more “real” lawyers to supplement his questionable team but at least so far none of those contacted have been willing to step up to the plate.  His team has called experienced white collar lawyers from four top firms including Brendan Sullivan of Williams & Connolly, Ted Olson of Gibson, Dunn, Paul Clement and Mark Filip of Kirkland & Ellis and Robert Giuffra of  Sullivan & Cromwell. Citing existing commitments and conflicts, all have turned down the request to represent Trump, they are concerned about possible damage to their firms’ reputations and as one lawyer is reported to have said about Trump because “the guy won’t pay and he won’t listen.”     

Market Tanking Tariffs:  Trump opened another front in his trade war yesterday, taking on China for that country’s unfair seizure of US intellectual property.  He’s directed his trade representative to levy tariffs on about $50 billion of Chinese imports.  Already reeling from the impact of Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica problem and coming to terms with another interest rate hike, the Dow Jones average dropped by 724 points over fears that an escalating trade war will raise costs and impact profits, knocking out economic gains and offsetting consumers’ meager tax savings. To that end, last night China announced  plans to hit back, targeting Trump’s base by levying tariffs on $3 billion of US agricultural exports from farm belt states.  At the same time that he was hammering China with more sanctions, Trump let up on a number of US allies, giving Argentina, Australia, Brazil, the European Union and South Korea a temporary exemption from the recently imposed steel and aluminum tariffs. Mexico and Canada have already received a similar “temporary” exemption.  Trump is enamored of tariffs but can’t be all that happy about the market’s reaction.  And more importantly, his donor class has got to be growing increasingly distressed. Somewhere former economic advisor Gary Cohn, who worked for the administration long enough to shelter all of his Goldman Sachs related capital gains from taxes, is shaking his head and saying I told you so.

Russia, Russia, Russia:  The House Intelligence Committee, or at least the Republicans on the Committee, formally closed their investigation into Russian election interference yesterday by releasing their disingenuous final report.  They pretty much concluded that all of the Trump team interactions with nefarious Russians and people from WikiLeaks were unfortunate and ill-advised but that none of them were indicative of collusion. They have no interest in calling anyone in to further explore the Cambridge Analytica fiasco, nor are they interested in pursuing any financial irregularities or subpoenaing any of the Trump aides who refused to cooperate.  They did however recommend rooting out leaks within the intelligence agencies through the aggressive use of polygraph tests because leaks rather than Russian interference and Trump team collusion is the real problem.  Notwithstanding the House report, the Senate Intelligence Committee remains hard at work and more importantly so is Mueller. A team of FBI agents working on Mueller’s Russia investigation have now identified Guccifer 2.0, the hacker who stole the DNC emails in the first place, he is an officer in the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence directorate.  By failing to turn on his virtual programming network (VPN) he left an incriminating clue online, revealing his real and highly traceable internet address.  The identification of the GRU officer brings the investigation closer to the Kremlin and to Trump or at least to Trump’s long term political advisor Roger Stone who previously admitted to communicating with Guccifer 2.0 over twitter’s direct messaging service.  Mueller’s progress is admirable but it would be best if he and his team would speed things up.  There’s a “pink” tweet out there with his name on it and it’s only a matter of time before an increasingly agitated and emboldened Trump sends it his way.  

No Candor Here

The Spending Bill:  After significant back and forth including a last minute dash to the White House by Paul Ryan who had to deal with a pouting Trump who was upset that he won’t be getting much in the way of Wall funding, Congress has a $1.3 trillion spending bill.  The bill includes $1.6 billion of wall funding, much of which will go to fixing and replacing existing barriers and something called the “grain glitch” fix which corrects one of the boo boos in last year’s tax bill, a change that Democrats agreed to in exchange for an expansion of the low income housing tax credit.  The bill also sends $380 million to the states for the improvement of their election technology.  The bill doesn’t include a DACA fix and doesn’t include the restoration of the Obamacare insurance subsidies that had been promised to Senator Susan Collins in exchange for her vote on the tax bill.  To placate Trump no direct funding for the New York-New Jersey Gateway tunnel is included but the bill will allow several hundred million dollars of transportation funds to be directed towards the tunnel project, a compromise that will allow the tunnel to move forward.  Notably, the bill also includes the Fix NICS provisions that are intended to tighten background checks for gun purchasers and lifts restrictions that had prohibited the CDC from doing research on gun violence.  The gun provisions aren’t much but they are better than nothing and their inclusion in the spending bill is a tribute to the persistence of the Parkland students. The 2000 plus page bill still has to pass through the House and Senate before Saturday to avoid another shut down.  Not everyone is happy with the bill.  Complaining about the process and the size of the bill, Louisiana Senator Kennedy said “Whoever designed this process is not qualified to run a food truck…..It's embarrassing. And as bad as it looks from the outside, you ought to see it from the inside.” Freedom Caucus leader Mark Meadows actually said that “it’s troubling when we get a tunnel and don’t get a wall,” adding that he didn’t remember Trump calling for a tunnel at any of his rallies.

That Bromance:  No one is all that happy about Trump’s conversation with Putin.  The number of Senators criticizing his congratulatory call grew during the day and shockingly a number of the loudest complainers were actually members of the Republican party.  Iowa’s Senator Grassley said “I think Putin is a criminal. What he did in Georgia, what he did in Ukraine, what he did in Baltic, what he’s done in London poisoning people with active nerve gas, that’s a criminal act. I wouldn’t have a conversation with a criminal.”   Majority Leader McConnell said "The President can call whomever he chooses, when I look at a Russian election, what I see is a lack of credibility…… So, calling him wouldn't have been high on my list."  Notably McConnell also expressed strong support for Special Counsel Mueller though he stopped short of supporting any legislation to insure his longevity.  Others including Senator Sasse and Rubio also slammed Trump for congratulating Putin, although both of them directed as much ire towards the leaker who revealed that Trump had been specifically directed by the national security staff to avoid that congratulations.  They both said that the leaker should resign.  As to that leak, Chief of Staff Kelly put out the word that he is absolutely livid about it, which may mean that he was the leaker and he’s hoping that his ire will cover for his guilt.  It’s also possible that the fury about the leak is manufactured, an effort by Trump to distract from the fact that he congratulated Putin.  On the same call Trump agreed to meet with Putin sometime soon, something that came as a shock to his staff.  As of now there are no plans for a meeting but Trump promised, and Putin doesn’t take promises lightly so you never know.  As to the bromance, former CIA Director John Brennan told MSNBC’s Willie Geist that “I think he’s afraid of the president of Russia,” adding “the Russians may have something on him personally that they could always roll out and make his life more difficult.” Brennan is far from alone in voicing his concern, over the weekend retired four star General McCaffrey called Trump a threat to national security.    

The Deepening Qatar Mystery:  The backstory concerning the Trump administration’s decision to buck traditional US policy by backing Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates over Qatar in their ongoing dispute grows murkier by the day.  Last night, the NY Times reported that George Nader, an “informal” adviser to the UAE who was detained by the FBI while on route to Trump’s one year anniversary shindig, has now been granted immunity by Special Counsel Mueller. Mueller’s original interest in Nader was tied to his involvement in setting up the infamous and equally murky back channel meeting in the Seychelle Islands between Trump surrogate Erik Prince and one or more Russians.  It turns out that Nader is also deeply involved in the Qatar policy mystery. Nader, who has now contributed reams of back up correspondence to Mueller, reports that he cultivated Republican fund raiser Elliott Broidy and that together they influenced Trump to throw his weight behind Saudi Arabia and the UAE in their dispute with Qatar and Iran over Yemen even though that policy shift ran contrary to US interests and put thousands of the US sailors stationed at our important naval base in Qatar at risk. Nader got Broidy on board by “tempting” him with the prospect of $1 billion in contracts for his private security firm, $200 billion of which he actually delivered. Neither Nader or Broidy are “boy scouts,”  Nader is a convicted child molester and Broidy previously plead guilty to  providing $1 million in gifts to NY State pension officials in a scandal that brought down NY Comptroller Alan Havesi which makes his current position as vice chairman of the Trump Victory Fund fairly inappropriate, but then again Trump only hires the best people.  Not only did Nader and Broidy influence Trump’s Middle East policy, they also may be responsible for Trump’s disillusionment with the recently fired Secretary of State Tillerson.  The two pushed for Tillerson’s dismissal and also successfully blocked the appointment of career diplomat Anne Patterson to a Pentagon position. Broidy and Nader are also opposed to the Iran nuclear agreement and by successfully pushing Tillerson to the curb they may well have eliminated the last impediment to Trump killing the agreement on its next “reconfirmation” date.  As to Saudi Arabia, last night in another fairly damning piece, The Intercept reported that Saudi Arabia’s prince Mohammed Bin Salman, also known as MBS, who visited with Trump this week, has been bragging about how he has Jared Kushner “in his pocket,” and though Kushner’s lawyer denies that claim, it’s possible that Kushner would be happy to be in MBS’s pocket, to the extent that it holds money he could extract for his cash strapped  real estate assets.  No doubt, Mueller is looking into this too. 

FBI Wray:  In a rare interview with Justice correspondent Pete Williams, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that he would never let politics influence his decisions but refused to discuss the events surrounding Friday night’s firing of former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.  He also offered no explanation for the unusual acceleration of McCabe’s dismissal nor did he justify the appropriateness of firing him two days before his pension kicked in.  He went on to say that he hasn’t been pressured by Trump, but did not reveal if he follows Trump’s daily tweets especially the ones that relentlessly attacked McCabe and called for his dismissal.  He also didn’t deny that he had threatened to resign earlier in the year. He did say that he takes Russian attempts to disrupt the US power grid very seriously, with an emphasis on the very.  As to McCabe, yesterday it was also revealed that while he was the Acting Head of the FBI he had opened an investigation into Attorney General Sessions over his less than candid testimony about his Russia meetings. Sessions’ lawyer says that as far as he knows that investigation is over, however it’s not clear that anyone knows what Mueller, who would have taken over the inquiry, is really doing.  There is huge irony in McCabe getting canned for “lack of candor” while Sessions remains in office.

Facebook Footnote:  Mark Zuckerberg has finally spoken.  He’s acknowledged that the company really goofed when it came to its interaction and sharing of data with Cambridge Analytica and made things worse by failing to act decisively once it realized that 50 million user accounts had been harvested and used by Cambridge to influence, or at the very least try to influence, the outcome of the 2016 election.  He went on to say that he and the company really, really need to do better. When asked by CNN if Facebook should be regulated, he actually said that maybe it should.  As to Cambridge, its nefarious activities, ownership structure, and the involvement of Steve Bannon, the Mercer Family, Jared Kushner and Brad Parscale, Trump’s data guru, are just another one of those things now being scrutinized by Mueller.               

Election Update:  The results of the Pennsylvania 18 election are now official.  Republican Rick Saccone finally conceded to Democrat Conor Lamb, making him the official winner of the special election, Lamb will be sworn in next week.  Although both Saccone and Lamb plan to run again in November, there won’t be a rematch, with all of the districts in Pennsylvania redrawn by the courts, they are each expected to seek a different seat.

No Olson For You

Nixing Cambridge Analytica:  It turns out that being caught on camera offering to ensnare opposing politicians with Ukrainian prostitutes and phony land deals is not good for your company or your career longevity. The Cambridge Analytica board has now suspended its CEO Alexander Nix, claiming that his actions “do not represent the values or operations of the firm and his suspension reflects the seriousness with which we view this violation.” That’s quite a statement from a firm that prides itself on data manipulation and its skill at placing false and malicious news stories.  As to those skills, the same UK Channel 4 report that caught Nix offering up prostitutes includes a tape of him bragging that his firm “ran all the digital campaign for” Trump, playing a “crucial role” in Trump winning the electoral college and more of another Cambridge Analytica executive bragging about how they spearheaded a “Defeat Crooked Hillary” ad campaign funded by one of the Trump related super PACs.  Nix is also shown making fun of the House Intelligence Committee, saying that when he testified before them the Republicans asked three questions and took all of his answers at face value, he did say that the Democrats were more persistent but that they were all politicians, and were not technical so they didn’t understand how it works. “They don’t understand because the candidate is never involved.  He is told what to do by the campaign team.”  As to Trump’s campaign team, last year Kushner and Trump data guru now 2020 campaign head, Brad Parscale, bragged about how teaming up with Cambridge Analytica aided Trump’s victory, however, now they are claiming that the firm added no value and that the millions that they were paid for their services was just money down the drain.  Before Trump, Cambridge Analytica was employed by Senator Ted Cruz’s campaign, interesting because before shifting their allegiance to Trump, Steve Bannon, then a Cambridge Analytica officer  and the Mercer family, a major company investor, supported Cruz.  Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is still in charge of his company but is coming under increasing scrutiny for its careless treatment of user information and its willingness to work with questionable companies like Cambridge.  He is likely to find himself in the Congressional hot seat shortly where he is likely to learn that not all members of Congress are as clueless as the House Intelligence Committee Republicans.      

Putin Trump Bromance:  Yesterday, despite the ongoing Mueller investigation, Russia’s election meddling, and the Kremlin’s poisoning of its former spies, Trump called Putin to congratulate him on his decisive election victory.  That the election was a sham, that opposing candidates were kept off the ballot and that video clips of people stuffing ballot boxes on Putin’s behalf were viral, meant little to Trump, a winner is a winner and in his eyes Putin is a winner. During the course of the call, the two also discussed the possibility of meeting to discuss the nuclear arms race, possibly a reference to continuing the START treaty, Ukraine, Syria and North Korea.  While it’s important that all of those subjects get attention, it was Trump’s statement that he had also congratulated Putin on his win that raised concern, so much that after the call someone at the White House leaked that Trump had been told by his national security team to refrain from congratulating Putin and that a hand written note with the words “DO NOT CONGRATULATE PUTIN” in big upper case letters, had been dangled in front of Trump during the call. That leak is now raising additional concerns at the White House, proving that all the threats and non-disclosure agreements in the universe can’t shut up truly disturbed White House denizens.  Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Trump saying “Look in terms of the election there, we’re focused on our elections.  We don’t get to dictate how other countries operate.”  Except of course Trump previously launched into an attack of Venezuela’s leadership after their elections.  To be clear it’s not unprecedented for US leaders to congratulate Putin for his questionable victories, Obama did too, but that was before the Russians were caught red handed meddling in our election and before they annexed Crimea. From somewhere in Arizona, the ailing Senator McCain blasted Trump, calling the congratulatory call an insult to every Russian citizen who was denied the right to vote in a free and fair election…..an American president does not lead the Free World by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections.”      

Storm Clouds:  It’s raining women and not in a good way. Stormy Daniels hasn’t gone away, her 60 Minutes interview is still scheduled to air on Sunday evening.  Yesterday a video of Stormy taking and passing a lie detector test back in 2011 was shown by various news outlets before her lawyer bought it for $25,000 to prevent it from being “misused.”  Stormy can afford the purchase, her crowdfund account is up above $250,000.   At this point Stormy is just one of Trump’s problems. Karen McDougal, the former playboy model who had a consensual relationship with Trump around the same time that he was hanging with Stormy and Melania was taking care of a very young Barron, is suing the National Enquirer in an attempt to get out from under the “catch and kill” agreement that she signed with the paper.  Her lawyers are arguing that she was tricked into the agreement and that the lawyer who represented her at the time was part of the deception.  The payment that the National Enquirer made to keep her quiet could also be considered another one of those violations of campaign finance laws.  Separately, a New York State judge rejected an attempt by Trump’s legal team, this one headed by his long term lawyer Marc Kasowitz, to use presidential immunity to shut down a lawsuit from former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos.  Zervos, one of the women who came forward before the election, says that Trump groped her and kissed her against her wishes.  She is suing Trump, who called her story fiction and her a liar, for defamation.  Trump’s lawyers are expected to appeal, but precedent is on Zervos’ side. That precedent relates to Bill Clinton’s Paula Jones case, and as if this story isn’t convoluted enough, that precedent was established as a result of a successful case made by George Conway, Kellyanne Conway’s husband, who argued that sitting presidents are not above the law.  If Zervos prevails Trump will be forced to appear for a deposition, no polygraph required  Though Trump’s legal bills, to the extent that he ever plans on paying them, must be spiraling out of control, he doesn’t have to worry about paying attorney Theodore Olson’s high hourly rate.  Olson, the very conservative and highly respected Gibson Dunn partner who argued on behalf of Bush in the Bush v Gore election case that ended the recount in the disputed 2010 election and also surprisingly enough successfully argued against the ban of same sex marriage has decided that representing Trump is not something that he wants to do, yesterday he turned down an offer to join Trump’s team.                  

Budget Bill:  Congress, also known as the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, still hasn’t finalized the terms of the omnibus spending bill.  A scaled-back plan for Trump's border wall and a fight over the Hudson River tunnel are still holding up a final agreement, raising the possibility that the government could be closed again this weekend or that another short term, kick the can down the road solution will be needed to keep the government running.  As to shooting straight, there’s still no gun legislation but there was another school shooting yesterday, this time a school resource office, not a repurposed teacher but a skilled former SEAL, saved the day by taking out the shooter who was “only” carrying a handgun. As to random bombings, early this morning the suspected Austin serial bomber blew himself up after being surrounded by local SWAT team officers and Federal agents, some of those guys from the so called “deep state.”            

Psychographic Honeypots

Legal Shuffle:  Last week when the New York Times reported that Trump was considering adding another lawyer to his legal team, he shot back at the paper, questioning the capabilities of Times reporter Maggie Haberman and calling the article another example of Fake News.  That was last week, the only thing wrong about the article was its timing.  Trump is taking a much more aggressive stance towards the Russia investigation which he has now started to refer to as the Mueller investigation and is in the process of shuffling his legal team, adding frequent Fox commentator Joseph diGenova to the mix. DiGenova, a former US Attorney, is a deep state conspiracy theorist who told Fox News that the Mueller investigation is a “brazen plot to illegally exonerate Hillary Clinton and, if she didn’t win the election, to then frame Donald Trump with a falsely created crime.” At different times diGenova has also attacked or called for the arrest of the recently fired Andrew McCabe, James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, Sally Yates and Obama’s Attorney General Loretta Lynch. DiGenova’s wife and law partner, Victoria Toensing, is one of the advancers of the Uranium One conspiracy theory.  Though Trump has considered firing him, Ty Cobb, the legal team member who until last weekend managed to moderate Trump’s outbursts by keeping Mueller’s name out of criticisms of the Russian investigation, is still on board, for now. It’s also been reported that John Dowd, the Trump lawyer whose calls for the Mueller investigation to end raised a number of eyebrows last weekend,  is considering quitting.  At least for now both lawyers are in place and deny that they are going anywhere, but we’ve heard that refrain many times before.  Trump’s shift to a more aggressive legal team reflects his very valid concern that the Mueller investigation is closing in on him and his family and also reflects his reality show roots.  If you can’t win in the courts, go for the drama and win over the public.  He may not be winning over all of the public but he is in all likelihood confusing a lot of people while further solidifying his base. 

Data Shenanigans:  Facebook and Cambridge Analytica’s problems continue to mount.  Alexander Nix, the head of Cambridge Analytica, was caught on camera, explaining to a British Channel 4 undercover investigative team that in addition to providing data analytics and proprietary “psychographic” services, his firm could also arrange and videotape compromising honeypot traps and land for money swaps in order to provide blackmail material that could then be used to advance the political aims of their fictional Sri Lankan client. Nix bragged “that we have a long history of working behind the scenes,” by scenes he meant between the covers.  UK investigators were already looking into Cambridge Analytica and Facebook’s data harvesting techniques, as a result of the investigative report, which aired in the UK and is available in its entirety on the Internet, both of the company’s problems have just grown significantly.  Facebook’s woes, especially its loosey goosey attitude towards user data, are also disturbing the equity markets.  The company’s stock dropped 6.8% yesterday, leading a major market sell-off. Investors are concerned that Facebook’s problems could lead to increased oversight and regulation of the industry and those concerns might be valid.  Virginia’s Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, spoke for many when he said  “I think it’s time for the CEO, Mr. [Mark] Zuckerberg, and other top officials to come and testify and not tell part of the story, but tell the whole story of their involvement -- not only with the Trump campaign but their ability to have their platform misused by the Russians.” Alex Stamos, Facebook’s Chief Information Security officer will be leaving by August.  The NY Times reports that Stamos had advocated for greater transparency about Facebook’s Russia problem but had lost out to those within Facebook who thought that there was little need to really come clean.   

    

Another Budget Deadline:  Here’s one you’ve heard before, if Congress doesn’t get its act together and pass an omnibus spending bill, the government could shut down again at the end of the week.  During the last go round Congress agreed upon the size of the bill and the size of the increases for defense and domestic spending.  At this point a number of critical issues remain unresolved, and with this crowd, little gets done without a bit of controversy or a last minute fight.  Among the still open items are health insurance subsidy payments, the ones that Trump cancelled in a fit of pique as part of his effort to gut Obamacare last year.  In exchange for her vote on the tax bill, Trump promised Maine Senator Susan Collins that he would support the Alexander-Murray insurance subsidy payment fix.  Despite that promise and another one from Senate Leader McConnell, the subsidy fix remains up in the air.  House Republicans have thrown abortion politics into the mix, they want a provision prohibiting subsidy payments to any insurer also providing abortion coverage, that would significantly extend the already existing Hyde Amendment prohibitions against government funding of abortion.  For some inexplicable reason, Collins who holds herself out as a supporter of women’s reproductive rights doesn’t have a problem with that but Democrats who view the provision as just another attempt to reduce women’s services and defund Planned Parenthood aren’t buying it.  It’s also unlikely that the bill won’t include a DACA fix.  Trump has proposed an extension to DACA in exchange for $25 billion in wall funding but his plan does not include a path to citizenship for the Dreamers so again the Democrats aren’t interested since, at least for now, the courts have given the DACA program a reprieve removing the pressure for any less than satisfactory compromise.  Notably, several Koch Brothers funded conservative groups have come out in support of the DACA recipients and believe that any legislation should provide a path to citizenship.  That message hasn’t made it to Trump or his anti-immigration whisperer, Steven Miller.  Though it’s still being discussed, Trump’s threat to veto any bill that includes funding for the hugely important New York-New Jersey Hudson River tunnel has likely killed any chance of it being included in the bill.  Also uncertain is the inclusion of the Fix NIX gun legislation, the bare bones bill that does little more than fix the existing gun background check system.           

Midterm Update:  Yesterday the Supreme Court denied Republican efforts to block the new Pennsylvania redistricting map.  As a result, the new districting will take effect in time for the upcoming midterms.  This is significant because the prior map heavily advantaged the State’s Republican candidates; as a result of the redistricting, Democrats are expected to pick up four to six of the key seats needed to take back the House.  One of those seats will probably go to Conor Lamb, the unofficial winner of the recent Pennsylvania 18 special election. His new district will include more Democrats making it highly likely that he will achieve another victory in November.  Though he isn’t running in the midterms, Trump is already running for reelection.  Yesterday he went to New Hampshire, the early primary state he previously called a “drug-infested den.” After an brief introduction by the frequently absent Melania, Trump delivered a speech that was billed as an overview of his solution to the opioid crisis.  He mostly avoided details but did stick to his usual themes.  He called for more health care services, but little in the way of funding, called for more punishments including the death penalty for drug traffickers, a policy unlikely to pass court muster and of course he called for more restrictions on immigration.  He also praised a program that makes Narcan, an opioid overdose antidote, more available in colleges and universities.  Apparently he was unaware that the program he touted was made possible because of a partnership with the Clinton Foundation.   

  

Trump Unhinged

Petty and Mean:   Late Friday Attorney General Sessions fired Andrew McCabe the former Deputy, and one time Acting, Director of the FBI.  In theory McCabe was fired because an inspector general report concluded that he had been less than candid about a conversation that he had with the press about the investigation into the Clinton Foundation.  In reality, though McCabe may well have committed an offense, the process behind his dismissal was unusual and was most definitely accelerated because a vengeful Trump wants to do all he can to diminish the value of McCabe’s testimony to Special Counsel Mueller’s Russia investigation, particularly his testimony about what former FBI Director Comey told him about Trump conversations, like the time that Trump asked him to lay off former security advisor Michael Flynn or the time Trump asked him for his loyalty. Because he was fired on Friday, just two days before his retirement would have gone into effect, McCabe will lose the pension benefits that he had earned during his otherwise distinguished twenty-one year career at the FBI, or at least Trump wants him to lose those benefits.  A few Democratic Congressman have offered to retain McCabe for two days, a strategy that might help him retain his pension.  Trump the guy who’d  previously pardoned the racist and abusive Sheriff Joe Arpaio for far worse crimes had been relentlessly lobbing lethal tweets at McCabe for months, some of those tweets had called for him to be fired so Friday night’s action, was less than shocking but still it was ugly and made uglier by Trump’s tweet celebrating McCabe’s dismissal, “Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI. A great day for Democracy.  Sanctimonious James Comey was his boss and made McCabe look like a choirboy.  He knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI!”  It’s unlikely that any of those FBI agents were happy to see a colleague lose his pension and though Comey may be a bit sanctimonious, deceitfulness is not one of his character flaws, but Trump has made his point, cross him and you will suffer, bigly.  As to Sessions, the man that Trump dismissively calls Mr. Magoo, for him this was a desperation play.  He is trying hard to cling on to his attorney general position and no doubt hopes that kowtowing to another one of Trump’s demands will help extend his tenure.  McCabe isn’t going away quietly, Friday night he released a statement defending himself against the inspector general’s report, asserting that he had acted appropriately and within the boundaries of his job and calling his firing out for what it was, a meanspirited political move by Trump to discredit him in an effort to impugn the credibility of the Mueller investigation and by Saturday he let it be known that he, like Comey, had memorialized his Trump interactions in contemporaneous memos, memos already in Mueller’s hands.  As the weekend progressed, an emboldened and frenzied Trump continued his tweet tirade only this time, in addition to attacking McCabe, he attacked Mueller and his investigation, calling out all of Mueller’s team for being Hillary loving Democrats, an accusation that plays well with the Trump base.  Trump lawyer, John Dowd also went after Mueller, calling for him to end his “baseless” investigation, although his comments were scaled back when some of Trump’s other lawyers realized what he had done.  It goes without saying that Democrats are outraged by Trump’s increasingly hostile tweets against Mueller and his involvement in and celebration of the McCabe dismissal. Former members of the intelligence services are as well, James Comey, whose book tour begins shortly, tweeted “the American people will hear my story very soon…. and they can judge for themselves who is honorable and who is not.” Former CIA Director John Brennan said “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history.”  This time around a few Republicans, including Senators Graham, Rubio, McCain and Flake and Congressman Trey Gowdy, also chimed in, questioning Trump’s tweets, warning that firing Mueller would backfire.  Sadly, they remain in the minority and Republican leadership remains largely silent.  It’s not clear what happens next, but suffice it to say, if it involves the dismissal of Mueller, and given Trump’s increasingly unhinged tweets, it probably will, it won’t be pretty.  

The Stormy Chronicles:  The tale of Trump and the porn star continues to spiral out of control.  Friday morning Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels attorney, revealed to Morning Joe’s Mika Brzezinski that Stormy had been physically threatened.  Though he didn’t provide any details about the timing of the threats or who had threatened her, he implied that the person or persons were associated with Trump, leaving the distinct impression that the threatening party was probably Trump’s lawyer and frequent fixer, Michael Cohen. On Sunday Avenatti later CNN's Jake Taper that some of the incidents against Stormy happened during the Trump presidency.  Avenatti also disclosed that he’d been approached by six more “Trump” women and that at least two of them had entered into “hush” agreements with Trump.  As of yet he has not taken any of these women on as clients because he wants to fully vet them to make sure that their accusations are “kosher.”  Although, no one from the Trump team commented on Avenatti’s accusations, the slippery complicit Sarah Huckabee Sanders sidestepped a question by just saying that threats against women are bad. Late Friday, Trump’s lawyers, including his most recent acquisition, Charles Harder, filed a motion to have the Stormy case moved from a California state court to a Federal court, a move that would benefit Trump.  Harder’s addition to the Trump legal team is notable and provides an indication that Trump is playing serious hardball with Stormy.  Harder represented Hulk Hogan in his successful case against Gawker, winning an award that put Gawker out of business.  He also represented Melania in her libel case against the Daily Mail, a case that resulted in an apology and a $2.9 million award.  With Harder on board, Trump is now seeking $20 million from Stormy, asserting that her non-disclosure agreement includes a provision that makes her liable for $1 million every time she breaches its terms.  Obviously, Stormy, who is paying her own attorney with money raised from a legal crowd funding website, does not have those kind of deep pockets.  Avenatti responded using Trump’s favorite media, tweeting with caps, “The fact that a sitting president is pursuing over $20M in bogus 'damages' against a private citizen, who is only trying to tell the public what really happened, is remarkable. Likely unprecedented in our history. We are NOT going away and we will NOT be intimidated.”  Stormy’s 60 Minutes interview is still scheduled to air on Sunday night, at that point we may learn whether Trump is trying to silence her because she has embarrassing pictures and correspondence or whether he fears that her interview will embolden other “Stormy” women to come forward or both. It’s not just the Stormys of the world that Trump is trying to keep silent.  Last night the Washington Post reported that all of Trump’s senior staff have been required to sign non-disclosure agreements, another attempt by Trump to prevent leaks and any more tell-all books.  Clearly the leaking has gone on anyway and in all likelihood there will also be some fairly critical books, and though it’s questionable that those agreements are legal, there will probably be more law suits.    

               

Data Manipulators:  Mueller is examining Cambridge Analytica, the data mining and analytical firm, financed in part by the ultra-conservative Mercer family, that was retained by Stephen Bannon and the Trump campaign team to help with the targeting and manipulation of potential voters during the 2016 election. Apparently Cambridge Analytica deceptively accessed and then used Facebook data to exploit the social data of 50 million Facebook users.  A significant number of the people working for Cambridge Analytica were London based foreign nationals, their involvement was quite possibly a violation of US election laws prohibiting foreign intervention in US elections.  Brad Parscale, Trump and Jared Kushner’s data guru and the recently appointed head of Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign worked closely with the Cambridge Analytica team. Without question, despite his assertions that he did nothing out of the norm, Parscale’s actions are now being carefully scrutinized by Mueller’s team. As is Kushner’s involvement, it can’t help him that shortly after the election he bragged about how under his watch the Trump team was able to keep their campaign expenses down through the efficient and innovative use of data analytics.  Mueller may conclude that innovative is just Trump speak  for criminal.  Facebook may not have intentionally cooperated with Cambridge Analytica but they don’t come out of this situation blameless, they appear to have been both lax in the way they shared their data and, once caught, unwilling to come completely clean about their actions. They’ve now banned Cambridge Analytica from Facebook, a little bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. 

Other Stuff:  Here’s a shocker, the Russian election results are in and Putin is the winner, again.  Also, adding to the woes of the Kushner family, the Associated Press reports that while Jared Kushner was in charge, the company falsified reports about the number of rent stabilized tenants in its buildings in order to get permits to proceed with tenant disrupting upgrades that allowed the company to profitably sell the buildings for substantially higher prices.  Like the results of the Russian elections, this is neither good or shocking, however, it proves once again why Kushner and his family would have been far better off if he had stayed in New York, out of the Trump limelight and away from the probing eyes of the press and Mueller.