Bowling Balls and Perjury Traps

Russia, Russia, Russia:  Yesterday, the Treasury Department finally imposed sanctions on twenty-four Russian organizations and individuals in retaliation for election interference and for “malicious cyberattacks.”  Some of those cyberattacks involved fairly intrusive hacking of the US electricity grid, incursions that would allow the Russians to trigger blackouts or worse across the country. The sanctions targeted many of the same organizations and individuals indicted by Special Counsel Mueller, including Putin’s cook, oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, and his nefarious Internet Research Agency. Though the sanctions were a step in the right direction, they don’t go as far as they could.  Democrats and some Republicans want the administration to take a harder line with Putin by penalizing entities doing business with Moscow’s defense and intelligence sectors, a move that was called for in last year’s bipartisan sanctions legislation. As to Trump, he finally commented on the Russian poison attack on former spy Skripal saying it was likely that Russia was behind it, he called it a “very sad situation”  but didn’t mention the sanctions or the election interference probably because he still believes that the election interference stuff is a hoax, especially with regard to his campaign. At the same time that the sanctions were announced, it was separately revealed that Mueller has subpoenaed the Trump Organization for business documents related to its Russia activities and that he is looking into older Russian related real estate deals. Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s personal attorneys had previously said that he would consider that to be outside of the scope of legitimate inquiry” and Trump has said that he would view such actions as crossing his “red line.” Despite those warnings, the Trump organization’s lawyer, Alan Futerfas, says that they are cooperating with the investigators and are in the process of meeting Mueller’s request.  At least for now, Mueller still has his job.  As to Donald Trump Jr, his life has also taken a turn for the worse, it looks like his rampant twittering, obsessive support for his father and hunting habit have caught up with him.  His wife filed for divorce yesterday possibly because of all of those things and possibly because she doesn’t want to be around when all the facts about his Trump Tower meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya come to light.        

Palace Intrigue:  Last night The Washington Post published another one of those multi sourced stories about White House turbulence, reporting that Trump has made the decision to oust National Security Advisor HR McMaster.  They say that he is seriously considering replacing McMaster with either former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton or John Kellogg, the chief of staff to the National Security Council.  Apparently Trump likes Bolton because, despite his moustache, he comes off well on TV during his frequent Fox appearances and he likes Kellogg because he’s fun to travel with.  TV skills notwithstanding, Bolton, a Bush era neocon, still thinks that going to war with Iraq was a really good thing and generally takes a hardline on everything so his appointment would be somewhat frightening to the extent that you believe that peaceful solutions are preferable to war.  Shortly after the Washington Post article was published, Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a statement saying that she had “just spoke to @POTUS and Gen. H.R. McMaster – contrary to reports they have a good working relationship and there are no changes at the NSC.”  Immediately after she released that statement, the Wall Street Journal came out on the Washington Post side, reporting that McMaster was on his way out.  In all likelihood, McMaster is on his way out and will leave at some point but not until Trump finds him a soft landing spot, one which involves a promotion from three to four stars, because Trump doesn’t want to look like he is throwing a general under the bus.  Unlike Tillerson, McMaster hasn’t been caught calling Trump a moron, yet.       

The Opiate Solution:  Trump is expected to formally announce his plans for dealing with the opiate crisis next week during a visit to New Hampshire, one of the state’s hardest hit by the epidemic.  In addition to calling for increased spending on opiate treatment programs, money that hasn’t been provided by this Congress and that  probably never will be appropriated, Trump is expected to take a page from the Duterte handbook by calling for increased application of the death penalty for those trafficking in lethal drugs such as fentanyl.  Anyone listening to Trump’s campaign speeches could see that this was coming.  To be fair, the Duterte led Philippines isn’t the only country into the death penalty for drug offenses, China and Singapore are also all-in on capital punishment.  However, despite Trump’s admiration for their policies his plan is unlikely to gain much traction here, at least with regard to the capital punishment part.  He probably will manage to throw more people into jail, a plan that will please his current Attorney General Sessions, who also believes in the value of incarceration.  As to Sessions, his days at Justice may or may not be numbered.  Yesterday Senators Graham and Grassley warned that replacing Sessions would shut the Senate down, of course, Trump has been known to ignore warnings.           

The Stormy Chronicles:  Michael Cohen, Trump’s hapless lawyer may have stepped in it again.  In January he filed a libel lawsuit against Buzzfeed over its publication of the infamous Steele Dossier.  Now Buzzfeed is using that lawsuit as a vehicle to demand that all of Cohen and Trump’s records relating to the Stormy Daniels affair, including any hush payments, be preserved, in anticipation of a subpoena and formal depositions. They’ve made a similar request of Stormy.  Buzzfeed’s request is based on the assertion that Cohen’s role in paying off Stormy is similar to allegations included in the dossier about his efforts to “sweep under the carpet” details of the relationship between Russia and Trump’s campaign team. Trump’s alleged relationship with Stormy also makes some of the more salacious elements of the dossier seem true too.  Though any deposition by Stormy is probably months away, once it is completed her lawyers would be free to release it to the public despite any outstanding non-disclosure agreement.  In the meantime, Stormy’s 60 Minutes interview is scheduled to run a week from Sunday, it’s not clear what she was able to say during that interview which has already been taped, but it should be interesting.        

Lies and More Lies:  We all know that Trump has a penchant for lying and for encouraging his staff to follow suit.  Still it’s quite remarkable that during a Missouri fund raiser he admitted to making up trade figures in a discussion with Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau.  Trump asserted that the US has a $17 billion trade deficit when in fact the US ran a $2.77 billion surplus with Canada in 2017.  He went on to complain about Japan’s unfair trade practices by citing a non-existent bowling ball test, claiming that "they take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air and they drop it on the hood of the car. And if the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify...It's horrible, the way we're treated."  The crowd enjoyed Trump’s histrionics, but his lawyers are probably horrified.  It’s no wonder they fear that he will fall into a perjury trap if and when he ever speaks with Mueller.