Game On

Firing and Fury: The big story of the day was supposed to be all about Syria and US plans to retaliate for Assad’s chemical attacks but that story got pushed to the side when FBI agents raided Trump lawyer/ fixer Michael Cohen’s New York office, home and the hotel where he and his family are living while their home undergoes renovation.  The FBI warrant which allowed the agents to seize records related to several topics including the $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, was obtained by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York after they received a referral from Special Counsel Mueller’s office. The assumption is that the referral took place because the subject of the warrant related to legal matters outside of Mueller’s mandate.  In any case, whatever the subject it had to be significant enough for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and a federal judge to think that it was worthy of a warrant. The Washington Post reports that Cohen is being investigated for bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign violations and that the FBI agents grabbed client records and his personal finance and tax filings.  Cohen’s lawyer responded by saying that if the government wanted Cohen’s papers, they could have asked nicely via a run of the mill subpoena, the fact that they didn’t implies that the FBI was concerned that such an approach might have resulted in some of the sought after documents getting flushed down the toilet.  Surrounded by a stunned group of military and national security advisors who thought that they were assembled to plan an attack on Syria, an irate Trump instead launched an attack on Mueller, Attorney General Sessions and Rosenstein. He ranted at them for launching a “witch hunt,” calling the raid on Cohen’s office and home “disgraceful” and “an attack on our country.”  He once again went after Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia probe and referred to Mueller’s team as a bunch of “Democrats,” even though Mueller and Rosenstein are Republicans as is Geoffrey Berman, the interim head of the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, who went forward with the warrant.  Berman, a Trump appointee and a former law partner of Rudy Giuliani, still needs to go through his Senate Confirmation hearing, assuming Trump doesn’t pull his appointment first.  When asked if he was thinking about firing Mueller and Rosenstein, Trump responded  “Well, I think it's a disgrace what's going on. We'll see what happens.”  He went on to say that “many people,” i.e. Fox News pundits, have said that he should fire him.  For his part, while the Manhattan office was busy with Cohen, Mueller wasn’t sitting idly by.  The NY Times reports he is now also investigating a $150,000 donation made to Trump’s foundation by a Ukrainian steel magnate in September 2015, a payment that may have been solicited by the industrious Cohen.

Cabinet Shuffle:  When Scott Pruitt was interviewed last week by Fox News he insisted that he had nothing to do with the salary increases inappropriately awarded to two of his most favorite staff members from a program intended to provide emergency funding for the hiring of specialists to deal with drinking water emergencies.  He promised that he would get to the bottom of the action as soon as he had a chance. The Atlantic saved him some time, yesterday they reported on an email exchange between Sarah Greenwalt one of the lucky staffers who got the curious pay raise and the EPA’s human resources department, an email exchange that was leaked to them by a number of other less lucky disgruntled EPA employees.  In the exchange, the EPA human resources department tells Greenwalt that it had processed her title change.  When she asks about her promised salary increase, human resources tells her there was no increase in her salary. The email exchange shows that she then responded by saying that Pruitt indicated she should have one, the one that she subsequently got.  When shown the emails, a spokeswoman for the EPA explained away the email exchange by saying that “There's no way to prove what she said is true; a lot of people say the administrator said this or that." Sadly for Pruitt and his spokeswoman, no one is really buying their version of events although at least for now they are probably both safe. Between Syria and Mueller, Trump is a little too busy to focus on mundane issues involving cabinet corruption.   

Election Report:  Yesterday, Florida’s Rick Scott finally announced his long anticipated plans to run for Senate as the Republican candidate against Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson.  In the run up to yesterday’s announcement, most early polls showed Nelson leading Scott by just two points, it’s more than fair to say that this will be a very close election.  Scott and his wife are very wealthy and are expected to be willing to spend a lot of their own money on the race.  Experts project that at the end of the day the Florida election could cost $200 million, making it the most expensive Senate race ever.  Scott, a Trump supporter in a state that went for Trump, AKA Mr. Mar a Lago,  in 2016, is a smooth operator who has been known to modify his positions on key issues in election years only to revert back to his true views once elected. He flipflopped several times on enrolling Florida in the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, first he was against it, then he was for it, and then he was against it.  Florida doesn’t participate in the expansion, something that sends millions of Florida tax dollars to states that do participate. After Parkland he reluctantly signed the newest Florida gun control bill but given his long term record supporting gun rights, he maintains an A plus rating from the NRA.  If you live in Florida, or even if you don’t, think about sending a few dollars to Senator Nelson, he’ll need all the help he can get.