Mueller Watch

Crossing the Red Line:  To put it mildly, Trump is positively livid about the FBI raid of Michael Cohen’s home and office.  He’s been creeping closer to firing Special Counsel Mueller for a while now and the Cohen raid may be the event that throws him over that precipice.  We’ve known for a while that he considered putting the wheels in motion to fire Mueller during the summer but only held off after White House Counsel Don McGahn threatened to quit rather than carry out his order.  Last night the NY Times reported that Trump came close again in December after it was reported that Mueller had subpoenaed his Deutsche Bank records.  That time, he again backed down but only after his lawyers reached out to Mueller and determined that the reports about his financial information being part of the Deutsche Bank cache were inaccurate.  This time, with two of his former whisperers, Hope Hicks and John Dowd gone, it might not be as easy to walk him back.  During yesterday’s news conference Sarah Huckabee Sanders stunned the assembled press corps by saying that Trump believes that he has “the power to fire” Mueller, adding that “a number of individuals in the legal community, and including at the Department of Justice, said he has the power to do so. We've been advised that the president certainly has the power to make that decision." Until now the rest of us have been operating under the assumption that to fire Mueller, Trump would have to first get rid of Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, working himself through a list of Justice Department officials until he found one “cooperative” enough to follow a dismissal order or alternatively replace Attorney General Sessions with a complicit toady. Apparently Trump is now convinced that he could get rid of Mueller and cut off the hated investigation by unilaterally changing the law that authorized Mueller’s hiring.  It’s not clear who at Justice or which Fox lawyer provided him with this advice.  To the extent that such an approach would be possible, it would likely be messy and would probably involve litigation and public and Congressional outrage but the impulsive Trump is angry and might act without thinking through the consequences. As to the TV lawyers, Trump had dinner last night with famed legal gadfly Alan Dershowitz who spends a lot of time on Fox advising Trump though the airwaves.  Dershowitz claimed that they mostly discussed Middle East politics but clammed up when asked if they also discussed legally permissible ways to fire Mueller. Although he’s not all that ready for prime time, it’s also reported that Marc Kasowitz, an advocate of aggressive action, is back on, to the extent he ever left, the Trump legal team.  A number of Senators from both sides of the aisle including Republicans Lindsey Graham, John Kennedy and Chuck Grassley have expressed their concern, warning Trump that firing Mueller will totally upend his presidency but we’ve heard these exclamations before and absent any concrete action they sound rather hollow. Despite efforts by four senators to actually introduce protective legislation, Senate Majority Leader McConnell continues to say that he doesn’t believe that any legislation is really needed and no one thinks that House Speaker Ryan would even consider trying to pass anything through the House.  That said, Republican leadership does appear to be concerned about the impulsive way Trump’s been behaving.  A group including Ryan, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, McConnell, and Majority Whip John Cornyn are all expected to join Trump for dinner tonight at the White House.  In addition to discussing Mueller and Rosenstein’s longevity, the crowd is expected to address the impact of tariffs, something that causes them even more indigestion and problems with their constituents.  As to the Mueller investigation, though firing Mueller and/or Rosenstein would provide Trump with immediate satisfaction, neither act would wipe out the investigation.  Mueller has already set too many wheels in motion.  Though they aren’t all that impressed with the recent targeting of Michael Cohen or the attention being given to the Stormy Daniels affair and the hush money that she received close to the election, the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board says that the smart advice, which they don’t expect Trump to take, is to “keep quiet about Mr. Mueller and build political capital by trying to succeed as president,” the strategy that they point out ultimately saved Bill Clinton’s presidency.  They go on to say that Trump “can’t control Mr. Mueller, but he can control himself.  That may be the only way to save his presidency.”  A similar message is repeated in the New York Post, the other Murdoch owned daily, perhaps in the hope that Trump might find it easier to read.    

Travel Plans:  Both Trump and Secretary of Defense Mattis have canceled their upcoming travel plans.  Mattis had been planning to go to Nevada and California this weekend but now won’t be leaving Washington except for a brief trip to New York City.  Trump had been scheduled to attend the Summit of the Americas  meeting in Lima, Peru before going on to Bogota, Colombia but abruptly cancelled his trip.  The sudden change was announced immediately after economic advisor Larry Kudlow reassured a conservative radio host that Trump was going because he is an able multi tasker who can “compartmentalize.”  Though the cancellation came right after Trump threw a fit about the Michael Cohen raid, the stated purpose for the change of plans is the situation in Syria, and since Trump didn’t really want to go hang out with the Latin American crowd anyway, he doesn’t seem all that unhappy about changing his itinerary, he’s sending Mike Pence in his place.  As to Syria, pan-European flight control has warned airliners to be extra careful while flying in the region, another indication that we are about to start bombing something very soon, probably in concert with France but without the UK since Theresa May doesn’t think that she can get approval to act.  Not so happy or cooperative are the Russians, yesterday the United Nations Security Council failed to approve three draft resolutions on chemical weapons attacks in Syria. Russia vetoed a US text, while two Russian-drafted resolutions failed to get a minimum nine votes to pass.

Human Resources:  Scott Pruitt is still the head of the EPA and is doing his best to justify that he needs all of the security that he says he needs even though he doesn’t.  To that end,  Mario Caraballo, the former deputy associate administrator of the EPA’s Office of Homeland Security, who approved an internal report that concluded that “EPA intelligence has not identified any specific credible direct threat” to Pruitt was fired yesterday after Democrats cited his report as evidence for their criticism of  Pruitt’s excessive spending on personal security.  Tom Bossert, the senior Homeland Security advisor who represented the White House on a number of Sunday morning talk shows this weekend, was also abruptly fired yesterday.  Apparently his new boss, national security advisor for now John Bolton, decided it was time to clean house so he called Bossert into his office only to show the very stunned Bossert the door.    

The Deficit:  Remember when the Tax Reform plan was being discussed and Republican leadership assured everyone that it would be wonderful for the economy because growth rates would be so awesome that deficits would disappear magically, that was then and this is now.  Yesterday the Congressional Budget Office reported that while growth is expected to be over 3% this year, it will drop to 1.8% by 2020.  Meantime, they expect the deficit to surpass $1 trillion by 2020, two years sooner than previously estimated as a result of the new tax cuts and spending increases.  They go on to say that the deficit will increase by almost $1.9 trillion over the next eleven years.  Not to worry though, the Republicans say that the CBO guys are wrong.  That said, some may be really concerned, under pressure from Trump and a number of Fox news pundits, some lawmakers are trying to revisit the newly passed budget in order to pass a spending reduction, something that would require 60 votes in the Senate, an unlikely outcome in an election year.  And so it goes.