Three Ring Circus

The Cohen Sideshow:  Last week in an attempt to prevent federal prosecutors from reviewing all the material that had been obtained during the FBI raid of Michael Cohen’s homes and office, Cohen and Trump’s lawyers asked Judge Kimba Wood for a preliminary injunction to protect Cohen’s computers, phones and documents. They wanted the right to review the material first, turning over only the stuff that didn’t concern them, in other words they were trying to make sure that the FBI and the Federal prosecutors didn’t get a chance to review any of the really interesting, implicating stuff.  During that first visit to Judge Wood’s court room, Cohen’s attorney asserted that Cohen had much to protect because of his very large client base.  No one, especially Woods, believed that dubious assertion and since Cohen was out having lunch with friends he wasn’t around to answer any questions.  Yesterday, the lawyers were all back in court, this time Cohen was in attendance as was a tastefully dressed Stormy Daniels along with a few burly body guards.  This time, the Judge insisted that Cohen provide a list of his “many” clients, it turns out that he has ten but only provides legal advice to three of them:  Donald Trump, Elliott Broidy, the guy who paid a Playboy bunny to keep their relationship and her abortion a secret, and Fox pundit Sean Hannity.  The crowd in court collectively gasped and chuckled when they heard Hannity’s name.  How much more bizarre could this circus get? Hannity who had spent much of the weekend attacking the FBI for raiding Cohen’s office and homes wasn’t laughing, he denies that he’s really Cohen’s client, claiming that he’s never paid him for anything and that he’s only “had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective.”  Mostly Hannity wants to make it clear, at least to his wife and his bosses at Fox that, unlike the work that Cohen did for Trump and Broidy, the work, to the extent that he did any, for Hannity did not involve any “matter between” him and a “third party,” in other words no Playboy bunnies or porn stars.  Of course, at this point we only have Hannity’s word about that, and since he had no problem using his Fox platform to relentlessly attack the FBI raid while advocating for Trump and Cohen’s position without first disclosing his relationship with Cohen, there’s no reason that we should believe anything that he has to say.  As to Judge Wood, she wasn’t all that impressed with Cohen’s client list.  She said that she was “not prepared to grant Trump exclusive first access to documents seized in FBI raids but said that she was considering appointing an independent lawyer to assist in reviewing the seized materials."  The bottom line is that the Federal prosecutors will probably get to see and review whatever they determine is relevant, not the outcome that either Cohen, Trump or even Hannity were hoping to hear. 

Under the Bus:  Yesterday, Trump threw UN Ambassador Niki Haley under the proverbial bus by announcing that he wasn’t prepared to impose any more sanctions on Russia at this time.  This came as a surprise to Haley who had announced during her Sunday appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation that Trump was going to hit Russia with new sanctions on Monday for supporting Syria’s chemical weapons program.  She explicitly said that the new sanctions would be focused on Russian companies that deal in equipment linked to Bashar al Assad’s chemical weapons program.  Haley hadn’t pulled her thoughts out of the air, her statement had been detailed and had been coordinated with the administration so Trump’s statement was a real surprise to her and to others in the administration.  Apparently Trump isn’t all that happy about the sanctions that he agreed to impose in response to the poisoning of the Russian spy.  In particular he is really annoyed that some of those sanctions resulted in the US expelling more Russian spies than any of the other countries involved.  All of this sanction stuff really bothers him mostly because, despite Russia’s nefarious acts, despite their heinous support of chemical warfare and despite the fact that we’ve just discovered that they’ve been engaging in another cyberattack of US and UK network infrastructure in an attempt to gain access to critical government computer systems, he still wants to meet and bond with Putin.  Though he’s not under the bus yet, EPA head Pruitt is probably under at least one wheel.  Yesterday the US Government Accountability Office said the EPA violated the law when it approved the construction of a $43,000 soundproof “cone of silence” phone booth for Pruitt without first seeking approval from lawmakers.  The same report also slammed Interior Secretary Zinke for a $12,000 unnecessary charter flight that he took on the taxpayers’ dime to make a campaign like speech to a professional hockey team.  So much for draining the swamp.        

Prizes All Around:  Don’t be surprised if Trump or his mouthpiece, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, fails to congratulate the failing NY Times or the Jeff Bezos owned Washington Post this week.  He can’t be all that happy that both institutions received Pulitzer Prizes for their investigative reporting of Russia influence related to the 2016 election and the Trump transition and administration.  The New York Times also shared a prize with The New Yorker for its coverage of the “me too” movement while the Washington Post received an additional award for its coverage of the Alabama Senate election, the one where Trump supported the child molester over the Democrat.   Trump’s probably taking the Pulitzer Prize committees decisions very personally.  Though he hasn’t received a prize, special appreciation goes to Republican Senator Tillis who, though he is generally a Trump supporter, has been pushing for the passage of legislation to protect Special Counsel Mueller and the Russia investigation.  Many of his Republican colleagues are angry about his position, his response is that “The same people who would criticize me for filing this bill would be absolutely angry if I wasn’t pounding the table for this bill if we were dealing with Hillary Clinton…..So spare me your righteous indignation.”