Another One Bites the Dust

Men Behaving Badly:  Wow few, if anyone, saw this one coming.  Last night after The New Yorker Magazine published another article co-authored by the #metoo whisperer Ronan Farrow, this one alleging that New York State’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman had committed alcohol fueled acts of violence against four women during the course of his relationships with them, New York’s Governor Cuomo and Senator Kristen Gillibrand, both Democrats up for reelection, called for him to resign.  Although he forcefully denied the accusations,  instead claiming that the activity that the women described was just consensual role playing, Schneiderman spared the party further embarrassment by quickly agreeing to leave. He said “While these allegations are unrelated to my professional conduct or the operations of the office, they will effectively prevent me from leading the office’s work at this critical time.”  In addition to being a long term advocate for women’s rights,  Schneiderman has been an outspoken critic of Trump and his policies, he’s responsible for pushing a suit against the corrupt bait and switch Trump University that resulted in a large settlement against Trump.  Additionally, Schneiderman had been cooperating with the  Mueller investigation and until last night had been viewed as Mueller’s back up in the event that Trump seeks to upend the Russia and/or Cohen investigations by firing Rosenstein or Mueller or by issuing any “obstructive” pardons.  A gleeful Donald Trump Jr immediately responded by digging up one of Schneiderman’s old tweets in which he said, “No one is above the law” retweeting it and adding “You were saying???”  It falls to the relatively dysfunctional New York State legislature to appoint Schneiderman’s successor and though it’s highly likely that his successor will be another Democrat the process will probably take some time and will probably hit a few speedbumps. That said, a few names have already emerged as possible contenders and they are all expected to continue supporting the Russia investigation.  Though as far as we know, he hasn’t been accused of any physical violence against women, Rudy Giuliani’s days in the White House may be numbered.  Politico reports that Trump is already growing frustrated with his media grabbing interviews and bizarrely implicating statements. Giuliani, of course denied the accuracy of Politico’s report instead saying that he was busy on legal issues and that Trump was busy on North Korea and Iran and that the two were chummy as ever.  At least with regard to Iran, Giuliani is right, Trump probably spent the evening finalizing his Iran statement, he plans to announce his decision on the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear agreement, this afternoon.  The Washington Post reports that at best he will “only” undermine the pact by announcing that he will not continue a waiver of sanctions against Iran.  Iran has threatened to reactivate its nuclear program if the US fails to stick with its commitments but they have also signaled that they would continue to stay in the deal as long as the other countries involved continue with their obligations so it’s not clear how they will respond with regard to their nuclear aspirations however, it’s likely that they will continue to meddle in the Middle East and will continue shooting off missiles at Israel and that the Israelis will respond in kind.  As to the JCPOA, even with European support, its continued viability will depend on what Trump actually says and what happens with US banks, if they conclude that they can’t do business with entities that do business with Iran, the deal will become unworkable.  

Funny Money:  The pressure on Trump’s fixer/sometime lawyer Michael Cohen continues to build with Vanity Fair reporting that he is growing increasingly concerned about the emotional stress that his problems are placing on his wife and children.  Some of that stress may be due to the article about his finances that was published by the Wall Street Journal late last week.  Apparently, in the run up to the 2016 election, Cohen gained access to $774,000 by increasing the line of credit on his apartment and by co-signing a mortgage on a condominium owned by his in-laws.  It’s thought that he sought the money in order to have funds on hand for hush payments for any of the women that Trump needed him to silence, something he certainly didn’t tell to any of his lending institutions.  Also, given that Cohen is supposed have earned many millions from some really lucrative real estate transactions, its curious that he even had to go to the banks for the money. Of course, if those lucrative real estate transactions involved money laundering for Russian related clients, he would not have been the beneficiary of all their associated gains, in all likelihood that is one of the things that is now under the FBI microscope.  To that end, David Farenthold, the Washington Post reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Trump’s non-existent charitable contributions has redirected his focus to the way that the Trump organization has paid for its more recent acquisitions.  He reports that despite Trump’s long advocacy of debt financing, most of his company’s purchases are now being paid for out of cash that the Trump sons claim is earned from its “lucrative” golf courses and other properties. However, experts in the industry point out that the golf courses, particularly the ones owned by Trump, would not have generated the more than $400 million that his company spent on those acquisitions.  Again, though no evidence has been provided, yet, and we still haven’t seen Trump’s tax filings it’s possible that money laundering by Russian oligarchs was involved here too.  Another one of those things that Mueller is probably looking into.  As to Mueller, he’s hit a few speed bumps too.  Late Friday,  Federal District Judge T.S. Ellis, the judge presiding over the Manafort case criticized the Mueller team, saying that they were only going after him for his bank fraud crimes in order to get to Trump.  Judge Ellis’ comments got a lot of attention from Trump and his supporters, who cited his statements as proof of their assertions that the Mueller investigation is a witch hunt. Judge Ellis, a Reagan appointee, has a reputation for making critical remarks.  However, since the law is on Mueller’s side, and since his Rod Rosenstein written mandate allows him to go after crimes he uncovers during his investigation, its highly likely that Judge Ellis will ultimately rule in Mueller’s favor despite his not so incorrect remarks.  To the extent that he doesn’t, the case against Manafort won’t go away, it will just be transferred to another Federal attorney, much the way that the Cohen case was transferred to the Southern District.  

Election Posturing:  As expected, in an effort to placate some Congressional budget hawks, especially those who are among his biggest defenders in the Russia investigation, Trump sent a request to Congress to cut $15 billion from the budget he reluctantly signed earlier in the year.  A significant portion of those cuts target money allocated to the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).  Senate Majority Leader McConnell has already said that he has no interest in moving forward with the cuts mostly because the optics of further cutting health care during the run up to the midterm elections is a step that he’d rather not take.  That said, the damage is probably already done, the Democrats have just gained another talking point on health care, a subject more near and dear to the electorate than the Russia investigation.  Today is primary day in West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina, all states won by Trump in 2016.   The Republican candidates are all fighting over who is more Trumpian, with Don Blankenship the convicted criminal running for West Virginia Senate pushing back against a call by Trump for voters to cast their votes for one of his rivals by saying that Trump has been ill advised and doesn’t recognize that he is the Trumpiest candidate of all.  As to Trump, he didn’t criticize Blankenship for any of his racist remarks, he just said that he would be a bad choice because he would have a hard time beating the West Virginia incumbent, Democrat Joe Manchin.  In addition to choosing a senate candidate to run against incumbent Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, Ohio is choosing candidates for their upcoming gubernatorial race, the race to pick the replacement for Ohio’s outgoing and outspoken Governor John Kasich, who is likely to challenge Trump for president to the extent that he runs in 2020.  While the Republicans seeking his seat are aligning themselves with Trump, Richard Cordray and Dennis Kucinich, the two Democrats running for their party’s nomination are pushing progressive messages.  Kucinich, the former Mayor of Cleveland, has the support of Bernie Sanders’ supporters while Cordray, the former head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency currently being dismantled  by Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, is supported by Senator Elizabeth Warren, proving that Democrats can’t get their acts together anymore than Republicans.