Silent Fall?

A Day of Contrasts:  While mourners in Arizona celebrated the life and accomplishments of the departed Senator McCain, Trump went off on one of his more notable tweetathons.  In Arizona, McCain’s adopted state, a racially and ethnically diverse group including Vice President Biden and football star Larry Fitzgerald spoke about McCain’s life and what he meant to each of them.  An emotional Biden, who lost his first wife and a child in a tragic car accident and one of his adult sons to the same brain cancer that took McCain, recounted their times together, their long friendship, their ability to reach cross the “aisle” and how their political differences couldn’t diminish their mutual affection.  His speech, was typical Biden:  long, touching and teary.  His most notable remark was a statement that McCain “could not stand the abuse of power wherever he saw it, in whatever form, in whatever country,” a not so subtle dig at Trump and his preferred world leaders.  If his speech was a warm-up for a presidential run, it was quite an effective one.  In notable contrast, Trump who spent the Viet Nam war years nursing his faux bone spurs, mostly concerned about catching a sexually transmitted diseases or two, while McCain spent five years in the hellish Hanoi Hilton, must have hated to see all the love and attention going McCain’s way so to cope he spent his morning tweeting like there was no tomorrow.  He raged against the “totally dishonest press” lashing out at CNN and NBC, and actually claimed that the tape of his Lester Holt interview, the one where he admitted to firing former FBI Director Comey, had been “fudged,” an echo of an earlier claim that it wasn’t his voice heard on the infamous Access Hollywood tape.  To nip that assertion in the bud NBC released the entire, unedited tape, suffice it to say there was no fudging.  He also attacked “fake books,” a reference to Omarosa Manigault’s Unhinged and Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, but also a reflection of just how concerned he is about the book about to be released  by the far more respected and believable Watergate reporter and author Bob Woodward.  That book is due out on September 11.  Trump also continued to rage about biased Google searches and rigged social media like Facebook and Twitter, the two social media platforms that probably contributed to what may well have been his faux election victory.  While Trump was calling the press the enemy of the people, the FBI arrested the man who had threatened to violently kill reporters at the Boston Globe, his notes eerily echoed many of the words that Trump spoke at the rally.  Despite the optics of traveling and campaigning while McCain’s casket was being transported back to Washington where it will lie in state  at the Capitol Rotunda before going to its final resting place at the Naval Academy Cemetery in Annapolis, Trump flew off to a campaign rally in Indiana for Mike Braun, the Republican nominee for Senate who stands a good chance of knocking out current Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly. While there he continued to rant, claiming that the FBI and Justice Department aren’t doing their jobs but they “better start doing it now” because “people are angry.” In a picture that has now gone viral on the “unfair” twitterverse, one of those angry people, a Trump rally volunteer, got caught on camera physically blocking a photographer as he attempt to get a picture of an anti-Trump protester.  Trump again threatened to step in and get involved in the Russia investigation, because he can since he’s president, he went to the best schools and he can do anything.  To cap off the evening he also implied that Hillary Clinton would face criminal charges soon, again because he’s president and she’s not.  Depressingly, his receptive crowd responded with cheers of “lock her up.”  According to Trump, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders hasn’t been all that happy with the way he responded to McCain’s death, to the extent that her dismay was real, she probably didn’t find any solace in his Indiana performance either.  It certainly was not in keeping with any part of McCain’s legacy.  Before flying off to Indiana, Trump found time for a Bloomberg News interview.  Among other things, he mentioned that he was giving serious consideration to pulling the US out of the World Trade Organization, he talked tariffs, denied that he was worried about anything that Trump organization financial guy Alan Weisselberg told investigators, refused to respond to a question about when he knew about the payment that fixer/lawyer Michael Cohen made to Stormy Daniels and most notably said that he couldn’t be impeached because he was doing such a great job, and presidents doing a great job can’t be impeached, a message that must not have reached the Republican members of Congress who once impeached Bill Clinton for his sexual improprieties, at a time that Clinton, like him or not, was being a far more effective leader.   He also said that he was seriously looking into lowering capital gains taxes by inflation adjusting appreciated asset values, a somewhat controversial proposal previously mentioned by Treasury Secretary Mnuchin. That plan would be another gift to the wealthy, already the chief beneficiaries of Trump’s tax cuts but would do little if anything to help any of the government employees who would lose out if Congress lets him get away with another one of his plans.  That plan, which he also announced yesterday, would freeze Federal employee’s salaries, cancelling their expected cost of living increases. Trump says that he needs to freeze those wages to offset some of the Federal deficit, the deficit that has imploded as a result of the tax cuts granted to the same wealthy people who will benefit from his capital gains tax reduction plan.  He didn’t seem to care about the irony of his plans or the optics of taking more from the middle class in the run up to the midterms.  However, a number of vulnerable Republican members of Congress from districts with large numbers of Federal employees aren’t all that happy. Virginia Congresswoman Barbara Comstock, one of those at risk members, quickly responded that she would oppose those cuts while her opponent gleefully made hay off of Trump’s plan by immediately releasing a campaign message.      

Planning for the Worst:  A few weeks ago, Michael Cohen released one of his taped conversations with Trump.  In that tape the two were heard discussing a possible payment to National Enquirer owner David Pecker.  At the time, we all thought that Trump and Cohen were talking about reimbursing Pecker for the “catch and kill” payment that he had made to Trump’s one time girlfriend, former Playmate Karen McDougal.  It turns out that their discussion was actually related to far more than the McDougal payoff.  According to the NY Times, the two were discussing plans to buy back all of the Trump related stories secreted away in the National Enquirer safe, stories that been accumulated over the years and that covered subjects ranging from other alleged affairs to “unscrupulous golf.” It appears that the plan was never executed and it’s not clear where all of the back-up information has gone, apparently after the election it was moved out of the National Enquirer safe to either another secret secure location or the shredder.  However it’s likely that those stories and the plan to obtain them and any relevant back-up information in the run up to the election is another one of those things that the Southern District Federal prosecutors have been discussing with Weisselberg and Cohen. To be clear, though they might find any uncovered dirty secrets titillating and Trump and Melania might find the release of the vault’s contents embarrassing, the stash would only be relevant to one or more of the investigations if a campaign law violation was involved.  As to Mueller and his investigation, both appear to be on borrowed time.  Trump made it clear yesterday that he considers the investigation and Mueller’s appointment to be illegal and though he stated that Attorney General Session’s position in the administration was safe through the midterms, he more than implied that he plans to sack him as soon after the midterms as he can because shutting down the Mueller investigation remains his priority.  Even if Republicans lose control of Congress in the midterms, Trump would have plenty of time to damage the Mueller investigation during the period between the elections and the seating of the new Congress in January. As to the Democrats their victory in November is far from assured, though they might manage to take control of the House, and even that isn’t certain, taking over the Senate will be very difficult, they could gain a few seats in states like Nevada or Arizona, but could have a hard time holding seats in Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota and even Florida. That said, Axios reports that Republicans are planning for a worst case scenario, particularly one that involves losing control of the House.  They have already prepared and are circulating a list of all the subpoenas and hearings that they believe the Democrats would initiate were they to take over.  Preparing the list was easy, all Republican leadership had to do was look to the list of infractions and crimes they’ve been ignoring since the beginning of the Trump administration.  Republicans are now using their list to energize their base, warning them that they’d better come out and vote or else suffer the consequences.  Likewise Democrats are using the Republican list to encourage their voters to make themselves heard at the ballot box.  And now everyone, including Trump, is talking impeachment out in the open, not just behind closed doors.

To the extent that Mueller plans on going dark after Labor Day in the run up to the election, today could be busy, or not, because, despite Rudy Giuliani’s persistent and loud assertions we still don’t know what the silent Mueller plans to do.  Stay tuned and have a happy Labor Day.  

Whistle While You Google

First Kill the Lawyers:  The unnamed sources for yesterday’s early morning Axios story that White House counsel Don McGahn was planning to leave his job by year-end were none other than first daughter Ivanka and first son-in-law Jared.  The “leak” was part of their strategy to get McGahn out of the White House sooner than later.  It worked, shortly after the story appeared Trump pretty much fired McGahn by tweeting “White House Counsel Don McGahn will be leaving his position in the fall, shortly after the confirmation (hopefully) of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court. I have worked with Don for a long time and truly appreciate his service!” That tweet stunned McGahn since he hadn’t yet spoken with Trump about his plans which isn’t all that surprising since the two of them rarely speak with each other, one of the reasons that Ivanka and Jared want him out.  In any case, McGahn should have seen the tweet coming, Trump’s been pretty upset with him ever since the news that he spent thirty hours spilling his guts to Special Counsel Mueller came out.  Ivanka has been furious about that too, and it’s never good to anger a member of the Trump clan, particularly the first daughter. McGahn will have lots of company on the outside, three of his deputies have already left and a fourth, the White House compliance lawyer Stefan Passantino, is leaving at the end of the week. Once he leaves only one deputy will remain in the White House Counsel’s office.  Last night in a story based on no fewer than twenty-six sources, the Washington Post reported that Trump’s allies fear “winter is coming” and are concerned that he is failing to appreciate how much worse his legal woes will  become if the Democrats win control of the House in the November midterms. Trump’s allies believe that he needs to get some really good lawyers on board as soon as possible, even suggesting that he try to hire the well-regarded Abbe Lowell, who already represents Jared Kushner, even though Jared is unlikely to give him up and Lowell might have no interest in getting more involved in the Trump legal morass than he already is. Apparently Trump’s allies have forgotten that it hasn’t been easy for him to find competent representation because, at least to date, few legal stars have been willing to sign on to the Trump train, as lying clients who stiff their attorneys don’t attract those promised “best people,” possibly one of the reasons that Trump kept his lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen on board at the Trump organization for so long.  As to Trump,  he’s so clueless about assessing legal expertise that last year he tried several times to convince then White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter, who was ultimately fired for serial spouse abuse to take McGahn’s job.  Porter demurred, pointing out that he didn’t have the right experience.  As to that other lawyer, Attorney General Sessions, Politico reports that Trump has been on a charm offensive, working his wiles on Republican members of the Senate, trying to get as many as possible to sign-off on his plan to fire Sessions.  Whatever he’s doing or promising, it appears to be working as more and more of them are getting on board with the plan as long as he promises to wait until after the midterms, something that the impulsive Trump might find difficult to do especially since in addition to despising Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, he’s grown to hate Sessions’ southern drawl and thinks he’d be better served by someone with an ivy league pedigree and a neutral twang.

Whistling in the Sunshine:  The campaign for Florida Governor is off and running and it’s already gotten ugly. Yesterday, Republican nominee Ron DeSantis went with a page from the Trump playbook.  During an interview with Fox News,  DeSantis said Florida voters should not “monkey this up” by embracing the radical progressive agenda offered by his African American opponent, Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum.  He also pointed out that Gillum was “articulate” more or less implying that language skills were unusual for a black guy.  When asked if he thought that DeSantis was engaging in dog whistling, Gillum responded “Well, in the handbook of Donald Trump, they no longer do whistle calls, they are now using full bullhorns.”  Although DeSantis later claimed that his statement was misunderstood, even Fox News got that it was racially tinged.  Though the network remains firmly in DeSantis’s court and together with Trump advocated for him during the primary and will, no doubt, continue to support him in November, they distanced themselves from his comment pointing competing networks to a statement made by their anchor Sandra Smith on air in which she said, "We do not condone this language and wanted to make our viewers aware that he (DeSantis) has since clarified his statement." For his part Mayor Gillum is sticking with a campaign based on “progressive” policies, and though he has  Bernie Sanders on his side, his policies which include gun control and health insurance for all aren’t out of the mainstream for a typical Democratic candidate which isn’t all that surprising since Gillum was a Hillary Clinton delegate in 2016.  As to that racial divide, earlier this week Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer proposed renaming the  Russell Senate Office Building to call it the McCain Senate building in honor of the departed maverick.  To his surprise that suggestion isn’t gaining much traction with Republicans.  Apparently a number are hesitant to remove the Russell name from the building which is odd because Senator Russell wasn’t a Republican, he was a Democrat, and also an arch segregationist and the key legislative leader of the white supremacist movement.  Alabama Republican Richard Shelby says Russell shouldn't be judged only on his civil rights record and Georgia Republican David Perdue said "this renaming thing because of one issue is somewhat troubling. The fact that it's been brought into this John McCain thing I think is inappropriate."  Senate Majority Leader McConnell is pushing back too, instead of moving forward with the name change he has suggested the formation of a bipartisan committee to address how best to honor McCain.

More Insanity:  After viewing a Fox segment that cited a story from the right wing Daily Caller, one that claimed that Hillary Clinton’s email server had been hacked by the Chinese, Trump tweeted “Report just out: 'China hacked Hillary Clinton’s private Email Server.' Are they sure it wasn’t Russia (just kidding!)? What are the odds that the FBI and DOJ are right on top of this? Actually, a very big story. Much classified information!" The only problem with the story and Trump’s tweet is that they are both false.  Yesterday an FBI spokesperson refuted the story, releasing a statement that the “FBI has not found any evidence the (Clinton) servers were compromised." Of course, Trump would have known this if instead of tweeting he had picked up the phone to call Christopher Wray, his handpicked FBI Director.  Devon Nunes, the ardent Trump supporter and Republican Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee spent part of his summer vacation traveling to the United Kingdom where he tried to meet with the heads of the UK’s various intelligence services in the hope of getting some really good “dirt” about former British agent Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous Trump dossier.  The Brits who generally are deferential to Congressional committee heads refused to cooperate, both because they had no dirt to share and because, if they did, they wouldn’t consider sharing it with Nunes who they no longer trust with anything confidential.  Nunes is back in Washington, but former Campaign Manager Paul Manafort’s lawyers are trying to get him out to the whiter, more Republican suburbs, they’ve asked the judge presiding over his Washington DC case to consider moving the venue of his upcoming trial because they think that no one in the Washington DC jury pool would be willing to treat him fairly. As to fair treatment Trump is now calling for the investigation of the Google search engine.  Apparently, earlier this week instead of tweeting during his “executive time” he googled his name and was alarmed to see all the unflattering stories that popped up.  He is convinced that the “liberals” at Google have rigged their system to make him look bad. In response to his concern, economic advisor Larry Kudlow immediately announced that the administration would look into Google’s bias.  A Google spokesperson denied that the company’s search engine was biased saying instead that “When users type queries into the Google Search bar, our goal is to make sure they receive the most relevant answers in a matter of seconds" adding “search is not used to set a political agenda and we don't bias our results toward any political ideology.”  Trump may not want to google “Puerto Rico and Trump” today because if he does he might find out that his continued assertion that he did a “fantastic job in Puerto Rico," in the face of recently updated and much higher hurricane Maria related death statistics is being treated with significant derision.  Truth hurts.   

The Tolling Bell

The Revolving Door:  The big talk surrounds the future of Attorney General Sessions and though Sessions head has been on the chopping block for quite a while, expectations are that his days in the cabinet will likely come to an end sometime after the midterm elections.  While the Wall Street Journal reports that a number of Sessions’ Senate supporters are encouraging him to do his best to stay put and that Senate Majority Leader McConnell is in his court, The Washington Post reports that Trump wants to rid himself of  Sessions sooner rather than later and is only holding off right now because his TV lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow have advised him that Special Counsel Mueller would “interpret such an action as an effort to obstruct justice and thwart the investigation.” Of course, Mueller would reach that conclusion primarily because it’s true. With the exception of his recusal from the Russia investigation, Sessions has been and continues to be Trump’s most effective cabinet member so the only reason to fire him would be to get someone new in place, someone who could take charge of the Mueller investigation to shut it down and/or lock away any final report.  A number of Sessions’ former colleagues in the Senate seem willing to go along with whatever decision Trump makes, as long as he doesn’t act on it until after the midterm elections. Alabama Senator Shelby, one of Sessions’ closest buddies, has pretty much said that Trump should get to do what he wants and Senator Lindsey Graham, the same guy who gave a moving speech on the Senate floor yesterday tearfully talking about his good friend and mentor John McCain and the value of independent thinking, has gone from saying that firing Sessions would be the beginning of the end for Trump to saying that he should get to do whatever he wants.  Yesterday, Graham told NBC’s Today show hosts that Trump’s relationship with Sessions is beyond toxic and though he wouldn’t go into any details, he added that there was some kind of “deep breach” between the two of them that’s even worse than any of us can imagine.  Graham insisted that any replacement would have to let Mueller finish his job, but then again Graham’s been known to change his mind, might see in Trump the mentor he now is lacking, and anyway it’s hard to believe that Trump would fire Sessions only to let the investigation continue. Trump’s evangelical supporters would also be okay with Sessions leaving, though they don’t want to see anything happen that would hurt Republicans during the midterm elections.  To that end Trump has warned them that they need to be especially vigilant because Democratic victories in the midterms would result in a rollback of all of his fundamentalist accomplishments as well as a wave of Antifa instigated violence.  He encouraged the ministers to tell their flocks to show up and vote Republican and not to worry about those sermons being a violation of the Johnson Amendment because he would never tolerate anyone enforcing the prohibition against tax-exempt churches weighing in on elections.  As to a Session replacement, Trump would have a hard time getting anyone too sketchy through the confirmation process so as much as he may now want the spot, Rudy Giuliani probably wouldn’t be a likely choice.  Former NJ Governor Christie’s name has been mentioned but he may now be facing some disqualifying  problems of his own.  This morning’s Wall Street Journal reports that Malaysian financier  Jho Low  who played a major role in the embezzlement of $4.5 billion from  a Malaysian fund, may have used laundered money to pay Christie for legal services, and by laundered we aren’t talking a Tide spin.  In any case, Trump may not be all that worried about getting his next Attorney General through a confirmation process, he would be satisfied with an interim appointment, one who could fire Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein without Senate approval.  Word is that Sessions isn’t the only lawyer headed out the door, Axios reports that White House Counsel Don McGahn, who has been talking about leaving by year end will leave as soon as the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation process is completed.  It is likely that he will be replaced by Trump’s other lawyer, Emmet Flood, who has lots of relevant impeachment experience. Trump, who can’t be all that pleased about those reports that McGahn more than cooperated with Mueller and hasn’t been all that happy with McGahn for a while,  would be more than happy to show him the door.  As to that door someone in Trumpland has been making senior Justice Department attorney Bruce Ohr’s life very miserable.  Ohr, who has years of expertise dealing with corruption, one of his area’s of expertise is the Russian Mafia, is now being raked through the coals by Trump and his House toadies.  During the course of his career Ohr developed a good relationship with Christopher Steele, the former British agent. Though much of what Steele included in his infamous dossier has been verified, Steele’s relationship with the FBI was ended when officials became upset with him for reaching out to the press to insure that his concerns about Trump’s shenanigans were being taken seriously. After that formal relationship was ended, people within the FBI asked Ohr to serve as an informal intermediary with Steele because the agency still wanted to benefit from his expertise, particularly with regard to the dossier’s contents.  Ohr is now being skewered for that contact with Steele.  Trump tacked his name onto that long list of Obama era intelligence officials who he plans to strip of security clearances, a particular problem for Ohr who needs the clearance to be effective at his Justice Department job.  Yesterday, Ohr was subjected to intense questioning by a number of Republican members of the House Intelligence and Oversight Committees.  Democrats did not attend the meeting.  Notably in the course of investigating the Russian Mafia, one of Ohr’s Russian targets was Oleg Deripaska, the now sanctioned Russian oligarch who convicted former campaign manager Paul Manafort promised to keep in the loop on all things related to the Trump administration.  It’s fairly obvious that Ohr, like Comey, McCabe, Strzok, and Yates is being smeared by team Trump chiefly to diminish his credibility and thus the value of any of his possible future testimony.           

Election Update:  As expected Arizona Congresswoman Martha McSally easily beat out her two rivals, Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Dr Kelly Ward, to win Arizona’s Republican senate nomination.  She will run against Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, who dominated her primary opponent setting up what is expected to be a close race, a possible Democratic pick-up, for the Senate seat being vacated by Jeff Flake.   Arizona Governor Ducey, who is also facing reelection in November, is expected to name a replacement for Senator McCain’s seat next week following the Senator’s funeral.  Ducey’s selection is being complicated by his own need to satisfy the right wing of his own party, the 48% of the Republican voters who supported either Arpaio or Ward, while also maintaining the support of the moderates who he’ll need to win reelection.  The upset of the day took place in Florida where the progressive candidate, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, narrowly beat out a number of Democratic rivals including Gwen Graham who had been expected to win.  As the frontrunner, Graham had come under attack by another one of the candidates while Gillum, who had the support of Bernie Sanders, quietly built the momentum he needed to win.  Gillum will face off against Republican Ron DeSantis, who easily won his primarily mostly because he benefited from a Trump endorsement.  DeSantis and Gillum couldn’t be more different. DeSantis won by out Trumping Trump while Gillum, who to the extent that he wins would be Florida’s first African American Governor, supports the Obamacare Medicaid expansion something that the current Republican Governor, Rick Scott has opposed, except during his own election years when he feigned interest.  For his part Scott, who is running for the Senate will face off against incumbent Senator Bill Nelson.  Democrats are rightfully concerned that the very wealthy and camera ready Scott, who has been spending millions of his own money on that race, stands a good chance of beating the older and more reserved former astronaut Nelson.     

Death Toll:  Yesterday, the Governor of Puerto Rico formally acknowledged that the hurricane Maria death toll was 2975.  To put that number in perspective the death toll for hurricane Katrina was 1833 while the death toll for 9.11 was 2996.  Remember Trump once said that Maria wasn’t a big deal and that he deserved an A plus because “only” around 64 Puerto Ricans were killed.  A large number of the Maria deaths are attributable to a failure to act by the his administration possibly because as Trump said, Puerto Rico is an island in an ocean and anyway, those people aren’t really US citizens anyway.  Okay, he didn’t say that last part, but he probably thought it.  

Don't Despair!?!

Petulant and Petty:  Trump’s pettiness knows no bounds.  Having already rejected the release of a statement that had anything nice to say about Senator John McCain or his legacy, Trump decided to keep going lower, or in this case higher but in a bad way.  So While flags at the US Capitol and other Washington landmarks remained at half-staff, early Monday the White House returned its flag to its usual level. That was notable since typically, once a decision is made to move a flag to half-staff, it stays there until after the honored individual’s funeral. Faced with withering criticism, and a statement from the American Legion, the large veterans organization, that urged him strongly “to make an appropriate presidential proclamation noting Senator McCain's death and legacy of service to our nation, and that our nation's flag be half-staffed through his interment” Trump finally relented and sometime after 3 pm finally had the flag at the White House lowered to half-staff.  Later, while meeting with a some of those evangelical leaders who hypocritically continue to support him despite his history of outrageous moral failures and his ongoing bad behavior, Trump finally managed to spit out some prepared remarks, saying "Our hearts and prayers are going to the family of Senator John McCain. There's going to be a lot of activity over the next number of days. And we very much appreciate everything that Senator McCain has done for our country."  While many leaders, Republican and Democrat, were stunned by Trump’s inability to rise above his feelings to honor the departed McCain, Senator Imhofe, the Oklahoma Republican, cut Trump some undeserved slack saying that McCain was partially to blame for the diss because “well you know” he was very outspoken. He disagreed with Trump “in certain areas and wasn't too courteous about it." Senator Isakson would have none of that, the Georgia Republican said “anybody who in any way tarnishes the reputation of John McCain deserves a whipping, because most of the ones who would do the wrong thing about John McCain didn't have the guts to do the right thing when it was their turn." For his part, McCain managed to take another swipe at Trump from the hereafter, in his last prepared statement which was read aloud by Rick Davis, his campaign manager.  In those remarks McCain said “We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.”  McCain went on to say  “Do not despair of our present difficulties but believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here.”  Let’s hope that he is right about that. 

NAFTA No More?  Early yesterday morning, in an attempt to regain the spotlight from the departed McCain, Trump held a heavily orchestrated phone call with Mexico’s outgoing president, Enrique Pena Nieto.  The call got off to a rocky start when someone in the White House communications department failed to actually secure the connection to Mexico before inviting the press in to hear Trump’s momentous announcement, the announcement that was more about glitz than substance.  During the call, Trump claimed to be ditching NAFTA, the long term tri-lateral trade agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico, for a new bilateral agreement with Mexico.  However, Pena Nieto didn’t seem to be onboard with that, he kept on referring to what Trump wanted to call the Mexico-US Trade Agreement as an improved NAFTA, one that would rely on Canada eventually coming on board. Though Trump did manage to get a few concessions mostly with regard to automobile manufacturing, his agreement with Mexico, is just a preliminary agreement in principle, one that looks a lot like the old NAFTA with a few tweaks and without the sunset provision that Trump wanted.  Canadian trade representatives are expected to continue discussions with their US counterparts this week, so it’s likely that Trump’s announcement was another attempt to put further pressure on the Canadians, one of those Trump style threats to get on board or else.  To that end, the Canadians have a lot of support from members of Congress, their support is necessary and a number of prominent Republicans, not to mention Democrats, won’t sign off on any agreement that doesn’t include Canada. Bottom line is that despite the fanfare, Trump and Pena Nieto’s announcement wasn’t as significant as Trump would like us all to believe except that it did provide the markets with the hope that an agreement on revising the important three party NAFTA treaty will be made and that the agreement will be made sooner rather than later.         

Election Update:  Today is primary day in Oklahoma, Florida and Arizona where voters will get to decide whether to choose the despicable Sheriff Arpaio, the equally despicable Dr. Kelly Ward, or the Trump fangirl Representative Martha McSally to run against Democratic candidate Kyrsten Sinema for Jeff Flake’s Senate seat.  That said, the really big news is what’s happening in North Carolina.  Late yesterday, a panel  of three Federal judges ruled that North Carolina’s congressional districts were unconstitutionally gerrymandered to disproportionately favor Republican candidates over Democrats, a decision bolstered by an admission by one of the Republicans who drew the lines that that was precisely what he had in mind when the districts were created. This case has been percolating for a while, it had already made it to the Supreme Court and been sent back down to be reviewed again by the lower court panel.  Subject to what is likely to be another, this time accelerated, Supreme Court review, it is quite possible that North Carolina will be forced to have an impartial panel redraw the district lines before the November midterms.  The three judge panel did recognize that given the short time frame such an outcome might not be possible but instead of relenting and pushing off any redistricting to the next election cycle, they said that the state should consider holding a primary to select candidates from the soon to be drawn new districts on the regular election day, postponing the actual Congressional elections to early January. North Carolina elections officials are expected to appeal almost immediately to the Supreme Court.  However, with Justice Kennedy gone from the court, and only eight judges available to make a decision, its possible that the Supreme Court will reach a four-four tie, which would leave the three judge panel’s decision in place.  To the extent that the new districts are drawn, Democrats would likely pick up a few crucial seats.  This is not an outcome that will go over all that well with Republican leadership or Trump and, to the extent that the much anticipated blue wave isn’t quite the tsunami that the Democrats hope for, could leave control of the House up in the air until January.   Just a little more upheaval for an already under attack election process.

More on Manafort:  Late yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that Manafort’s lawyers approached Special Counsel Mueller about some kind of plea agreement while the Virginia jurors who eventually found him guilty on eight counts were deliberating.  It’s not clear what Manafort was offering, he may have just been trying to get out from under the threat of more convictions in his upcoming Washington DC case or he may have had something substantive to offer.  In any case, the negotiations stalled.  It’s not clear whether or not the two sides are still talking but it remains highly likely that Manafort is still hoping for that maybe not so elusive Trump pardon.  Stay tuned, more news is sure to come on this and a few more things.  To the extent that Rudy Giuliani is right, and there is little reason to believe that he is, Mueller is supposed to go silent after Labor Day, staying quiet until after the elections so this could be a big week, or not, because one thing is for certain, no one really knows Mueller’s plans, the man and his team never talk to the press, not even a little.        

The Week That Was

Horrible, Terrible Week:  As if the conviction of one time campaign manager Paul Manafort, the plea agreement reached by lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen, the investigations by both NY State and the Manhattan District Attorney, and the cooperation of National Enquirer owner David Pecker weren’t bad enough, Trump’s truly awful week got worse on Friday after it was revealed that Trump Organization CFO Alan Weisselberg had been granted immunity by Southern District of New York prosecutors, compelling him to answer questions about what he knew about the hush payments made to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.  As we’ve learned from Cohen, those payments, violations of campaign finance laws, were made to keep the news about Trump’s bad behavior out of the press during the run up to the election.  At least with regard to Daniels, Cohen was reimbursed for fronting the money through a series of payments that were then characterized as legal expenses even though they represented payment to Cohen for the money he paid to Stormy, a gross up to cover taxes and a bonus.  Weisselberg, who was referred to in the Cohen plea agreement as one of the two people at the Trump Organization who signed off on the Stormy payment, at first pleaded the Fifth, but then was granted immunity and compelled to testify.  Presumably his testimony verified Cohen’s assertions. The bigger question, and one of the things that is no doubt keeping Trump and his children up at night is whether or not Weisselberg’s immunity arrangement goes beyond issues related to the Stormy payment, a bigly problem since Weisselberg knows all there is to know about Trump and the Trump organization’s finances.  Additionally, the Cohen plea agreement specified that a second Trump official signed off on the Stormy arrangement and the payments to Cohen, in all likelihood that second person was Donald Trump Jr. It’s fair to assume that Alan Weisselberg, confirmed that as well.  Despite all this, the word from all those anonymous sources at the White House is that Trump is likely to pardon Paul Manafort sooner rather than later, even though his advisors have told him that pardoning Manafort, especially before the midterm elections would be a really, really bad idea.  For his part Manafort, who Trump continues to call a really nice guy, continues to remain silent and shows no signs of cooperating with Special Counsel Mueller even though his Washington DC trial begins soon. He is most certainly expecting that pardon.  Disturbingly, despite all of last week’s bad news, polls indicate that Trump’s base remains loyal.  While the percentage of people who believe Trump is doing a bad job has increased the number who think he’s great has largely remained the same.  That said around 60% believe that pardoning Manafort would be a bad thing to do.  Trump has also been ramping up his criticism of Attorney General Sessions.  Over the weekend he suggested that Sessions was unaware of “real corruption” at the Justice Department and by real corruption he means the failure by Justice to go after and convict Hillary Clinton for anything from her emails to jaywalking.  He also quoted Senator Lindsey Graham’s who said that he could replace Sessions after the midterm if he wanted to and then tweeted  "Jeff Sessions said he wouldn't allow politics to influence him only because he doesn't understand what is happening underneath his command position. Highly conflicted Bob Mueller and his gang of 17 Angry Dems are having a field day as real corruption goes untouched. No Collusion!"  As to that number 17, its part of the Q Anon conspiracy numerology so, though alarming, it should come as no surprise that during the midst of all of last week’s calamities, Trump posed for a picture with Michael Lebron, a right wing conspiracy theorist and vocal Q Anon believer, who also appears regularly as an analyst on Russia Today, in the Oval Office.  Also depressing, if not downright alarming, Republican members of the House have not reacted to any of last week’s news but the Republican leaders of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees have ramped up their investigation into the Hillary Clinton emails because as far as they are concerned that’s the real problem.

Goodbye Maverick:  Just days after the McCain family announced that Senator John McCain had discontinued his brain cancer treatment, the Senator passed away.  McCain truly was a maverick, a conservative with an independent streak, the fierce patriot who endured five horrific years at the Hanoi Hilton and then went on to serve as a thorn in the side of several presidents, regardless of their party affiliation. On the one hand he called out suggestions that Obama was an “Arab” who couldn’t be trusted, on the other he appointed the dog whistling Sarah Palin as his running mate.  He extended the life of Obamacare, voting no for its repeal with that now famous thumbs down gesture but then went on to support the tax reform legislation that killed Obamacare’s individual mandate. Trump has never forgiven him for his thumbs down move and also holds him partially responsible for his part in forwarding the Steele Dossier to the FBI so he nixed some kind remarks about McCain that had been prepared for him by his communications staff and instead sent out a bare bones condolence tweet to the McCain family for their loss, a tweet that failed to mention the Senator, his heroism or his accomplishments.  Trump’s failure to acknowledge McCain’s legacy stood in sharp contrast to the countless other tributes that flooded in over the weekend.  Former presidents Obama, Bush, and both Clintons all responded with heartfelt statements as did leaders and politicians from many countries including Canada’s Trudeau, the UK’s May, Israel’s Netanyahu and Germany’s Merkel who went out of her way to comment on McCain’s longstanding support for Europe and maintaining the world order. Tributes also came in from leaders from many other far flung countries including Australia, Pakistan and Iraq.  Notably Russia’s Putin had nothing to say, he wasn’t all that fond of McCain who was a consistent critic who among other things had helped advance the dreaded Magnitsky Act.  Former Vice President Biden who lost his son to brain cancer is scheduled to speak at the McCain service in Arizona.  Former Presidents Obama and Bush are scheduled to speak in the memorial service that will take place in Washington.  VP Pence will represent the White House as, pursuant to McCain’s last request, Trump who has many times said that McCain was no hero because heroes don’t get captured,  has not been invited to attend any of the planned ceremonies.  Kelly Ward, a frequent and scathing critic of McCain’s, who is running for the Republican nomination for the Arizona senator seat being vacated by Senator Jeff Flake, accused the McCain family of timing the announcement of the discontinuation of the Senator’s cancer treatment to hurt her campaign.  She then doubled down, continuing to attack McCain even after he died, saying that the last thing that Arizona needed was another McCain like politician.  The oh so charming, pardoned Sheriff Arpaio and Arizona Congresswoman Martha McSally are also contending for the Flake Senate seat.  McSally, who also aligns herself with Trump is expected to win the nomination, however, as of now she trails the Democratic nominee, Kyrsten Sinema, in most of the polls.  As to the McCain seat, it won’t stay empty for long, Arizona’s Republican Governor Ducey is expected to announce a successor after McCain’s funeral.  A number of names have been mentioned including Cindy McCain, the departed Senator’s wife.  It’s not yet clear who Ducey will choose, although he has been clear about one thing, he will not be choosing any of the people who campaigned for the slot during McCain’s long illness and he most definitely will not be picking either Ward or Arpaio.  The appointment of a new Republican Senator is not good news for those who oppose Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination.

Nobel Not:  Last week Secretary of State Pompeo beefed up his team, appointing Steve Biegun to serve as the administration’s envoy for North Korea.  He made that appointment just days before he planned to travel  to North Korea to engage in crucial diplomatic discussions.  Biegun, a Ford Motor Company executive, is still the envoy, but the trip is now off.  Without first notifying Pompeo, Trump canceled the meeting citing “insufficient progress on denuclearization.” He then went on to say that “Secretary Pompeo looks forward to going to North Korea in the near future, most likely after our Trading relationship with China is resolved.” Over the weekend China lashed out at Trump for accusing Beijing of not being supportive in efforts to denuclearize North Korea, while South Korea called the US decision to call off a trip to the North by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo "unfortunate." North Korea’s official newspaper took it to another level, accusing Trump of engaging in top secret war exercises geared towards an invasion. Trump should forget about traveling to Oslo anytime soon.     

Pickled Peckers

Flippity Do:  Yesterday morning, Fox and Friends aired Ainsley Earhardt’s softball Trump interview.  During the interview a large number of topics were covered, giving Trump the opportunity to make a significant number of remarkable comments. In addition to further implicating himself in the mess created by the pre-election hush payments made to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, he once again attacked Attorney General Sessions for never taking control of the Justice Department, for not being much of a man and for refusing to show sufficient loyalty with that whole recusal thing.  He also expressed his disgust for negotiated plea deals, especially those that involved granting defendants lesser penalties in exchange for their testimony.   He said that he knew a lot about those “flippers,” because many of the fine people that he’s hung out with over the years have managed to lessen fines and/or reduce sentences by ratting out friends and colleagues.  He called for the practice to be outlawed, presumably he means that to apply only to anyone flipping on him as flipping on his enemies or members of the MS-13 gang would still be okay.  He weighed in on impeachment, a subject that seems to be keeping him up at night and that Republicans appear to be publicly discussing more and more while Democrats mostly try to hold their tongues so as not to jinx the midterm elections.  He asserted that high crimes and misdemeanors or not, impeaching him would be a bigly mistake because if he “ever got impeached, the market would crash.  Everybody would be poor.”  The collective response to that comment was a big shrug with more than one investor pointing out that the market has learned to ignore Trump’s “endless controversies and crazy comments,” and as frightening as the concept of a President Pence might be, were he to ascend to Trump’s “throne,” the tax cuts would remain, the trade war might actually go away and “tweet” risk would diminish.  As to that whole flipping thing, another one of Trump’s good friends has turned on him.  Yesterday it was confirmed that in exchange for some immunity National Enquirer owner and publisher David Pecker has turned on Trump.  He confirms much of what lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen has been saying about the payments made to girlfriends Stormy and Karen.  As part of his long term relationship with Trump, his company, American Media has been blocking the publication of Trump dirt for awhile now.  To that end they worked with Cohen in order to “catch and kill” details of Karen McDougal and Trump’s ten month relationship and even worked with Cohen on squashing the Stormy Daniels story, although ultimately that payment didn’t pass through the American Media payment scheme.  Late yesterday, the Associated Press reported that at least until the election Pecker locked incriminating documents about all of his “high value” clients in a special safe in his office.  It’s not clear that all of that back-up material still exists but if it does, it’s fair to assume that the FBI now knows a lot about a number of other philanderers as well as any other Trump “girlfriends.” In addition to blocking negative Trump stories,  during the campaign Pecker, who was an early advocate of Trump’s presidential aspirations, published a litany of negative stories about Hilary Clinton’s “crimes,” health and imminent imprisonment.  He also published the article that claimed that Trump’s one time and possibly future opponent Senator Ted Cruz’s dad was involved in the JFK assassination.  Trump once expressed his belief that Pecker deserved a Pulitzer Prize for the keen investigative journalism that went into that fabrication. Pecker is now pickled, his days of advocating for Trump are behind him, its back to little green aliens for him.  However, the week hasn’t ended yet, nor have Trump’s problems.  Late yesterday, the NY Times reported that the Manhattan DA has now joined the crowd of authorities looking into the Trump organization’s business practices including the scheme that reimbursed Michael Cohen in excess of $400,000 for “legal” fees that really represented reimbursement for the funds he advanced to payoff Stormy Daniels as well as an amount to cover his related tax liabilities, to the extent that he ever intended to pay taxes.  Those payments were made with the help of at least two other Trump organization officials, one of whom was most likely Trump CFO Alan Weisselberg, the other as yet unknown.        

Exorcising Sessions:  Attorney General Sessions is finally striking back.  He pushed back at Trump’s Fox and Friends criticism by saying “While I am Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations. I demand the highest standards, and where they are not met, I take action.” He defended his staff of prosecutors and then pointed out how much fun he was having “effectuating” Trump’s agenda, “one that protects the safety and security and rights of the American people, reduces violent crime, enforces our immigration laws, promotes economic growth, and advances religious liberty."  Despite his depressingly effective implementation of those things, he might want to consider updating his Linkedin profile sooner rather than later.  Apparently, a number of Trump’s best buddies in the Senate are warming up to the idea of letting Trump fire him after the midterms because by then they believe or want the rest of us to believe that Special Counsel Mueller will be substantially done with his investigation, or at least that’s the rationale that they are using. Senator Lindsey Graham, who previously said that “there would be hell to pay if Trump tried to replace Sessions, has changed his opinion.  Yesterday he told reporters that Trump is “entitled to an attorney general he has faith in,” and that he expects Trump to fire Sessions “sooner rather than later.”  Senator Grassley, the head of the Judiciary Committee who earlier said that Trump should stick with Sessions because he had no time in his schedule for any more confirmation hearings, now says that he’s got plenty of open slots. To the extent that anyone cares Trump’s usual critics disagree, Senator Sasse said that ditching Sessions, presumably to replace him with someone willing to sign a loyalty oath, would be a very, very, very bad idea.  Senator Flake who will soon be a Senate history burger said ditching Sessions would have a “domino effect” but even Senator Corker, another one of those soon to be history burgers acknowledged that Session’s demise was inevitable saying that at least until the election Sessions “owned” Trump but after that all bets were off.  Lastly, Rudy Giuliani, busy playing golf somewhere in Scotland took time from the links to admit that Trump has spoken to him about replacing Sessions, a conversation they probably had around the same time that Trump brought up granting a pardon to the now convicted former campaign manager Paul Manafort.  Giuliani, no doubt volunteered to squish his feet into Sessions’ little shoes.  As to that Manafort pardon, Giuliani admitted that it too has been discussed but that he and Trump’s other lawyers have advised Trump and his twitchy tweeter to hold off until after the midterms.      

Race Baiting:  Trump continues to spend his free time, that is the time when he’s not bashing Sessions, planning pardons or playing golf, watching lots of Fox TV.  Earlier this week he caught  a Tucker Carlson segment that featured the unfounded claim that white farmers in South Africa are being systematically killed as the government steals their land.  Though land reform in South Africa is a thorny issue, white farmers continue to own a disproportionate share of the land, a legacy of apartheid that is not easily remedied, white farmers are not being killed off. However, the story is one that a number of white supremacists have been promoting and one that appealed to Tucker Carlson and struck a chord with Trump. As a result immediately after seeing the segment, Trump tweeted “I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers. South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.”  To put it mildly the South African government was less than pleased, they couldn’t call in our ambassador to express their anger because Trump hasn’t appointed one so instead  they tweeted back “South Africa totally rejects this narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past.”  First Lady Melania is supposed to be heading to Africa on her first official trip, so far her itinerary remains up in the air, it’s now not clear that she will be all that welcome in Pretoria, Cape Town or Bloemfontein.  Since it’s not enough to promote racial unrest around the world, Trump and his Congressional supporters are also doing their best to take advantage of the truly sad murder of Iowa student Mollie Tibbets, both to push their immigration views and to pivot away from this week’s Manafort and Cohen news. The Iowa student’s murderer was most likely an illegal immigrant, his status is still a bit murky, and Trump likes to broadcast any and all violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants.  That said, Tibbets’ family is grieving and isn’t all that pleased about Trump using her death to advance his views and immigration policies.  One of her family member posted "Please remember Evil comes in EVERY color, our family has been blessed to be surrounded by love, friendship and support throughout this entire ordeal by friends from all different nations and races."    

The week’s not over yet.  

Fallout

Sweet Sixteen: Following the eight guilty verdicts for Paul Manafort and the eight guilty pleas by Michael Cohen, the collective geniuses in the White House must have sat down for one of their strategy sessions.  Judging by all the statements that emerged from Team Trump yesterday their chosen plan wasn’t all that surprising: Deny, Deflect, Lie, and Scream NO COLLUSION whenever possible.  With that in mind, Sarah Huckabee Sanders answered virtually every question posed to her yesterday by saying, Trump did nothing wrong, there are no charges against him, he didn’t lie, and any assertions that he did are just a “ridiculous accusation,” because you know, he never lies.  She characterized Michael Cohen’s plea deal as something that Cohen did because of his own business problems, something that had nothing to do with Trump.  As to Manafort, she said that the case doesn’t have anything to do with Trump, the campaign or the White House, adding that she was “not aware of any conversations regarding a Manafort pardon.”  For his part Trump made it clear that he respects his former Campaign Manager, even if he only worked for him for a minute and despises his former lawyer/fixer who worked for him for years by tweeting  “I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family ‘Justice’ took a 12 year old tax case among other things, applied tremendous pressure on him and unlike Michael Cohen he refused to ‘break’ – make-up stories in order to get a deal.  Such respect for a brave man!” That tweet which misrepresented the age of the tax crimes left the distinct impression that despite the political fallout it would trigger, a pardon could be coming for Paul Manafort, especially if he continues to maintain his stoic silence.  As to that pardon, yesterday in an interview that will air this morning on Fox and Friends, Trump mentioned to Ainsley Earhardt that he really is considering pardoning Manafort, at least that’s what she told Sean Hannity last night.  During the same interview, Trump laid the groundwork for that pardon by expressing great respect for Manafort, again pointing out that his former campaign manager had worked for Reagan, Dole and McCain, referring to his bank and tax fraud charges as something “every consultant, every lobbyist in Washington probably does.” As to Michael Cohen and those problematic “hush” payments to his Playmate girlfriend and adult film star honey, he said that he knew about the payments “later on” but not before they were made and insisted that they did not come from campaign funds, despite the fact that we’ve all heard his taped conversation with  Cohen, the one where he discusses one of those payments and despite the fact that any undisclosed payments from his personal or business accounts would have been a campaign finance violation.  Trump said all this in the calm, somewhat whiny voice he uses whenever he’s trying really hard to convince an interviewer that he’s being earnest and truthful. Trump also went with some false equivalency by bringing up campaign violations made by Obama, tweeting “Michael Cohen plead guilty to two counts of campaign finance violations that are not a crime. President Obama had a big campaign finance violation and it was easily settled!” later throwing some mud at Attorney General Sessions by saying that the reason Obama didn’t get into trouble for his “massive campaign violation” was that “he had a different attorney general, and they viewed it a lot different."  For the record, Trump was referring to a $375,000 fine levied by the Federal Election Commission against Obama's 2008 presidential campaign over violations, including missing filing deadlines for disclosing large donations during the final weeks of the campaign, reporting the wrong dates on certain contributions, and not returning donations that exceeded the campaign contribution maximum quickly enough.  Experts say that those violations while nothing to sneeze at are generally considered "technical paperwork errors” that “people who were trying to get it right make,” they don’t compare to efforts to make payoffs to hide stories that might influence an election outcome.  House Republicans were spared from commenting on Manafort and Cohen as they are still out on summer break, their less fortunate colleagues in the Senate are around, they outwardly shrugged saying that as long as there was no collusion they could live with whatever was going on, though many of them are fairly panicked about what the impact will be on the midterm elections.  A number of them, including Senators Graham and Cornyn said that a Manafort pardon would be a step too far, though they didn’t specify what they would do to prevent or deal with that step something they should plan for since Trump is clearly working himself up to something.  At 1:00 AM this morning he scream-tweeted NO COLLUSION-RIGGED WITCH HUNT, perhaps a sign of Trump explosions yet to come?  As to Democrats, they continue to fume and though they have little power, they are again pressing their position that the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination should be put off until after the midterm elections.  Their argument, and it’s a good one even if it will go nowhere, is that Trump, who has pretty much been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Cohen case, shouldn’t be able to stack the Supreme Court with judges who might be called upon to rule on whether or not he can be forced to testify.      

Trumpian Tidbits:  One of the jurors in the Manafort case, a Republican who plans to vote for Trump again, told Fox News that the evidence against Manafort was overwhelming and that the only reason that they didn’t find him guilty on the other ten charges was because of one hold out.  CNBC reports that hidden among the reams of documents and papers taken from Michael Cohen’s home and offices was some evidence that he made a previously unreported payment of $50,000 to a tech company in connection with the 2016 campaign.  That payment “suggests that Cohen may have been doing more for Trump, and for the campaign that had been previously known.”  Cohen’s spokes lawyer, Lanny Davis, has suggested that Cohen could be helpful to the Mueller collusion investigation and though the $50,000 payment could turn out to be nothing significant, there have been some suggestions that it may represent a payment to someone or some groups perhaps Russian, perhaps not, involved in hacking and/or the spreading of election related disinformation. Separately, the Wall Street Journal reports that concerns about his wife’s exposure due to her involvement in his taxi business finances may have spurred Cohen to reach his plea deal, a fairly believable assertion since others have reported that she helped with his books and he’s been on record for some time saying that his family was his first priority. Yesterday, the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance issued a subpoena to Cohen as part of its continuing probe into whether the Trump Foundation violated NY tax laws.  With little else to do, Cohen immediately responded, saying he was available to talk whenever they had time on their schedule.   That could be a bigly problem for Trump and Trumpettes Ivanka, Don Jr and Eric, who are all involved with the Foundation, the not so “charitable” foundation that gave little to charity but did manage to allocate money towards campaign related efforts and the resolution of some Trump company disputes.   Lastly, the extended DeVos-Prince family continues to be up to their usual antics.  Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who has been tasked with figuring out how to solve the problem of gun related school massacres but refuses to even think about anything related to gun  restrictions,  is considering redirecting money from the Education Department away from education programs to the purchasing of guns for teachers while her brother Erik Prince is again touting his plan to privatize the US war in Afghanistan.  With Trump growing increasingly frustrated by the Afghanistan morass, brother Erik’s proposal is being given more consideration, by Trump, but not by General Mattis who shudders at the thought of involving Erik, whose former company Blackwater engaged in some pretty nasty activities, in anything.

Tuesday Afternoon is Never Ending

Wednesday Papers:  Well, right about now Trump is probably wishing that those Wednesday morning papers are never coming, but we are in a continuous news cycle world and they’ve come.  Unless you were under a rock, on an internet-free August vacation or attending Trump’s West Virginia rally you know by now that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was convicted on eight counts including five related to tax fraud, two related to bank fraud and one for failing to report a foreign account.  Manafort’s jury came in at just about the same time that former lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen agreed to plead guilty to eight counts of his own including five related to tax evasion, one to bank fraud and two to campaign violations.  Though Manafort’s Virginia jury remained hung on his other ten charges, partially because the charges were complicated and partially because of some of presiding Judge Ellis’s questionable comments, they found him guilty of all three of the types of charges they were asked to consider.  As a result Judge Ellis will be permitted to consider all eighteen charges when he decides on Manafort’s sentence. Suffice it to say, unless Manafort decides to start cooperating with Special Counsel Mueller or Trump goes into pardon mode, something that is an all too distinct possibility, he’ll be spending much, if not all, of the rest of his life in jail except for the time he spends in court during his upcoming Washington DC trial where he’ll face additional charges for money laundering and failing to register as a lobbyist.    As to Cohen, apparently his deal came together unusually quickly over the past week, leading some to surmise that in an effort to deal a one two punch to Trump and all of his Congressional cronies Deputy Assistant Rod Rosenstein had orchestrated its timing to coincide with the results of Manafort’s trial.  Coincidence or not, the simultaneous announcement did deliver a heavy blow, especially when you consider that Cohen admitted committing those two campaign violations, the ones involving the payments to Trump’s one time playmate/girlfriend Karen McDougal and now not so favorite porn star Stormy Daniels after being directed by Trump to arrange those payments to keep the women from speaking publicly about their affairs in the run up to the 2016 election.  To be clear, Cohen implicated Trump, who was referred to in the plea agreement only as a “candidate for political office,” in a federal crime. And that’s not the end of it, Cohen’s spokes lawyer Lanny Davis insists that Cohen has more to tell Mueller, to the extent that the special counsel wants to listen and though the terms of a cooperation agreement have not yet been worked out, it’s likely that one will be since Cohen, who doesn’t expect one of those Trump pardons, would rather not spend the next five years in jail.  Trump, who Vanity Fair reports was positively “rip-sh-t” over the weekend at just the anticipation of the Manafort verdict and the possibility of Cohen reaching a plea agreement, must be totally unhinged, to borrow an expression from his other problem child Omarosa Manigault, right about now.  That said his initial reaction was somewhat muted, as he left for his West Virginia rally he expressed sadness about Manafort, telling reporters “Paul Manafort is a good man. ... It doesn't involve me but it's a very sad thing. ... It had nothing to do with Russian collusion," but ignored any mention of Cohen.  Later his spokes pit bull, Rudy Giuliani said "no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the government's charges against Mr. Cohen" adding "It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Mr. Cohen's actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time." Republican Senator Lindsay Graham echoed that sentiment.  The only problem with that thought is that it's totally wrong, Trump is implicated bigly in that campaign payoff thing.  Upon arriving in West Virginia, Trump largely ignored Manafort and Cohen and instead riled the crowds by saying that he preferred fake news to censored social media, a reference to the recent banning of hate conspiracist Alex Jones, the InfoWars guy who pushed the Pizza Gate pedophile nonsense and who claims that no children were murdered at Sandy Hook elementary school,  from several social media sites.  His clueless audience, who either missed the afternoon news or didn’t care, responded with chants of lock her up, and of course by her they meant Hillary Clinton.  As to Hillary, last night Fox pundit, Trump acolyte Sean Hannity began his show by going off on a tirade attacking the justice system for going after Trump and his team while leaving Clinton free to roam the Westchester forests, whining that “equal justice under the law is dead.”  To sum up, two new Trump felons on one just one endless Tuesday afternoon, not bad for an investigation that Trump still calls a witch hunt.  As the NY Times said in this morning’s editorial, the one titled All the President’s Crooks, “for a witch hunt, Mr. Mueller’s investigation has already bagged a remarkable number of witches. Only the best witches, you might say.”  

House Update:  Tuesday really was never ending, late in the day, while most were focused on Manafort and Cohen, Federal prosecutors in San Diego indicted Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter and his wife for routinely and illegally using $250,000 in campaign funds to pay for trips to Italy and Hawaii, dental work, international travel for a dozen of their relatives, fast food, movie tickets, golf video games, coffee and household appliances.   Basically, they used their campaign funds for daily living, albeit relatively luxurious daily living. To cover up their illegal spending they labeled their expenses as “campaign travel,” or “dinner with volunteers/contributors.” Sometimes their “alleged grift” was more specific, they “mislabeled their personal dental expenses as donations to Smiles for Life.” They classified their family outing to see Riverdance at the San Diego Civic Theater as “San Diego Civic Theater for Republican Women Federated/Fundraising.” Hunter, an early Trump fan, was the second Congressman to endorse him.  His first congressional endorser, New York Republican Chris Collins, is under indictment for insider trading.  Though not a member of Congress, Trump’s economic advisor Larry Kudlow received some unwanted attention last night too and this time the criticism wasn’t about his flip-flopping on tariffs, rather it was about one of the guests at his recent birthday party.  One day after a White House speech writer was fired for speaking alongside a white supremacist publisher at a conference, that white supremacist, a charmer named  Peter Brimelow, attended Kudlow’s party.  Apparently he’s a long time Connecticut buddy of Kudlow.  Kudlow’s explanation is that though he’s known Brimelow forever, he didn’t know that his good friend was a racist, because if he had “we would never have invited him.”  Only the best, Trump’s team is made up of only the best!

It’s time to see how they run!!

Clueless Trolling

Contradictions:  Just another normal day in Trump world.  While Trump spent the day tweet attacking his “enemies,” first lady Melania called out cyber-bullying as “destructive and harmful when used incorrectly.” She’s either trolling him or is totally clueless, or both.  While the Russians ramped up their attacks on political websites, this time attacking Republican think tanks who aren’t pro-Trump enough to their liking, Trump again refused to admit that the Russians were clearly responsible for election interference, instead telling Reuters that Special Counsel Mueller’s probe into election meddling “played right into the Russians – if it was Russians – they played right into the Russians’ hands.”  While Rudy Giuliani tried to walk back his much ridiculed “truth isn’t truth” comment, clarifying it to say that sometimes it’s hard to tell who is telling the truth, Trump expressed his fears to Reuters that Mueller’s investigators would compare his statements with that of others who have testified in the probe, such as former FBI Director James Comey, and that any discrepancies could be used against him, saying “So if I say something and he (Comey) says something, and it’s my word against his, and he’s best friends with Mueller, so Mueller might say: ‘Well, I believe Comey,’ and even if I’m telling the truth, that makes me a liar. That’s no good.”  Apparently Trump who until now has insisted that he wants to speak with Mueller has finally absorbed his lawyers fears that were he to meet with Mueller he would most definitely perjure himself the second he started talking, especially if Mueller started the interview by complementing him on his hair or his attractive orange glow.  While more than 175 former State Department and Pentagon officials added their names to a statement signed by former national security officials criticizing his decision to cancel the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan, Trump continued his attack on Brennan by tweet taunting him to follow through on his weekend threat to sue, saying “I hope John Brennan, the worst CIA Director in our country’s history, brings a lawsuit. It will then be very easy to get all of his records, texts, emails and documents to show not only the poor job he did, but how he was involved with the Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt. He won’t sue!”  As to that threat, Giuliani quickly jumped on board tweeting at Brennan that today Trump “granted our request (Jay Sekulow and me) to handle your case. After threatening if you don’t it would be just like Obama’s red lines. Come on John you’re not a blowhard?” Apparently the concept of security clearance revocation isn’t new, Trump has been considering the use of punitive stripping for a while now.  In March of 2017, when he accused Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower, some of his staff pushed him to pull the clearances of many Obama era security clearances, not because they’d done anything wrong but because they were considered rivals, staff even suggested and Trump seriously considered cutting Obama’s access to the intelligence briefings routinely provided to past presidents.  At that time, HR McMaster who was serving as security adviser talked Trump out of it. With McMaster out of the picture, Trump continues to expand his list of targets, a list that right now doesn’t include either Obama or Mueller but could at some point soon.  Yesterday in addition to ramping up his attack against current Justice Department employee Bruce Ohr by tweeting  “Will Bruce Ohr, whose family received big money for helping to create the phony, dirty and discredited Dossier, ever be fired from the Jeff Sessions ‘Justice’ Department? A total joke,” Trump added another name to his enemies list, this time going after former intelligence official Phillip Mudd who vociferously slammed Trump’s security clearance revocations during one of those CNN talking head moments.  Trump called him “unglued” and “weird” saying that he is in “no mental condition to have such a Clearance.”  Former CIA Director and NSA head General Michael Hayden responded by tweeting that “Phil is a hero. Counter terrorism giant,” he also dared Trump to revoke his security clearance too.      

Crony Update:  The Manafort jury made up for their early departure on Friday by sticking around until 6:30 pm last night.  They will be back at it today since they still haven’t reached a verdict.  Depending on who you ask, they are either mired in all of the back-up documentation that Judge Ellis wouldn’t allow them to review during the trial and are doing a thorough job or are hung up on one or more of the indictments.  We won’t know which is true until they are ready to tell us.  It turns out that George Papadopoulos wasn’t much of a cooperating witness after all.  Papadopoulos is the campaign foreign policy advisor who got drunk and told an Australian diplomat that the Russians were planning to dump Hillary emails during the campaign.  Though his alcohol fueled statements triggered the investigation into Russian meddling, Papadopoulos kept lying to Mueller’s investigators even after he promised to cooperate.  He withheld crucial information and is probably responsible for the flight of another Russian tool, Professor Joseph Mifsud, who managed to slip out of London to places unknown before he could be detained by authorities. Despite his lawyers’ assertion that Papadopoulos should serve no prison time, he is likely to receive a sentence of up to six months, notable when you compare his crimes to Rick Gates who appears to be getting off without incarceration because of his real and ongoing cooperation with Mueller. Papadopoulos’ wife has been publicly calling for him to withdraw from his deal with Mueller although it’s probably too late for that to happen.  As to Papadopoulos, last night he cryptically tweeted “Been a hell of a year. Decisions,” whatever that means.  Though he’s not embroiled in the Russian affair, late last week Darren Beattie, a speechwriter hired by and working with favorite Trump aide Stephen Miller was quietly fired after the Washington Post revealed that he had spoken at a conference held by the Mencken Club, a group favored by white nationalists.  Beattie represents just another example of how Trump hires only the best people.

More Politics:  Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist, signed a plan that will allow states to set their own emissions standards for coal-fueled power plants, a significant pushback from the clean air rules put into effect during the Obama administration. Trump is expected to brag about the move when he visits West Virginia this week to campaign against Democratic Senator Joe Manchin who is up for reelection in November in the state that Trump won by more than 40 points. Trump is hoping that his visit and his coal friendly policies will help eat into the popular Manchin’s current advantage in the polls.  Ironically, given that he represents West Virginia, Manchin’s views on the importance of coal don’t differ much from Trump’s. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process keeps rolling along. Though many of his papers remain trapped in archive bureaucracy, yesterday, we learned that he was responsible for drafting some fairly explicit questions for Ken Starr’s prosecutors to use during former President Clinton’s interview about his sexual exploits with Monica Lewinsky.  Kavanaugh asserts that he’s changed his mind about all that stuff, he feels bad about the way that things proceeded with Clinton and that he thinks that presidents should be more or less exempt from prosecution until they leave office, that is as long as they are Republicans.