Quit, Fired, Whatever

Rosenstein Chaos:  Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was either summoned to the White House or went of his own volition. While there he met first with White House Counsel Don McGahn before being shunted off to Chief of Staff Kelly.  McGahn didn’t have any time to chat as he was busy dealing with the Kavanaugh mess and, given that his own days in Casa Trump are numbered, didn’t feel that he was the right guy for Rosenstein to commiserate with anyway.  During his conversation with Kelly, Rosenstein either tried to resign or told Kelly that he’d only leave if fired by Trump.  Rosenstein did finally speak with Trump but only by phone, since Trump was already in New York for the annual UN meeting. The two men now plan to have a face to face meeting on Thursday during which Rosenstein will either resign, be fired, or remain in his job at least until after the midterms.  If all this sounds impossibly vague and contradictory it’s because the truth is that no one knows what really went down yesterday. The White House Communications Department was so in the dark that they ginned up a statement on the fly saying that Rosenstein had resigned, while the Justice Department prepared their own statement saying that he’d been fired or resigned, since they also had no idea what was happening.   In the meantime, various news outlets reported that Rosenstein was fired, while others reported that he had resigned.  Now everyone believes that whatever is going to happen will happen on Thursday. The Rosenstein drama was triggered by last Friday’s NY Times article, the one that claimed that he’d been seriously considering taping his conversations with Trump and/or setting in motion the 25^th Amendment. Though it’s easy to blame the Times with or without the article Rosenstein’s expiration date was coming due anyway.  It’s widely believed that Trump plans to clean house after the midterm elections and that Rosenstein and Attorney General Sessions sit atop his to do list.  To the extent that Rosenstein is ousted, his oversight of the Mueller investigation is expected to fall to Solicitor General Noel Francisco.  Under ordinary circumstances the next in line to assume responsibility for Rosenstein’s oversight of Mueller would be the Associate Attorney General.  That person used to be Rachel Brand, but she jumped ship earlier in the year in part because she didn’t want to deal with the Mueller hot potato.  The person now in that position has not been confirmed by the Senate and therefore can’t supervise Mueller so the responsibility will fall to Francisco.  Though he is viewed as competent, he does not have prosecutorial experience and is viewed as a partisan tool and a believer in broad executive privilege.  Though he probably wouldn’t facilitate the firing of Mueller, the political consequences of doing that would be dire, it’s thought that Francisco might rein him in by curtailing his budget, refusing to authorize future indictments, putting the kibosh on any consideration of subpoenaing Trump and/or refusing to release any of Mueller’s reports to Congress. Moreover, though Rosenstein has resisted Trump’s calls to initiate investigations into any of Hillary’s alleged crimes, the ones that Trump likes to cite whenever his are getting too much attention, Francisco is on record as saying that he believes that Hillary should have been more vigorously investigated so it’s possible that he would be more amenable to Trump’s demands.  Democrats with the help of a few Republicans of conscience are again pushing for Mueller protection legislation but so far Senate Majority Leader McConnell refuses to act and the House, where it is unlikely that anything that protects Mueller would ever get passed, is due to go on another hiatus and to the extent that they do anything, they would be more likely to investigate Rosenstein for his “evil plan” to upend Trump.  

Kavanaugh Crisis:  The plot twists in Kavanaugh land continue to spiral out of control too.  In an effort to save his nomination, Kavanaugh and his wife appeared on Fox last night where he once again proclaimed his innocence, claimed that he’d been a virgin for far longer than he ever wanted to admit, and asserted that he’s only shown the utmost respect for women.  He stuck to what were clearly prepared talking points, proclaiming that he was “looking for a fair process one where I can be heard defending my integrity, my lifelong record of promoting dignity and equality for women.”  He fended off questions about whether he thought that the FBI should be called in to conduct further inquiries and prevented his wife from responding to a similar question, because props aren’t there to do much more than sit and nod.   To bolster Kavanaugh’s assertion of innocence,  Senate Majority Leader McConnell gave a faux impassioned speech to the Senate.  The guy who upturned all of the Senate rules in order to block Obama’s Merrick Garland nomination from moving forward lashed into the Democrats for launching a “shameful smear campaign that has hit a new low” and for violating rules of order.  Despite McConnell’s best efforts that Democratic campaign isn’t over yet.  Though Republicans have been doing their best to question the credibility of Deborah Ramirez, Kavanaugh accuser number two, her assertions have started to gain some traction and Senator Susan Collins is now saying that she should be allowed to testify. Complicating matters, Michael Avenatti promises that the accuser that he represents will come forward by Thursday, that she is someone who has held a number of government related jobs and as a result has previously passed FBI reviews.  Moreover he insists that he will also reveal the names of others who will be able to verify her claims.  As to those claims, though he hasn’t specified what they are, he’s come up with a list of questions that he wants Kavanaugh to be asked during the Thursday Senate hearing, those questions concern facilitation of group rape, something that Avenatti implies also involves Kavanaugh’s one time high school friend Mark Judge, the guy who wrote a book about his high school era alcohol infused days, a book that incudes a reference to his pseudonymously named friend “Bart O’Kavanaugh.”  The NY Times also reports that a number of Kavanaugh’s high school friends all kind of slut shamed the same girl in their high school year book by referring to themselves as “Renate Alumni,” a snide reference to time spent with a girl they knew.  In another plot twist that no reputable author would have ever written, that girl, Renate Shroeder, was one of the signers of the letter from the 65 girls who said that they all knew and respected Kavanaugh back in high school. Until the NY Times article, she had not known that she was referenced in the yearbook. Now she’s furious and hurt. Though high school slut shaming is not a criminal act, it hardly reflects a lifetime history of treating women respectfully. It’s worth noting that Justice Gorsuch attended the same high school as Kavanaugh and though his views are equally “conservative” he wasn’t involved in any of these activities, so the “everyone” did it argument really doesn’t cut it.  It’s also been reported that Kavanaugh has forwarded his high school calendars to Senate investigators as proof that he’d been nothing but an altar boy during his high school days.  Apparently, those 35 year old date books prove his innocence because he didn’t pencil in any keggers or nefarious deeds.  In still another wrinkle in this saga, Dr. Blasey Ford’s newest lawyer, Michael Bromwich, sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee expressing concerns over their decision to retain an “experienced sex crimes prosecutor” to stand in for the Republican senators who don’t want to be seen questioning Blasey in front of a nationwide audience.  He’s threatening to pull Blasey from participating in Thursday’s hearing if the Committee refuses to conduct their own questioning.  Despite all of this, or maybe because of all of this, Trump reiterated his support for the “unfairly” treated Kavanaugh and McConnell insists that Kavanaugh will be confirmed by Friday.   

UN Week:  Trump reports that things are better than ever on the Korean peninsula and at least in one regard he’s right.  Yesterday he announced that the US and South Korea have finalized terms of a new trade deal, one that isn’t all that different than the two countries’ last trade deal.  As to North Korea, though they are still quietly working on ramping up their nuclear program, Trump again bragged about the progress being made on denuclearization, and said that another meeting with Kim Jong Un is in the works.  Trump is due to speak to the UN today, he’s expected to highlight the progress made with North Korea but plans to slam Iran, the country that still doesn’t have a nuclear bomb but is sadly adept at spreading discord across the Middle East.  Achieving world order and denuclearizing are two of those complicated things.