Supreme MeToo

Kavanaugh Crisis:  Ensuring that the Supreme Court moves to the right and stays there for as long as possible is the ultimate goal of Republican leadership.  They supported Trump through the Access Hollywood controversy and have stuck with him, not out of any great admiration for his character, but largely because he promised to appoint their candidates to the court, candidates screened and approved by the very conservative Federalist Society.  To that end, Senate Majority Leader McConnell, who successfully stymied Merrick Garland, Obama’s last court pick, from even coming up for a vote, has broken every rule and ignored every convention to pave the way for Trump’s nominees.  He got rid of the filibuster to facilitate Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation to the court and has been doing everything he can to speed up the Brett Kavanaugh nomination.  With the cooperation of Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley, and contrary to past practice, he’s cut access to a large amount of Kavanaugh’s documents by moving ahead before the National Archives could complete their document review process, by permitting the appointment of an exceptionally Kavanaugh “friendly” lawyer for document review and then by labeling any of the controversial documents that couldn’t be squelched as “committee confidential,” a designation intended to prevent Democrats from sharing their content with the public.  For a while, despite some histrionics from some Democratic Senators including presidential aspirants Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, McConnell’s strategy appeared to be working. He’s now hit a roadblock in the form of #MeToo accuser Professor Christine Blasey Ford.  Despite his best efforts to disparage and ignore her letter, the letter that summarized her accusation that Kavanaugh tried to rape her during their high school days,  the Kavanaugh confirmation process has finally slowed down. As recently as yesterday morning committee Chair Grassley insisted that his committee would still hold their vote this Thursday, but under pressure from several Republicans including committee member Jeff Flake, Susan Collins, the Senate Republican’s designated “women’s rights protector,” and West Virginia Senator Shelly Moore Capito, who like Ford attended the all-girls Holten-Arms School, the vote is off for now pending the outcome of an additional hearing.  That hearing is scheduled to take place on Monday. Both Ford and Kavanaugh are expected to testify and be questioned under oath.  Kavanaugh spent nine hours at the White House yesterday strategizing with White House Counsel McGahn and bonding with Trump who probably likes him a little bit more than before now that he knows that in addition to believing that presidential power is all encompassing, he isn’t really much of a boy scout.  Kavanaugh continues to insist that he’s innocent.  He claims that he didn’t even attend the party where the alleged attack took place which is an odd assertion since Ford’s accusation doesn’t include any information about the exact location or specific date of the party.  As to Ford, more than 200 alumni of the Holten-Arms school, including actress Julia Louis Dreyfus have signed a letter of support backing her, their way of pushing back against the letter signed by the 65 women who purportedly knew Kavanaugh back when he was at the all-boys George Town Preparatory School.  As to those women, although they all signed their letter of support willingly, some of them were as young as four when Kavanaugh was in high school and, now that the name of the accuser and her accusation have been revealed, a majority of them have gone silent in part because of the details of the accusation and in part because she and her family are respected in their community.  Notably, though times have changed since Anita Hill got trashed for accusing Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, two members of the Judiciary Committee haven’t. Both Senators Grassley and Hatch participated in the Anita Hill hearings and neither seems to have changed with the times.  Yesterday Hatch who had dismissed Anita Hill’s accusations as “too contrived, too slick” said that Professor Ford is just confused and “mixed-up.” His comments aside, at this point it’s far from certain that Kavanaugh will make it onto the Supreme Court

The War Against Mueller:  Trump has gone largely silent on the flipping of his one time campaign manager Paul Manafort but he hasn’t given up on trying to damage the Mueller investigation.  To that end, late yesterday he announced that he was ordering the declassification of a number of documents related to the investigation.  Specifically he wants selective portions of the FISA warrant application on Carter Page and “all FBI reports” prepared in connection” with that warrant request released.  He also ordered the Justice Department to release all text messages related to the Russian investigation from former FBI Director James Comey, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and current Justice Department official Bruce Ohr.  Trump’s order won’t result in the immediate release of the documents but initiates a process that could result in the information being released shortly assuming that the FBI and the Justice Department follow through on his order.  It’s quite possible that Trump hopes that they won’t because he may well be trying to force the document release to push Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray over the edge and out the door. Yesterday, Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said that the two have previously told him that the release of the requested documents would involve the crossing of one of those “red lines.”  As to Manafort, the bigly problem that has pushed Trump to panic mode, apparently the Mueller team was pretty wily when they crafted his cooperation agreement.  They incorporated a number of provisions that would severely diminish the value of any future Trump pardon.

Other News:  The deaths and damage caused by Hurricane Florence continue to grow as have the troubles of FEMA Chief Brock Long. The investigation into his misdeeds have now been referred to federal prosecutors to determine whether criminal charges should be pursued.  And quietly, while all eyes were on Florence and the Kavanaugh mess, the Trump administration announced that it would limit the number of refugees admitted into the US during the next fiscal year to 30,000, the lowest number in more than 38 years.  At the same time, things appear to be heating up again in Syria, the tinder box that has produced a large number of those refugees.  Yesterday, the Syrians accidentally shot down a Russian fighter plane, something they and their Russian allies blame on the Israelis, who according to the Russians, were responsible for putting the Russian aircraft in the line of fire.  At the time the Israelis, together with the Brits and the French were targeting Syrian artillery positions.  Yikes.