Twisting in the Wind

Moscow Calling:  The plot twists keep coming. Just as Trump and his team of legal wizards were patting themselves on the back for pulling one over on Special Counsel Mueller by turning cooperator Paul Manafort into a triple agent, Mueller struck back with his own turncoat.  Yesterday, former Trump lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to one count of lying to Congress, yes lying to Congress really is a thing.  He admitted that he had participated in a cover-up when he told Congressional staff that negotiations with the Russians about a Moscow Trump Tower project had ended in  January 2016, in reality they continued until June 2016.  He said that he lied because he wanted his statements to be consistent with Trump’s public assertions during the campaign that he was not engaging in any business or any discussions of business opportunities with Russians  Additionally, though he told Congressional staff that his efforts to connect with Dmitry Peskov, a close advisor to Vladimir Putin, had failed when Peskov’s office didn’t respond to his email, Peskov’s office did respond to his outreach and he and Peskov’s assistant discussed ways to advance the project. He also admitted that he had lied about his plans to travel to Russia to meet with Russian officials about the project, he had planned to go and had even discussed arranging for Trump to go too, but cancelled his plans in June around the time that the project finally died, or went on hiatus. Lastly, Cohen disclosed that he had kept Trump who was named in Cohen’s “information” as Person Numero Uno, as well Don Jr and Ivanka updated on the status of his skyscraper negotiations. That last thing could turn into a bigly problem for Don Jr who is thought to have told Congressional questioners that he wasn’t involved in the Moscow project.  It appears that Trump learned about Cohen’s impending plea on Wednesday night when he was brought up to date by Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, the stooge he planted in the Justice Department to make the Mueller investigation go away; at least for now that strategy doesn’t appear to be working out all that well, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein and Mueller seem to be making end runs around Whitaker. That update may explain why Trump and Melania ditched the traditional White House tree lighting ceremony they were hosting earlier than anyone expected.  Yesterday morning as he departed for the G20 meeting in Argentina, Trump responded to questions from the press by saying that Michael Cohen wasn’t to be believed because he was “very weak” and that he was inventing stories to minimize his future jail time. At the same time he partially contradicted himself by saying that even if Cohen’s version of events was true, it wouldn’t matter because there was nothing wrong with pursuing Russian business during the campaign because had he lost he would have needed something to fall back on. Though it’s not immediately clear that Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s current lawyer/fixer, is much of a truth teller, later in the day he kind of confirmed Cohen’s version of the Moscow tower story by saying that Trump had revealed a similar timeline in the written response to collusion related questions that was submitted to Mueller last week.  It’s not clear whether Giuliani made that up on the fly, in any case if Trump’s response was inconsistent with Cohen’s than Trump was just caught in one of those “perjury traps,” if it’s accurate then Trump admitted to lying to the public to win the Republican nomination and the election, to the extent that his base really cares.   Trump’s other former business associate Felix Sater, the convicted felon and friend of Cohen who used to have an office in Trump Tower and who has been involved in a number of Trump real estate endeavors including the Moscow Tower project confirmed Cohen’s version of events and also confirmed an interesting tidbit that first showed up in Buzzfeed but has now made it to the more mainstream press, that little tidbit reveals that as a marketing ploy the Trump team considered gifting a $50 million residence in the Moscow Tower project to Putin, something that would have brought Putin on board while helping to sell the building’s other luxury residences to oligarchs who’d be happy to shell out extra dough to be close to their exalted leader.  Sater figured that they would make back the $50 million by overcharging those “gullible” oligarchs.  Although the Moscow hotel project went cold in June 2016, Russian cannoodling with Trump continued, the infamous NY Trump tower meeting between Don Jr, Kushner,  Manafort and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya took place that June, the emails that the Russians mined sometime around March  from the DNC server were released in October and the rest is history, or at least history that is still being uncovered. Members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, at least the Democratic members, are now scouring their interview transcripts for other Trump team “inconsistencies” and by inconsistencies think lies and Adam Schiff the soon to be Chairman of the House committee is getting ready to share those transcripts with Mueller’s team.  It’s also reported that a number of the current and former White House denizens who testified in front of Congress are kind of freaking out.  Apparently, some of them didn’t realize that lying to Congress wasn’t exactly a good thing.  As to Michael Cohen, he spent upwards of seventy hours talking with Mueller’s team. It’s highly likely that the Moscow Tower stuff was just a small part of what he disclosed, the best is yet to come and we still haven’t heard from Trump accountant Alan Weisselberg.  

More Drama:  That Mueller picks Trump travel days to announce indictments or plea deals is probably not much of a coincidence. He appears to love pulling Trump’s chain.  He indicted a number of Russian players right before the Helsinki summit shining a bad light on Trump’s cozying up to Putin during their meeting and joint news conference.  This time around it looks like Mueller’s Cohen surprise is having an influence on Trump’s meeting plans.  After boarding his flight to Argentina, Trump’s team announced that he had decided to cancel his planned private meeting with Putin.  The purported reason for the cancellation is to deliver the message to Vlad that his increasingly aggressive actions against Ukraine are intolerable however, it’s also likely that the meeting was cancelled because the optics of Trump hanging with his BFF right now would be a bit too much even for Trump.  Trump also cancelled plans to meet with Turkey’s Erdogan, clearly he’s not up for a tough discussion about why the US is isn’t taking Turkey’s version of the Khashoggi murder events into account and why despite his pleas, plans to release Erdogan’s arch enemy Fethullah Gulen, the cleric residing in Pennsylvania, aren’t going anywhere.  Away from Argentina, two other odd things happened yesterday.  German police raided the offices of Deutsche Bank, Trump’s favorite and sometimes only lender, seeking out files related to Russian money laundering.  Though there is no indication that the raid had anything to do with Trump the timing is awfully coincidental.  Also too coincidental, yesterday morning Federal agents showed up unannounced at the Chicago City Hall office of Alderman Ed Burke, kicked everyone out, papered over the windows and then left with a box or two.  Burke’s law firm served as Trump’s property tax attorney from 2006 to 2018, the relationship ended over what Burke called “irreconcilable differences.”  During the time that he worked for Trump Burke’s law firm saved Trump $14.1 million in property taxes.

No Judgeship for You:   Senator Jeff Flake is not flaking out this time.  To the consternation of Majority Leader McConnell and a number of his other Republican colleagues, Flake continues to refuse to vote for any more of Trump’s judicial nominees until Mueller protecting legislation is brought to the Senate floor for a vote. Flake’s intransigence helped to doom the nomination of Thomas Farr, one of the architects of North Carolina’s racially gerrymandered districts.  Yesterday, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott announced that he would vote against Farr.  He based his decision on a Washington Post article that detailed a Justice Department investigation into former Senator Jesse Helms 1992 racially tinged campaign tactics, those tactics involved intimidating Black voters by sending  out postcards that suggested they were not eligible to vote and that they could be prosecuted for fraud if they tried.  Farr was involved in that campaign. With all of the Democrats voting against Farr, Flake and Scott’s no votes have effectively killed his nomination.  In explaining his decision Senator Scott said that the Republican Party is  “not doing a very good job of avoiding the obvious potholes on race in America.”  A little bit of an understatement from the Republican Party’s sole African American Senator.      

Mobsters and Presidents

Caterwauling: The Khashoggi affair may finally be catching up with the Trump administration.  Yesterday in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Secretary of State Pompeo called out critics for “caterwauling” (screeching) over Saudi Arabia’s “human rights” violations and for piling on with the media to disrupt the Trump administration’s efforts to rebuild the US-Saudi Arabia partnership, the relationship that he says was inappropriately diminished during the Obama days as a result of that administration’s preference for Iran, his way of shifting the focus to Obama and the Iran nuclear deal. Neither his choice of words nor his accusations went over all that well with the Senate not even with the crowd that agreed with his Obama slam. Their frustration grew after they learned that CIA Director Gina Haspel was omitted from the squad that the administration sent to the Senate to provide a closed door update about the Khashoggi murder.  When asked why Haspel had been excluded, the always smirking Pompeo sidestepped the question by saying that he was there and that’s all that matters. When asked about Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Laden’s involvement in the Khashoggi murder scheme, Defense Secretary Mattis said that there was no “smoking gun” but said nothing about a “smoking” buzz saw.  Angry over Haspel’s omission, Pompeo’s diss, and Mattis’ failure to be more forthcoming, a bipartisan group of Senators voted 63 to 37 to forward to the floor legislation limiting presidential war powers in Yemen where Saudi Arabia’s actions, with US air support and lots of US weaponry has resulted in a mind numbing humanitarian crisis.  It’s not clear that the legislation will pass, some of the Republican Senators may have voted yes just to compel the White House to send Haspel to their chambers so that they can hear her conclusions about the Khashoggi murder.  Senator Lindsey Graham, who is frequently one of Trump’s biggest supporters is really exorcised about Saudi Arabia’s actions and Trump’s deceptions.  His decision to push the legislation forward was a particularly notable slap at his sometime golfing buddy.  Graham also insists that he’s not going to vote for any of end of year legislation until he hears from Haspel and he appears to mean it.  He is not alone.  

Mueller Morass:  With the midterms finally over, Trump is no longer pretending to tolerate the Mueller investigation.  Yesterday he retweeted a meme depicting all of his “enemies,” including Comey, the Clintons, Rosenstein, Mueller, and a host of other “criminals” behind bars. When asked about Rosenstein later in the day he doubled down saying that Rosenstein was a criminal because he was responsible for the appointment of Mueller. He also refused to rule out a future Paul Manafort pardon saying instead that Manafort has been unfairly treated by that McCarthy like Mueller team. Then late last night, he tweeted  “So much happening with the now discredited Witch Hunt. This total Hoax will be studied for years!”  He’s right about that, it will be studied for years, maybe the course will be entitled “Mobsters and Presidents,” however given this week’s plot twists it may take more than one semester to cover the subject matter.   Manafort’s decision to agree to a plea agreement while still cozying up to Trump, combined with his lawyers’ decision to continue sharing information about their discussions with the Special Counsel team with Trump’s legal team, could be worthy of its own special section.  Though it might not be worth the headache, Mueller could subpoena both Manafort’s legal team and the ever talkative Giuliani to learn more about what the two teams discussed since the attorney client privilege protection might not apply to a good part of those conspiring conversations.  All told, Trump has entered into joint defense agreements with upwards of thirty other individuals, including conspiracy theorist James Corsi who may well have been the link between Roger Stone and WikiLeaks’s Julian Assange.  In addition to dissing Mueller and his team, yesterday Trump let it be known through one or more selective leaks that in his carefully crafted written response, the one he claims he wrote but was really written by his lawyers, he told Mueller that he didn’t know about Don Jr’s Trump Tower meeting before it took place and that Roger Stone did not tell him about WikiLeaks.  Of course both assertions included that all important qualifier:  “as far as I can remember.”  To the extent that Mueller has obtained phone records he probably knows whether or not Don Jr called Trump before the Trump tower meeting, however, it’s unlikely that he has any tapes of what they actually discussed.  As to Stone, last night the Washington Post reported that Trump and Stone had regular late night phone calls during the 2016 campaign.  Of course both of them assert those calls focused on rain forecasts and other such things, and never touched on anything related to WikiLeaks or the Podesta emails.   

Back Bones:  Senator Jeff Flake may finally have found his back bone.  Together with his Democratic co-sponsors he tried to force a unanimous voice on Mueller protecting legislation yesterday.  However, that effort failed after Republican Senator Mike Lee voted it down, arguing that it violated constitutional principles or at least his constitutional principles. In response, Flake is holding firm on his promise to hold up Republican judicial nominations and as a result the Senate Judiciary Committee cancelled a Thursday hearing on judicial nominees.  Unfortunately the nomination of one of the Republican’s more despicable judicial candidates made it through a procedural vote yesterday with the help of a tie breaking vote from VP Pence.  That nominee, Thomas Farr, served as counsel to the North Carolina Republican party and was instrumental in helping them implement a partisan gerrymandered map that intentionally disenfranchised African American voters, a map that was subsequently struck down in the courts, the courts that Farr will join if he gets voted in.  Farr’s fate now hangs in the hands of the Republican’s sole Black Senator, South Carolina’s Tim Scott, who voted for Farr’s nomination to proceed to the final vote but who says that he is still “researching” and has not made his final decision on whether to vote with the rest of his Republican colleagues or whether to vote against a man who has made a career out of disenfranchising Black voters.  It’s hard to understand why that’s a tough call for him, but for some reason it is. On the Democratic side, Nancy Pelosi is one step closer to becoming Speaker of the House. With no one running against her she won the Democratic caucus vote.  She still needs to win over a few more of those “never Nancy” Democratic representatives before the January vote for Speaker, something that she is expected to do because who are they going to vote for, if not her, Republican Kevin McCarthy? Unlikely. Democrats also voted their two other 70 plus year-old Representatives, Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn into their number two and three spots but added one relatively youthful newcomer, 48 year-old New York Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, to the fifth most powerful leadership role.  Jeffries is viewed as a possible future Speaker.

More on the "Witch Hunt"

Mueller Time: Nothing about the Russia investigation follows a straight line so yesterday’s revelations, while surprising, shouldn’t be all that shocking.  The day began with another one of Trump’s Mueller focused attack tweets: “Terrible Gang of Angry Democrats. Look at their past, and look where they come from. The now $30,000,000 Witch Hunt continues and they’ve got nothing but ruined lives. Where is the Server? Let these terrible people go back to the Clinton Foundation and “Justice” Department!” The tweet was hostile but Trump’s Mueller tweets are always hostile so while it raised a few eyebrows, most wrote it off to general Trump lunacy.  Then the unexpected happened.  First, The Guardian reported that Paul Manafort had secretly visited WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2014, 2015 and in the spring of 2016 around the time that he joined Trump’s campaign. To the extent the Guardian report is true, the implication is that Manafort was in on Assange’s plan to release the Russian sourced DNC emails earlier than anyone knew, he may have even sought his Trump campaign position to facilitate the process.  So far Manafort and Assange have denied the accuracy of the Guardian story and no other news outlets have been able to confirm its veracity but given how many security camera’s are focused on the area around the Ecuadorean embassy, Manafort’s visits, though not entered into the embassy visitors log, should be easy to prove to the extent that someone in British Intelligence wants to share videos and given the Guardian story, maybe they already have? Second,  conspiracy wingnut, Roger Stone associate Jerome Corsi, who had reported that he was on the verge of reaching a plea agreement with Mueller only to announce that he had changed his mind, shared some draft court documents that had been provided to him as part of his “failed” negotiations with Mueller.  Those documents reveal details of his communication with Stone including an August 2016 email where he reports to Stone that  “Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps, one shortly after I'm back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging."  The friend is Assange and the dumps refer to the DNC emails.  In another email Stone tells Corsi to "Get to (Assange) [a]t Ecuadorian Embassy in London and get the pending (WikiLeaks) emails.”   Corsi had lied about the content of this communication during his interviews with Mueller’s team; the plea deal that he rejected related to those lies.  As if the Manafort-Assange connection and the Corsi-Stone email exchange weren’t enough new plot points for one day of the Russia saga, late yesterday the New York Times revealed that pursuant to a joint defense pact that under normal conditions would have gone away once Manafort agreed to his plea deal Mueller, one of Manafort’s lawyers has continued to provide Trump’s legal team with regular updates about what Manafort has been telling Mueller’s team, particularly what he’s been “discussing” with Andrew Weissman, the toughest and most persistent prosecutor on what Trump calls Mueller’s “group of Angry Democrats.” In all likelihood, that shared information is the source of Rudy Giuliani’s assertions that nothing that Manafort has told Mueller implicates Trump. The assumption is that Manafort was trying to provide Mueller with enough information to minimize his jail time while at the same time spinning lies and withholding enough about what he knows about Trump’s knowledge of, among other things, the infamous Trump Tower, in order to smooth his path to a Trump pardon.  Manafort is now on the outs with Mueller and though he might eventually get that Trump pardon, it’s not a sure thing and in any case won’t get him back the millions of dollars that have already been confiscated nor will it do much to absolve him of the related New York and Virginia crimes that he has already pleaded guilty to. As to Trump, he provided Mueller with written answers to some questions last week, those answers may well have been based on responses coordinated to appear consistent with what Manafort had been telling Andrew Weissman during their “chats.” It’s also quite possible that Mueller knows that some of those things were based on jointly crafted lies.  That would be a bigly problem for Trump who at least for now still asserts that he has no plans to stop Mueller’s investigation.  For now.   

More Trumpisms:  Trump spent some of his down time yesterday talking with the Washington Post.  Apparently he is very unhappy with Jerome Powell, his hand-picked Federal Reserve Chairman, blaming his decision to raise interest rates for General Motor’s decision to close plants and cut 15000 US jobs.  To be clear GM’s actions have absolutely nothing to do with Trump’s tariffs or Republican failures to anticipate that US corporations might decide to move jobs to lower cost environments like Mexico, something that Ohio’s Democratic Senator and likely presidential nominee Sherrod Brown was quick to remind everyone who would listen that that he warned would be a likely outcome of last year’s tax legislation because the new tax law allows companies to pay a lower tax rate on their overseas earnings than they are charged on their domestic profits.  As to Powell, Trump says that one of the reasons that he picked him to be Fed Chairman was because he felt that Janet Yellin, the former Fed Chair, was too short to continue in the position. Enough said about that.  Trump doubled down on his climate change denial pointing out that he was among those who “have very  high levels of intelligence” but are not “believers” in climate change. And in case you doubt his brainpower, not to worry because his “gut” tells him more than anyone else’s brains.  While repeating that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman  is likely innocent of ordering journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder because he says he’s innocent, Trump actually criticized his BFF Putin, saying that he doesn’t like Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and as a result he might decide not to meet with him at the upcoming G20 meeting.  No one really believes that, but it sounds good.  In other news, Trump is threatening another government shutdown if he doesn’t get at least $5 billion for his wall, the one he wants very badly and that once constructed will allow him to stop with all that tear gas stuff tossing. And though the Democrats are closing in on a 40 net seat gain in the House, the Republicans now have 53 seats in the Senate as a result of yesterday’s Mississippi Senate run-off election where Cindy Hyde Smith easily beat Mike Espy.  It turns out that joking about lynching is still okay in Mississippi.    

Elvis in Mississippi?

Mueller Time: It turns out that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort hasn’t been much of a cooperating witness after all.  Yesterday, Special Counsel Mueller’s prosecutors provided their much awaited progress update to Amy Berman Jackson, the Judge presiding over Manafort’s Washington DC case.  They reported that despite his promise to cooperate Manafort has been lying like crazy about “a variety of subject matters” and that as a result they are prepared to ask her to throw the book at him during his upcoming sentencing hearing.  Unfortunately for Manafort, under the terms of his plea agreement he cannot withdraw his guilty plea so, absent a pardon from Trump, he probably will be spending the rest of his life in jail.  For the record, Manafort’s defense lawyers who have been communicating with Trump’s lawyers say that Manafort hasn’t violated his plea agreement because he “believes he has provided truthful information,” a kind of wishy washy statement that pretty much acknowledges that they know their client has been lying but it’s only because he can’t help himself.  That Mueller’s team knows that Manafort is lying means that they have one or more other witnesses who’ve provided them with information that contradicts Manafort’s deceptions which is a good thing.  However, it also means that Manafort is withholding and/or lying about valuable information that Mueller hoped to get from him.  Bottom line, though Mueller’s investigation is still expected to bear fruit, those hopes that Manafort would deliver Trump on a silver platter have probably flown out the window.  It also appears that reports that James Corsi, the right wing conspiracy theorist who had told anyone who would listen that he was on the verge of  reaching a deal  with Mueller’s team to plead guilty to one count of perjury has changed his mind.  Corsi, an originator of the Obama birther claims, is thought to have acted as a link between Trump associate Roger Stone and WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange and may or may not have critical information about who knew what when about the 2016 pre-election release of the DNC emails that helped tank Hillary Clinton’s campaign. His decision may have been partially influenced by those screenshots of George Papadopoulos beginning his two week sentence for lying, not much time but then again the older Corsi may not have the stamina to withstand even two weeks in the clinker.  Expectations are that Mueller will indict Corsi soon unless of course the erratic Corsi changes his mind, again.

Election Update:  It isn’t over until the fat lady sings or until Elvis shows up in Mississippi.  Last night while campaigning for Republican senatorial candidate Cindy Hyde Smith, Trump told a bunch of whoppers.  He asserted that a few border policemen had been badly hurt during the prior day’s Mexican border confrontation even though his border chief confirms that none were, he claimed that no tear gas had been used even though it was, he alleged that the barefoot child running away from the “non-existent” tear gas was a prop who had been “grabbed” by a woman “pretending” to be her mother  to make her appear more sympathetic and, in a moment of real absurdity he bragged to the adoring Mississippi crowd that “other than the blonde hair, when I was growing up they said I looked like Elvis. Can you believe it? I always considered that a great compliment.”  Elvis, I mean Trump, was the main attraction at two Mississippi campaign stops because despite his sinking approval ratings, only 38% now approve of his performance, Mississippi remains one of the places where he is still loved and even in Mississippi many know that Cindy Hyde Smith is a woefully unqualified candidate.  Unfortunately as weak as she is, she is likely to win today’s run-off election against Democrat Mike Espy.  Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight website says that Espy would need  more than an Alabama like miracle to pull off a victory and he pretty much implies that in comparison to Mississippi, Alabama is a liberal paradise.  Absent that miracle, Trump will further solidify Republican control in the Senate, however Democrats may be on the verge of gaining another House seat bringing their net gain to 40.  In California Democrat DJ Cox is now leading Republican incumbent David Valadeo in a race that had been previously called for the Republican; mail in ballots are still being counted but with more of those ballots coming from Democrats it’s looking more and more likely that Cox will be declared the winner.  It’s also looking more and more likely that Nancy Pelosi who has been very effectively knocking off the “never vote Pelosi” Democrats will emerge from tomorrow’s closed door Democratic caucus vote with enough votes to become Speaker when the floor vote takes place on January 3.  

The World:  Yesterday, Trump threw British Prime Minister Theresa May under the bus again by dissing her Brexit plan.  As it is she’s been having a hard enough time trying to come up with a plan that satisfies her constituents, party and the European Community, the last thing she needed was a comment from Trump.  In any case though it’s hardly likely that he actually read the current plan because, as his trade advisors confirm, he doesn’t read much and the plan doesn’t include pictures, Trump alleged that May’s plan would preclude the UK from entering into a future trade deal with the US.  Of course it does not and in fact, the success of the plan hinges on the UK being able to enter into a one-off trade  agreement with the US. Though he weighed in on Brexit, Trump only said that he was “unhappy” about the increasingly volatile confrontation between Russia and Ukraine over the Kerch Strait leading to the Sea of Azov.  Secretary of State Pompeo issued a slightly stronger statement saying that Russia’s actions were "a dangerous escalation" that violated international law and urging both Ukraine and Russia to show restraint. Neither of them matched the ire of outgoing UN Ambassador Haley or our European allies.  In anticipation of further hostilities, Ukraine President Poroshenko has now declared martial law in the regions of the Ukraine closest to Russia, and given Putin’s history, the likelihood of future hostilities is looking less and less remote.  Trump is due to see his good friend Vlad during the upcoming G 20 meeting in Argentina which begins on November 30.  He is also expected to spend some time with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. However, Trump does not plan to travel to neighboring ally Mexico for the inauguration of President-elect Lopez-Obrador, he’s sending VP Pence and Ivanka instead.    

While You Were Eating and Shopping

Some Like it Hot:  In addition to eating, parading, football binging and shopping, Thanksgiving is also a good time to release news that you’d rather no one notice so with that in mind on Friday the administration released the congressionally mandated Government Climate Assessment report, the most comprehensive report to date on global warming and its effect on the economy, health, coastlines and infrastructure.  Suffice it to say, the news is dire. That said, Trump who believes that raking prevents forest fires and who earlier in the week cited the Northeast’s historically cold Thanksgiving weather as proof that global warming is a fantasy dismissed the study.  His position is that the scientists are purposely using worst case assumptions and he knows more than they do because he’s president and they are not. Did I mention that he had an uncle who once taught at MIT?  Sadly, many in his party agree with his assessment or at the very least are unwilling to cross the Koch Brother or any other big donors whose continued multi gazillionaire status relies on the fossil fuel industries that contribute the most to global warming so Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse who likes to present himself as the voice of civility and morality mumbled that reasonable people can disagree about climate issues and, ignoring the grim impact that continued temperature increases will have on the planet, Utah Senator Mike Lee said that addressing climate change would hurt the economy now, implying that the future is someone else’s problem.  Former Senator and two time failed presidential nominee Rick Santorum used his inexplicable CNN perch to say that the government scientists who authored the report weren’t to be believed because they weren’t appointed by Trump and because they are “driven by money.”

Mexican Mess:  The migrant situation took a few turns for the worse this weekend. Going into the holiday Trump authorized US soldiers who are legally prevented from taking up arms inside the US border to use lethal force against any migrants who throw rocks or otherwise threaten US border officials.  Politico reports that  both Chief of Staff Kelly and dead woman walking Homeland Security Nielsen pushed back forcefully against the policy change and that acting White House Counsel Emmet Flood advised that it was likely a violation of the Constitution.  They were all shouted down by Trump’s immigrant hawks including the ever so charming Stephen Miller.  While everyone was involved in what was reported to be a very heated argument, VP Pence took no stand, opting instead to fade into the pasty colored wall paper.  Ultimately Kelly and Nielsen conceded to the hawks/haters, and signed the order, notably no one from the White House legal staff signed on. Then, later in the weekend it was reported that incoming Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had agreed to keep the migrants, most of whom are not from Mexico, on his side of the border where they would remain while they go through the lengthy and increasingly fruitless US asylum application process. Almost immediately after that policy change was stated, Lopez Obrador said that no such plan had been agreed to which probably means that it is being discussed and that Mexico is negotiating for some concessions from Trump, possibly payments to cover the costs of housing the migrants, most of whom will ultimately be denied access to the US. Some discussion of ways to help improve conditions in the migrant’s points of origin are also under discussion.  Remember how Mexico was going to pay for the wall, forget about that, now it looks like we are going to pay them.  In the meantime,  a few hundred of the migrants amassed at the San Diego border, most of whom had been trying to enter the US legally to apply for asylum, tried to force their way in.  None of the newly authorized soldiers took up their arms but border police did fire off tear gas mostly at women and children. It’s worth noting that though  the midterms are substantially over, the Mississippi Senate runoff race between Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democrat Mike Espy takes place tomorrow. Given Mississippi’s demographics and bright red status, Hyde-Smith should easily beat Espy, however her recently disclosed affinity for hangings, all things Confederate and the fact that she and her daughter went to white’s only private schools have gotten Republicans a bit nervous about the outcome of her election so Trump will be making two campaign stops in Mississippi today to help bring her over the top.  No doubt, his appearance will be combined with pictures of migrants storming the San Diego border, though in all likelihood, the pictures of the women and children getting gassed will be edited out.   Keep in mind that Trump who managed to have a few awkward Thanksgiving calls with members of the military has been too busy to travel to any of their bases but going to Mississippi to help out Hyde-Smith, no problem.  As to those calls, Trump who had earlier said that keeping idle troops at the Mexican border over Thanksgiving was no problem because they knew when they signed up that they’d miss a few family holidays tried to get some of the unlucky recipients of the holiday calls to agree with his immigration policies while bragging about how much he’d increased military spending.  He also tried advocating for steam over electromagnetic catapults because he, via a mind meld with his MIT uncle, is an expert in such things.

Awkward:  A New York judge has ruled that a lawsuit brought by the state's attorney general against President Trump and the Trump Foundation can proceed.  The judge dismissed efforts by Trump’s lawyers to have the case dismissed, ruling that a sitting president can face a civil lawsuit in state court for actions that preceded his time in office.  The judge cited the Supreme Court's 1997 ruling on Paula Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit against Bill Clinton.  George Conway, Kellyanne’s husband was largely responsible for crafting the Paula Jones brief.  To the extent that any of the issues confronting Trump end up at the Supreme Court, and its highly likely that one or more will, Chief Justice John Roberts will likely play a pivotal role in their outcome so it was notable when he spoke up last week, pushing back at Trump’s assertion that the only reason that so many of his executive announcements have been stymied by decisions emanating from the “liberal” Ninth Circuit Court is because the court is packed with Obama judges.  Without directly mentioning Trump, Justice Roberts said “we do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” an “independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”   Trump of course couldn’t leave that alone, so he stretched out the argument, tweeting his disagreement with Roberts and again asserted that the Ninth Circuit was biased against him.  Curiously, while he was tweet attacking Justice Roberts, the Trump administration announced that they have asked SCOTUS to fast track their military transgender ban.  Though he is still Acting Attorney General, we keep on learning more about Matt Whitaker’s peculiar trajectory into his powerful position.  His financial disclosure documents, reveal that he was paid more than $900,000 by dodgy conservative groups in the months running up to his joining the Justice Department as former Attorney General Sessions Chief of Staff.  Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte, the soon to be former Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has subpoenaed former FBI Director Comey and Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch to ask questions about their handling of Hillary Clinton’s emails.  Possibly in an effort to get out ahead of what is likely to be a more thorough Democratic investigation, the soon to be retired Republican Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Trey Gowdy has requested more information about Ivanka Trump’s emails.  Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, who will soon be taking over the House Intelligence Committee has been busy too, he posted some want ads for forensic accountants with expertise in money laundering and other such things.  

Disturbing:  Echoing Trump’s decision to ignore the CIA’s conclusion that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman authorized the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi,  senior Saudi prince Turki al-Faisal said that the CIA is not necessarily the highest standard of veracity or accuracy in assessing situations. Tensions heightened over the weekend between Ukraine and Russia after the Russians rammed and seized some Ukrainian vessels off of the coast of Crimea.  Outgoing UN Ambassador Nikki Haley called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting to address the situation.  It’s only a matter of time before Trump concludes, despite any assessments he might get from any of his intelligence experts to the contrary, that the Ukrainian boats intentionally rammed into the Russian warships.    

Side Dishes

Stuffing:   After pardoning Peas and Carrots, the joint winners of this year’s lucky Turkey award, the nation’s biggest turkey flew south to his Mar a Lago retreat for the Thanksgiving holiday.  Before departing the White House lawn he also exonerated Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for his role in the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.  Trump decided to ignore the conclusion of the CIA that MBS was guilty as sin, a conclusion that had been leaked to the press over the weekend, probably by someone very senior at the CIA, in an effort to shame him into doing the right thing.  However, since doing the right thing isn’t a bigly priority for Trump, he stuck with both his gut and the Crown Prince’s position that Khashoggi was a bad guy and that “whoever” had authorized the killing had done a good thing.  To further justify his conclusion, Trump repeated his “Putin” refrain, that MBS was innocent because he said he was several times and he, Trump, believes him because he really meant it.  Trump also said that it was in the US’s best interest to stick by MBS because of the huge amount of weapons that Saudi Arabia has committed to purchase from US arms manufacturers, once again wildly exaggerating both those commitments and the number of related American jobs.  And of course, despite the number of times that he has bragged about doing business with Saudi Arabian interests, he denied that he had any personal financial relationships with anyone in or related to the country.  It’s not surprising that the US has decided to stick by Saudi Arabia, we’ve been ignoring their transgressions for years, however, the decision to stick by MBS isn’t necessary, sanctioning him wouldn’t put the US relationship with Saudi Arabia at risk and neither would it cause a spike in oil prices or destroy the US economy, two of Trump’s other excuses for letting MBS off the hook.  Although Secretary of State Pompeo defended Trump’s decision by saying that “it’s a mean, nasty world out there” so who cares if MBS sliced and diced a dissident journalist, a number of Senators from both sides of the aisle immediately slammed Trump’s MBS love. Notably Lindsey Graham who seems to be listening to his inner McCain this week called MBS a “wrecking ball” and then threatened that “It will be hard to get a deal to fund the government without doing something that will send a clear message to Saudi leadership.”  Lame duck Senator Bob Corker, who until January is the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee tweeted “I’d never thought I’d see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.” Shortly after that tweet he and Senator Robert Menendez, the ranking member on the committee invoked their authority under the Magnitsky Act through which they can force Trump to weigh sanctioning officials implicated in human rights offenses.  And Senator-elect Mitt Romney who many hope will assume the Flake “moral conscience” role but with more teeth said Trump and Pompeo’s “Khashoggi statements to date are inconsistent with an enduring foreign policy, with our national interest, with basic human rights, and with American greatness, sanctions do not necessarily require ending the alliance; they do demand real and painful consequence.”  

Carrot Pudding:  Late yesterday the New York Times revealed that Trump was and probably remains serious about getting “his” Justice Department and FBI to prosecute Hillary Clinton, for everything she did and didn’t do, and former FBI Director Comey for the leaking of confidential information, even if the information included in his now famous contemporaneous notes wasn’t really confidential.  The NY Times reports that Don McGahn, then White House counsel, pushed back against Trump’s very serious request, warning him that since the US isn’t a banana republic it wasn’t considered proper for its leader to act like a petty dictator.  McGahn had White House lawyers write a memo to Trump “warning that if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals, he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment.”  It doesn’t appear that Trump read, or if he did, understood that memo as he has continued to press FBI Director Wray to go after Clinton and has called him “weak” for failing to take action against her. It’s also worth noting that new Acting Attorney General Whitaker is on record saying that Clinton should be imprisoned for all her crimes, especially her email problem, a problem for her but not, according to daddy Trump, much of a problem for Ivanka because she is Ivanka. One of the many things that got former President Nixon into trouble and by trouble think articles of impeachment were his efforts to get the then head of the IRS to go after his political opponents, but then again, Trump, who is not all that up on history probably doesn’t know that and probably wouldn’t pick up the analogy if he did.  On the impeachment, I mean, Mueller front, yesterday Trump submitted his very pared down written responses to some of Mueller’s questions but only questions related to actions that took place before the 2016 election.  Trump and his lawyers have decided that anything that took place after the election isn’t relevant, probably a really good indication that Trump and his team did a lot of really bad things after the election results were in.  It’s unlikely that Mueller will be satisfied with the scope of Trump’s responses though he probably will be rather happy when he picks up some obvious lies.  Despite Trump’s frequent assertions that he would be happy to sit down with Mueller he now says that he won’t on the advice of counsel.  Trump and his team are assuming that Mueller won’t try to issue a subpoena for him to testify and that if he does that “Roy Cohn” Whitaker would refuse to sign off on it. While it’s likely that Whitaker would do his best to squelch any subpoena, its possible that Mueller is already in the process of litigating one, there have been a number of reports about a case very quietly proceeding through the courts right now that some in the know believe is related to the ability to indict or subpoena Trump.  In any case it’s also possible that despite Trump’s best efforts, Whitaker’s days at Justice may be numbered.  He has a big target on his back and it doesn’t help that in addition to a number of lawsuits questioning the legitimacy of his appointment, it is also now being asserted that he’s been leaking information about the Mueller case back to Trump and his lawyers.  Yesterday, Senator Chuck Schumer sent a letter to the Justice Department’s Inspector General requesting that he open an investigation into Whitaker’s questionable behavior.  As to Whitaker, last night it was revealed that the purveyor of specially equipped toilets and other such things revised his ethics disclosure forms at least five times since his appointment.  Just another member of the ethically challenged Trump team.      

Sweet Potatoes:  The House Democratic wave is nearing a very sweet 40. For a while it looked like Utah Congresswoman Mia Love, the Republican’s sole female African American representative was going to eke out a victory but with the final votes in, it looks like her days in the house are numbered, her seat represents the Democrats 39^th net pick-up.  One more California seat still remains too close to call but could also turn into a Democratic victory and if it does, the Democratic pick-up will reach 40, a pretty impressive number for a wave that early on was characterized as just a ripple.  It is also looking more and more likely that Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi will become the Speaker come January.  Though sixteen “never Pelosi” Democrats led by Ohio’s Tim Ryan and Massachusetts’ Seth Moulton have signed a letter saying that they won’t vote for her, her most likely challenger, Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, has pulled her name out of contention for the role in exchange for a committee leadership role.  She has thrown her support to Pelosi, making it highly likely that Pelosi will get the votes she needs to reassume the role of Speaker of the House. The wily Pelosi spent part of last week reminding Fudge that being Speaker was about more than the title, it requires lots of exhausting travel and huge fund raising skills, leaving Fudge just a bit wary of the responsibility.  It also didn’t help that a guy that Fudge once supported as not really much of a wife beater turned out to be a wife slayer.   Last night in the last remaining Senatorial election the two remaining Mississippi candidates faced off in a debate where the very white Republican candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith, who not too long ago posted a picture of herself in a Confederate hate on FaceBook, apologized to any of the people who were offended by her lynching joke.  Her opponent Mike Espy is “hanging” his hopes on a huge turnout by some of those offended people: Mississippi’s Black community combined with enough moderate white voters to turn the typically red state just a little bit blue.  That election takes place next week. In the meantime a number Hyde-Smith’s corporate contributors have asked for their money back.  It turns out that supporting someone who joked about lynching isn’t good for business.  One of those companies, Walmart actually made its donation after Hyde-Smith’s hanging joke went public but now recognizes the error of its ways, or more likely realizes that supporting her makes Walmart look a bit racist.    

Ironic Emailing

Lock Her Up: Trump plans to travel to Mississippi on Monday to bolster Cindy Hyde-Smith who is running into unexpected headwinds in her effort to win the runoff election to serve out the remaining term of former Senator Thad Cochran’s term.  Hyde-Smith who should be a shoe-in for the spot has been shooting herself in the foot, or in her case the mouth, lately with some really racist statements including a joke about attending a hanging and a “caught on tape” moment about the merits of blocking voting access for liberal college students.  The lynching comment is particularly problematic because of the combination of Mississippi’s past and the fact that her Democratic opponent Mike Espy, a former Agricultural Secretary and Mississippi Congressman, is Black.  Usually Trump rallies include at least one chant of “lock her up,” it will be interesting to see if that lovely tune remains in the Trump songbook this time around and if it does, if anyone shouts out “we mean you Ivanka.”  A few months ago, it was revealed that she had used a personal email account set up with husband Jared to send some White House related emails.  At that time, we were led to believe that it had only been used a few times and that the emails related to playdates for her kids and other personal stuff so the story didn’t gain as much traction as it should have.  As a result of an oversight group’s Freedom of Information Act request we now know that she sent hundreds of emails, far more than initially disclosed, and that many of them related to her official White House functions, to the extent that she really has any.  Anyway, the irony of Ivanka being too stupid to know any better or, more likely, thinking that the rules didn’t apply to her because, you know, she’s Ivanka and Hillary’s not, is superbly absurd and just a wee bit criminal.  Anyway, listen carefully at Trump’s next rally, I’ve got to believe that at least one person in the crowd will shout Ivanka’s name out during the obligatory “lock her up” chant, at least until he or she is tossed out or worse by Trump’s MAGA hatted security forces. As to the Mississippi election, although Republican Hyde-Smith is still favored, Democrat Espy’s chances were bolstered a bit yesterday when one of the Republicans who ran in the first round of the election threw his support to Espy.  Democrats hoping for another Alabama moment though it’s not clear that allegations of racism will carry as much weight in Mississippi as pedophilia did in Alabama.  We should know soon, the runoff election takes place on November 28.

Migrant Hordes:  Remember the migrant hordes, the teeming mobs of leprosy and small pox infected terrorists closing in on the border.  It turns out that they aren’t such a bigly problem after all.  Last night Politico reported that most of the soldiers that Trump sent to the border to unravel barbed wire will be sent home by December 15.  They weren’t needed after all, especially now that the midterms are almost over.  As to those mobs, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen who is still in office but is likely to be booted shortly as soon as Trump can identify a Senate confirmable replacement, temporarily shut the border near San Diego after learning that a large number of migrants “were planning to rush the border.”  Well at least that was the stated reason, it turns out that there was no “migrant rush” it was just an unfounded rumor, or maybe, just maybe an effort by Nielsen to prove to her great leader in Washington that she can be tough when she wants to be.  As to that not so great leader, Trump he woke up to another court headache this morning.  Last night, a federal judge in San Francisco temporarily blocked his administration’s new rules that prevented migrants who entered the country illegally from requesting asylum.  The judge ruled that the new policy runs “afoul of US law that specifically allows them to do so.” The judge’s order remains in effect until December 19, at which point the court will consider arguments for a permanent order.  No doubt Trump will send out a few choice tweets on this subject this morning, if he hasn’t already.  Also, the  Justice Department will appeal assuming that Acting Attorney General Whitaker has the legal standing to do so.

Mueller Time:  Except for a few court filings, Special Counsel Mueller continues to remain silent.  It’s still too early to tell if his silence is the result of his muzzling by Acting Attorney General Whitaker, the guy with no qualifications beyond his frequently stated disapproval of all things Mueller, or if he’s just following his own timeline and isn’t yet ready to take action.  Yesterday, in response to an inquiry from the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in a case brought by Andrew Miller, an associate of Trump’s long-time nefarious friend Roger Stone, Mueller’s office said that Whitaker’s appointment did not effect his eligibility to lead the investigation into Russian interference.  The Miller case which has been percolating through the courts for a while challenges the constitutionality of Mueller’s position and centers on who is doing what job at the Justice Department and oversight of the probe.  It’s likely that the court will rule against Miller, but the question regarding Whitaker was just one of those unexpected complications related to his recent appointment.  In any case, Whitaker to the extent that he gets to do anything is more likely to hinder, starve and squelch Mueller’s team rather than to dismiss it entirely.  As to Whitaker, as expected the legality of his appointment continues to be questioned.  Yesterday, Senators Richard Blumenthal, Maize Hirono, and Sheldon Whitehouse, three Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sued to block Whitaker from serving as acting attorney general on grounds that his placement in the post was unconstitutional.  They argue that Whitaker’s appointment violates the Constitution’s Appointments Clause because the US Senate did not confirm him to his prior post. Senator Blumenthal added that Whitaker was a “constitutional nobody” who would never get past the advice and consent test and that installing him “so flagrantly defies constitutional law that any viewer of Schoolhouse Rock would recognize it.” The three Senators base their grounds to sue on their claim that by elevating Whitaker to the Acting Attorney General spot Trump denied them, as Senators and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee the ability to carry out their constitutional obligations.  Though he’s been too busy to visit any US Troops or attend memorial services at any cemeteries,  Trump has been spending some of his Executive Time coming up with derisive nicknames for his Democratic opponents.  On Sunday, he revealed one of those names when he tweet slammed Adam Schiff, the Democratic Congressman who will take over the Chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee in January.  He named him “little Adam Schitt,” clearly not a typo but an intentional diss from Trump over Schiff’s criticism of his Whitaker appointment and his ongoing threatening remarks about the Mueller investigation. The quick witted Adam Schiff immediately tweeted back “Wow, Mr. President, that’s a good one. Was that like your answers to Mr. Mueller’s questions, or did you write this one yourself? “  Schiff was referring to the long awaited written response to Mueller’s questions that Trump and his team of lawyers have been crafting for months.  Trump asserts that his answers are ready for submission, that he wrote them himself and that they will be turned in right after he pardons Peas and Carrots, this year’s lucky Turkeys.  As to those questions, Trump will only submit answers to ones related to the campaign time period and collusion. He and his legal team are refusing to address anything related to obstruction.  Although his lawyers probably asked him to take a first stab at the answers to cover their butts, it’s fair to assume that the lawyers did most of the writing, that said, Trump is now on the record saying that he was the drafter in chief, something he may regret later when he tries to deny anything that Mueller proves false.

Other News:  For a while yesterday it looked like the White House planned to take CNN’s Jim Acosta’s press credentials away again but they’ve backed off that decision.  Instead, in an effort to maintain decorum during press Q & A sessions, the White House Press Secretary’s office plans to impose a limit of one question per correspondent, a policy intended to prevent follow-up questions.  That’s a problem because it’s usually the answers to the follow-up questions that are most revealing.  As to decorum, that standard will only apply to the media, Trump gets to continue acting inappropriately.  Lock her up cheers will still be okay as long as Ivanka is kept out of them.  Insulting expletive ridden nicknames, they are fine too.  More than fine, highly desirable.    

Alternative Reality

Trump’s Eye View:  The election wasn’t all bad for Republicans, they managed a net gain of two Senate seats, nothing to sneeze at, but still not all that astonishing given how many of this cycle’s vulnerable Senators came from states where Trump won bigly in 2016.   That said, the results in the House where Democratic gains are already at 37 and could reach 39 by the time the last votes are counted clearly indicate that the blue wave happened.  However, as far as Trump is concerned the election cycle went his way, he takes full credit for the Senate at the same time saying that since he wasn’t on the ticket the House results don’t really count.   Trying to show some compassion for the still unfolding California wildfire tragedy, Trump traveled to the increasingly blue state that he really doesn’t care about to confirm that though he wants good climate, he still doesn’t believe that climate science is a thing and to announce that the fires wouldn’t have happened if only the people in California had spent more time raking around their trees, because that’s what they do in Finland, except that they don’t do that in Finland or at least Finnish president Sauli Niinisto reports that they don’t do that in Finland, he is as baffled as the rest of us about Trump’s assertion but knows for sure that he’s not the one who “educated” him on Finnish forest management practices. In addition to espousing his views on leaves, Trump also spent some time talking to Fox News’ Chris Wallace, weighing in on a few other things of note.  Despite the CIA’s view that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) ordered journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, Trump isn’t convinced because MBS says he didn’t know and when it comes to intelligence Trump would prefer to believe MBS rather than the CIA, even if the CIA is headed by his and Secretary of State Pompeo’s handpicked leader Gina Haspel.  Trump might be on team MBS but his golfing buddy Senator Lindsey Graham isn’t buying it, he wants MBS permanently sidelined and emphatically said that he will have nothing to do with any Saudis who had anything to do with Khashoggi’s demise.  He includes MBS’s brother Prince Khalid bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the US, on that list because he believes reports that Ambassador Khalid convinced Khashoggi to travel to Istanbul at the request of his brother, and we all know how that turned out for Khashoggi. Kirsten Fontenrose, the person at the White House who was leading the administration’s Saudi sanctions efforts also isn’t buying Trump’s assertion that MBS was out of the loop.  She resigned this weekend over differences in policy after her call for tougher action was rebuffed.  Then, when asked about acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, who’s job qualifications include shilling a toilet for well endowed men, Trump argued unconvincingly that Matt is a really good guy, the he is supremely qualified because “everyone” says so, going on to falsely assert that he had no idea that Whitaker had spent the better part of the past year attacking the Mueller investigation.  Asked if it would be okay for Whitaker to shut down Mueller’s mission, Trump said that it would be Whitaker’s decision, but one that he would have no problem supporting because Whitaker’s statements about the investigation are correct, it’s a witch hunt, and there was NO COLLUSION!  Trump also confirmed that he was planning to fire and replace up to five members of his inner circle.  DHS Secretary Nielsen remains top on that list because she isn’t being tough enough on those migrants hordes, and if Chief of Staff Kelly takes umbrage at his decision to kick Nielsen to the curb, he’ll  be out too, which is fine because Trump wasn’t planning on keeping him around that much longer anyway.  Others likely to be shown the door are Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.  As to replacing Whitaker with someone with real qualifications, Trump’s in no rush for obvious reasons so unless further pressured by his Republican enablers in the Senate he’ll keep Whitaker around as long as he can.  That said, Whitaker may find it difficult to actually do his job, states are lining up to sue him, arguing that since he’s never been Senate confirmed he’s been illegally appointed to his role, an argument that is likely to make it to the Supreme Court. Moreover, though Whitaker has the title, it looks like Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who in the absence of a Senate confirmed Attorney General should be the Acting Attorney General, is acting the part without the title because someone has to keep Justice running. Apparently Rosenstein is still overseeing the Russia investigation except that he has to go to Whitaker for final signoff on anything of note.  As to that anything of note, though we all are waiting breathlessly for Mueller’s next move, hoping that he really gets to make that next move, Mueller appears to be sticking to his own schedule whatever that might be.  Still those who know, to the extent they know anything, think some significant indictments will be handed down soon, perhaps right after Thanksgiving.  

Election Update:  Former Astronaut Bill Nelson can now add one time Senator to his list of accomplishments.  Whether it was the peculiar Broward County ballot, the millions of dollars spent by his opponent Governor Rick Scott, Trump’s campaigning or his aging demeanor, he’s out.  Nelson conceded to Scott over the weekend just a day or so after Tallahassee Mayor Gillum conceded the governor election to former Congressman DeSantis. Scott played hardball up until the end, attacking Nelson, all Democrats and liberals for trying to steal the election that he ultimately won but DeSantis, who ran as a Trump mini me, asked the Republican attack machine to keep his election out of their diatribe over his concern that employing such a strategy was detrimental in the long run and would make it more difficult for him to run the state that he now has to run. Georgia Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Stacy Abrams finally conceded as well, but she made it clear that she still believes, probably correctly, that she lost because of soon to be Governor Kemp’s successful voter suppression activities.  She might be the loser for now, but she plans to run again and also plans to continue the battle against voter suppression.  One last interesting note that might make future elections in Florida more competitive, though the vote for Governor, Senator and Agricultural secretary were almost evenly split, a large majority voted for Florida Amendment 4, a provision to  restore voting rights to former felons.  Governor soon to be Senator Scott opposed that provision probably because a disproportionate number of those former felons come from minority groups who, to the extent that they take advantage of their regained voting rights, will probably be more likely to vote Democrat.      

Other Stuff:  If you are a podcast listener, or even if you are not, check out the most recent episode of investigative journalist Michael Isikoff’s Skullduggery podcast which features George Conway, Kellyanne’s husband.  Conway, a committed conservative and long time member of the Federalist Society details his true feelings for Trump and to say the least, he’s no fan, in fact as a result of Trump’s actions and the support that he’s gotten from the Republican party, Conway is no longer a Republican.  Conway and 13 other self-described conservative and libertarian lawyers have formed a new group called “Checks and Balances” to provide a “voice” to speak out in favor of principles that it feels are under attack in the Trump era.  To be sure, these guys are still very, very conservative they just despise Trump, his behavior, his lies and some, though most certainly not all, of his policies.  They do however love his judicial appointments.  Last week, Senate Majority Leader McConnell wrote an op-ed calling for bipartisanship as a warning to House Democrats that come January when they take over the House they should be team players or face future failure at the polls.  Further proving his hypocrisy, he followed that plea by announcing that he has no plans to bring Trump’s bipartisan “First Step Act” sentencing reform legislation to the floor of the Senate for a vote.  The legislation which is opposed by some on the right including the very vocal Senator Tom Cotton would pass with the support of Democrats including Cory Booker who though he’d like to see a more encompassing prison reform plan, has jumped on board because he, like a number of Senators and Congresspeople on both sides of the aisle view the legislation as a good first start.  McConnell also continues to sit on Mueller protecting legislation because he’s not all that sure that it is all that necessary.  Hmmm. And then there is Trump, whose “bone spurs” kept him out of Viet Nam.  Over the weekend he tore into retired Admiral Bill McRaven, the Navy SEAL who led the successful bin Laden raid, calling him a "Hillary Clinton fan" during his interview with Chris Wallace. He said that bin Laden should have been captured much sooner, though he did not explain how the Obama administration should have done so. Trump made the comments in response to a question about McRaven's criticism of  his attacks on the press.  McRaven responded by saying that he stands by his criticism though he did point out that he wasn’t a Clinton supporter.  As to attacking the press, there is no chance that Trump will stop any time soon but at least for now the White House will still have to deal with CNN’s Jim Acosta.  On Friday, Timothy Kelly a Washington DC District Court Judge appointed by Trump, ordered that Acosta’s press pass be returned at least for now, siting the White House’s failure to follow a fair and transparent process when it stripped him of his credentials.  The Judge hasn’t yet addressed the case’s First Amendment issues.  It’s worth noting that Fox has joined the case on Acosta and CNN’s side possibly because they realize that at some future date they could be the ones being kicked off the White House coverage squad.

Tribbles

Oops He Did it Again:  Trump may have pulled another implicating “Lester Holt” move. Echoing his inadvertent admission that he fired former FBI Director Comey to make the Russia investigation go away, when asked about his decision to appoint the extremely underqualified Matt Whitaker as the Acting Attorney General during his rambling Daily Caller interview, Trump shifted abruptly to the Mueller investigation saying “its something that never should have been brought  It’s an illegal investigation.” Thursday morning he continued that chain of thought combining all of his usual Mueller damning talking points into a particularly off the wall, fact challenged  tweet tirade:  “The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess. They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want. These are Angry People, including the highly conflicted Bob Mueller, who worked for Obama for 8 years. They won't even look at all of the bad acts and crimes on the other side. A TOTAL WITCH HUNT LIKE NO OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY!"  It’s highly likely that Trump’s twitter outburst reflects his increasing panic that the proverbial sh-t is about to hit the fan, that he knows that more indictments are imminent, possibly because Whitaker is now keeping him totally in the Mueller loop.  Moreover, he’s fresh off three days of long meetings with his own lawyers, meetings where his team has been trying to get his input and signoff on what’s supposed to be his written response to a series of questions posed by Mueller, the response that is supposed to help him avoid sitting down for a Q and A session with the “highly conflicted” Mueller. Though there are no reports that any of the participating lawyers have yet committed hari kari it’s fair to assume that those three days of meetings with the increasingly irate and unhinged Trump were torturous.  As to the written response, plans to deliver it to Mueller have been pushed off a bit, if not forever, and Rudy Giuliani who has been strangely quiet for a while now has emerged from wherever he was hiding to tell the Washington Post that "There are some (questions) that create more issues for us legally than others," adding that some are "unnecessary and others possible traps, we might consider some as irrelevant,” his way of saying that despite their collective skills Trump’s crackerjack legal team can’t figure out how to get Trump out of the hole that he continues to dig himself into.  While the Trump team has been wrestling with Mueller’s questions, some snippets from recent court files provide indications that Mueller and his team are still pressing ahead.  In one recent filing they requested permission to delay providing  sentencing recommendations for Rick Gates and Paul Manafort, in the case of Gates they reported that he was still providing them with information.  As to Manafort, it’s not clear that he’s still being all that cooperative, but the Mueller team is still pressing him for more information too.  Majority Leader McConnell continues to resist efforts to bring Mueller protection legislation up for a vote.  Senator Flake is holding firm on his threat to hold up Trump’s judicial nominees until such legislation is passed but so far he’s the only Republican who’s taking that position.  The ever disappointing Senator Susan Collins says that she supports the legislation but won’t join Flake’s judiciary obstruction plan.  A number of other Republican Senators including John Cornyn are pushing Trump to nominate a permanent Attorney General, one with real credentials, who will promise to leave Mueller alone so that they can avoid pursuing Mueller protecting legislation. Word is that Trump has approached a number of Bush era attorneys but that so far no one has shown much interest in his offer likely because those who care about their reputations know that the Senate will expect whoever is selected to promise to leave Mueller alone during any confirmation process at the same time that  Trump will press his nominee to disrupt the investigation.  Mueller also make some progress in the courts on Thursday when a Federal judge appointed by Trump upheld an indictment against the Russian troll farm accused of meddling in the 2016 election.

Midterm Magic:  The Democratic House wave continues to grow.  Though vote tallies still aren’t finalized it’s looking more and more likely that Orange County, California the former Reagan Republican stronghold, has turned completely blue.  The last remaining Republican Congressman in New England, Bruce Poliquin, has lost his seat to Democrat and former Marine Jared Golden. Given the trend, Maine’s Susan Collins should be getting very nervous about her 2020 reelection prospects.  The state of play in Florida remains uniquely Floridian.  Broward, Palm Beach and Hillsborough (Tampa) counties all had problems submitting updated vote tallies to State officials.  Broward missed the deadline by two minutes because their submission took too long to upload into the computer system, Palm Beach stuck with Saturday’s tallies after their antiquated machinery kept overheating and Hillsborough officials, uncomfortable when their newest tallies dropped some votes stuck with their original count.  Despite, or maybe because of all of the vote count confusion, the Senate race between incumbent Nelson and outgoing Governor Scott is headed to an unprecedented statewide manual recount and though the gap in votes between Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Gillum and Republican DeSantis remains outside the threshold that would mandate a hand recount, Gillum hasn’t re-conceded.  He’s holding out until all outstanding votes are counted and all signature issues and legal disputes are resolved.  To that end, in a reference to the number of lawyers that are litigating the election, Mark Walker, the US District Court Judge who is overseeing all of the cases, said that he “feels a little bit like Capt. Kirk in the episode where the Tribbles multiply."  

Arabian Nightmare:  The Saudis most recent official explanation for the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi is that the murder part was an accident, they only meant to snatch him for rendition back to Saudi Arabia where they could then dismember him away from probing eyes.  Following yesterday’s announcement that the Saudis are pursuing charges against everyone involved in the “incident” except that is for Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the US State Department announced sanctions against 17 Saudis none of whom are named Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS).  At the same time it was revealed that in an effort to get the Turkish government to stop releasing more evidence that would further implicate MBS in the murder, the Trump administration has been giving serious consideration to delivering Turkish Cleric Fethullah Gulen, a US permanent resident who resides in Pennsylvania, to the Turks.  Trump officials have actually asked the FBI, Homeland Security and the Justice Department to review Gulen’s green card for irregularities that could be used to justify his rendition.  Turkey’s President Erdogan, who considers Gulen to be his number one foe, has wanted the cleric returned to Turkey for some time.  He previously pressed the Obama administration to hand him over but after reviewing Erdogan’s request they refused. At one point some Turkish businessmen acting on behalf of their government tried to hire former national security advisor Michael Flynn to kidnap Gulen to force him back to Turkey. Ironically if Erdogan ever manages to get Gulen back into Turkey, he will end up getting some form of the Khashoggi treatment.  Career State Department officials who are irate that the Trump squad would even consider such a move most likely leaked the plans to squelch them. Just another subplot in the continuing saga of Trump’s America.

Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs

Election Interference:  The midterm elections aren’t over yet, two more House seats went blue yesterday, a few more still remain up in the air, and one, Republican Mia Love’s Utah seat may be joining the Florida and Georgia races in the courts.  If Mia Love’s name seems familiar it might be because Trump slammed her, the sole female Black Congresswoman, attributing her “loss” to her failure to align herself with him during her campaign.  Her opponent’s lead is shrinking so, to bolster her chances of overtaking him, Love has gone to court to challenge some signatures; she might not be a great fan of Trump’s but she is certainly taking a page from his playbook.  And Trump really is doubling down on his strategy of instilling doubt in the whole US election process.  Yesterday during a White House interview with the Daily Caller he again claimed rampant voter fraud, well at least fraud by Democrats, this time saying “When people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again. Nobody takes anything. It’s really a disgrace what’s going on.”   Wow, I guess it’s time to ditch those extra hats and Groucho Marx disguises, he’s on to us.  He also went on to claim that “If you buy a box of cereal — you have a voter ID. They try to shame everybody by calling them racist, or calling them something, anything they can think of, when you say you want voter ID. But voter ID is a very important thing.” I haven’t bought  box of cereal in a while so I won’t pretend to be an expert but last time I checked, if you were crazy enough you could purchase Cocoa Puffs without a license and it’s certainly hard to believe that anyone wouldn’t think that Trump wasn’t sufficiently cuckoo. His insanity aside, the first round of Florida recount results are due in today, assuming that Palm Beach County manages to meet the deadline.  The county’s antiquated machines overheated, requiring officials to start their counting process all over again.  Though the Florida results remain up in the air, Governor Scott has already surfaced in Washington where he appeared in a freshman training picture, one that may or may not become a collector’s item depending on the outcome of the manual count that is likely to be required following the finalization of the mechanical count.  Georgia’s election is still up in the air as well but may be approaching finality. Last night in a split decision a US District court judge sided with Stacy Abrams’ campaign, ordering that election results could not be certified without confirming each county’s vote tally includes absentee ballots on which the voter’s date of birth is missing or incorrect but ruled against Abrams on two other points.  He will not require counties to accept absentee ballots with incorrect addresses or provisional ballots cast by people who tried to vote in the wrong county.  Despite all of Trump’s ginned up claims about fraud and frustration over how long it is taking for results to be finalized, it’s worth remembering that close elections frequently do take a while to resolve.  It took eight months to finalize the results of former Minnesota Senator Al Franken’s first very close election victory.   

Mueller Time:  No new indictments yet though expectations remain high that more are imminent assuming of course that Acting Attorney General Whitaker doesn’t get in his way.  As to Whitaker, yesterday the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel released a 20 page memo defending the legality of his questionable appointment.  That they ruled in favor of Trump’s decision isn’t all that surprising, however, it’s still not clear that their argument will hold up in court in part because they based part of their conclusion on one 1800s era precedent.  Shortly after the memo was released Senators Flake and Coons called for a vote on their Mueller protection legislation, legislation that Lindsey Graham still says that he supports.  To no one’s surprise, Majority Leader McConnell refused to bring the legislation to the floor of the Senate so no vote took place. Lame duck Flake then announced plans to bring the legislation to the floor everyday going forward and more significantly he also said that he will not vote to confirm any of Trump’s judicial nominees on the Senate floor or advance them in the Senate Judiciary Committee if the legislation does not receive a Senate floor vote.  Flake has a history of flaking out but this time he seems genuine, or at least convincingly genuine.  As to future indictments something is up with the Roger Stone, Randy Credico and Jerome Corsi, the triumvirate of wackos who are thought to have been involved with or know too much about WikiLeaks and the release of the DNC emails. Corsi who has told just about anyone who would listen that he expects to be indicted momentarily cancelled a planned interview with an MSNBC correspondent minutes before it was scheduled on the advice of his counsel who was on the phone with some of Mueller’s attorneys.  Stone, who continues to deny that he had prior knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans provided a series of text conversations to NBC that reveal or seem to reveal that he was told by Credico in August 2016 that “Julian Assange has kryptonite on Hillary,” and by kryptonite think emails, not that shiny green stuff.  And to further complicate this already murky story, the Wall Street Journal reported that Mueller’s team is now looking into whether Stone tried to intimidate and discredit a witness who is contradicting his version of events about his contacts with WikiLeaks.  That witness is thought to be Credico. Intimidation is one of the things that Stone is very good at and it would fit right in with his typical modus operandi. Scrolling back the clock to the 2000 Bush v Gore election, it was Stone who organized the so-called “Brooks Brothers” riots that successfully cut short the vote count in Miami-Dade County, an early step in the process that resulted in the election being called for Bush.  The participants in those demonstrations weren’t local outraged Floridians but were instead made up of young Republican agitators flown down from New York to cause trouble, thus the Brooks Brothers moniker.  Not only are the current crop of demonstrators in Broward, the ones that are again claiming that Democrats are committing voter fraud, following the Brooks Brothers’ playbook, at least one of them admitted yesterday on camera that he was a friend and admirer of Stone’s.   

Other News:  From Asia where he is standing in for Trump, VP Pence said that the election results prove how much the country loves Trump and everything that he is doing.  He also said that Trump plans to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the new year but won’t repeat past mistakes of allowing promises to be broken on pledges to end arms programs.  Wow, mistakes, does Trump ever make mistakes?   This morning  Saudi Arabian prosecutors announced plans to seek the death penalty for five of the people responsible for the murder and dismembering of journalist/dissident Jamal Khashoggi. None of those people are named Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.  Lastly, Republicans and Democrats are in the process of selecting their new leaders.  Congressman Kevin McCarthy will replace outgoing Paul Ryan as the leader of what will soon be the House minority party. Senator McConnell will remain as the majority leader and Senator Schumer will retain his Democratic leadership role.  Though she still expects to emerge victorious, Nancy Pelosi is facing pushback from a number of House Democrats including some of the newbies who promised that they would vote against her retaining her leadership position and becoming Speaker of the House.  Oh the irony, Nancy Pelosi who orchestrated the Democratic takeover of the House is the one leader facing headwinds.