Shoe Tossing

Forty One:  For much of the weekend the death of George H W Bush redirected attention away from Trump and last week’s Russia probe revelations to the former president’s storied life.  On the one hand Trump seemed very relieved, he took full advantage of Bush’s passing, using it to justify the cancellation of a press conference that had been scheduled to take place during his trip to the G20 in Argentina and to postpone a confrontation with Congress that might have resulted in the closing of a portion of the government on December 7 over a fight for the funding for his border wall, funding that is likely to elude him despite his threats.  On the other hand, he may be finding it difficult to listen to all of the superlatives being used to describe Bush’s life: Bush’s status as a war hero, his efforts to maintain and improve the world order and his past as the head of the CIA, one of those intelligence agencies that Trump loathes and continuously tries to diminish.  Even Bush’s downfall, the tax increase he supported after promising never to do so, is being celebrated as a prudent decision put into place by a president willing to risk his political future in exchange for the country’s financial stability.  It’s hard not to view that posthumous appreciation as anything but a slap at Trump’s financial recklessness. The irony of watching Trump, who pretty much ended Jeb Bush’s presidential aspirations by nicknaming him “Low Energy Jeb,” making the decision to declare Wednesday  a national day of mourning and quickly saying that he and Melania would clear their schedules to attend the funeral services, an announcement made before any member of the family had a chance to say that their presence wouldn’t be all that appreciated was hard to miss. Though it’s fair to say that Bush led a remarkable life and that he represented a civility that seems quaint and is sorely missed especially when compared to Trump’s rude, moronic bull in a china shop approach to governance, he was far from perfect. Among other things, he reached the presidency by letting his campaign strategist Lee Atwater stir the pot of racial hatred while also bringing us Clarence Thomas, still it’s hard not to like a guy who spent a part of his last two years throwing a shoe at his television whenever Trump said something outrageous. 

Back to Russia:  Among other things, despite Trump’s cancellation of his formal sit down with Putin purportedly to punish Putin for his aggression against Ukraine but really because the optics of meeting with him right after lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen publicly revealed how long into the campaign the Moscow Tower negotiations continued, the two chums did manage to squeeze in an informal chat during the Argentine summit.  Who knows, maybe they talked a little about the on again, off again Trump Moscow project, the real estate plan that explains a lot about why Putin did his best to sway the 2016 election towards a Trump victory.  Though her introductory monologues can sometimes be fanciful, on Friday MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow provided a fairly convincing narrative connecting the dots from Trump’s Moscow real estate ambitions to Putin’s greed and his overarching desire to get sanctions relief for himself and his oligarchs.  In summary, she pointed out that while Cohen was busy trying to firm up Russian support for Trump’s long desired Moscow Tower project, support that would have included funding from sanctioned Russian banks, Trump frequently complimented Putin, saying that the Russian leader was really smart and asserting that his habit of assassinating opponents wasn’t such a big deal.  She played the campaign period tape of the then little known Russian femme fatale Maria Butina asking Trump if he would consider sanctions relief with Trump replying  “I know Putin, and I’ll tell you what, we get along with Putin… I believe I would get along very nicely with Putin, OK? And I mean, where we have the strength. I don’t think you’d need the sanctions.”  Then, Maddow pointed out that even in June 2016, after the Moscow Tower project finally went cold, or maybe just into hiatus, the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya came to New York for that infamous Trump Tower meeting with Don Jr to discuss “orphans,” code word for the removal of Magnitsky Act sanctions, the sanctions that prevented Putin and his oligarchs from moving funds into the US.  Later former national security advisor Michael Flynn comes into the picture, though his discussion of sanctions relief with Russian Ambassador was technically a violation of the Hatch Act, no one really ever gets into trouble for violating that act, what sunk Flynn was his failure to tell the truth that the subject of his conversation was a promise of sanctions relief once Trump took office.  Maddow’s point is that Flynn lied because the promise of sanctions relief had been the driving force behind Putin’s support for Trump and the reason for Russian election interference, a quid pro quo for allowing Trump to proceed with projects that benefited his personal financial interests.  The lie, which was also told  by deputy national security advisor KT Macfarland until she changed her testimony once it became apparent that she was running the risk of indictment, was important because Trump and his team didn’t want to provide any more ammunition to the intelligence agencies who were in the process of unraveling how much and why Trump had received “help” from Putin.   The bottom line is that while we’ve all been focused on the Russian’s, the DNC email leak, Roger Stone and Trump team collusion the story is much more complex , the email shenanigans matter but it’s the money that provides the motives.  It always comes down to money.  It’s not clear when or if the public will ever get to see a copy of Mueller’s final report. That decision could rest upon who at Justice is in charge when the report is finalized and/or who in Congress decides to leak it once it comes out.  However,  Mueller is doing his best to provide the public with details about his investigation by including enticing nuggets in his plea agreement “informations” and sentencing recommendations.  This week we will get to read a few of those nuggets when the sentencing recommendation for Michael Flynn is presented to the court and when the explanation for just what Paul Manafort did to so infuriate Mueller that he ripped up what remained of their cooperation agreement is presented to the judge overseeing his case. 

Other News:  Though they haven’t agreed to anything substantive the US and China have agreed to continue their trade discussions for another 90 days.  As a result Trump will not be raising tariffs up to 25% at this time; futures were up over the weekend indicating that the stock markets are expected to react favorably, at least for now.  Trump is due to meet with Chuck and Nancy to discuss wall funding, it’s highly unlikely that they will agree to much especially since Nancy still needs to lock down a few more votes to insure that she becomes Speaker Nancy in January.  As a result a partial government shutdown by year end is still possible.  The midterms should be over but they aren’t, some voter fraud appears to have taken place in North Carolina’s Ninth District where some wily Republicans are thought to have interfered with some absentee ballots, ballots that would have been cast for the Democratic candidate who lost but only by a small margin.  As a result the North Carolina Election Board has decided to defer certifying the results until after an investigation and possibly even another election takes place. Of course outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan had nothing to say about North Carolina but he did question election legitimacy in California, essentially saying that the state’s efforts to get as many voters to cast their ballots was a questionable strategy primarily because all of those “questionable” votes resulted in Orange County turning blue.